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lem motlowQuote
treaclefingersQuote
latebloomerQuote
DandelionPowderman
<Maybe it's just that he's not known mainly as a lyricist as say Dylan or Lennon, even though he's every bit as good I think.>
He is not at Dylan's level, so that's rightfully so, imo.
Lennon has a few gems and lots of clunkers, imo.
Dylan has written a lot of crappy lyrics as well. It's just that his most famous songs are, generally, his most eloquent and more universal in subject matter. I think Mick is every bit as good as Dylan and Lennon.
That's a fairly bold observation...and not that I disagree, but I think what would be interesting is to take MJ's most profound lyrical venture, and hold them up to something profound by Dylan and Lennon.
How would it hold up?
What is lyrically, MJ's best song?
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL-game over.
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latebloomerQuote
lem motlowQuote
treaclefingersQuote
latebloomerQuote
DandelionPowderman
<Maybe it's just that he's not known mainly as a lyricist as say Dylan or Lennon, even though he's every bit as good I think.>
He is not at Dylan's level, so that's rightfully so, imo.
Lennon has a few gems and lots of clunkers, imo.
Dylan has written a lot of crappy lyrics as well. It's just that his most famous songs are, generally, his most eloquent and more universal in subject matter. I think Mick is every bit as good as Dylan and Lennon.
That's a fairly bold observation...and not that I disagree, but I think what would be interesting is to take MJ's most profound lyrical venture, and hold them up to something profound by Dylan and Lennon.
How would it hold up?
What is lyrically, MJ's best song?
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL-game over.
My thoughts exactly, lem. There is no more brilliant piece of lyrical writing on the face of the planet.
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treaclefingers
OK nice, you've answered part of the question.
So if it's 'hands down' SFTD, how does that stack against Dylan or Lennon's best work?
What is considered their best lyrical work?
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OzHeavyThrobber
Guys I'm lost and I even tried Hari Chrishna but I cannot see in the NPR interview or anywhere else where Jagger claims co-writing GS. Anyone able to copy and paste what I seem to be not seeing please?
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DandelionPowdermanQuote
OzHeavyThrobber
Guys I'm lost and I even tried Hari Chrishna but I cannot see in the NPR interview or anywhere else where Jagger claims co-writing GS. Anyone able to copy and paste what I seem to be not seeing please?
He said "we wrote" in the 20 Feet From Stardom"-film. But I didn't interpret that statement as having anything to do with the lyrics..
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wanderingspirit66Quote
DandelionPowdermanQuote
OzHeavyThrobber
Guys I'm lost and I even tried Hari Chrishna but I cannot see in the NPR interview or anywhere else where Jagger claims co-writing GS. Anyone able to copy and paste what I seem to be not seeing please?
He said "we wrote" in the 20 Feet From Stardom"-film. But I didn't interpret that statement as having anything to do with the lyrics..
Do neither of you see the the link to the audio version of the interview with Melissa Block?
From the audio of the NPR interview -
Melissa Block: "Who did what"
Jagger's: "I wrote the lyrics - Keith wrote the tune"
Separately, what is Hari Chrishna??
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latebloomer
But we are talking about lyrics here, not poetry. Two different genres. As one writer put it, poetry is mainly for the eye whereas lyrics are mainly for the ear. In that context, Mick's lyrics are every bit as good as Dylan's.
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Bliss
Personally, I think SFTD is streets ahead of Desolation Row. Mick makes a strong point and illustrates it with powerful, related images. The music itself reinforces the message in the lyrics.
Desolation Row is full of unrelated imagery that somehow relates to the title, but much of it is obscure. If someone can explain this, please do:
At midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row.
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wanderingspirit66-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Quote
wanderingspirit66Quote
DandelionPowdermanQuote
OzHeavyThrobber
Guys I'm lost and I even tried Hari Chrishna but I cannot see in the NPR interview or anywhere else where Jagger claims co-writing GS. Anyone able to copy and paste what I seem to be not seeing please?
He said "we wrote" in the 20 Feet From Stardom"-film. But I didn't interpret that statement as having anything to do with the lyrics..
Do neither of you see the the link to the audio version of the interview with Melissa Block?
From the audio of the NPR interview -
Melissa Block: "Who did what"
Jagger's: "I wrote the lyrics - Keith wrote the tune"
Separately, what is Hari Chrishna??
Here is the transcript of the interview
Copyright ©2012 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block.
MICK JAGGER: Hi, Melissa. This is Mick Jagger here. Nice to be on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
BLOCK: What a way to end the week. Mick Jagger is the last in our series of chats with The Rolling Stones. The band is marking 50 years together. They have a new collection of greatest hits and are getting ready for a handful of shows. We asked each of The Stones to pick one song to talk about. So far this week, we've heard from Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood and now Mick.
JAGGER: You want to talk about "Gimme Shelter"?
BLOCK: Do you want to talk about "Gimme Shelter"?
JAGGER: Not really, but I can. I'm very open to talking about "Gimme Shelter."
(LAUGHTER)
JAGGER: It was released in 1969, and we did follow-up versions of it, and it was very exciting.
BLOCK: Well, do me a favor. We have it cued up here. So let's play it.
JAGGER: Go on.
BLOCK: If you don't mind, talk over it as we're listening to it if that's OK.
JAGGER: Talk over it.
BLOCK: Yeah.
JAGGER: Sacrilegious.
(LAUGHTER)
JAGGER: I could rap over it if you'd like.
(LAUGHTER)
BLOCK: Just tell us what we hear. So here's the opening.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIMME SHELTER")
JAGGER: (Unintelligible) two versions of Keith over the top.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIMME SHELTER")
JAGGER: Layered - two layers of Keith.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIMME SHELTER")
JAGGER: And Jimmy Miller playing the scraper, and Charlie playing the drums.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIMME SHELTER")
BLOCK: And that high vocal there?
JAGGER: That's me. Oh, that's Mick Jagger singing a high falsetto vocal.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIMME SHELTER")
JAGGER: Yeah. I was doing that the other day in rehearsal.
BLOCK: Yeah?
JAGGER: Yeah.
BLOCK: You could still get there?
JAGGER: Yeah, probably.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIMME SHELTER")
JAGGER: I've got much higher ones than that.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIMME SHELTER")
JAGGER: And then we - we leave the Latin groove behind, and then the sort of rock thing starts.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIMME SHELTER")
THE ROLLING STONES: (Singing) Oh, a storm is threatening my very life today.
JAGGER: There's old me and (unintelligible) me and me and me singing.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIMME SHELTER")
STONES: (Singing) If I don't get some shelter, oh, yeah, I'm going to fade away. War, children, it's just a shot away. It's just a shot away. War...
JAGGER: When we got to Los Angeles and we were mixing it, we thought, well, it'd be great to have a woman come and do the rape-murder verse or chorus or whatever you want to call it. And so we randomly phoned up this poor lady in the middle of the night, and she arrived in her curlers.
(LAUGHTER)
BLOCK: No kidding?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIMME SHELTER")
MERRY CLAYTON: (Singing) Rape, murder, it's just a shot away. It's just a shot away.
BLOCK: This is the singer Merry Clayton.
JAGGER: It's Merry Clayton, yeah. And Merry came in pink curlers. I think Merry - Merry, I'm sorry, but - for so telling you on this. It wasn't a dressing gown. I think she got a dress by then. And she came in and knocked this off this rather odd lyric. It's not sort of the lyric you give everyone, you know, rape, murder, it's just a shot away, but she proceeded to do that in like one or two takes, and she's pretty amazing. And she really got into it, as you can hear on the record, and she, you know, she joins the chorus, and it's been a great live song ever since.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIMME SHELTER")
CLAYTON: (Singing) It's just a shot away. It's just a shot away. Rape, murder, it's just a shot away. It's just a shot away.
BLOCK: Her voice really, really cracks at the high point of the song.
JAGGER: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, she does a great job on this.
BLOCK: Who did what in writing this song?
JAGGER: Keith wrote the tune, and I wrote a lot of the words.
BLOCK: What were you thinking when you were coming up with the words for "Gimme Shelter"?
JAGGER: I can't remember really anymore, to be honest, but, you know, it was a very moody piece about the world closing in on you a bit. When it was recorded, like, early '69 or something, you know, it was a time of war and tension, and so that's reflected in this tune.
BLOCK: Kind of apocalyptic, really.
JAGGER: Yeah. Kind of, yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
JAGGER: And, you know, it's still wheeled out when big storms happen, as they did the other week, you know? And it's been used a lot to evoke natural disaster.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIMME SHELTER")
JAGGER: Oh, that's my harmonica part there. Only two notes, but it shows what you can do with two notes.
BLOCK: Let's hear it. Let's crank that up right now.
JAGGER: Go.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIMME SHELTER")
BLOCK: It is just two notes.
JAGGER: It is just two notes.
(LAUGHTER)
JAGGER: That's because of a crummy keyed harmonica...
(LAUGHTER)
JAGGER: ...anyways, you know?
(LAUGHTER)
BLOCK: You shouldn't have told me about it. It just spoiled the whole illusion of (unintelligible).
JAGGER: I didn't spoil it. It just shows you what you can do with two notes.
BLOCK: There you go.
JAGGER: You didn't have to put - it is economy of style.
(LAUGHTER)
BLOCK: Well, you're getting ready to go out for a few shows, a couple in England and a few here. What do you do to get ready? It's such a physical thing that you do, and you're how old now?
JAGGER: I don't know.
BLOCK: Aha.
JAGGER: That's Charlie's line.
(LAUGHTER)
JAGGER: But...
(LAUGHTER)
JAGGER: How old are you, Melissa?
BLOCK: I'm 50.
JAGGER: Oh, it's a nice age.
BLOCK: It's a round number.
JAGGER: It's a very nice age. What do I do to get ready? Well, I do what I've always done for the last, oh, forever years. You know, I have to get up the fitness level, sing a lot, practice, get in the mood and generally - and do lots of rehearsal. Get your body and mind ready.
BLOCK: How do you get your mind ready?
JAGGER: Well, you get in the idea that you're going to be out there on stage and crank up the ego a bit.
BLOCK: I bet that's the key part of it. You have to crank up the ego to do what you do.
JAGGER: Yeah. You kind of do, but you can't really - that's something that I don't actually really do, if you know what I mean. I mean, you do it, but you don't sort of - it's not part of the training. And there's the clothes, of course.
(LAUGHTER)
JAGGER: I'm not forgetting the clothes. That's a very important...
BLOCK: It's key.
JAGGER: ...part of the prep, totally key because, to be honest, you do have to because it makes you feel good. And you've got to have, you know, fresh wardrobe. And you can't just go out there looking like you did last time. And then you - that helps your transformation. You know, being in a rock band, you can't kind of overdo the costume changes too much because everyone thinks, oh, that's not a real rock band. Look how many times he changes costumes.
(LAUGHTER)
JAGGER: That's not rock. Rock is about going on in a T-shirt and staying in it and getting it all dirty. But that's not really my approach.
BLOCK: You know, none of the members of The Rolling Stones chose the song that I kind of hoped one of you would.
JAGGER: Which was what?
BLOCK: "Wild Horses."
JAGGER: Oh, lovely.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WILD HORSES")
JAGGER: It's quite a favorite of mine to do as the ballad as we don't do that many. Being a rock band, we do - we've got lots of ballads, but we don't do many. And we could do a whole show of ballads (unintelligible) and everyone would brought to tears, probably. But, you know, we do only a couple per show, so we have to select them, and I quite often select that one.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WILD HORSES")
STONES: (Singing) Childhood living is easy to do.
BLOCK: Well, Mick Jagger, it's been great to talk to you. Thank you so much.
JAGGER: Nice to talk to you, Melissa, and I hope it all comes out for you well.
BLOCK: Thank you and likewise.
JAGGER: Bye-bye.
BLOCK: The new Rolling Stones collection is called "GRRR!". You can hear my interviews with the other three Stones at nprmusic.org.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WILD HORSES")
STONES: (Singing) You know who I am. You know I can't let you slide through my hands. Wild horses couldn't drag me away.
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Until now, I hadn't seen the transcript and had only heard the audio. When you hear the audio, actually Jagger swallows the "a lot of" part. It sounds more like "I wrote the words".
I find his delivery of this statement intriguing - perhaps Keith did contribute more lyrically than I could imagine
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wanderingspirit66Quote
latebloomer
But we are talking about lyrics here, not poetry. Two different genres. As one writer put it, poetry is mainly for the eye whereas lyrics are mainly for the ear. In that context, Mick's lyrics are every bit as good as Dylan's.
Here's a very interesting article on Dylan as a poet
However, the best, most straightforward answer may have appeared in the liner notes of his second album, 1963’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, where Dylan said, simply: “Anything I can sing, I call a song. Anything I can’t sing, I call a poem.”
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latebloomerQuote
Bliss
Personally, I think SFTD is streets ahead of Desolation Row. Mick makes a strong point and illustrates it with powerful, related images. The music itself reinforces the message in the lyrics.
Desolation Row is full of unrelated imagery that somehow relates to the title, but much of it is obscure. If someone can explain this, please do:
At midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row.
You said it, Bliss. That is one of the criticisms I have read of Dylan. He is a brilliant lyricist, but tries too hard to be clever to the point of obscurity. In other words, what the hell is he talking about?
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OzHeavyThrobber
As for Dylan vs Jagger and so on I think Bob to some degree suffers similarly as a songwriter of note as does Jagger. Dylan is almost always quoted as a great songwriter I admit, but it's almost always about the lyrical content. The man has written some stunning music and so often goes off on a tangent that so few others would be capable of doing but again all that's noted is his gift of words. Annoys me a little too.