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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>that Toto claim their song 'Africa' was written purely for sound - lyrics being chucked in and so on, with no attempt at profundity. And let's (not) forget Duran Duran. 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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First, I didn't say "all", I said "many". Second, I said it was my personal opinion. Third and most importantly, I certainly didn't mean that songs are written with no coherence whatsoever, like the quotes in the fool-the-spam-filter thread. Fourth, I said "deep meaning". Q.E.D.: Yes, Jackie, I realized all the points you made, and thought I made accomodation for them in my rebuttal. But let's not lump "Yummy Yummy" and other fluff bubblegum pop crap with serious songwriting, otherwise you could cite the Archies, "Sugar, Sugar", The Partridge Family, Bobby Sherman, and on and on...and, BTW, Britney Spears' lyrics are just plain bad, even for that "genre." I had the misfortune of watching them float across the screen in caption at the hospital one night...yeech, I dunno how anyone could attempt to sing that stuff. America, as much as I liked them, were notorious for being weak in the lyric department, and penned what I have always voted as the worst lyric line in the history of rock, from Ventura Highway, "alligator lizards in the air." No drug known to man can make *anything out of that garbage. And, sure A Horse With No Name was weird, but it was a *contrived weirdness...if it didn't, at least, *sound like a story, no one would've bought into it at the time. And a song doesn't always have to strive for depth to be good...humor works, too. The storytelling of the true troubadour takes different avenues to hook into the deeper perspectives of life and love. But depth also comes through the fusion of the words and music, too. That's why, say, a love song written by Cole Porter has eons more depth that a love song written by Britney Spears. In short: serious songwriters care about their words. And the craft of songwriting necessitates some meaningful sequential lyric, no matter how light or worthless it may be...even "Yummy Yummy" tells a small story, for what it is. You just can't throw words on music like you can splatter paint over a canvas, it just doesn't work.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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But I think you have to admit that the 1910 Fruitgum Company wasn't striving for anything except chart success. And in that they were outright winners ... so the song worked.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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let's not lump "Yummy Yummy" and other fluff bubblegum pop crap with serious songwriting
*I* was not doing this. Yummy Yummy IS a song, is it not?
Just for the record, it was that specific song I had in mind when I said: For many other songwriters, and I have to say for artists (painters) too, my personal opinion is that quite often there isn't any "deep" [significant look e] meaning. They just put a bunch of words down that sound good together, because they sound good together. Q.E.g-dD.
And just in case you couldn't tell, no, I am NOT in a good mood.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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let's not lump "Yummy Yummy" and other fluff bubblegum pop crap with serious songwriting
*I* was not doing this. Yummy Yummy IS a song, is it not?
Just for the record, it was that specific song I had in mind when I said: For many other songwriters, and I have to say for artists (painters) too, my personal opinion is that quite often there isn't any "deep" [significant look e] meaning. They just put a bunch of words down that sound good together, because they sound good together.Jackie, folks who churn out stuff like "Yummy Yummy" aren't really songwriters, and certainly not * artists....they're merely production machines meeting the market demand. In fact the so-called Archies weren't even really a group, Sugar Sugar was all a studio con job, the group "The Archies" didn't exist at all. When you say "songwriter" my mind leaps immediately to folks like Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Harry Chapin, Joni Mitchell, John Prine, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, etc...not pop-pabulum. And don't forget, it was Bill Monroe's (the "Father of American Bluegrass" for those who might not know) Blue Moon of Kentucky that was the catalyst for launching Elvis Presley's career because it was a good song.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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> folks who churn out stuff like "Yummy Yummy" aren't really songwriters, and certainly not *artists...
I'm with Jackie on this one, Mr Snob.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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ah, yes. what is art? 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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And it's the songs that *seem the least well-crafted that are the best potential fodder for the deconstructionist cash cow.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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The words:
"We skipped the light fandango
turned cartwheels cross the floor.
I was feeling kind of sea sick,
the crowd called out for more.
The room was humming harder
as the ceiling flew away.
When we called out for another drink
the waiter brought a tray.
And so it was that later
as the miller told his tale
that her face at first just ghostly
turned a whiter shade of pale.
She said there is no reason
and the truth is plain to see,
that I wandered through my playing cards
would not let her be.
One of sixteen vestal virgins
who were leaving for the coast
and although my eyes were open
they might just as well been closed.
And so it was that later
as the miller told his tale
that her face at first just ghostly
turned a whiter shade of pale."
This is considered by many critics and others to be one of the most significant rock anthems to come out of the 1960s. When asked about the words, Keith Reid (who wrote nearly all of Procul Harum's songs) said "It was just a lot of words which sounded good together. It doesn't mean anything at all".
What, then, is the qualitative difference (to the elitist - Juan) between these words and "Yummy, yummy, yummy, I got love in my tummy"?
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addict
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addict
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Good discussion, all. One thing I think we have to remember is that the "It was just a lot of words which sounded good together. It doesn't mean anything at all" response from a songwriter isn't necessarily the whole truth. It may just be that the songwriter doesn't want to get into the personal and nuanced meaning of every line with every reporter in the world. That's not to say it's not true in all cases, but.
Second, I think WO'N is working from a different definition of "song" than Jackie in this case. To WO'N, a "song" is a carefully crafted poem set to music. "Miss American Pie" is one, "Oops, I Did It Again" is not one. I don't know what term he might use for it (actually, I know several four-letter ones he might use for it), but it's not in the same league for him. The interesting thing to me is that Brittney Spears and other Popsters literally DO NOT write their own songs. They are written, mostly, by professional songwriters. People like Diane Warren have written dozens of hits sung by pop musicians all over the genrical map, from Meat Loaf and Aerosmith to Brittney and Celine Dion (I just found out she also wrote the theme to "Star Trek: Enterprise"!). While they may not have the level of soul-searching and integrity that WO'N is looking for, they clearly resonate with several million of our fellow travelers.
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