A Second Hand Conjecture

To love a song, it’s not important that you understand the words. And I say that as a onetime lyricist and singer. As one of my guitarists often reminded me, “the words don’t matter.” Well, yeah they do, but not as much as lyricists like to think. For example, I enjoy Elvis Costello’s lyrics tremendously, [...]

15 Comments »

(Lance’s listening notes: I just spent the evening with my wife and a friend at a little bar, in a very little town, Fordoche Louisiana, called the Red Monkey. I loaded up the Juke box with what interested me (no The Jam, Clash or Pixies) which ended up being The Band, Van Morrison, Creedence and [...]

5 Comments »

When I decided to start writing about rock lyrics, I promised myself I wasn’t going to talk about the Beatles or Bob Dylan, because forests have already been harvested to provide the paper for musings on their lyrics, and I don’t really have anything further to add. At least not without breaking out some Marxist/feminist/Lacanian [...]

No Comments »

Theology and moral codes tell us to be good, in conflict with our natural desires and appetites, which tell us the opposite: be bad! Take what you want! Look out for #1! Socializing ourselves to develop a sense of empathy–that is, an emotionally-based understanding for how our actions affect others–is crucial for the development of [...]

10 Comments »

It may be well known to you, dear reader, or it may not (it makes no difference), that Pogue Mahone is one of my favorite commenters, bloggers and writers. In fact, he’s been somewhat of a celebrity amongst my partners here, and our bretheren at QandO. His politics lean somewhat left for my [...]

2 Comments »

(Second installment in the Great Lyrics Series)
I agree with Paul McCartney. There is nothing wrong with a silly love song, a perfectly useful thing to have around. A love song amplifies the feeling when you are in love and sweetly intensifies the ache when you aren’t and want to be. That can be true no [...]

4 Comments »