Great insight into "intellectuals"

[lustychimera]

I guess I disregard lyrics. There's musical content, just like in a story. The journey from one point to another with a twist in the middle.
Lemme clarify this one if I can:

• Content is the insights the piece communicates : emotion/frisson in songwriting
• Storytelling : arrangement
• Mechanics is how it is executed: (degree of) virtuosity

I think content/storytelling is where the analogy falls apart.

I can play Rick Wakeman's notes. But it will take me an afternoon to plunk out the notes at whatever pace I can find them. And mechanics like that would communicate nothing except "hey, these notes exist."

Whereas a story can still communicate content dry as a bone.

The emotion of a story, to me, isn't as much the content it communicates but how it communicates, which I've always thought that at the sentence level makes the pacing and connotation king--probably in that order. And pacing is just grammar. Connotation is words that aren't bland.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Lyrics would be the content?

If you think that the lyrics in a song tell the story, then listen to "Didn't Mean to Turn You on" by Cherelle and then listen to "Didn't Mean to Turn You on" the cover version by Robert Palmer. Exact same lyrics - totally different story.

 

[lustychimera]

If you think that the lyrics in a song tell the story, then listen to "Didn't Mean to Turn You on" by Cherelle and then listen to "Didn't Mean to Turn You on" the cover version by Robert Palmer. Exact same lyrics - totally different story.

I said their analogy didn't work.

 

[gunhilltrain]

If you think that the lyrics in a song tell the story, then listen to "Didn't Mean to Turn You on" by Cherelle and then listen to "Didn't Mean to Turn You on" the cover version by Robert Palmer. Exact same lyrics - totally different story.

Slight digression. Few people know that Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" was a cover of Willie Mae Thornton's 1952 song of the same name. He flipped the genders of the narrator and cut out about half the lyrics.

https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/GDD4UYTWJ4I6XFENDFDS42BVEE.jpg

 

[desecration]

Lots of music involves borrowing themes from somewhere else and then expanding up on them. Looks like he took the song in his own direction.

 

[jehoram]

If you think that the lyrics in a song tell the story, then listen to "Didn't Mean to Turn You on" by Cherelle and then listen to "Didn't Mean to Turn You on" the cover version by Robert Palmer. Exact same lyrics - totally different story.

I remember Reba McEntire singing the old Everly Brothers song "Cathy's Clown." In the original, it seems like the guy was just being cock-teased by Cathy. In her version, without changing the lyrics at all, it sounded like she was just an ordinary girl being stalked by a creep.

 

[jehoram]

Slight digression. Few people know that Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" was a cover of Willie Mae Thornton's 1952 song of the same name. He flipped the genders of the narrator and cut out about half the lyrics.

And then there's "My Baby Thinks She's A Train" where there's a line "she always gives some bum a ride." When Roseann Cash covered it, she made it "My Baby Thinks He's A Train" and changed the line to "he always gives some tramp a ride." Clever, that.

 

[tenyari]

"If you were in an argument, you were, are, smart enough to come up with all the reasons why you were in the right, and the other person in the wrong."

From this story. Kind of cool how much observation of life goes into these.

True intelligence isn't knowing when you're right, but being able to spot when you're wrong. And even smarter person, who is not me; can do that BEFORE coming down with "foot in mouth" syndrome.


(And how do I get a quote inside a quote to work here anyway, I thought I'd pulled it off before.)

Also, if you can find all the flaws in SOMEONE ELSE'S argument, that's usually a sign of a LACK of intelligence. Any idiot can see exactly why everyone else is wrong. Only a truly genius fool can figure out how little they themselves know.

 

[tenyari]

I don't envy the person who tried to read that excerpt aloud, with all its clauses and inconsistent tenses and general choppiness.

This is why having software read my stories aloud back to me has become my new best friend as an editing tool. When you have something read it back to you; you suddenly just how weird some of your sentence structure is.

 

[KimAwakened]

This is why having software read my stories aloud back to me has become my new best friend as an editing tool. When you have something read it back to you suddenly you just how weird some of your sentence structure is.

When we've all stopped laughing...