«Today’s Lyrics Are Pathetically Bad» Rick Beato

I meant, lots of variations of "good writing".

@immatthewj 

+1

. . . and how about Norah Jones?

She was born in ’79 and according to Wiki she has nine "studio albums" under her belt, apparently starting with Come Away With Me in ’02 (which, in my opinion, has some stuff on it that is quite well written). If that Wiki article is current, her last "studio album" was Visions and released in ’24; I haven’t heard that one yet, so I cannot comment on it, but I have a bunch of other CDs and SACDs by her, and although I don’t like all of the stuff on all of them, I feel that there is also well written stuff on them.

(I may put Visions on my list.)

You miss the point here. Zappa was writing this in an era where non sense in lyrics was not frequent at all like nowadays and he wrote it as "humor"...View from this perspective it is well written...

Like you, by the way, but i was young and too serious ( in classical) i missed this wink from a great musician recommend as such as an original "wink" by my friend not as a model of song lyrical poetry ...

This song worked well because he is always played on the wave...As a "wink" ...

I don’t have any problem with Frank Zappa, but these are not the lyrics that I would use to try to make a case for today’s lyrics being pathetically bad when compared to those of yesteryear.

"Dreamed I was an eskimo
Frozen wind began to blow
Under my boots and around my toes
The frost that bit the ground below

It was a hundred degrees below zero...
And my mama cried
And my mama cried
Nanook, a-no-no
Nanook, a-no-no
Don’t be a naughty eskimo

Save your money, don’t go to the show
Well I turned around and I said oh, oh oh
Well I turned around and I said oh, oh oh
Well I turned around and I said ho, ho
And the northern lights commenced to glow

And she said, with a tear in her eye
Watch out where the huskies go,
and don’t you eat that yellow snow
Watch out where the huskies go,
and don’t you eat that yellow snow"

 

My point is simply that it’s easier to appreciate lyrics that more explicitly address our age and life situation/experience and in so doing, not respond to lyrics that may be well written but simply don’t resonate for us at the time we encounter them.

On a personal level, @stuartk , I could point to many exceptions to that. However, I think that there is also a lot of truth to that statement. But I would also say that if some one writes something (could be song lyrics, poetry, a short story, a book) that somebody else is able to relate to due to situations/experiences, it is probably, at least to a certain degree, well written to be able to strike that chord. At least that’s the way I feel when something that I read or hear strikes that chord in me. "Wow, the author did a pretty good job when s/he wrote that."

Here’s an example of what you just said that is NOT an exception for me:

"When Daddy told me what happened, I couldn’t believe what he’d just said; Sonny shot himself with a .44 and they found him lying on his bed."

You are probably familiar with those lyrics, but in case you are not and in order to give the ARTIST due credit, that was by Lucinda Williams, the title was Pineola, and it was off of the Sweet Old World CD released in early nineteen nintey and something.

That song seemed to speak directly to me, and the first time I ever heard it I remember the hair on the back of my neck standing up. I wanted to tell Ms. Williams how I felt. I am relatively certain that this was not exclusive to me. (And from what I subsequently read, the writing did come from her heart/gut/personal experience and I remember that back when I first started attending her performances, she always used to open with that track.)

Anyway, getting bacl to your statement above, perhaps that’s where Rick Beato comes to that opinion he has (I think badly) stated: the lyrics that speak to him on the basis of personal experiences and life situations come from yesteryear.

But that’s on him.

I started out this response by saying that although I was not discounting it that, for me, there were personal exceptions. An example, for me, would be Bob Dylan. I really cannot relate much at all via experience/situation to what he writes, but the imagery his stuff invokes in me is just killer. And I’d go so far as to say that quite often it is the imagery that lyrics invoke for me that makes the difference. (’For me’ being the operative words.)

But with that typed, and coming back again to what you typed regarding situations and experiences, often the imagery invoked by certain (not all) lyrics are, in fact, images of experiences and situations that I can easily relate to.

@immatthewj 

How much effort have you put into exploring contemporary songwriters? 

I would confess not all that much. But in a way that makes my point. During the 60s and 70s you didn't have to search high and low or put a great deal of effort into finding great songs. In fact, it was hard to miss them. All you had to do was turn on your radio (yes, we listened to the radio back then) and you couldn't avoid hearing great songs.

I'm sure that the young artists suggested by many in this thread are fine songwriters, and I don't think (or at least I hope not) that Mr. Beato is suggesting that all modern songwriting is pathetic. I'm certainly not. But great songs are hard to find these days and I highly doubt that in 20 years, or even 5 or 10, very many people will be listening to the ones written by today's contemporary artists.

By the way, you've brought up singer/songwriters like Ray LaMontagne, Norah Jones and Mia Doi Todd (haven't heard of her), but as you point out, they're all in their 40's and 50's. That's not ancient by any means, but they don't really fall into the category of young contemporary artists.