Prog often Plagued by Poor Lyrics? - Progressive Rock Music Forum

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DiamondDog View Drop Down

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Posted: August 15 2011 at 03:24

Maybe because it's more to do with musicians than writers?

NickHall

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Posted: August 15 2011 at 06:56

True. A bit weird why.

Hober Mallow View Drop Down

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Posted: August 16 2011 at 20:15

prog058 wrote:

This could also be called the Fish appreciation thread.

Prog bands, while excelling musically, are often lackluster in the lyrical department.

Most prog musicians probably don't take an interest in language and literature, and this is probably the reason why.

What are your thoughts?

you are mistaken.

Gentle Giant:Albert Camus, R. D. Lang

Yes:Leo Tolstoy

Rush:Ayn Rand, Shakespeare(limelight)

Genesis:The Bible

Aphrodite's Child:The Bible

Alan Parson's Project:Edgar Allen Poe

“When Fortuna spins you downward, go out to a movie and get more out of life.” John Kennedy Toole

Alitare

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Posted: August 16 2011 at 20:16

* Yes, but what does it matter if prog bands take lyrical influences from writers? Does adding a quote from Ayn Rand make a sh*tty song any better or smarter?

NickHall

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Posted: August 18 2011 at 04:11

Only if it works

DavetheSlave View Drop Down

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Posted: August 18 2011 at 04:42

I find prog lyrics to be way better than the slush being poured out on mainstream radio.

Slartibartfast View Drop Down

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Posted: August 18 2011 at 19:10

In the end, who cares? Just sit back and enjoy the music.

Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...

wjohnd

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Posted: August 19 2011 at 14:46

Big Ears wrote:

These days it is not the lyrics which are the problem, it is the 'singers'. Where is the next Jon Anderson, Greg Lake or Chris Thompson?

I think you've hit the nail here.

A great singer can deliver and carry off lacklustre lyrics. they make you want to believe in the power of the words even if they don't stand up to critical analysis.

Anderson was much more interested in how the words sounded than what it meant, but he delivered it well enough that we (i anyway) didn't care (until Circus of Heaven but I'll let that pass).

There are great lyrics in some Prog songs but much of it is too clever by half "6th form" poetry and much of the rest of it is nonsense.

If you want lyrics that move you or even just tell a good story...stick with Dylan or the blues.

JS19

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Posted: August 21 2011 at 04:03

1791 Overture wrote:

You think I think all prog lyrics are bad, and all indie/alt rock lyrics are good.

I didn't say that. I said you're trying to box in what it means to be emotional and human. Your criticism is crap, your attitude toward lyrics is crap. Again, write lyrics about whatever you damn well please. I'm sorry if that makes you uncomfortable.

And as for the other line, I am equally tired of the notion that only talking about sci-fi or fantasy unicorns is 'intelligent' and 'intellectual' and anything else is 'emo'.

I didn't say that either.

Well, at least for me they do, and can we 'outcasts' have our own little corner to listen to some soulful music once in a while because we don't think it's a sin?

Prog doesn't avoid traditional songwriting topics - it just doesn't restrict itself to them. The point is that the kind of expression that Mr. Poet up there claims is the only kind that matters is everywhere, so there's no reason to complain, or to force the one pocket of resistance to give up doing something different.

If so, Rush fits right in with their four song albums and sidelong mutlipart epics and such.

Stringing together several hard rock tracks and calling them a song isn't unusual or demanding.

Isn't 2112 demanding and unconventional (even if I hate it)?

No.

I don't particularly care for Rush, but I think if you polled the august body of the Prog Archives forum, they would certainly include Rush in progressive rock from the album 2112 onward.

Lots of people believing something doesn't make it true.

Certainly albums like A Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres are as progressive or perhaps more progressive than anything that came out in 1977 and 78 (and certainly akin in sound, compositional structure and song length to Yes' Going for the One which was released at the same time).

National Health debuted in '77. Art Bears debuted in '78. I don't f**king think so.

As far as the Moody Blues, it is arguable that the album Days of Future Past was the first prog album, or at least one of the first, and the album On the Threshold of a Dream, particularly side 2, is representative of an entire prog suite, complete with symphonic themes and instrumental virtuosity (Pinder's mellotron work is fabulous).

It's a bunch of psych-pop songs with Disney orchestration in the background. Cute, maybe, but not prog.

Jethro Tull was prog for a few albums? Which albums exactly? Certainly, I assume you will kindly grant Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play in your exclusive little club, but in addition, I consider Stand Up and Aqualung to be progressive prior to those albums, and Minstrel in the Gallery and Songs from the Wood afterwards. That's about as many "progressive albums" as Genesis and Yes put out with their classical lineups (unless you consider Duke, ABACAB, 90215 and Big Generator to be progressive)

Definitely TaaB and aPP, the others are debatable, but probably Minstrel in the Gallery. I would say no to Stand Up and Aqualung.

So, saying "those three bands [ie., Rush, The Moody Blues and Styx] don't exhibit any of the qualities associated with prog, such as demanding or unconventional song structures" is incredibly thick, and, might I add, a bit snobbish. Even Styx, who for the most part I loathe, was considered "progressive" for much of its early catalog, with adaptations of Copeland (an entire suite on their first release), Bach, Handel and Debussy interspersed among their first several albums. It may not be considered prog for your exclusive palate, but it is indeed categorized as such on nearly every internet reference I bothered to look up.

I don't see how it's snobbish - it's just true. Blood, Sweat and Tears were more progressive than any of those bands. And nobody calls them prog. I never said the bands were necessarily worse. They're just not progressive.

Yawn

wjohnd

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Posted: August 21 2011 at 04:48

I am NOT saying ALL prog lyrics are bad, hardly. I'm just saying I hate 9/10ths of all lyrics from any genre

Isn't that just a variant of Sturgeon's Law ?

90% of all art, songs, poems, books, tv shows (et al) are rubbish.

awaken77

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Posted: August 22 2011 at 09:57

i usually don't care about lyrics, since most prog bands sings in English , which I hardly can understand when sung

but there are some exclusions: lyrics from Bearfish band are so funny and sort of "tongue in cheek" , so deserved to be listened carefully :
"You realized that you've made love with A MAN" LOL
some Jethro Tull lyrics are fun too

p.s. please give me some hints on prog with humorous, "Zappa-esque" poetry

refugee

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Posted: August 23 2011 at 07:25

Hober Mallow wrote:

you are mistaken.

Gentle Giant:Albert Camus, R. D. Lang I should think that Rabelais is more obvious (Pantagruel/Gargantua)

Yes:Leo Tolstoy

Rush:Ayn Rand, Shakespeare(limelight)

Genesis:The Bible + T.S. Eliot (The Cinema Show), Keats (The Lamia), Wordsworth (Colony of Slippermen) etc.

Aphrodite's Child:The Bible

Alan Parson's Project:Edgar Allen Poe
Hammill/VdGG: Bible, Homer, Shakespeare, Blake, Keats, Poe, Dickinson etc. etc. etc.

I sometimes find my prog plagued by lighthouse keepers …

He say nothing is quite what it seems;
I say nothing is nothing
(Peter Hammill)

refugee

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Posted: August 23 2011 at 07:31

^ I forgot to mention that Close to the Edge is inspired by Siddharta by Herman Hesse.

He say nothing is quite what it seems;
I say nothing is nothing
(Peter Hammill)

TGM: Orb

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Posted: August 23 2011 at 08:15

refugee wrote:

Hober Mallow wrote:

you are mistaken.

Gentle Giant:Albert Camus, R. D. Lang I should think that Rabelais is more obvious (Pantagruel/Gargantua)

Yes:Leo Tolstoy

Rush:Ayn Rand, Shakespeare(limelight)

Genesis:The Bible + T.S. Eliot (The Cinema Show), Keats (The Lamia), Wordsworth (Colony of Slippermen) etc.

Aphrodite's Child:The Bible

Alan Parson's Project:Edgar Allen Poe
Hammill/VdGG: Bible, Homer, Shakespeare, Blake, Keats, Poe, Dickinson etc. etc. etc.

I sometimes find my prog plagued by lighthouse keepers …

You can add TS Eliot (Mr/Faculty X) and Arthur C Clarke (Childlike Faith...) to that Hammill list - I think I've heard a bootleg of him introducing Still Life as a science fiction song. Fish's solo Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors thing borrows that last phrase from Eliot's Gerontion.

An almost worrying number of progressive things based on 1984 (immediately springing to mind, the latter half of Diamond Dogs - also relevant because of Bowie's interest in William Burroughs (Soft Machine taking its name from a William Burroughs novel) - plus the first track off Harper's/Page's Jugula).

Um, I mean, while it's worth saying that a lot of progressive rock acts have no serious interest in language/literature (which is true of basically all music ever, let's be honest), it's also worth noting that there are a few credible exceptions in the genre.

A prog on both your houses...

Edited by TGM: Orb - August 23 2011 at 08:16

refugee

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Posted: August 23 2011 at 09:07

^Nice to see you back again, Rob!

What’s the connection between Eliot and Mr/Faculty X? I thought Hammill based at least the latter song on this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Wilson

(Scroll down to the "other non-fiction writing" section.)

Btw, another litterary allusion by Hammill is Palinurus (Vergil).

He say nothing is quite what it seems;
I say nothing is nothing
(Peter Hammill)

TGM: Orb

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Posted: August 23 2011 at 13:38

refugee wrote:

^Nice to see you back again, Rob!

What’s the connection between Eliot and Mr/Faculty X? I thought Hammill based at least the latter song on this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Wilson

(Scroll down to the "other non-fiction writing" section.)

Btw, another litterary allusion by Hammill is Palinurus (Vergil).

Don't know how frequently I'll be round, but thanks : )

Ooh, didn't know that -

I'd thought 'is this the way the world ends' references the end of The Hollow Men (fittingly, if the object of Mr X is an apparent modern degradation of humanity in contrast to the transcendence + change promised by the conclusion). Not so certain of the intent now, but it'd be kind of fitting.

'This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang, but a whimper'

refugee

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Posted: August 23 2011 at 15:09

Ah, you’re right! Also Genesis use that line:
So we'll end with a whistle and end with a bang
and all of us fit in our places.

He say nothing is quite what it seems;
I say nothing is nothing
(Peter Hammill)

Ben2112

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Posted: September 11 2011 at 17:24

Well, I haven't been on this site in a few years, but after reading through this and a few other threads, it's refreshing to see that the same old themes apply:

1. Arguing endlessly and pointlessly over sub-sub-sub-sub-genres
2. Opinion spewed forth as absolutely fact and if you don't agree with it you're just wrong and will never be one-tenth as intellectual as the opinion-spewer
3. Extreme Rush hate: Is it the Ayn Rand influence of maybe 5 songs in their nearly 40 year catalog? I know Ayn Rand is practically the anti-Christ to most left-leaning, pseudo-hippy, stuck in the 60's prog fans, but sheesh. Oh yeah, and continually harping on the lyrical content of "Twilight Zone"? You do know that the lyrics are about ACTUAL TWILIGHT ZONE EPISODES, right? Oh yeah, and also using "I Think I'm Going Bald" as an example of Rush lyrics? A one-off joke song inspired by touring with Kiss and poking fun at Alex Lifeson's constant irrational fear of going bald...God forbid any prog band should have a sense of humor.

Conclusion:

A large number of prog fans (or at least the ones this site attracts) will always be completely up their own arses and will spout pseudo-intellectual drivel until they satisfy whatever it is in their psyche that is damaged from the constant ridicule they endure from their friends and piers for their eclectic musical tastes.

But yeah, carry on wayward sons.

The Dark Elf View Drop Down

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Posted: September 11 2011 at 18:26

Ben2112 wrote:

Well, I haven't been on this site in a few years, but after reading through this and a few other threads, it's refreshing to see that the same old themes apply:

1. Arguing endlessly and pointlessly over sub-sub-sub-sub-genres
2. Opinion spewed forth as absolutely fact and if you don't agree with it you're just wrong and will never be one-tenth as intellectual as the opinion-spewer
3. Extreme Rush hate: Is it the Ayn Rand influence of maybe 5 songs in their nearly 40 year catalog? I know Ayn Rand is practically the anti-Christ to most left-leaning, pseudo-hippy, stuck in the 60's prog fans, but sheesh. Oh yeah, and continually harping on the lyrical content of "Twilight Zone"? You do know that the lyrics are about ACTUAL TWILIGHT ZONE EPISODES, right? Oh yeah, and also using "I Think I'm Going Bald" as an example of Rush lyrics? A one-off joke song inspired by touring with Kiss and poking fun at Alex Lifeson's constant irrational fear of going bald...God forbid any prog band should have a sense of humor.

Conclusion:

A large number of prog fans (or at least the ones this site attracts) will always be completely up their own arses and will spout pseudo-intellectual drivel until they satisfy whatever it is in their psyche that is damaged from the constant ridicule they endure from their friends and piers for their eclectic musical tastes.

But yeah, carry on wayward sons.

Amusingly, what I find useless is self-indulgent posters who spew out-of-context opinions denigrating other posters' methods of opinion within a discussion, and thus add nothing to the conversation but sanctimonious blather. That is progressive inanity at its best.

...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined
to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology...

Conor Fynes View Drop Down

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Posted: September 11 2011 at 18:42

I personally would take commentary on philosophy or history any day over "oh babeh in the city yeah babeh i love ya"