Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Song Liberation
The turn of a new year is as good a time as any to report on some of the fascinating work in which Hector la Paunche is engaged towards a reconceptualization of the nature of song.
“Bad songs have a right to be sung, too.” This is his latest preoccupation. Central to this is his quest to determine what makes a bad song. “In English, there is the expression, ‘going for a song’, which means something that commands a very low or giveaway price. In French we say, ‘chanson fromage’, which contains an extra nuance; for example, we might say that food bought after the ‘best before’ date is ‘chanson fromage’. So we have the idea that a song is intrinsically next to worthless and in some sense contextual.”
His immediate task is to write the worst conceivable song.
For example, which lyrics are worse, between “I like to pooh/so do you/ooh-wooh” and “Seven people call me wally/but seven people may be stupid”. These words could go with a beautiful tune or a tuneless chant. Let’s assume each is the same on the melodic front. Both are intrinsically dumb but at least the first one rhymes. Assume that they are equally dumb, does the rhyme matter?
Moreover, does it matter how the song may progress from these points? For example, “I like to pee/when you’re with me/wee-e-wee’ and ‘Seventeen people call me trudy/but some of these are wally’. So the possibility that there could be some progression that may be interesting could be a factor. Would a truly awful song exclude this hope or would it be better (i.e. worse) to destroy the hope with successively even worse lyrics?
Assuming that this could be done, should the song be sung? La Paunche thinks so but is not sure why. Is this true of simply stupid utterances or noises? Is it right to discriminate against repulsive sounds? This leads to a contemplation of the essence of “song”. His research continues.
The turn of a new year is as good a time as any to report on some of the fascinating work in which Hector la Paunche is engaged towards a reconceptualization of the nature of song.
“Bad songs have a right to be sung, too.” This is his latest preoccupation. Central to this is his quest to determine what makes a bad song. “In English, there is the expression, ‘going for a song’, which means something that commands a very low or giveaway price. In French we say, ‘chanson fromage’, which contains an extra nuance; for example, we might say that food bought after the ‘best before’ date is ‘chanson fromage’. So we have the idea that a song is intrinsically next to worthless and in some sense contextual.”
His immediate task is to write the worst conceivable song.
For example, which lyrics are worse, between “I like to pooh/so do you/ooh-wooh” and “Seven people call me wally/but seven people may be stupid”. These words could go with a beautiful tune or a tuneless chant. Let’s assume each is the same on the melodic front. Both are intrinsically dumb but at least the first one rhymes. Assume that they are equally dumb, does the rhyme matter?
Moreover, does it matter how the song may progress from these points? For example, “I like to pee/when you’re with me/wee-e-wee’ and ‘Seventeen people call me trudy/but some of these are wally’. So the possibility that there could be some progression that may be interesting could be a factor. Would a truly awful song exclude this hope or would it be better (i.e. worse) to destroy the hope with successively even worse lyrics?
Assuming that this could be done, should the song be sung? La Paunche thinks so but is not sure why. Is this true of simply stupid utterances or noises? Is it right to discriminate against repulsive sounds? This leads to a contemplation of the essence of “song”. His research continues.
