I appear to have been on crack a few nights ago. Sorry about that. In an effort to explain what I mean, I'm going to go off on a rant that has nothing to do with Reist's song, and hopefully I'll bring it back on-topic in a manner that makes a sort of sense.Caravan Ray wrote:I don't know what J-E is on about there either - but I seemed to have the exact opposite problem with your lyrics to JonReist wrote:I'm a little flabbergasted by that comment. Care to elaborate?Generic wrote:And especially, to hear a guy that I know is Canadian talking about the fueding Republicans and Democrats just rubs me the wrong way.
He wrote:
Lyrically... I dunno. I think political songs tend to work better when they're couched a bit more abstractly.
I found your lyrics a bit too abstract and much prefer political songs to be completely unambigous. I think the line "cause anarchists bow down to other anarchists" bothered me the most. Why would anarchists bow down to other anarchists? Who are the anarchists you are referring to?
Unless of course you are actually referring to something specific which is beyond my comprehension because I am not Canadian/North American. That is fine. I know a lot of my songs in the past have been completely indecipherable to everybody except Sausage Boy and Denyer.
See, I don't mind political music. Of course, that's a very broad definition that encapsulates pretty much everything from "We Will All Go Together When We Go" to "Big Yellow Taxi" to "Livin' on a Prayer" to "Jesus of Suburbia." But I feel like a political song - at least, my ideal of a political song - shouldn't be a song about the act of politics. In fact, it really grates on me to hear real political issues talked about as political issues, when more often than not, they're actually human issues, the responsibility for which has been placed on the lecterns of senators and MPs. Health care isn't a political issue, it's a distinctly human problem, and yet some combination of pundits and media outlets have managed to convince a lot of Americans (U.S., anyway) that health care is a strictly partisan debate. Same with welfare, industry regulation, immigration, drug legalization, discrimination, and even most international conflicts. Nothing gets on my nerves more than hearing real issues which affect regular people on an everyday basis boiled down to an argument between whichever names you feel like giving the two parties: Liberals vs. Conservatives; Red States vs. Blue States; Democrats vs. Republicans. In political discourse and in rock songs alike, the fastest way to dehumanize an issue is to phrase whatever you're talking about in partisan terms, treating the political argument as though it were an end unto itself, instead of the means for significant real-world progress.
A rock song ought to be passionate. When you're asking me to invest a few minutes into your song, I expect you to make me care about what you're singing about. I admit, I'm kind of a sucker, so cheap tricks often work. Maybe you did something with the production to draw attention to your voice. Or maybe you're just singing something with an inherently personal message (politicians do this all the time, with their stump speech case studies - "My opponents say that progress has a cost. I'd like to see them tell that to Tommy, who's been forced to sell his guitar because his union won't let him work, even while his girlfriend Gina works double shifts to pay the rent"). But as soon as you drag "Republicans and Democrats" into the song, I'm falling asleep, reaching for the skip button, and getting bored. Because, as far as I'm concerned, politics is the process by which lawmakers build policy for human issues, whereas the discussion about politics for its own sake is antithetical to why I listen to music.
As for the part about you being Canadian... well, that was me being insanely geocentric. You shouldn't be barred from singing about Democrats and Republicans just because they don't go by those names in your country, and I'm sorry I put it that way.
I listened to your song again, Reist, this time while reading the lyrics, and I can see that I've had a disproportionate reaction to one line in your song, which my brain pulled out of its natural context (obviously, the line "republicans and democrats making people cry"). In fact, your song makes some of the same points I just made above. So feel free to disregard my reviews, and just bear in mind that if I ever wind up being a Nur Ein judge, it might be a mistake to refer to political parties by name.
We cool? 8)
Your acoustic sounds OK, and the song isn't really bad, it's just not good enough for me to stay interested in it as a guy-tar song. Also, weak incorporation of the challenge.
