Dispatches / Music and lyrics...

Lyrics then and now...
...The perfect storm of creative art, is the combination of daring music, challenging time signatures and wildly immaginative lyrics...Music is a universal language, it crosses boundries and draws people of diverse ethnic backgrounds together...Thats pretty good going for something most of us take for granted....
As a kid growing up in the 60s I remember the music of the Beatles, Sergant Pepper, Abbey Road, et al,...but i had no idea then of the significance of the structure and story telling brilliance at work with this seminal group...It would be the midd 90s before my appreciation of there talent was fully realised...
Entering the early 70s, I happened upon a "cassette" (remember them!) by a british progressive rock band called Genesis...Its not unreasonable to say, this bands music was to my hearing not unlike i would have imagined a "lovers first kiss", ( it was to be some years later that my first girlfriend and i shared great times listening to "A trick of the tail")...the use of language and metre, the fantastic bredth of scope, and that all important willingness to take the music in directions that i could not, nor would not have expected, made "listening to music" an exciting journey of anticipation...
The music of the 70s was the very reason I eventually took up playing an instrument...I was inspired by greatness...Genesis continued to craft (and i use the term craft quite seriously) songs around stories, some whimscal, some with a fairytale quality, some amuzing, some sad, and some just downright epic...Below is a sample from there 1974 release, "The lamb lies down on broadway", the excerpt is from "broadway melody of 1974"....This, even if abstract is no less art...

Echoes of the broadway everglades,
With her mythical madonnas still walking in their shades:
Lenny bruce, declares a truce and plays his other hand.
Marshall mcluhan, casual viewin, head buried in the sand.
Sirens on the rooftops wailing, but theres no ship sailing.
Groucho, with his movies trailing, stands alone with his punchline
Failing.
Klu klux klan serve hot soul food and the band plays in the mood
The cheerleader waves her cyanide wand, theres a smell of
Peach blossom and bitter almonde.
Caryl chessman sniffs the air and leads the parade, he knows
In a scent, you can bottle all you made.
Theres howard hughes in blue suede shoes, smiling at the
Majorettes smoking winston cigarettes.
And as the song and dance begins, the children play at home
With needles; needles and pins.

That was then...The 70s, referred to by some as the decade taste forgot...The decade when musicians worked in the "music business"...Greg Lake of british prog rock band Emerson, Lake and Palmer later went on to say when interviewed in the 90s, "the music business has become more business than music"...wise words from someone who has been in the creative loop for over 40 years...
So, where are we now?....Fast forward to the midd naughties and an "electro pop" outfit called Daft Punk...Ok, can you see where im going with this one?...I refer to that musical masterpiece, "around the world"....So dear reader, if you want to have the will to live crushed out of you, you can You tube these "titans" of creativity and then ask yourselves....Were the bands of yesteryear overweaningly pompus or was the art of music just that....Art...
So, in summery, The value of a good lyric has been for the most part sacrificed to serve the simple themes of todays popular consumption...Im truly sorry to say this has left much of what i hear sounding bland and souless, Lyrics are merely a vehicle for "vocal athletes" to show there ability and inspire a new generation of wannabe vocal clones...To hell with the beauty, passion and grace of the poetry of music that was so prevelant in a bygone age...Maybe the lyric will find favour again in time to come...But perhaps i had better not hold my breath!...
Transmission ends...
All the best...Lard..