#1: On Assonance

This is my first video, an adaptation of one of my earlier articles. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know in the comments section of this post or at thediscerninglyricist@gmail.com.

Dialect, or Tell Me How You've Bean Agayn?

The most maddening thing about people, at least to a lyricist, is the bewildering disparity in their manner of speech. Regional dialects are as numerous as stars in the sky, and twice as poorly understood. Why is this a problem? Because it plays havoc with rhyming.

Observe:

Pants

Dance

If you’re from the U.S., chances are you’ll say that these two words rhyme, and you’d be right; by all rights, those vowel sounds should be the same. But what about if you’re a well-to-do Englishman? In that case, those same words are pronounced “pants” and “dahnce.” The first word is still pronounced with the “a” sound, but “dance” is now saddled with a long “ah” sound. The upshot is that if you wrote that verse for a refined English character, congratulations, your rhyme has been revoked for crossing national lines.

The most confusing part in all of this is that even within a country, you can get the same kind of divergence within a country’s own borders. To a native Midwesterner like me, “rather” and “gather” are perfectly legitimate rhymes, but many New Englanders use the British pronunciation “rahther,” meaning that those lines will no longer rhyme.

The same goes for “again,” which many British residents pronounce as “ag-ayn,” but that most Americans pronounce “aghenn,” and for “been,” which many Englishmen pronounce the way it’s spelled, whereas most Americans pronounce it as “bin.”

And let us not forget the stubborn British refusal to pronounce the letter “r,” meaning that the sounds “ah” and “ar” rhyme very adequately in British English.

But now for a positive example: In one song Cee Lo Green rhymes “richer” and “with you.” In any other dialect, this would be a painful non-rhyme, but in Cee-Lo’s idiosyncratic variation on an African-American dialect, the words are pronounced (and abbreviated) as “ritchuh” and “witch yuh.” Much better.

Adele

Adele's sweep at the Grammys on Sunday was heartening, even if it did lack that elusive quality of surprise. I feel as if I should say something about her, but what is there to say? That her music is fresh and invigorating? That her lyrics actually sound sincere rather than asinine or cheaply provocative? That her success has given me a renewed (though probably short-lived) feeling of faith in pop music? That her body type helps to move pop music away from its worship of appearance over content?

I could easily say any one of those things, but do I need to? Not especially. Everything that needs to be said about Adele has been said, and then some. So stop listening to the hype; just listen to the music.

The Curious Case of Lady Gaga

This hasn't much to do with lyrics, but bear with me.

Lady Gaga confuses me. Her fans insist that she's really musically talented, and they're right.



I mean, good God. She can sing, she's a first-rate pianist, and she can write her own stuff (all too rare in the pop world). So why does an artist who can make songs like this...



...insist on making crap like this?



Some of her critics have theorized that her appeal is really all about her image and how weird she can be. Honestly, the image has always felt like a pose to me, at least compared to the effortless weirdness of psychedelic music like this song by Pink Floyd in their early years:



It's like the difference between Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp in the role of Willy Wonka. Wilder convinced you that, at least through the character's eyes, all of this was perfectly normal--the weirdness was simply part of the character rather than an affectation of the performer. Johnny Depp's Wonka, however, conveyed nothing other than "here's John ny Depp trying to be weird, make of him what you will." Depp was just trying so very, very hard, and it made the result nothing so much as embarrassing.

The upshot of that tortured analogy is that while Lady Gaga does a lot of weird, she doesn't do it very well. And I might as well go on to say that I don't like very many of her hits. I don't like "Poker Face," I don't like "Alejandro," I hate "Telephone" with a passion...I mostly liked "Bad Romance" just for the BWAAHAAH value, in spite of the fact that it is, let's face it, basically just "Poker Face" but massively better.

What all these songs have in common is that they're all intentionally pitched low; she pretends she can't sing, dumbs down her lyrics, and waits for the cash to roll in, all of which constitutes a huge middle finger to those of us who like to listen to good music. I think "Love Game" represents the zenith of this.



To be embarrassingly honest, I can't actually bring myself to hate this song. It's so wonderfully, gloriously stupid that hating it is like hating an unruly puppy--sure, you don't like what it's doing, but it's a puppy, that's just what it does.

No my real problem with Lady Gaga became clear to me after I listened to the two-disc extended edition of her first album and realized that I liked far more of her songs than I didn't. As long as I made very sure to hit the skip button upon hearing the first few notes of any of the insufferable mega-hits, I could easily get through the album without having heard any bad music.

What really tipped the scale for me was when I got to one particular song, and let me tell you, it left me...well...



I don't care who you are, that is just a flat-out good song, one that Elton John would have been proud to write. So why does this song have to languish on the album while we make hits out of things like this?



That was sn excerpt from "Poker Face," her biggest hit. What is wrong with you people? We've been sending Lady Gaga the wrong message, we've been telling her that what we really want is stupid, tuneless, and loud. And if her "Born This Way" album is any indication, she took every bit of that advice to heart. Nearly every song on that album was noisy, overproduced, and grating. I liked "You and I" (I omit the superfluous umlaut deliberately), I liked "Edge of Glory," and after a few listens I can even summon up some affection for the demented "Government Hooker." I daresay some of the other tracks may eventually wear me down, but on the whole I felt like I had listened to the product of an unusually productive collaboration between a pretentious high-school poet and a particularly enthusiastic stadium of vuvuzelas.

Dance music doesn't have to be bad. Everything deserves effort, everything deserves scrutiny, and even the most stillborn songs deserve their day in court. If anyone is going to bring truly great dance music to the masses, it will be Lady Gaga. I just wish she would.

...And Of Course.

Selfishly ignoring my rabies-flecked post of a few days ago, the American public has gone and given Smash solid ratings for its pilot show, and believe it or not, I don't begrudge it that. Despite what I said here, the "Smash" pilot wasn't absolutely terrible, it was just mediocre. So why did I hate it? Because it seemed so bloody pleased with itself for being mediocre (though I am aware that in the humility sweepstakes, I live in what looks suspiciously like a glass house).

And, hey, if people enjoy the show, that's great. If it continues to pull good ratings, fantastic. Granted, it's going to be a very long few months for me, but with any luck by then the American public will have grown a sense of good taste.

Yeah...let me know when that happens. If you need me, I'll be on the floor in a fetal position.

Rant: 5 Reasons I Hated The Pilot For "Smash" With Every Fiber Of My Being

            To say that I haven’t been updating my blog lately is an understatement akin to saying that the Atlantic Ocean is vaguely moist. However, if anything was to break through my shell of real-world responsibilities and good old fashioned apathy, it would have to be another aborted attempt to bring musicals back to the small screen.

            Not that I have anything against the idea—in fact, my hope that a consistently good musical television show might finally become the next big thing springs, if not eternal, then at least for a few more years. Viva Laughlin, while noble in intent, stumbled in execution, and Cop Rock is such a legendary disaster that I almost feel bad beating it further into the ground.

         
             I said almost. Anyway, the only show to come close to fulfilling this dream in recent years was Glee, which had its moments but grew steadily more insufferable by the day until I stopped watching out of sheer frustration. Nevertheless, when I saw the announcement of NBC’s new series Smash, I was excited in spite of myself. Sure, it looked a little derivative, but if it was smartly written and well acted, I wouldn’t care.

            And then I watched the pilot, and my mood sank from hopeful to ambivalent to frustrated to genuinely furious.

I hate this episode, and I fully expect to hate the show just as much. It follows a group of people trying to produce a musical about Marilyn Monroe, as well as the struggles of two determined and vaguely desperate young ladies to secure the lead role, and if this plot sounds familiar it’s probably because you have seen a musical before. I don’t really expect anyone else to understand why I despise this show so entirely, but I will certainly try to convey the reasons for my resentment to the best of my ability.

Meaningless Metaphors, or Fantine's Tiger Problem

I understand; it's very hard to make every single line of a song meaningful and interesting. Only a few lyricists (like Cole Porter) could ever consistently manage it. I also don't mind metaphors and similes in lyrics, for they often serve a valuable purpose. That said, I frequently encounter lyrics in which metaphors and similes seem so fantastically pointless or out-of-place that one can only imagine that they were included as filler, a rickety bridge for moving the song from one idea to another.

To be sure, there are plenty of these to be found in flops, but (as is my wont) I prefer to use examples that everyone already knows. My first example is from Wicked, a musical that I do genuinely like. My affection for the show, however, does not extend to the chorus of "For Good." The song starts out strong, with a bittersweet reprise of the "Unlimited" interlude, and then an emotionally intimate moment in which two characters admit how much they mean to each other. And then the similes start.

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun,
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood.


The problem with these similes is not the content but the context. Metaphors and similes are only useful in lyrics when they are able to express an idea or emotion that could not be adequately conveyed through a more direct method. The previous verse had already established, in refreshingly personal terms, the central emotional kernel of the song. The idea of a seemingly unalterable course being interrupted is a powerful but uncomplicated one that requires no embellishment beyond simple, emotional truth. Pulling the idea back into broad generalizations and repetitive examples serves only to tell the listener that it's safe to tune out; "there's nothing to see here."

A very different form of problematic comparison comes from Les Miserables. Again, I feel obliged to provide some small disclaimer to the effect that I do actually like the show. In fact, on the whole I even like the lyrics. At any rate, they are far better than a glorified translation has any right to be. However, I have always had a bone to pick with one particular line from "I Dreamed A Dream." The song, of course, is a classic tragic ballad that tells its story with unflinching clarity and naked emotion. At least, it does until it comes to one particular line:

But the tigers come at night


Were tiger attacks a big enough problem in nineteenth century France that they would be the first thing to spring to the mind of an impoverished factory worker? Wolves, maybe, but tigers? The next line only digs itself in deeper:

With their voices soft as thunder...


A line which makes you wonder, if nothing else, whether the lyricist is thinking of the same natural phenomenon we're thinking of when he uses the word "thunder." Or maybe thunder is really soft and my hearing is just too sensitive.

Again, there is absolutely nothing wrong with metaphor and simile, just so long as they have a good reason for being there, as long as they mean something. I care about Elphaba and Glinda, I care about Fantine. What I decidedly do not care about are comets, streams, and confused French tigers. Why bring them up?