Most decade-specific words in Billboard popular song titles, 1890-2014 | prooffreader.com. (via)
Tag: songwriting
I Know Times Are Changing
If you don’t want to read Anil Dash geeking out about Prince for 3600+ words, then I just don’t know what I can do for you.
Key Change Blog
“A blog that appreciates the art of the key change.” A blog after my own heart.
Chiasmus – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
the figure of speech in which two or more clauses are related to each other through a reversal of structures in order to make a larger point; that is, the clauses display inverted parallelism.
So they’re mirrored (like the shape of the letter X… Greek letter chi… chiasmus…). Think ABCCBA, or ABCDEDCBA, or whatever. This is really common in the Bible, e.g. Isaiah 6:10:
A “Make the heart of this people fat,
B and make their ears heavy,
C and shut their eyes;
C lest they see with their eyes,
B and hear with their ears,
A and understand with their heart, and convert [return], and be healed.”
And in songwriting, e.g. Snoop’s Gin and Juice:
I got my mind on my money, my money on my mind.
Or the wisdom of Stephen Stills:
If you can’t be with the one you love, honey / Love the one you’re with.
You also see chiastic structure for an entire work, like the Song of Songs or Paradise Lost.
Man, I really like words.
The Boss Is Hungry: Every Food or Drink Name-Dropped in a Rick Ross Song
The Searchers – Each Time from Take Me for What I’m Worth. I love those big luscious jangly echoing guitars. Great cover of some wonderful songwriting. It’s a crime that this isn’t as well-known as Jackie DeShannon’s other hits like When You Walk in the Room or Put a Little Love in Your Heart.
Never be ashamed of how you live or where you from.
You stack a mill’, ***s will see how far you come.
T.I. – Be Better Than Me. My favorite song on Trap Musik besides Look What I Got. Here’s T.I. on the proper ingredients for success:
Stay down, stay on your grind and yo digits’ll come.
Bottom line? You gotta shine, no matter what you become.
These streets is 40 percent of yo’ mind and 5 percent muscle,
10 struggle, 10 time, and 35 percent hustle.
https://www.tumblr.com/audio_file/mlarson/4582751750/tumblr_liuv62Zs5p1qboc9f?plead=please-dont-download-this-or-our-lawyers-wont-let-us-host-audio
http://mlarson.tumblr.com/post/4582751750/audio_player_iframe/mlarson/tumblr_liuv62Zs5p1qboc9f?audio_file=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tumblr.com%2Faudio_file%2Fmlarson%2F4582751750%2Ftumblr_liuv62Zs5p1qboc9f
Labi Siffre – “It Must Be Love” (from Crying Laughing Loving Lying)
I wish I’d known about this song long, long ago. So catchy.
Complex: The 30 Greatest Hip-Hop Demos
Chairman Mao’s 30 Greatest Hip-Hop Demos. I know the instinct is to complain about these things and surely my inner nerd is gritting his teeth on some fronts but come the fuck on… I hadn’t even heard a good chunk of this stuff. And they have entire tapes up there! Just be excited, listen and stfu.
Woody Guthrie’s New Year’s Rulin’s, 1942. (via). See also Johnny Cash’s to-do list and David Foster Wallace on the philosophical depth of country music.
- Work more and better
- Work by a schedule
- Wash teeth if any
- Shave
- Take bath
- Eat good – fruit – vegetables – milk
- Drink very scant if any
- Write a song a day
- Wear clean clothes – look good
- Shine shoes
- Change socks
- Change bed clothes often
- Read lots good books
- Listen to radio a lot
- Learn people better
- Keep rancho clean
- Don’t get lonesome
- Stay glad
- Keep hoping machine running
- Dream good
- Bank all extra money
- Save dough
- Have company but don’t waste time
- Send Mary and kids money
- Play and sing good
- Dance better
- Help win war – beat fascism
- Love Mama
- Love Papa
- Love Pete
- Love everybody
- Make up your mind
- Wake up and fight
What you want to do is build the people up. You start ‘em off and you give them this first half, and their feet, and next thing they got their heads goin’, and the next thing they got their mouths open and they’re yellin’ and they’re screamin’. It’s a great feeling when you can have your audience get involved with you […] where everyone can jump in and have a real good time. “What’d I Say” is my last song onstage. When I do “What’d I Say,” you don’t have to worry about it — that’s the end of me. There ain’t no encore, no nothin’. I’m finished!
Tech in Lyrics: James Brown the Anti-Technoutopian – Alexis Madrigal – The Atlantic
Thunderball opening titles with theme song by Johnny Cash. Woah. ( via)
Playboy Interview: Metallica (April 2001)
This interview is packed with wonderful tidbits. James Hetfield on day jobs and the early tour routine:
We worked at day jobs. After that, we’d throw parties, take the furniture out of the house and smash the joint. We smashed dressing rooms just because you were supposed to. Then you’d get the bill and go, “Whoa! I didn’t know Pete Townshend paid for his lamp!” Come back off the tour and you hadn’t made any money. You bought furniture for a bunch of promoters.
Hetfield on growing up differently from Lars Ulrich:
I could afford maybe one record a week, and he would come back from the store with 20. He bought Styx and REO Speedwagon, bands he’d heard of in Denmark. I would go, “What the fuck? Why did you buy Styx?“
Kirk Hammett on Hetfield’s Nothing Else Matters:
All I could think of at the time was, James wrote a fucking love song to his girlfriend? That’s just weird.
Hetfield on alcohol abuse and parenthood:
You can’t be hung over when you got kids, man. “Dad, get the fuck off the couch!” Well, they don’t say that—yet.
Ulrich on Matt Damon:
PLAYBOY: Your wife, Skylar, used to date Matt Damon, and he made her the model for the female lead in Good Will Hunting. A few years ago, Matt described you as “a fucking rock star who’s got $80 million and his own jet—a bad rock star, too.”
ULRICH: He said that before we met. And he’s apologized about a hundred times. The first five times I saw him, he would spend 10 minutes apologizing profusely. He really is a sweetheart.
Ulrich on collecting art:
Hanging out backstage with Kid Rock is an amazing turn-on, no less so than sitting and staring at my Dubuffet for an hour with a fucking gin and tonic.
Playboy Interview: Metallica (April 2001)
This interview is packed with wonderful tidbits. James Hetfield on day jobs and the early tour routine:
We worked at day jobs. After that, we’d throw parties, take the furniture out of the house and smash the joint. We smashed dressing rooms just because you were supposed to. Then you’d get the bill and go, “Whoa! I didn’t know Pete Townshend paid for his lamp!” Come back off the tour and you hadn’t made any money. You bought furniture for a bunch of promoters.
Hetfield on growing up differently from Lars Ulrich:
I could afford maybe one record a week, and he would come back from the store with 20. He bought Styx and REO Speedwagon, bands he’d heard of in Denmark. I would go, “What the fuck? Why did you buy Styx?“
Kirk Hammett on Hetfield’s Nothing Else Matters:
All I could think of at the time was, James wrote a fucking love song to his girlfriend? That’s just weird.
Hetfield on alcohol abuse and parenthood:
You can’t be hung over when you got kids, man. “Dad, get the fuck off the couch!” Well, they don’t say that—yet.
Ulrich on Matt Damon:
PLAYBOY: Your wife, Skylar, used to date Matt Damon, and he made her the model for the female lead in Good Will Hunting. A few years ago, Matt described you as “a fucking rock star who’s got $80 million and his own jet—a bad rock star, too.”
ULRICH: He said that before we met. And he’s apologized about a hundred times. The first five times I saw him, he would spend 10 minutes apologizing profusely. He really is a sweetheart.
Ulrich on collecting art:
Hanging out backstage with Kid Rock is an amazing turn-on, no less so than sitting and staring at my Dubuffet for an hour with a fucking gin and tonic.
Motown Junkies
“A guide to every Motown single ever released”. Wow. There’s a ton of work that’s gone into these reviews. Here’s the master index.
Out With Mariah’s Melisma, In With Kesha’s Kick – NYTimes.com
“Melisma has retreated, while pop, which has just wrapped up one of its best years in at least a decade, has benefited from a return to less frilly, less bombastic vocal showcases.”
Out With Mariah’s Melisma, In With Kesha’s Kick – NYTimes.com
La Mantovana – Wikipedia. A tweet from David Friedman (@ironicsans)…
‘Tree of Life’ trailer: http://bit.ly/i5RnkM Smetana’s ‘Moldau’: http://bit.ly/gSgHbP Israel’s national anthem: http://bit.ly/eXEDYS
…reminded me of this old, old, old song. I love that we’re still using 400-year-old melodies.
La Mantovana – Wikipedia. A tweet from David Friedman (@ironicsans)…
‘Tree of Life’ trailer: http://bit.ly/i5RnkM Smetana’s ‘Moldau’: http://bit.ly/gSgHbP Israel’s national anthem: http://bit.ly/eXEDYS
…reminded me of this old, old, old song. I love that we’re still using 400-year-old melodies.