Moshkiae


Hi,

There is a faction of society, that thinks that the role of the artist is to spend his time hiding what they really want to say in ways that ... makes it hard to figure out what it is all about.

In the end, few of us worry about those "symbols", since what you see and do, has nothing to do with the audience, and their perception of it. And this is the most important part of it all ... and there are many examples from the old psychedelic 60's that were nothing but a tease.

One can take "White Rabbit" as having a double meaning, but in the end ... it's real and it's true, and the song is about drugs and them being mis-interpreted and abused ... guess what happened to the Bay Area right after it? ... everyone loved the song, and ignored the message! Nobody understood that "Purple Haze" was the new generation's anthem ... right after the National Anthem at Woodstock ... in other words ... here is the new music ... and it was true and then some!

But there are some that will always be questionable ... and then you can look at the opposite ... the German band "Novalis" used strict wording by the writer/philosopher as the only lyrics for their music, and that is a message from them, or from the writer?

The "medium" has become the message, but is NOT the message. But there is no reason to believe that the "message" is any more important than the listener ... after all, if you don't get it and you go back to collecting nuts for your little squirrells, the meaning is not important or that valuable!
 
There are other ways ... that were much more visible during the Cold War days ... you didn't have to say it ... and a really good example of it is Guru Guru's last song on the album "Tango Fango", which is something rather strange, weird, and what not. but was done really nice in a very satirical way ... hoping to see the 2 Germany's together again ... and in the end, the "anthem" was not the "butchokaya" (spelling!), but ... yep ... Chuck Berry! Which was like saying ... it's a new day and time and place ... and it was lovely, subtle, fun, and not offensive. And it was done in 1974 before the Wall came down a few years later!
 
You can say it with one song, or a word, or you can say it with a novel ... but is "War and Peace" as important as a totality, or a single page? Or Charles Dickens?

I really think that sometimes meaning is ... over rated! ... and it takes the fun out of things. But you can take things like "... when the music is over, turn out the lights ... " and the meaning could be sleep, death, loss of awareness as in a faint ... but is that what the music and song is about? ... NOPE ... it's about it not meaning anything to you or I, or our experience, and us not learning ...

Guess what we're doing here? ... having fun with songs that were ... pretty clever ... but nothing to write home to mamma about.

  Jbow- Had not though of some of those.
 Bub- I'll see if I can look at the site later today..... Not sure about Rain but I'm a lefty playing guitar righty,although I can eat with either hand and use tools with any hand. I do think us leftys are a little different in terms of how we think. Like you, I'm not dyslexic but I have on more than one occasion picked up a book and opened it from the back first.
Rain- I didn't know it was mainly Jimmy Page who was into the satanic stuff. Being from Canada I guess gave you a head start in French. Learning Russian sounds like a bigger challenge than I could meet.

 Moskie - I am not sure where you are from but here in the US there isn't too much that is unacceptable in terms of what is allowed to be said in a song.

" In the end, few of us worry about those "symbols", since what you see and do, has nothing to do with the audience, and their perception of it. And this is the most important part of it all ... and there are many examples from the old psychedelic 60's that were nothing but a tease."

 Moskie, I agree that people are not really worried very much about the symbols. Most people seem to like good music and the message is secondary to that. I can remember liking songs that I had no idea what the words were lol. I know some bands added things either subliminally or overtly that were designed to shock and in the process of shocking drew attention to their music and more importantly sold records........so while I see the same things I think that  it goes too far IMO to say that the message doesn't  matter and that there are no effects from it.

  I Think we are all like sponges and we soak up whatever we happen to be around to absorb. If we are what we eat in the physical sense then it stands to reason that we are what we listen to,who we hang with and what we believe. Music has been made out to be a trivial thing we partake in for kicks and this is all true but it is also true that music moves a person like nothing else. The right combination of message and music is powerful beyond belief. Musicians and lyricists have the potential to reach thousands IMHO.

 Yeah,some music is just plain fun music with no real direction or message and maybe this is what you are describing here. Hey music can be fun and have a message too,why not? I can't say that its trivial and none of it matters. Everything starts out as an idea or a suggestion.