the singer, not the song

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Who is more important, the person who sings a song or the person who writes it? Or does this very from one recording/performance of a song to another?

this is triggered by learning that Edwin Starr did not actually write "War".

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 4 April 2003 11:08 (twenty-two years ago)

The person who writes it is not only more important, he is actually the only one that matters at all.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 4 April 2003 11:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Can I just put in a quick word for the person who listens to it? We matter too.

― James Ball (James Ball), Friday, 4 April 2003 11:18 (twenty-two years ago)

forget about the listener--------the buyer is the most important.

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 4 April 2003 11:19 (twenty-two years ago)

i am the most important. ur all gay.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 4 April 2003 11:21 (twenty-two years ago)

It all depends on to what extend do the lyrics play an importance on the track itself.

― rex jr., Friday, 4 April 2003 11:26 (twenty-two years ago)

and the music.

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 4 April 2003 11:27 (twenty-two years ago)

and the singing.

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 4 April 2003 11:27 (twenty-two years ago)

and the playing.

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 4 April 2003 11:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Thats what i ment. if all of the above overshadow the lyrics then the lyrics metter less.

― rex jr., Friday, 4 April 2003 11:30 (twenty-two years ago)

note me reffering to it as a 'track' rather then a 'song'.

― rex jr., Friday, 4 April 2003 11:31 (twenty-two years ago)

So you don't like ANY cover versions then Geir?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 4 April 2003 11:39 (twenty-two years ago)

me? i never had anything against quality cover versions. who told you that?

― rex jr., Friday, 4 April 2003 11:45 (twenty-two years ago)

he's never heard christian fennesz's 'paint it black.'

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 4 April 2003 11:45 (twenty-two years ago)

(That question was addressed to Geir, not to you Rex, sorry!)

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 4 April 2003 11:46 (twenty-two years ago)

"The person who writes it is not only more important, he is actually the only one that matters at all."

Absolutely indefensible Gier!!! So the artist doesn't matter in the slightest? Why don't we just publish the music and dispense with performing songs altogether in that case? So you'd honestly be really into music by the right writer if it was performed abysmally with no feeling/empathy for the content of the songs in question. What precisely is your point here?

― Dave Stelfox, Friday, 4 April 2003 12:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Why don't we just publish the music and dispense with performing songs altogether in that case?

Come on, that would be ridiculous. However, a midi file should suffice.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 4 April 2003 12:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Absolutely indefensible Gier!!! So the artist doesn't matter in the slightest? Why don't we just publish the music and dispense with performing songs altogether in that case?

Most songwriters are at least able to hit the notes properly (they do have some musical skill, after all). They may sing their songs themselves. This also makes sure that their original intentions remain untouched by intepretation.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 4 April 2003 12:15 (twenty-two years ago)

That is one of the silliest things I have ever heard in my entire life...

― Dave Stelfox, Friday, 4 April 2003 12:23 (twenty-two years ago)

But Geir, there are plenty of great songwriters who are rubbish singers - e.g. Burt Bacharach.

There are also cover versions which are more definitively "the song" than any version sung by the composer. And there are plenty of songs which were never sung by the original composer, at least not in any readily available form. Edwin Starr's "War" is a good example of this.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 4 April 2003 12:26 (twenty-two years ago)

I thank you! This is possibly the most ludicrous musical argument ever...

― Dave Stelfox, Friday, 4 April 2003 12:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Indeed it is Dave - I'd much rather hear Johnny Mercer sing "Autumn Leaves" than Nat King Cole etc etc etc etc etc (guffaw)

― Dadaismus, Friday, 4 April 2003 12:30 (twenty-two years ago)

So Geir, you'd say that a building would be better if built by the architect?

― neil, Friday, 4 April 2003 12:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Is this position is all about some ideal of artistic existentialism... achieving true authenticity of expression without being corrupted by the mediation of the performer... if so, Sartre is so over dude!

― Dave Stelfox, Friday, 4 April 2003 12:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Geir I am a songwriter and you are insane.

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Friday, 4 April 2003 12:41 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think it's so much existentialism Dave - Geir's viewpoint seems to be based more around the Wagnerian model of the complete hero-artist. Very Teutonic and very White.

― Dadaismus, Friday, 4 April 2003 12:42 (twenty-two years ago)

"Very Teutonic and very White."

not to mention very wrong and very mental! ;-)

― Dave Stelfox, Friday, 4 April 2003 12:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I reject the concept of "Whiteness".

Teutonic... well, if you pick a German hero-artist you can talk about Teutonic values, but the Western World sees most artists, whatever their colour and ethnicity, as heroic individuals producing art unaided. And that's true of "low" art as much as "high" art - cf Alan Moore.

I wish Geir would come back and say that Burt Bacharach is the best singer of Bacharach songs.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 4 April 2003 12:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Geir, I'm speechless. Your argument is simply ridiculous.

― cybele (cybele), Friday, 4 April 2003 12:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I was thinking very specifically of music when I mentioned the model of the hero-artist, the complete all-powerful artist, of which Wagner is not only a good example but is actually an ideologue for. To be pompous about it.

Oh, and the Western World is mostly White, in case you hadn't noticed.

― Dadaismus, Friday, 4 April 2003 12:58 (twenty-two years ago)

i'd go with the singer. a great singer can make a bad song sound good (see large chunks of Sinatra's output) whereas a bad singer can make a good song sound like the worst thing you ever heard (see Celine Dion singing whassisname... why can't i think of it?!?! it's a jazz standard!!! nick has entered my brain and prevented me from properly slagging off celine because apparently to do so is boring)

― Dave M. (rotten03), Friday, 4 April 2003 13:05 (twenty-two years ago)

HA HA FEAR MY BRAIN-ENTERING SKEELZ.

See A BAZILLION THINGS esp. the PSB's cover of 'Where the Streets Have No Name'.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 4 April 2003 13:08 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't believe people's skin colour leads to their having different taste in music or ideologies about how music and art are created. the cultural upbringing people receive as a result of their skin colour is a different matter.

what I mean is - the caucasian racial characteristics of most people in the western world is irrelevant to how we view music.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 4 April 2003 13:13 (twenty-two years ago)

But much of the time, when a song is "covered", it's not done in the exact similar form it was written, but reinterpreted, and often in ways more true to the feeling of the song than it did in the hands of the songwriter.

Fr'instance, Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". Listen to the original version of this; Leonard Cohen delivering the lines in a raspy deadpan that, while effecting, isn't particularly powerful.

Now, listen to either John Cale or Jeff Buckley's version of "Hallelujah". Each note of the vocal melody-line is much stronger and delivered with more clarity, and the dynamics of their voices (Jeff Buckley's in particular) give the phrasing a whole new power that wasn't there in the original version. Whereas the song was kinda distinct and touching in Cohen's hands, with the Buckley or Cale version, it becomes downright moving and overpowering.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 4 April 2003 13:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Don't you see, Geir can't argue with us, he can only respond to stimuli,

THE BEATLES

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 4 April 2003 13:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I bet Geir thinks the Beatles version of "Twist and Shout" was better than the original.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 4 April 2003 13:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Not that Geir's argument is defensible, but reading whiteness into what he said is bringing so much baggage to the table that I suspect you've got shares in Samsonite and American Tourister.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 4 April 2003 13:37 (twenty-two years ago)

every single cover versions done by The Byrds (the covers i'v heared, if i'm not missing anything) are ZILLION light years better than the original!

― rex jr., Friday, 4 April 2003 13:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Their versions of It's All Over Now Baby Blue and We'll Meet Again are a bit lame-o.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 4 April 2003 14:13 (twenty-two years ago)

And 'Hey Joe'.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 4 April 2003 14:13 (twenty-two years ago)

And 'I Come And Stand At Every Door'

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 4 April 2003 14:14 (twenty-two years ago)

the Byrds are not that good a band.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 4 April 2003 14:20 (twenty-two years ago)

i haven't stumbled on to these track yet, but they're a great example of a great covers band.

― rex jr., Friday, 4 April 2003 14:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Their 'Hey Joe' isn't great, but I love 'I come and stand at every door'.

― James Ball (James Ball), Friday, 4 April 2003 14:31 (twenty-two years ago)

All that matters is what's coming out of the speakers as far as I'm concerned. I remember Bobby Gillespie saying something similar about Primal Scream. He didn't care if he did anything on the track or not, just as long as it was a good track.

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Friday, 4 April 2003 14:47 (twenty-two years ago)

George Jones

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Friday, 4 April 2003 14:50 (twenty-two years ago)

most 'songs' as written are just stolen from other shit anyway

― dave q, Friday, 4 April 2003 16:38 (twenty-two years ago)

"The person who writes it is not only more important, he is actually the only one that matters at all."

Geir, I think you somehow missed the entire last century.

― Burr (Burr), Friday, 4 April 2003 16:54 (twenty-two years ago)

i haven't stumbled on to these track yet
oops, type-o. i ment i haven't heared the covers N. mensioned.
yeah my first statment about the byrds was overblown, but they still made some electric covers. who would remember seegers 'turn turn turn' otherwise? the byrds practically 'own' it. and seeger himself took the lyrics from the bible and added 'turn turn turn', to prove Dave Qs point.

― rex jr., Friday, 4 April 2003 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

COMPOSERS RULE!!!

― SplendidMullet (iamamonkey), Friday, 4 April 2003 17:19 (twenty-two years ago)

hah, and darn13ll3 gets on *my* nuts for taking authority away from the musicians? i think you have to include the category of 'arranger' with 'composer', b/c if you cover a song AND do a new arrangement, then you are essentially turning the song into something else. i'm talking about covers where the changes are more cosmetic than fundamental, eg the song is slowed down but not reharmonized or moved to a completely different style.

and i still maintain that if a song is bad, you can still redeem it by singing it well, but a good song in the hands of a bad (read irritating, not technically proficient) singer cannot possibly sound good. and the song is called WHEN I FALL IN LOVE, haha nick-brane is VANQUISHED!!

― Dave M. (rotten03), Saturday, 5 April 2003 07:45 (twenty-two years ago)

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