More Dar Williams today. I make no apologies for that: some bloggers write about the same artists week after week. Why do we blog about music we love? Because we love it. Because we want to grab you by the lapels and say: "Hey, listen to this. This is good." Because whenever we hear a really good song, we want to share it and help it find another pair of ears that will love it the same way we do. Because maybe we don't have anyone in our real lives who loves music in quite the same way we do, who values it quite the same way we do... but out there in the blogosphere, we might just find a like-minded soul.
And finding a like-minded soul is kind of what today's song is all about...
8. Dar Williams - Mortal City
Up until just a few years ago, I used to love writing short stories. I enjoyed writing longer works of fiction to, as you'll see in the sidebar, but they took a lot more time, blood, sweat and tears. A short story, I could write in a day. I think I got quite good at it. Maybe not "publish my collection" good, but good enough to be shortlisted for a few prizes. Ha... at this point I can't help but remember a cartoon that appeared in the Guardian Review section a few years back. I remember it because it's pinned to the noticeboard at the side of me as I write this...
Anyway, the point is: I liked writing short stories, and I like reading them. It's a different skill to writing a novel, a different art form. There are different rules, different pleasures. You don't get to use as much repetition of a word like different in a short story as you might do in a novel. You'd get pulled up on that.
I realised something the other day. Out of all the music blogs I read, mine is the one which focusses the most on song lyrics. The only other blogger I can think of who regularly quotes song lyrics is Alyson at
What's It All About? But for Alyson, the lyrics are there because (often) they remind her of something in her own life, and those memories are her blog's reason for being. I'm the only blogger I can think of who obsesses over lyrics, who makes whole Top Tens out of obscure lyrical references to
toasters, who raves about the working man's story songs of Bruce; the cleverly worded puns of Elvis Costello; the mordantly witty couplets of Morrissey; the everyday woodchip-on-the-wall minutiae of Jarvis; the self-deprecating romanticism of Billy Bragg; the ludicrously exaggerated melodrama of Jim Steinman...
I like a lot of different types of music for a lot of different reasons. But if I were to list my all-time favourite artists (a list I started, but by no means completed, in the previous paragraph), they'd all have something in common. Their words are as strong... if not stronger than... their music. I realise I may be somewhat in the minority when it comes to this. I'm not saying you lot don't like the lyrics of your favourite songwriters, don't pore over them, didn't spend hours as a teenager transcribing them because there was no lyric sheet in the album sleeve... I'm sure many of you did. I just don't think the lyrics are paramount, the main reason behind your choice of favourite artists. I doubt any of you have found yourself giving a pass to Gary Barlow... or James Blunt... or even Coldplay in the last week or so because, you know what, their latest singles have some interesting stuff going in the words, even if their music still sounds like their same old tat. (Actually, the Gary Barlow song has better music than usual too, mainly because he's nicked a load of ideas from Jeff Lynne... but I digress.) The point is, good lyrics will always sway me to a song, even by an artist I would normally cross the road to avoid. I'll even throw Bono a bone... if he ever writes a lyrically interesting song, I will buy it and sing it proudly at the top of my lungs. Go for it, Bono!
(By the way, I may be wrong about much of the above. You may value lyrics as much as I do. If so, I'll be happy to start up a club and we can get together on the third Tuesday of every month in an abandoned bus shelter on the edge of town to discuss whether Ben Folds has written a funnier song than John Grant. The invitation's there.)
The point... I was getting to the point a few paragraphs back, wasn't I? The point is, I like a good short story. And today's offering, the title track of Dar Williams's second album, from way, way back in 1996, is a great short story. You may decide it's not a great
song... but I can't really tell the difference. No, as far as I'm concerned, there's no difference at all. Musically, I suppose it sounds a little bit Joni Mitchell, but... oh, just give it a listen.
Why do I write this blog? All the reasons above plus one more. I don't write anything else anymore. This is all I have left...
