Artists who walk the tightrope, teetering between both literary and musical excellence, are my downfall.
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In the wake of “One Day, You’ll Be Cool,” my unexpected crowning jewel, I find myself struggling to write anything that might hold a candle to my last piece. The reaction that piece received was unprecedented and, after reveling in all the love, I see that I'm now stuck between a rock and a hard place. Nothing I write this week could ever reach the expectations that have now been set for me - largely by myself. I’ve been pulling my hair and clenching my fists, racking my brain for something, anything to write about. It’s now Tuesday, dark and rainy, and I have thirty minutes to finish writing something to post tomorrow, so instead of trying to create something to rival my own work, I’m going back to the basics and writing about what I know, and what I know is what I feel.
I love language. I love the way words slither off the tongue like a thousand poignant snakes, smooth and sleek. I am in awe of the way words can be strung together, each one a puzzle piece clicking perfectly into place. There are endless combinations of letters and syllables, a million different ways to say one thing. I find that those I admire most tend to have a way with words, molding them like clay. Huxley’s prose leaves me tingling while Lewis Carroll uses words to spin a web in which I am inevitably ensnared. But it is something else entirely for someone to take words and decorate them with music, interlacing the two art forms to create a decadent experience. Like taking the average pine and adorning its limbs with tinsel and twinkling lights to create something fantastically beautiful.
Artists who walk the tightrope, teetering between both literary and musical excellence, are my downfall. I worship the ground they walk on, begging for scraps of their rich feast of talent, yearning to one day create a poetic masterpiece that might hold a candle to theirs. Descendants of the bards and storytellers of days of old, those whose faces glowed in the firelight as they passed down stories of mighty heroes and fallen soldiers neatly wrapped in prose. They express the pains and triumphs of the human experience, the agonizing beauty of being alive. They are my heroes.
Every lyricist brings something unique to the table: their perspective. We all have different outlooks and understandings, different points of view. Some songwriters are better at expressing pain and loss, while others are better at telling a story. Kate Bush is an exemplary lyricist, being especially good at expressing the unique pain that comes with the many vicissitudes of womanhood. Her songs are haunting and whimsical and deeply personal. Discovering Kate Bush's discography is like pushing past the ivy and finding a gate to a secret garden, lush and laced with a million roses. Her work is something a lot of women, in particular, resonate with. Incidentially, a YouTube comment from nearly a decade ago expressed the reason I speculate why this is in a much better way than I would have:
“I love listening to Kate Bush because her music makes you feel like a crazy person (in a fantastic way) and instead of fearing that you might be crazy, you are overcome with a sense of complete peace to know that you aren't all alone anymore.”
Women are the first to be called crazy in many situations. Whether it’s for displaying intense emotion or behaving as they’d like rather than how they’ve been told to, they are quicklu made to feel as if something deep within them is off balance. That perhaps they’d fare better in a straight jacket than in a fit of excitement. Kate’s lyricism leans into this idea of crazy, of femininity, dipping into ideals of love and loss, sexuality and lifestyle, and the longing for that little girl you once were. Womanhood is a constant theme in her music, from The Kick Inside to Hounds of Love to The Sensual World - no one understands the delicacy and anguish of womanhood better than Kate Bush. Her work touches me in ways I can’t begin to explain - it’s as if she holds the pin to pop my balloon heart.
Yet, I find that there is one Kate Bush lyric that lingers in my mind constantly, and it has nothing to do with womanhood: “Suddenly my feet are feet of mud. It all goes slo-mo. I don't know why I'm crying. Am I suspended in Gaffa?” Four lines that perfectly illustrate the idea of wanting something so badly that instead of working to attain it, you freeze. Your feet are glued to the ground and you can’t move forward - it's too big, too much, too intimidating. You are suspended in gaffa. Or, for us Americans, suspended in gaffer tape. It’s a feeling I find myself all too familiar with.
When it comes to brilliant lyricists, it’s likely Bob Dylan comes to mind for many people - myself included. He’s a true bard, a man who thrives on storytelling and the shaping of words, and is one of my favorite lyricists ever - so I’m not going to talk about him. It’s too obvious. I can’t say anything more than what’s already been said about Dylan. Instead, I offer up another brown-haired lyricist who got his start in 1960s New York City: Paul Simon.
Paul Simon is brilliant and, in my opinion, incredibly overlooked. Simon’s lyrics feel more like stories than songs. As if I’ve opened up a novel to a random page and read a passage, getting just a fragment of the entire story. He offers up tales of the average man and the intricacies of life. Everyone has a story, from the man riding the Greyhound to the uniformed soldier walking down the street. He creates beautiful worlds grounded in the reality of our own, offering commentary and criticism, laughter and tears. Simon's words are so influential that he's coined phrases that have become common place. "The Sound of Silence" is a song, but it's now also a phrase used to describe someone turning a deaf ear to something or being complacent. "Silence like a cancer grows."
If you google “greatest songwriters of all time,” you’ll be met with the faces of Lennon and McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, and Brian Wilson. If you push past the surface and dig a little deeper, you might find Stephen Stills. Stills is, with no exaggeration, a musical genius. He’s in a league of his own, seemingly able to play every instrument, sing any style, and write some of the best songs I’ve ever heard. I've no doubt you’ve heard “For What It’s Worth,” Stills’ most popular composition, and while it’s an incredible song that exemplifies his poetic abilities, it’s not my favorite of his.
Stills is another writer who highlights the beauty and pain of the everyday and the average. In my eyes, his magnum opus is “4+20.” It’s the feeling of pacing the floorboards in the dark when you should be sleeping, haunted by ghosts of the past and loneliness of the present. There is not a happy chord in the whole song, nothing optimistic or positive. Perhaps the most jarring part is the very end, when Stills sings “Can there be no peace? And I find myself just wishing that my life would simply cease,” before the final note rings out and the song is over. There’s no resolution, no turnaround, you are simply left with a sinking feeling and a puddle of tears. That is true artistry, in my book. True lyrical excellence, and true genius.
You won’t hear much lyrical excellence on the radio nowadays. While the art of lyricism is alive and well, carried on by indie artists and rappers alike, it doesn’t quite fit the mold of modern pop music. Musical trends now seem to gravitate towards simplicity - repetitive, uncomplicated lyrics and bubbly melodies. Styles that allow for the listener to be carried away into a marshmallow world of their own where everything is sweet. I prefer meaty songs - songs that use words like bricks, building an entire world in just a few minutes. Songs that are thick with metaphors and adjectives, laced with similes and polysyllabic words. Songs by Kate Bush and Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Stephen Stills, and an endless list of other wordsmiths that I worship. They express feelings I know all too well but could never find an adequate way to express. Their words hold so much weight to me, they become a piece of who I am and are landmarks on the road I have traveled. I have been suspended in gaffa, and no doubt I one day will be again. I have heard the sound of silence all too loudly, finding myself swallowing my words instead of throwing caution to the wind. And I am sure I am not alone in having the odd thought that life would simply cease.
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