A little country boogie time

There’s one thing I’ve wondered from time to time. When an artist decides to write what are depressing or down feeling lyrics then combines it with upbeat groovy music why do they do it? The exact same thing can be said for down and moody music that is then coupled with positive and happy lyrics. It’s one of those senseless things. Sometimes that’s the beauty of music. When something shouldn’t work, but despite the incompatible parts for some reason it will work.

I think that’s what keeps me coming back to music over and over again, day in, day out. Because there is always something that can be tried. There’s always an experiment that you can do to see if it will work. Music has the potential to never be boring. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have my moments of frustration or boredom. As long as I let it go and come back to the idea later I can get a better perspective about it. The more I write, the more I put things aside and the more I come back with other ideas or perspectives.

I know that for stuff that I’ve been working on recently that I put much more attention into the detail. If the music is coming out sad, I know I’m going to have sad lyrics with it. If the music is coming out protest-y then I’m going to have something important to say with it. If the music is happy, I’ll be singing about something upbeat. If the music is groov-a-li-scious, then I’m probably going to have something sexy to say. To me it helps propel what is going on. That’s not to say that I haven’t done that kind of contradicting type thing. But the more I write, the less I do it. I’m definitely settling into my niche.

Obviously today’s song is meant to get your butt up out of your chair. Musicially speaking it’s very upbeat and quite fun to move to. God, catch me with myself ten years ago and I’d probably beat myself silly for saying something like that about a country song. Guess I’ve had a bit of horizon expanding going on, thanks a lot Claire. Heh.

This is not a bad thing. The song itself works musically, vocally and melodically. Then you get a whiff of the lyrics and I’m left dumbfounded. Lyrically it’s pretty damn depressing. Harboring feelings about an Ex, and seeing another couple sets off feelings of missing someone that burned you, broke you, blah. I must be missing something in the translation. Am I? Would someone explain why these lyrics actually fit this music? Part of the reason I have to know is because in some of the songwriters groups I frequent everyone is always beating themselves up over the lyrics. Yet time and again, I find that most people never pay attention to them unless they truly love the music and melody. After that if the lyrics make sense it’s icing on the cake.

Another thing I find is that lyrics that read great on paper can absolutely suck to sing. The famous quote from Harrison Ford to George Lucas about Star Wars was something to the effect of: You can write this stuff, but you sure can’t say it. Meaning that the dialogue was pretty hokey and difficult to work with. One of the big things with lyrics that is similar to poetry is that timing is everything. Ceasura. Don’t know it? Look it up. Without that, poetry and lyrics essentially become meaningless. Lyrics in addition need rhythm.

I suppose the it’s the rhythm, melody, and groove that keep this on floating for me.

Show Jedd some love if you dig it, buy it.

(** Disclaimer: If Jedd’s label decides to push to me a high lonesome place, I’ll have to ignore the audio in the post. The words will remain if the audio gets ignored so I’ll have them to remind me I’m not lonesome. (huh?) **)