I heard an interesting interview with Steven Sondheim on NPR today. I am envious of people who can write music, lyrics, poetry, etc. and often wonder how they do it. I am glad they do and I enjoy the fruits or their labors. Sondheim made a comment about writing lyrics, saying it was very different from writing poetry. He made the argument that good poetry does not necessarily make for good lyrics and visa versa. I don't remember his exact words, but he said that lyrics need to have air, they need to leave room for the music; that the lyric is never meant to be independent of the music.
I have had that thought before but never really been able to articulate it. Sometimes I will Google the lyrics of a song and I find reading the lyrics rather uninspiring. Humming a tune is also disappointing when you just can't bring the words to mind. When they are combined with the music, the song becomes something more than it's parts. By comparison, instrumental compositions, that were never intended to be accompanied by lyrics are analogous to poems that were never meant to by set to music. Part of the power of each form comes from the form itself.
Incidentally, I love listening to NPR. It makes me think about things.
And then there's fado. Fado is Portuguese music that often involves taking Portuguese poems and singing them. Although I believe fado was sung almost exclusively by men for a long time, my favorite fado singer is a woman named Mariza. In addition to singing traditional poetry, she also sings original pieces.
ReplyDeleteI saw her sing at a folk music festival in SLC while I was in college. A few years later, Craig and I were lucky enough to get tickets to her Carnegie Hall debut. She's worth checking out and most of her albums have lyrics in both Portuguese and English.
Liz, I found her on Youtube and really enjoyed it. She has a very pure voice. I wish I knew Portuguese.
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