The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Round One has begun!

Title: Your Light No Longer Shines
Non Optional Challenge: Multiple Narrators
Songs are due on Monday, April 28th @ 12:01 AM EDT
Send your MP3 to nurein.sidefight@gmail.com

3 bands will be eliminated. Judges favorite gets immunity.

Only one song per entrant, right? See, I have two really strong ideas...

I honestly really hate to be "that guy", but ... if the song is written from the perspective of "we" does that count as multiple narrators?

Poke the bear! Poke the bear!

What is a narrator?

Seems like multiple vocalists singing "we" would meet the letter of the challenge, but one vocalist singing " we " is still a single narrator.

Then again the problem with the word "multiple" is that one is a valid multiple.

(Sorry Niv, just having fun)

I read it to mean more than one perspective.

I call the gay June Carter/Johnny Cash angle!! CLAIM

You're just over ten years too late. http://www.songfight.org/music/mission_ ... y+june.mp3

Of course, that doesn't preclude you doing it *better*, of course

Whatever happened to Poor June?

Lunkhead wrote:I honestly really hate to be "that guy", but ... if the song is written from the perspective of "we" does that count as multiple narrators?

It's a valid question. I think a "we" narrator would count as a single collective narrator, whereas the challenge is more about incorporating multiple points of view. As always, my interpretation might not line up precisely with that of other judges.

When I get home from work tonight, I'll post a few examples, but here's the one that we used in the judges' chat room to check that we were all on the same page about what the challenge meant:

Maybe if "the challenge is more about incorporating multiple points of view" then it should have been phrased as "multiple points of view"...?

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uPudE8nDog0&feature=kp

This came to mind.

Lunkhead wrote:Maybe if "the challenge is more about incorporating multiple points of view" then it should have been phrased as "multiple points of view"...?

That was one of the proposed ways to phrase it.

I can recall how frustrating it can be to deal with a vague challenge, which is why this year I'd like to make an effort to preempt these kinds of complaints and add as much clarity as possible. However, I can't tell you what the person who initially proposed the challenge meant by it, nor can I even guarantee that there is a consensus among the five of us. I can only really tell you what the challenge means to me and what I'll look for when I'm judging*. I have accepted that Niveous tends to go for the most concise way possible to phrase the challenge, and seldom offers and "canonical" clarification, and that the ambiguity that this builds into the challenge seems to be a "feature, not a bug," as it allows each judge the freedom to choose which criteria they use when judging. So, to that end, I can tell you what that challenge means to me and what sorts of things will play into my expectations vs. what sorts of interpretations (of the approaches that have even occurred to me) I feel I'm less likely to appreciate.

So... yeah. Feel free to throw questions at me. Get as nitpicky and pedantic as you like. I can't promise you'll like my answers, nor that any other judges will agree with me... But I'll answer as honestly as I can.

*Don't forget to make your song awesome, too. I know; it's a lot to ask.

glennny wrote:http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uPudE8nDog0&feature=kp

This came to mind.

Yes! This is one of the ones I was planning on posting. Here it is in embedded format:

[youtube]uPudE8nDog0&feature=kp[/youtube]

Here's another:


Both of these examples have the extra narrator played by a second singer. This is not a requirement for the challenge, but it's one way to meet it. Note that in Cat Stevens' song, both parts are played by him, albeit an octave apart.

I'm also assuming that just having two characters isn't enough; there needs to be two viewpoints/stories. So Gotye works, but the temple section of 2112 where they are arguing wouldn't be adequate.

Ben

This is the discussion I was having with erin. Jack and Diane vs. Living on a Prayer.

ken wrote:This is the discussion I was having with erin. Jack and Diane vs. Living on a Prayer.

In my mind neither of those would count.

I started listening to the crazy farm inside my mind and wrote some perfectly fine lyrics right away when the challenge came out. Now I think I feel paranoid, upon reading the thread. But maybe this isn't even about me. Who knows these things?

ken wrote:This is the discussion I was having with erin. Jack and Diane vs. Living on a Prayer.

BenKrieger wrote:I'm also assuming that just having two characters isn't enough; there needs to be two viewpoints/stories. So Gotye works, but the temple section of 2112 where they are arguing wouldn't be adequate.

Ben

Good points. Ben and Ken, I wouldn't mind the two "narrators" being represented through dialogue. ("Livin' on a Prayer" is an especially fun example, because each of the two characters gets a different iteration of the chorus). Similarly:



Honestly (and here's where I'm most likely to diverge from my fellow judges), I don't even mind if the characters don't "narrate" in the first person. I've heard fans of A Song of Ice and Fire talk about which character "narrates" which section, even though the books are actually told from third-person point of view, so I wouldn't hold it against you if you used a close third-person (aka "Central Intelligence") point-of-view. This also allows "Jack and Diane" to squeak by, even though I don't think both characters are drawn equally well, and the song is really more about a third character: John Cougar Mellencamp, narrating the whole story as himself at a distance.

So. We've demonstrated one song in which the second narrator is represented by the singer changing vocal register, a few where the second character is represented by the singer, some where the other character is represented by quotation marks... How about songs where other characters are represented by voices?





Again, both of these songs use dialogue to differentiate the characters. We don't really get too much into the heads of all of them (especially not in the Tom Waits piece), but they both count as far as I'm concerned.

You could also just be silly (NSFW):



And finally, there are ways to meet the challenge creatively without bringing in other singers or changing your voice in any way:



In this Decemberists piece, it seems pretty clear to me that the narrator is a different person for each verse and bridge section, even though they're all saying similar things, and Colin Meloy's voice never changes at all. This might be a risky gambit, I suppose, because you're counting on five judges being able to interpret your lyrics which might not be 100% literal, but I have no problem with it.

glennny wrote: Then again the problem with the word "multiple" is that one is a valid multiple.

So is zero. So instrumental entries should be fine.

One more approach just occurred to me. Again, not sure if this would be kosher with other judges, but Poe did a song once in which she constructs a conversation with her late father by using samples of his voice from his films and cassette tapes he recorded for her.



(Technially, the whole album uses this technique, but the final song is where it's most obvious.)

So, probably every judge has something different in mind, or many different things in mind, none of which are conveyed literally by the words used to describe the challenge to the participants. Just another round of Nur Ein.

We got married in a cocktail bar. Hotter than a pepper sprout.