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el dingo 
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Joined: October 08 2008
Location: Norwich UK
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 Posted: March 03 2009 at 04:42 |
 King Crimson776 wrote:
Eloy. Their lyrics are comical most of the time, check out this gem:
<SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 13px; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana" ="Apple-style-span">Poseidon's Creation</SPAN>
<SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 13px; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana" ="Apple-style-span">When the mighty sons of the spheres beyonddistributed the elements of earththey laid down the foundation-stoneof highest spiritual birth<SPAN style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline" ="Apple-style-span">which ever existed since thousands of years</SPAN>  but is lost now in the future and pastlightyears away from our daily tearsthose unperceived moments which always lastPoseidon became lord of earthquake and seasmaster of oceans and all their wealthgod of an island, there lived a familywith a daughter of beauty and healthAtlantis was the island's namegreatest treasury of all times  human eyes didn't ever see the samesilver and gold, fertile hills, woodlands and plains<I style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline">it was situated in front of the strait  they call "The Columns of Herakles"Kleito was the daughter's namea princely virgin of clearness and loveso Poseidon fell in love with herand built a shrine on the mountains abovesurrounded by a golden walland inside he placed his holy lawSon of god and daughter of earththey created ten sons, human creatureswho've been of supreme beings at birthof pure essence and perfect featureswhat a divine possibility to overcome Evilso listen what Man and blah blah blah blah.</SPAN> ... they don't really tell you what man did... not until later when the context is gone, anyway. |
I did have my own entry for worst ever but you´ve stolen my thunder so I´m not going to bother (yes, it was by Jon Anderson)  .
Edited by Easy Money - March 05 2009 at 18:06
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mukfire
Forum Newbie
Joined: May 27 2007
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Points: 6
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 21:20 |
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Btw, my post refers to Jake Kobrin's post about Beardfish from Feb 23. Don't know how I ended up on page one.
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mukfire
Forum Newbie
Joined: May 27 2007
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Points: 6
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 21:07 |
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I agree that BF's lyrics are pretty bad, but, like you, I think the music always outweights the lyrics. Which brings us full-circle to the original post: PROG LYRICS ARE ONLY BAD WHEN THEY DETRACT FROM THE MUSIC. If this were not the case, none of us would like Yes, some of the most retarded lyrics in history ("rearrange your liver to the solid mental grace"??).
But I would add another lyrical category for us progheads -- GOOD LYRICS ACTUALLY ADD TO THE MUSIC!. And this is why we all love Genesis. They had it all: great music and great lyrics, i.e., GREAT WRITING (in both areas)!
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King Crimson776
Forum Senior Member
Joined: October 12 2007
Location: United States
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Points: 2779
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 17:34 |
Eloy. Their lyrics are comical most of the time, check out this gem: <span ="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb27, 90, 207; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; ">Poseidon's Creation</span> <span ="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb60, 119, 230; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; ">When the mighty sons of the spheres beyonddistributed the elements of earththey laid down the foundation-stoneof highest spiritual birth<span ="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;">which ever existed since thousands of years</span> but is lost now in the future and pastlightyears away from our daily tearsthose unperceived moments which always lastPoseidon became lord of earthquake and seasmaster of oceans and all their wealthgod of an island, there lived a familywith a daughter of beauty and health, well proportioned too, Atlantis was the island's namegreatest treasury of all times human eyes didn't ever see the samesilver and gold, fertile hills, woodlands and plains<i style="text-decoration: underline;">it was situated in front of the strait<i style=""> they call "The Columns of Herakles"Kleito was the daughter's namea princely virgin of clearness and loveso Poseidon fell in love with herand built a shrine on the mountains abovesurrounded by a golden walland inside he placed his holy lawSon of god and daughter of earththey created ten sons, human creatureswho've been of supreme beings at birthof pure essence and perfect featureswhat a divine possibility to overcome bad stuff listen what Man did!</span> ... they don't really tell you what man did... not until later when the context is gone, anyway. Hey guys, due to copyright laws we cannot allow complete lyrics, I think Dean usually alters a few, so let's try this ...
Edited by Easy Money - March 05 2009 at 18:05
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Alberto Muñoz
Forum Senior Member
Joined: July 26 2006
Location: Mexico
Status: Offline
Points: 3577
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 14:18 |
fuxi wrote:
Before I hide again in my cave, let me stress once again (for those who are still awake) that "Nonsense" is an honourable genre with a long pedigree. Check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonsense_verse
The "Annotated Lamb" is here (a pity there's nothing on SEBTP, though):
http://www.bloovis.com/music/lamb.html
Love on ya!
jv
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No, you don't 
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~Rael~
Forum Senior Member
Joined: April 11 2006
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 247
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Posted: March 01 2009 at 14:36 |
fuxi wrote:
~Rael~ wrote:
I guess we will have to agree to disagree. Poetry has certain goals, but not rules. It used to, and they are unwritten rules at that. I don't care how much you have translated in your job--poetry is a completely subjective art form. Just because you think it is bad doesn't make it so. I don't care if you like it or not, but to say it isn't poetry is idiotic. How could something be poetical and not be poetry, unless you are describing prose as being poetic?And you did say Phil Collin's wrote the lyrics. Maybe not directly, but if you are going to deny that you clearly implied it, you're being difficult for the sake of difficult. |
This is it, Rael! You should read someone's words carefully before you react to them.
1. Lyrics which SEEM poetical (as I said before) can very easily not be poetry. A case in point is the whole of TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS.
2. About Phil Collins I wrote the following: "The point of view keeps changing from the third person singular to the first, and back again - makes me wanna shout to Phil: Come on man, MAKE UP YOUR MIND." I did this, of course, not because I assumed Phil wrote the lyrics in question, but because he SINGS them. The fact that ONE vocalist is employed (singing in the same voice throughout) makes sloppy lyrics sound even more confusing than they seem on the written page.
3. Any kind of poetry I've ever seen, including the most modernistic (Ezra Pound, Tristan Tzara, what-have-you), follows rules (strict or loose, written or unwritten), otherwise it isn't poetry but gibberish.
By the way, the words in your "signature" are not from "Elephant Talk" but from "Indiscipline", although Adrian Belew actually said: "I repeat MYSELF when under stress."
Interdisciplinarily yours,
Fuxi |
Okay, I humbly bow down to you Fuxi. I guess I did not realize I was conversing with THE ONLY authority on poetry. I guess since you KNOW something isn't poetry, only "poetical," no dissenting opinion is valid. Just because I think "One for the Vine" is an excellent piece of poetry, well, that doesn't matter because it isn't poetry after all. I guess I can just throw away all I have learned from my English professors because I have encountered the one and only authority on poetry. Sorry if that sounded crass, but it is the impression you are giving. What are these rules then? I know certain kinds of poetry forms follow rules, but what about free verse? I'm just curious. I will patiently await your reply.
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I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat myself when under stress . . .
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fuxi
Prog Reviewer
Joined: March 08 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 2488
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Posted: March 01 2009 at 13:40 |
Toaster Mantis, you're absolutely right! Yes' TFTO still moves me deeply, and I couldn't care less about any inadequacies in the lyrics. You'll find a similar phenomenon in so-called classical music. Richard Wagner wrote his own lyrics, and he was a third-rate poet at best, but his operas still belong to the greatest ever composed. (Shutting the cave door. )
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Toaster Mantis
Forum Senior Member
Joined: April 12 2008
Location: Denmark
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Points: 5898
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Posted: March 01 2009 at 13:31 |
Raff wrote:
As far as I know, CttE was loosely inspired by Herman Hesse's book Siddharta, which of course was about the Buddha. |
Ah, close enough. (pun not intended  ) Don't the other Yes albums also have lots of references to Buddhism? Perhaps their lyrics are just jibberish to non-Buddhists. Anyway, for the most part progressive rock is a genre that's dominated by the instruments meaning lyrics aren't as big a factor as in for example rap or singer-songwriter folk, so it's more a question of the lyrics fitting the rest of the music than the rest of the music fitting the lyrics. This means that the otherworldly atmosphere of much of the genre makes a handy justification for rather weird lyrics. All that is, of course, before we remember that trying to evaluate lyrics outside the bigger context of the composition is pretty much missing the entire point of music.
Edited by Toaster Mantis - March 01 2009 at 14:51
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"The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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fuxi
Prog Reviewer
Joined: March 08 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 2488
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Posted: March 01 2009 at 12:40 |
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Before I hide again in my cave, let me stress once again (for those who are still awake) that "Nonsense" is an honourable genre with a long pedigree. Check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonsense_verse
The "Annotated Lamb" is here (a pity there's nothing on SEBTP, though):
http://www.bloovis.com/music/lamb.html
Love on ya!
jv
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fuxi
Prog Reviewer
Joined: March 08 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 2488
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Posted: March 01 2009 at 12:17 |
I adore PG's lyrics!
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Gustavo Froes
Forum Senior Member
Joined: October 06 2008
Location: Rio,Brazil
Status: Offline
Points: 385
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Posted: March 01 2009 at 12:14 |
fuxi wrote:
el dingo wrote:
"Knights of the Green Shield Stamp and shout": yeah, nonsense on the surface, but if you know what a Green Shield Stamp is/was, you get the selling reference - the stamps were given away in supermarkets etc, housewives saved up books of them and could cash the books in for tacky free gifts like kettles and toasters.
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. Wish someone would publish "The Annotated Genesis"! |
Funny you said that,there's a very nice site on the web that goes by that name,only instead of Genesis is Lamb Lies Down On Broadway(without THE).It's a very interesting and complete analysis of the album,thouh I guess if you don't like Peter's lyrics,The Lamb must be an awfull album,mostly.
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fuxi
Prog Reviewer
Joined: March 08 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 2488
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Posted: March 01 2009 at 12:08 |
el dingo wrote:
"Knights of the Green Shield Stamp and shout": yeah, nonsense on the surface, but if you know what a Green Shield Stamp is/was, you get the selling reference - the stamps were given away in supermarkets etc, housewives saved up books of them and could cash the books in for tacky free gifts like kettles and toasters.
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Thanks very much for that! I knew about "Isle of Plenty" but I never knew about those stamps, even though I've been listening to SELLING ENGLAND since 1975! (I only settled in England in 1996.) I still think PG's lyrics are "nonsense", though, but only as a LITERARY GENRE. There are so many parallells with Lewis Carroll's work. If you read "The Hunting of the Snark", for example, that's full of political references as well. Wish someone would publish "The Annotated Genesis"!
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fuxi
Prog Reviewer
Joined: March 08 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 2488
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Posted: March 01 2009 at 12:00 |
~Rael~ wrote:
I guess we will have to agree to disagree. Poetry has certain goals, but not rules. It used to, and they are unwritten rules at that. I don't care how much you have translated in your job--poetry is a completely subjective art form. Just because you think it is bad doesn't make it so. I don't care if you like it or not, but to say it isn't poetry is idiotic. How could something be poetical and not be poetry, unless you are describing prose as being poetic?And you did say Phil Collin's wrote the lyrics. Maybe not directly, but if you are going to deny that you clearly implied it, you're being difficult for the sake of difficult. |
This is it, Rael! You should read someone's words carefully before you react to them.
1. Lyrics which SEEM poetical (as I said before) can very easily not be poetry. A case in point is the whole of TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS.
2. About Phil Collins I wrote the following: "The point of view keeps changing from the third person singular to the first, and back again - makes me wanna shout to Phil: Come on man, MAKE UP YOUR MIND." I did this, of course, not because I assumed Phil wrote the lyrics in question, but because he SINGS them. The fact that ONE vocalist is employed (singing in the same voice throughout) makes sloppy lyrics sound even more confusing than they seem on the written page.
3. Any kind of poetry I've ever seen, including the most modernistic (Ezra Pound, Tristan Tzara, what-have-you), follows rules (strict or loose, written or unwritten), otherwise it isn't poetry but gibberish.
By the way, the words in your "signature" are not from "Elephant Talk" but from "Indiscipline", although Adrian Belew actually said: "I repeat MYSELF when under stress."
Interdisciplinarily yours,
Fuxi
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Raff
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
Joined: July 29 2005
Location: None
Status: Offline
Points: 24439
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Posted: February 28 2009 at 07:29 |
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As far as I know, CttE was loosely inspired by Herman Hesse's book Siddharta, which of course was about the Buddha.
As regards the general issue, I've heard my share of bad lyrics (some of them belonging to Italian bands... I always tell Micky he's lucky not to understand what they sing), but also some great ones. Those of you who love nonsense poetry (and I do) would do well to learn Italian and get an earful of Franco Battiato's lyrics - pure genius.
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Toaster Mantis
Forum Senior Member
Joined: April 12 2008
Location: Denmark
Status: Offline
Points: 5898
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Posted: February 28 2009 at 06:33 |
fuxi wrote:
The funny thing is there's an American philosophy professor who takes Anderson's lyrics very seriously indeed. Bill Martin is his name, if I remember it right. (He also plays bass guitar and wrote liner notes for the latest series of Yes reissues.) He's written a big fat book on the subject. He takes CTTE, for example, and starts interpreting the lyrics in the light of Plato, Nietzsche, St. Augustine and what-have-you! Just goes to show that for some "academics" anything goes! Now will someone PLEASE rearrange my liver? To the solid mental grace? |
Isn't Close to the Edge actually a concept album about Buddhism? Anyway: Ian Anderson's lyrics > Jon Anderson's lyrics I think that philosophy professor would have a heart attack if someone informed him of that!
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"The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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stewe
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Joined: April 05 2006
Location: Czechoslovakia
Status: Offline
Points: 596
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Posted: February 28 2009 at 05:14 |
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Worst lyrics I've ever heard came from Magenta and Unitopia... they recylce cliché, simple and cheesy phrases to create songs absolutely wtihout any meaning. Slightly advanced student of English could write it better. That's what I call bad lyrics.
Many lyrics in prog are aquired taste. Actually I like the way Yes took them, even though often being nonsensical, they are imaginative, original, complicated, playful, suiting perfectly to the whole sound and phrasing.
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 <a href="http://steveer.ic.cz" rel="nofollow"
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el dingo
Forum Senior Member
Joined: October 08 2008
Location: Norwich UK
Status: Offline
Points: 7053
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Posted: February 27 2009 at 02:07 |
fuxi wrote:
Rael -
1. Poetry has followed "rules" since the days of Homer and the epic of Gilgamesh.
2. The lyrics of ONE FOR THE VINE may seem poetical, but they are definitely not "poetry". No poet would write anything as awful as "terror filled their minds with awe". (You can believe me, translating poetry - and prose - is my job.) But I'll grant you this: the way Phil Collins sings certain lines (e.g. "This is he / God's chosen one / who's come to save us from / all our oppressors") is so exquisitely beautiful one forgets how awful the words are! (In my opinion, this is true about MAD MAN MOON as well. I couldn't care less about the lyrics, but the song always brings tears to my eyes.)
Alberto -
1. I didn't say Phil wrote ONE FOR THE VINE.
2. Although half of the title of WIND AND WUTHERING was borrowed (ineptly, if you ask me) from WUTHERING HEIGHTS, and two compositions on the album derive their titles from the closing words of Emily Bronte's novel, WIND AND WUTHERING is not an interpretation of WUTHERING HEIGHTS at all. (Incidentally, I adore WUTHERING HEIGHTS.)
3. When I say the lyrics to DANCING WITH THE MOONLIT KNIGHT are "nonsense", this is not meant negatively. "Nonsense poetry" is a wonderful genre, Peter Gabriel's lyrics are obviously related to the grand old British tradition of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, and I love him for that. "Nonsense poetry" often has hidden political or emotional meanings.
I'm gonna have to leave it there for a while; too busy to add any more comments the next few days, I'm afraid. Take care! |
Not here to argue just to defend Moonlit Knight and SEBTP. There are so many quintessentially English references in the lyrics you almost have to be English to get them, IMO.
"Knights of the Green Shield Stamp and shout": yeah, nonsense on the surface, but if you know what a Green Shield Stamp is/was, you get the selling reference - the stamps were given away in supermarkets etc, housewives saved up books of them and could cash the books in for tacky free gifts like kettles and toasters.
"Aisle of Plenty" is a sarcastic reference to supermarkets too - the pun is aisle/Isle, comparing England to one huge Walmart where everything's for sale. Manic Street Preachers borrowed the idea for Everything Must Go.
"Battle of Epping Forest" is IMO lyrically superb. It all refers to organised crime gangs like Ron& Reg and others. There were plenty of Mick the Pricks fresh out the nick in real life, believe me. The shops that need aid are those that haven't paid is a reference to protection rackets, there were plenty of real-life Bethnal Green Butchers and if they disagreed on a gangland boundary the bloodshed was very often only too real. The song attacks the media glamourisation of crime - again echoed by the Manics on Archives of Pain.
Maybe 'cos I'm a writer and not a musician, I don't think lyrics are unimportant in prog. Why eat cornflakes when you can have steak?
My favourite lyrics tend to be by Tull, Caravan, Genesis, some Floyd and many other more obscure bands. IMO the best writers are usually to be found in non-prog bands - Weller, Davies, Nick Jones, Strummer and so many many more.
As to what's bad... I'm not judge or jury but I do find Jon Anderson's stuff of very little value - the voice may as well be an instrument for all the meaning I get out of them. And anything about dungeons and dragons, boy meets girl and how tough it is to be in a touring band leaves me cold.
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It's not that I can't find worth in anything, it's just that I can't find worth in enough.
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Abrawang
Forum Senior Member
Joined: November 29 2007
Location: Canada
Status: Offline
Points: 112
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Posted: February 26 2009 at 22:35 |
Good thread. But it's about time somebody cited a few lines of doggerel from Still You Turn Me On;
Every day a little sadder
A little madder
Someone get me a ladder
It lacks the high falutin' pretension of some of the others but sure makes up for it in childishness.
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Casting doubt on all I have to say...
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~Rael~
Forum Senior Member
Joined: April 11 2006
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 247
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Posted: February 26 2009 at 17:50 |
fuxi wrote:
Rael -
1. Poetry has followed "rules" since the days of Homer and the epic of Gilgamesh.
2. The lyrics of ONE FOR THE VINE may seem poetical, but they are definitely not "poetry". No poet would write anything as awful as "terror filled their minds with awe". (You can believe me, translating poetry - and prose - is my job.) But I'll grant you this: the way Phil Collins sings certain lines (e.g. "This is he / God's chosen one / who's come to save us from / all our oppressors") is so exquisitely beautiful one forgets how awful the words are! (In my opinion, this is true about MAD MAN MOON as well. I couldn't care less about the lyrics, but the song always brings tears to my eyes.)
Alberto -
1. I didn't say Phil wrote ONE FOR THE VINE.
2. Although half of the title of WIND AND WUTHERING was borrowed (ineptly, if you ask me) from WUTHERING HEIGHTS, and two compositions on the album derive their titles from the closing words of Emily Bronte's novel, WIND AND WUTHERING is not an interpretation of WUTHERING HEIGHTS at all. (Incidentally, I adore WUTHERING HEIGHTS.)
3. When I say the lyrics to DANCING WITH THE MOONLIT KNIGHT are "nonsense", this is not meant negatively. "Nonsense poetry" is a wonderful genre, Peter Gabriel's lyrics are obviously related to the grand old British tradition of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, and I love him for that. "Nonsense poetry" often has hidden political or emotional meanings.
I'm gonna have to leave it there for a while; too busy to add any more comments the next few days, I'm afraid. Take care! |
I guess we will have to agree to disagree. Poetry has certain goals, but not rules. It used to, and they are unwritten rules at that. I don't care how much you have translated in your job--poetry is a completely subjective art form. Just because you think it is bad doesn't make it so. I don't care if you like it or not, but to say it isn't poetry is idiotic. How could something be poetical and not be poetry, unless you are describing prose as being poetic? And you did say Phil Collin's wrote the lyrics. Maybe not directly, but if you are going to deny that you clearly implied it, you're being difficult for the sake of difficult.
Edited by ~Rael~ - February 26 2009 at 21:18
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I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat myself when under stress . . .
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sleeper
Prog Reviewer
Joined: October 09 2005
Location: Entropia
Status: Offline
Points: 16449
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Posted: February 26 2009 at 17:42 |
chopper wrote:
There is a hilariously bad Flower Kings lyric which I'm trying to remember, something about horses I believe, anyone know?
A lot of their lyrics are bad but that can probably be forgiven as they're not native English speakers. |
Your not thinking of Elaine are you? "Here she comes again, smiling like a horse"
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Spending more than I should on Prog since 2005
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Bad Lyrics in Prog
