Songwriters as Storytellers
This break I was stuck in my old place in the student section of Kalamazoo during a snow storm without cable, beer or a decent book to read, when I came across an old Norton Literary Anthology from a class I took half a decade ago. It had the same poems and stories we’ve probably all had to read and reread a hundred times over: Prufrock, “Hills like White Elephants”, “Roman Fever,” etc. Then I came across a section of the book devoted solely to classic American songs with distinct lyrical and narrative qualities that have been anthologized in collections or drawn from in literature and art, over the past 30 years. These included Dylan’s, “Mr. Tambourine Man”, and “Black Diamond Bay”, Simon and Garfunkel’s “Boxer” and “Bridge over Troubled Water”, some Janis, Stones, Doors, even Bob Marley’s, “Three Little Birds” whose hopeless optimism I find really comforting with the sun setting here in Spokane already halfway through the afternoon. I was surprised to find little there that was more current than the early 70’s. Part of this is due to the fact that it takes time for any work of art to be accepted into the cannon or to be deemed a classic. (Having the artist long dead in the ground helps, too.) Another reason, I think, is that a tendency towards longer narratives with full arcs in songs isn’t as common today. The great storytellers, Dylan, Neil Young, even Morrison championed songs that could last beyond 15 minutes (where the average song length today is less than 4: based on a study at http://a-candle-in-the-dark.blogspot.com/2010/02/song-length.html.) In works like “Black Diamond Bay,” Dylan works in over a dozen allegorical characters from a suicidal man called “the Greek” to a gambler who breaks his loosing streak just before death, in describing an island bound for destruction.
This isn’t meant to say this tendency doesn’t exist today, but I just think it’s more limited. Maybe this is due to the waning attention spans of the public who can download single songs versus having to play a record from front to back, or that the objectives of songs have shifted since.
Tags: bob dylan, Janis Joplin, The Doors
I so want that anthology now.
Sean and I each have a copy, Asa, so you’re welcome to have one of ours :)
Dylan’s story songs aren’t my favorites by him. Joey just goes on and on and on, as does Lilly, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts. I guess I do like some of them, Isis and Hurricane and some others, but his songs that have less narrative drive and/or cohesion are more interesting to me. And lyrics almost never stand up very well for me, alone on the page, without the emotional context created by the music. They shouldn’t have to, either — unless they’re included in an anthology, in which case, they always feel flat and sort of dead to me.
I’m weird about songs with narrative drive; I feel like I have to sit down and really pay attention, and since music is so often for me a passive experience, I usually just skip the lengthy, story-driven songs, since I can’t give them the attention they no doubt think they deserve. I love both the written word and music, obviously, but I usually keep the two separated. Or, if I’m reading/writing, I’ll listen to jazz, or something without lyrics.
[...] reading Ty’s post about narrative in song lyrics below, I got to thinking about how often, in general, I ignore [...]
I agree with you both that I definitely have to be in the right mood to appreciate longer narrative songs. On other days, by the time I reach the seventh refrain of “Hurricane” or “Joey” I’m bored out of my mind.
the first two albums by The Mars Volta are incredibly narrative, but you have to get over the wall of sound that hits you in order to hear any of the story…