It’s a funny thing to be a songwriter.\u00a0 Lyrics spring to mind often fully formed, or they come in dreams, of sometimes they just sing themselves — all of which is a great delight.\u00a0 Words can be limiting as well, though.\u00a0\u00a0 I love singing, and I like to work with primal tones rather than words in my “vocal meditations” at home.\u00a0 When I’m really lucky, sometimes lyrics just form themselves from the tones.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I feel words are so inadequate… but other times I realize that they have great power.\u00a0 Ideas written in books can spark genius across generations.\u00a0 Wars have happened over mere words.\u00a0 Songs of love or vision can inspire.<\/p>\n
So when it comes to selecting “cover” songs, I sometimes run into some challenges with lyrics.<\/p>\n
I love to sing great tunes, and I sing male-penned lyrics all the time. You’ve heard me do tons of Zeppelin!\u00a0 Most of the time I just leave lyrics as originally written, and other times I’ll substitute a word or two just to make it fit a bit better.\u00a0 And even though I gravitate towards more artsy\/mystical lyrics,\u00a0 I’m happy to sing Mississippi Queen, too, because it’s a fun tune to sing.\u00a0 It has great energy!\u00a0 But sometimes…<\/p>\n
Say we’re putting together a set for a show and somebody suggests, as has happened, for example, “Billie Jean” because of its infectious dance groove.\u00a0 Great song.\u00a0 But (besides the fact that I physically couldn’t get a girl pregnant on accident) I have an issue with a guy who may have gotten a woman pregnant and denies it.\u00a0 Yes, yes, I know, it’s just a story.\u00a0 I’ll jam on it with you.\u00a0 But I wouldn’t feel great singing it on stage.\u00a0 It feels a little sad to me.\u00a0 Back before paternity tests, generations of women\u00a0 got humped and dumped, and then given the Scarlet Letter treatment if they wound up pregnant and alone.\u00a0\u00a0 So I don’t really want to perform it on stage.<\/p>\n
There’s some eye rolling by some of the guys.<\/p>\n
Somebody else suggests “Rock you like a hurricane.”\u00a0 Love the music – you guys have all heard me sing Scorpions – I love Klauss Mein’s vocals and I love to sing these tunes.\u00a0 But, come on,\u00a0 “the bitch is hungry…so feed her well”\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 Are all<\/em> women bitches, or just this particular one?\u00a0 Isn’t there enough hostility and violence towards women out there without my adding to it?\u00a0 And yes, I know there’s far worse anti-woman lyrics out there, but still… you see where I’m going with this.\u00a0 I’ve sung it, but it kinda bugs me, and I’d rather choose a different Scorpion tune.<\/p>\n More eye-rolling.<\/p>\n Somebody suggests a Skynard tune, Sweet Home Alabama.\u00a0 Oh, no.\u00a0 Sorry, I don’t want to celebrate a band that uses the flag of the confederacy in their promotion.\u00a0 Countless African Americans were enslaved, beaten, raped and lynched under that flag.\u00a0 I don’t want to be a part of amplifiying that. (APRIL 2013 UPDATE:Even though the Skynard line in that Brad Paisley song, “Accidental Racist” is unintentionally hilarious<\/a>!)<\/p>\n By now everybody in the room thinks I’m an annoyingly picky person.\u00a0 And I’m thinking, “WTF, does anybody<\/em> listen to lyrics?”<\/p>\n So then somebody suggests “Don’t Fear The Reaper”.\u00a0 There’s a momentary pause, and I feel everybody waiting for me to shoot it down.\u00a0 Suicide?\u00a0 For some reason that doesn’t bother me as much as oppressing women and minorities.\u00a0 Suicide isn’t about bullying others.\u00a0 Yeah, OK, I’m fine with voluntarily choosing suicide.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s personal freedom, after all.\u00a0 “Let’s do it!”<\/p>\n “Paris”?\u00a0 Meaningless and silly lyrics, great groove, fun to sing.\u00a0 Cool!<\/p>\n “Whole Lotta Love” by Zeppelin?\u00a0\u00a0 Yay!\u00a0 Singing about fabulous fun sex? Everybody should be so lucky.\u00a0 Oh Yeah!<\/p>\n Zepplin’s “Rock n Roll”?\u00a0 Love it.<\/p>\n “A Change is Gonna Come”?\u00a0 Certainly, I love the message, and it also reminds me of the great moments of the 60’s civil rights movement – I’m so in!<\/p>\n How about a jam\/medly on “Season of the Witch”?\u00a0 Yay, psychedelia fun.\u00a0 Always game for that.<\/p>\n See, it isn’t so hard after all.<\/p>\n …Just leave “Lick it Up” to the garage bands.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s a funny thing to be a songwriter.\u00a0 Lyrics spring to mind often fully formed, or they come in dreams, of sometimes they just sing themselves — all of which is a great delight.\u00a0 Words can be limiting as well, though.\u00a0\u00a0 I love singing, and I like to work with primal tones rather than words […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lyrics","category-random","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scarletjinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scarletjinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scarletjinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scarletjinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scarletjinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=520"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/scarletjinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":684,"href":"https:\/\/scarletjinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520\/revisions\/684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scarletjinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scarletjinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scarletjinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}