Worst prog lyricists

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 Floydoid wrote:

^ Not all (possibly not many) prog lyrics would stand alone as good poetry, and conversely, much good poetry would struggle to be set to music in the form of a song. Poetry and lyrics are similar but distinct written word forms tho there is a certain amount of crossover.

Hi,

Agreed ... although I think poetry has more weigh since the word has to stand up "by itself" ... as opposed to the lyrics, that are relying on some music behind to carry it, and then there is the suggestion that the music itself is a good backing for the lyrics ... many times it isn't and we immediately comment on it.

There are very few, for me, folks that are really good at illustrating lyrics, and we can almost go back 55 years and watch Mick Jagger in the film "Performance" give us the first MTV piece ... and show us how to make some lyrics stand up and then some ... I find it a really big stretch on a lot of bands these days, trying to do something as good, or as well defined ... the main issue being that rock folks hate "directors" and think they are better actors than the hackers in your local theater! And I'm not sure of many of these folks ... as my feeling is that the band would likely be getting more attention, if it were better defined and worked, although that is hearsay, and might not be valid. But, in general, bands that define these things to a really good detail, are eventually found and heard. It might take a few years as we have found with some old psychedelic stuff ... but the Internet is good at making sure that we all know it exists, heard or not.

Watch the film "Neruda" and listen to the words ... or even Ginsburg in "Tonight We All Love in London" ... where, reading his stuff doesn't click with me, but hearing him? Wow ... that is good! There aren't many rock singers that can even come close to that quality ... because a lot of the words themselves are not as important as the band, or the song itself, which has the famous riff, etc, etc, etc. And, in many ways this was the art in Led Zeppelin that helped them a lot ... it was very theatrical for some time and RP made sure that it was understood, though many men don't like it because it is so sexy for a lot of women. But, for RP, it was very real, and not fake, and this is a massive difference.

Compare this to BD, with YES, when I saw them one of the the last tours by Chris Squire and BD was totally out of it, did not know or understand the lyrics and was using 1000 year old had gestures to make it look like all he sang had meaning ... I can't believe that YES even allowed something like that to take place. It was a real shame to see that. I kinda thought at that point that Jon's words were just really poor ... and while some of them are not great, he is way better than seeing this ... at least he knows what he means and sings like it!

Kinda reminds me of the mid 60's with Sgt Pepper's that all of a sudden got a bunch of copy kat bands ... doing fun things ... but I'm not sure that we will confuse Winchester Cathedral with poor, or good lyrics!

I don't think that there are "worst" lyricists per se, since so much of it is blended into that band's specific work which makes it harder to say something about it ... and then we have Francesco (Banco) singing, and we don't even know if the lyrics are good or bad, but it sure sounds good. The same for Francis Decamps in Ange ... but at least, by the attitude and feeling around it, that the lyrics are important ... and specially so, in France, where the wording had been a major issue in theater, and then their music. It has to have that incredible depth of feeling and emotion  or it was considered crap.

Edited by moshkito - November 18 2024 at 20:20

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