For some reason, the satellite radio causes me to notice song lyrics, and the lyrics to "For Your Love" are embarrassing:
For your love, I'd give you everything and more and that's for sureSo... diamonds, things, and more diamonds. He needs to work harder on that list of presents. And I don't have to pay so much attention to lyrics, but something about driving does that to me. Home again, I went to YouTube and searched for "For Your Love." Nice. But what really amused me was that the search brought up "Munchies For Your Love" by Bootsy Collins, a 1977 recording that I don't remember ever hearing before. (Here's the album: "Ahh the Name is Bootsy Baby.") I enjoyed that, and the singing style and the guitar (not the lyrics) reminded me of some of my son John's music. I sent him the link and he IM'd:
I'd bring you diamond rings and things right to your door
To thrill you with delight, I'd give you diamonds bright
I can see why you'd say that, but I wouldn't do that kind of bass.I hadn't noticed any of that, which just goes to show how different individual experience is, even when everyone's paying attention. I tend to get absorbed in lyrics, and the fact that it was just 2 chords over and over would have eternally escaped me. John did notice the song's title though, as he later IM'd "The word 'munchies' always makes me think of...."
Also, it's very repetitious and amorphous, which I avoid.
I like music with more structure and drama.
The whole thing is just 2 chords, back and forth, over and over.
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48 comments:
I love the Yardbirds, but I can't say the same for Bootsie.
Proto Funk is better than funk?
Ann I don't know that the lyrics on "For Your Love" are so bad.
They show more intelligence and structure than "Hope And Change" which you bought in 2008 and a heck of lot more than "Forward" which you may still buy in 2012.
Compared to Obama, those Yardbirds are highly literate.
But the lyrics get better:
There'll be things that will excite,
To make you dream of me at night.
Except then there's this:
I'd give the stars and the sun 'fore I live.
Diamond rings and other diamond things. That's what they mean in those lyrics. And all those diamonds will shine brightly.
Nobody can outdo Bob Dylan in the whacky lyrics department.
I'm like Ann when it comes to lyrics on satellite radio.
As all their songs are digitized, I think the fi is higher.
Tiffany Eckhardt is the master of the lyrics poetry of girl romance.
I'm more of a Steel Panther can of guy. When it comes to pitching woo, I steer clear of "For Your Love" and go with "Girl from Oklahoma":
Hair on your nipples, zits on your box
In Oklahoma City you're considered a fox
What did you have to do for that backstage pass?
'Cause I found a poison laminate inside of your ass."
You tend to get absorbed in self absorbtion..it's called narcissism.
Personally I really enjoy non sequitur or "word salad" type lyrics, stuff that you can assign your own meaning to if you so choose. For example Dance of the Manatee by Fair to Midland.
Take a little dive into the shallow or spy what do you see?
I see the tortoise and the hare in a rat-race and it fits like a glove under my sleeve, just wait till then.
Their heads are the heaviest in operation,
he has still not lost imagination.
I can hear him mouth the whole ending -
just wait till then.
We marys had ourselves a ball.
Oh, yes we did.
We marys had ourselves a ball,
I must admit--
Hang us those limbs hold no virtue.
Those told to hold: project on my cue.
For sheer idiocy, nothing beats "Signs" by the Five Man Electrical Band. It could serve as the anthem of the Occupy Movement:
And the sign said anybody caught trespassin' would be shot on sight
So I jumped on the fence and-a yelled at the house, "Hey! What gives you the right?"
"To put up a fence to keep me out or to keep mother nature in"
"If God was here he'd tell you to your face, Man, you're some kinda sinner"
Now, hey you, mister, can't you read?
You've got to have a shirt and tie to get a seat
You can't even watch, no you can't eat
You ain't supposed to be here.
The sign said you got to have a membership card to get inside
Ugh!
Actually, until I googled it, I always thought the lyric was "You can't even wash, so you can't eat" which seemed like an entirely reasonable requirement to me. Who wants a smelly hippie in their restaurant?
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I like "For Your Love." The lyrics of most rock songs are stupid, because the emphasis is not on the lyrics, but the beat.
You want clever lyrics, listen to Cole Porter.
I just did a new mix - couldn't finish it because I'm sick - but I was having fun while it lasted.
I would've added The Yardbirds if I had been able to keep going, or this had been posted sooner.
Oh well,..
Lots of songs out there called "for Your Love" - but I'll go with the Ed Townsend hit that spend 16 weeks in the Billboard Top 100 in 1958 - made it all the way to #13.
ndspinelli said...
You tend to get absorbed in self absorbtion..it's called narcissism.
10/7/12 6:46 PM
The word is spelled absorption.
"The lyrics of most rock songs are stupid, because the emphasis is not on the lyrics, but the beat."
Bah. You obviously haven't listen to Emerson Lake & Palmer's Jerusalem:
And did those feet in ancient time.
Walk upon England's mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England's pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England's green & pleasant Land.
Now those are some rock 'n' roll lyrics.
Of course those lyrics are not original, but are borrowed from William Blake.
Still a good song...
That was really the only Yardbirds album of note, wasn't it? I think it also had Train Kept a Rolling and Smokestack Lightning. Also, Mister You're a Better Man than I.
My mother even liked that song because, she said, it was in a minor key or something.
Eric Clapton hated this song.
It's the doubling up on diamonds that was so bad.
"It's the doubling up on diamonds that was so bad.
Worse than doing it in a song is doing it in real life. It's bad enough every man has to do it once. Only a fool does it again.
-- A fool
"Of course those lyrics are not original, but are borrowed from William Blake."
I rest my case.
Also, note that I said "most," not "all." "Sympathy for the Devil" and quite a few of Bowie's songs have pretty good lyrics.
Back before I knew much about white people, my foster brother and I would listen to Rock radio and laugh at the lyrics, like America's Horse With No Name saying "'Cause there ain't no one-for to give you no name,..." or Sister Golden Hair's "Well I tried to make it Sunday, but I got so damn depressed,..." That shit used to crack us up as an opening lyric!
I think most of Rock's lyrics in the 60s were pretty dumb because, besides doing drugs, they hadn't lived worth shit. Hendrix scared the shit out of Clapton and Townsend, not just because of his artistry but - as a vet - because he spoke of a deeper understanding than his peers.
I like that you guys are still discussing The Yardbirds:
Pass the Geritol,...
"Sympathy for the Devil" is very good, lyrically and musically.
"2,000 Light Years From Home" is another favorite.
Still, it's hit-and-miss.
Pity.
Another other song brought up on the search was IN A GADDA DA VIDA. Yes!
"Of course those lyrics are not original, but are borrowed from William Blake."
>>>
I rest my case.
Also, note that I said "most," not "all."
Look, it has little to do with rock or its focus on the "beat." Most love songs, rock or otherwise, are the same old tripe.
Saps write sappy songs, especially when they are in love.
Actually, most "rock" love songs are nothing more than sachcarin ballads, without much of a beat. Exceptions to this rule include Guns 'n' Roses "Sweet Child of Mine," which is neither really a ballad nor particularly sappy, and its lyrics are not bad wither.
And I was being tongue-in-cheek with that ELP tune, but you always take your chances with humor on the internet.
Another song from 1965 about diamonds: This Diamond Ring.
Diamonds are intrinsically cool,
In Madison, they built a pool.
I recently saw the Hope Diamond in DC. It has a fascinating history and originated in India, not South Africa.
I think most of Rock's lyrics in the 60s were pretty dumb
The two songs you quoted were from the 70's.
"Sympathy for the Devil" is killer.
"L.A.Woman" Is there a more evocative lyric than "Cops in cars, and topless bars." You're there when it rolls through your mind.
Pick a track from "the Wall"...any track. It's gold. I adore "Hey You" The grittiness, and despair come blazing through right into your eyeballs.
Going into the way, waaayyy, back machine the Everly Brothers with "Bird Dog". Maybe 'cause they're from Owensboro, and from the country like moi, but it just stuck in my head. "Turna' loose of my quail!"
Note to Meade: Doubling up on diamonds is bad.
Nothing is said about doubling up on rubies, emeralds or sapphires, however.
Can't beat Wooly Bully for '60s rock.
" In Xanadu did Kublai Khan decree,
Where Alph the sacred river ran, through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea."
Let's here it for Frankie Goes To Hollywood!!!! And "Relax" is NOT about gay sex...trust me on this. Would I lie?
On a side note, nuthin', absolutely nuthin', gets the little lady worked up more than those chantin' monks from those techno-pop wizards of Enigma. I put Enigma on the CD player, and I am gettin' some tonight, BabEE! (and she only listens to Golden Oldies)
Dammit the computer nixed part of Xanadu...I haz a sadz
And Xanadu by that white woman...Debbie Boone? I don't ..Oh yea I do remember...Olivia Newton John. OMG. Worst song evah. (well, for that year)
The Yardbirds was a great blues rock band. My iPod includes Smokestack Lightning, The Sky is Crying, The Train Kept Arollin, Jeff's Blues...and yeah, For Your Love.
Some silliness is allowed in lyrics. It must be impossible to come up with lyrics that fit into a song perfectly musically, while still making some sense, for an entire 4 or 5 minute song. And coming from a blues background, where there's a tradition of making the meanings of words secondary to their sound and the thoughts they might evoke, I'd give The Yardbirds a big pass.
Professor? You expect depth from an early rock and roll song? Surely, you know better than that! :)
As for funk, it's pronounced
'It's BOOT-ZAY, BAY-BAY!'
and it's good stuff.
(also a Yardbirds fan)
"Saps write sappy songs, especially when they are in love."
I wasn't thinking so much of love songs, as I was thinking of silly message songs or songs attempting to be poetic or profound, like Rocket Man:
"All that science I don't understand,
it's just my job, 5 days a week."
The guy's an astronaut, but damned if he gets all that science.
In a way I'm glad, that I've never worried about lyrics, though truth is I could never understand them, in a vocal sense.
I'm a melody man, pluck the strings of my heart with sound, which, around the campfire, must have been the early start.
Don't confuse me with words, that's when the evil started.
Ralph L,
The two songs you quoted were from the 70's.
Jesus, are you really trying to be clever? I know what I write:
I said lyrics from the 60s were pretty dumb.
Man, people online are stupid,...
For Your Love was the song that caused Eric Clapton to leave the band. Can't say I blame him.
The Crack Emcee said...
Back before I knew much about white people, my foster brother and I would listen to Rock radio and laugh at the lyrics, like America's Horse With No Name saying "'Cause there ain't no one-for to give you no name,..." or Sister Golden Hair's "Well I tried to make it Sunday, but I got so damn depressed,..." That shit used to crack us up as an opening lyric!
I think most of Rock's lyrics in the 60s were pretty dumb
Sorry, I thought you were trying to make a logical argument for once, instead of flinging shit unchronologically. I will return to scrolling past you.
Nobody listens to the Yardbirds for the lyrics, they listen for the guitars of Clapton, Back and Page!
Nobody listens to the Yardbirds for the lyrics, they listen for the guitars of Clapton, Back and Page!
That's Beck not Back. (And sorry for the double post.)
Back before I knew much about white people, my foster brother and I would listen to Rock radio and laugh at the lyrics
You can't blame white people for this. We're intuitive. We don't rely on language so much. We're feelers. We like the beat. We like to take our clothes off and paint ourselves blue.
It's a Scottish thing. You wouldn't understand.
The reason we can "notice" the lyrics now is because of the poor quality of players we used to listen to them on. Whether it was the 3" speakers in your car or the "Hi-Fi" in the house, they stunk.
Not Graham Gouldman's finest moment as a songwriter, but he was definitely pop-oriented, and the Yardbirds didn't write much of their own material anyway.
(Gouldman wrote and recorded "For Your Love" with his own band in 1965 before the Yardbirds made it into a hit. Later, he wrote "Heart Full of Soul" and "Evil Hearted You" for The Yardbirds, "Bus Stop" and "Look Through Any Window" for The Hollies, and "No Milk Today" and "Listen People" for Herman's Hermits. Then, worked as a staff writer for Super K productions (Ohio Excpress!) a bit before starting 10cc with some lads back in the UK....)
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