Prog often Plagued by Poor Lyrics?

Poor lyrics? Hardly... Jason Byron (maudlin of the Well, Kayo Dot), Rodger Waters (Pink Floyd) are both incredible lyricists. Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree, No-Man, etc.) has a few duds, but overall, he is quite poetic. At times, Steven Wilson is such an utter sonic genius, I am in awe. The words flow so well, your tongue tingles as you say them. I don't have a clue what Peter Nicholls (IQ) is talking about, but have you ever heard more beautiful nonsense? And then there's Peter Hamill... Come on... Come Ooooon

Examples:

"An electric curent binds us together forever
I am a memory burnt onto thin air

When you call me with vibrations
In harmony with some Saturnine frequency
I spill outward, or flow, or list, or gel

It is somewhere between your mind and mine
Where, I cannot exactly tell
I want you to think about "93"

It isn't like planting a thought in your head
Or an image of a thought
But more like creating a thought
In sympathy with yours

The blind need to see
The deaf need to hear
We need to speak
I love you"

"A phantom blade in the gathering shade
A breeze in the hallway
Tomorrow it may rain again
I will not leave and
Nothing will be disturbed"

"And after a while, you can work on points for style
Like the club tie, and the firm handshake
A certain look in the eye and an easy smile
You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to
So that when they turn their backs on you
You'll get the chance to put the knife in"

"I had a dream.
Good-bye Max.
Good-bye Ma.
After the service when you're walking slowly to the car
And the silver in her hair shines in the cold November air
You hear the tolling bell
And touch the silk in your lapel
And as the tear drops rise to meet the comfort of the band
You take her frail hand
And hold on to the dream."

"Sullen and bored the kids stay
And in this way they wish away each day…
Stoned in the mall the kids play
And in this way wish away each day…

I don’t really know
If I care what is normal"

"I still wave at the dots on the shore
And I still beat my head against the door
I still rage and wage my little war
I'm a shade and easy to ignore"

"Who'll defy me now
And chase the lightning all to soon
What kind of mercy will you gain
Under the shadow of the moon"

"The only thing I want
Is taken out and rained upon
Heart beaten down
No surrender to the sacred sound

Light shatters the skeleton circus
And the carnival's deadly host
No memory nothing remembered
From the pages of the book of ghosts
Though the system stays in place
What if I'm no longer safe"

"Here at the glass - all the usual problems,
all the habitual farce.
You ask, in uncertain voice, what you should do
as if there were a choice
but to carry on miming the song
and hope that it all works out right.
Tonight it all seems so strange -
my spirit feels rigid,
my body deranged;
still that's only from one point of view
and we can't have illusion between me and you,
my constant friend, ever close at hand -
you and the undercover man."

"There's a house with no door and I'm living there
at nights it gets so cold
and the days are hard to bear inside.
There's a house with no roof, so the rain creeps in,
falling through my head as I try to think out time.
I don't know you, you say you know me,
that may be so,
there's so much that I am unsure of ...
You call my name, but it sounds unreal,
I forget how I feel, my body's rejecting the cure."

Edit: Some of the "Dogs" lyrics were written by David Gilmore, and some of "Laboratories of the Invisible World" were written by Toby Driver



Edited by DreamInSong - January 11 2012 at 15:18

Kashmir75 wrote: I think many prog lyrics are much, much better than what you get in most pop songs.

I've thought this many a time. Like most of Nursery Cryme. Or sometimes it just sounbds corny or pretentious.

In answer to the OP:

The new Opeth album (which is now streaming on NPR - check it out) has some of the most atrocious lyrics ever sung. "Hey you, will you be true? Feel the pain, in your brain, insaaaannnneee..."  That's just one example of many. 

I personally would take commentary on philosophy or history any day over "oh babeh in the city yeah babeh i love ya"

Well, I haven't been on this site in a few years, but after reading through this and a few other threads, it's refreshing to see that the same old themes apply:

1. Arguing endlessly and pointlessly over sub-sub-sub-sub-genres
2. Opinion spewed forth as absolutely fact and if you don't agree with it you're just wrong and will never be one-tenth as intellectual as the opinion-spewer
3. Extreme Rush hate: Is it the Ayn Rand influence of maybe 5 songs in their nearly 40 year catalog? I know Ayn Rand is practically the anti-Christ to most left-leaning, pseudo-hippy, stuck in the 60's prog fans, but sheesh. Oh yeah, and continually harping on the lyrical content of "Twilight Zone"? You do know that the lyrics are about ACTUAL TWILIGHT ZONE EPISODES, right? Oh yeah, and also using "I Think I'm Going Bald" as an example of Rush lyrics? A one-off joke song inspired by touring with Kiss and poking fun at Alex Lifeson's constant irrational fear of going bald...God forbid any prog band should have a sense of humor.

Conclusion:

A large number of prog fans (or at least the ones this site attracts) will always be completely up their own arses and will spout pseudo-intellectual drivel until they satisfy whatever it is in their psyche that is damaged from the constant ridicule they endure from their friends and piers for their eclectic musical tastes.

But yeah, carry on wayward sons.

refugee wrote: ^Nice to see you back again, Rob! What’s the connection between Eliot and Mr/Faculty X? I thought Hammill based at least the latter song on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Wilson (Scroll down to the "other non-fiction writing" section.) Btw, another litterary allusion by Hammill is Palinurus (Vergil).

Don't know how frequently I'll be round, but thanks : )

Ooh, didn't know that -

I'd thought 'is this the way the world ends' references the end of The Hollow Men (fittingly, if the object of Mr X is an apparent modern degradation of humanity in contrast to the transcendence + change promised by the conclusion). Not so certain of the intent now, but it'd be kind of fitting.

'This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang, but a whimper'

refugee wrote: Hober Mallow wrote: prog058 wrote: This could also be called the Fish appreciation thread. Prog bands, while excelling musically, are often lackluster in the lyrical department. Most prog musicians probably don't take an interest in language and literature, and this is probably the reason why. What are your thoughts? you are mistaken. Gentle Giant:Albert Camus, R. D. Lang I should think that Rabelais is more obvious (Pantagruel/Gargantua) Yes:Leo Tolstoy Rush:Ayn Rand, Shakespeare(limelight)  Genesis:The Bible + T.S. Eliot (The Cinema Show), Keats (The Lamia), Wordsworth (Colony of Slippermen) etc. Aphrodite's Child:The Bible Alan Parson's Project:Edgar Allen Poe Hammill/VdGG: Bible, Homer, Shakespeare, Blake, Keats, Poe, Dickinson etc. etc. etc. I sometimes find my prog plagued by lighthouse keepers …

You can add TS Eliot (Mr/Faculty X) and Arthur C Clarke (Childlike Faith...) to that Hammill list - I think I've heard a bootleg of him introducing Still Life as a science fiction song. Fish's solo Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors thing borrows that last phrase from Eliot's Gerontion.

An almost worrying number of progressive things based on 1984 (immediately springing to mind, the latter half of Diamond Dogs - also relevant because of Bowie's interest in William Burroughs (Soft Machine taking its name from a William Burroughs novel) - plus the first track off Harper's/Page's Jugula).

Um, I mean, while it's worth saying that a lot of progressive rock acts have no serious interest in language/literature (which is true of basically all music ever, let's be honest), it's also worth noting that there are a few credible exceptions in the genre.

A prog on both your houses...


Edited by TGM: Orb - August 23 2011 at 08:16

Hober Mallow wrote: prog058 wrote: This could also be called the Fish appreciation thread. Prog bands, while excelling musically, are often lackluster in the lyrical department. Most prog musicians probably don't take an interest in language and literature, and this is probably the reason why. What are your thoughts? you are mistaken. Gentle Giant:Albert Camus, R. D. Lang I should think that Rabelais is more obvious (Pantagruel/Gargantua) Yes:Leo Tolstoy Rush:Ayn Rand, Shakespeare(limelight)  Genesis:The Bible + T.S. Eliot (The Cinema Show), Keats (The Lamia), Wordsworth (Colony of Slippermen) etc. Aphrodite's Child:The Bible Alan Parson's Project:Edgar Allen Poe Hammill/VdGG: Bible, Homer, Shakespeare, Blake, Keats, Poe, Dickinson etc. etc. etc. I sometimes find my prog plagued by lighthouse keepers …