Rob
07-17-2002, 08:13 PM
[Sorry this got so long. Nobody's ever called me terse :) ]
It seems a simple enough observation that one attribute that makes a musician, writer, or band great is the ability to write prose to which people relate. The members of Pink Floyd, for example, of whom I have always been a tremendous fan, will be the first to admit that their technical playing skill is (unlike Nickel Creek's!) just good. One of the things I've always felt made them great (and I admit it's a personal assessment) was how many times I've listened to one of their songs and thought how the [expletive] could they possibly know THAT about ME, much less feel it as personally as it must have taken to compose this song?! In addition to some embarassingly talented technical ability, Nickel Creek (with only a little help from a few folks from whom they've borrowed) also have this ability. I don't think it's anything that a band consciously tries to do; if they did, the songs would be so mushy and vague that they'd sound like a fortune cookie or a horoscope.
What really fascinates me, though, is how a song that seems so particular can, in the wild, bear so much weight. The Hand Song is a good example for me. When I was very young (and equally poor), my folks used to humidify our apartment by putting a pan of water on the floor furnace (a large, gas-fired grill [literally] in the middle of the floor; can you say bad design?). One time when my mom had taken the protective fence down that they had around the grate to keep me from crawling on it so she could refill the water pan (you can see this coming, can't you?), I must have heard her and tried to get to her. Yup, that's right: Not pretty. Without going into too much detail, it took all the meat off both hands right down to the bone. Ouch.
When I heard The Hand Song, it really struck a nerve (so to speak) with me; like many of us, I can still nearly recite the Christmas story from Luke just from hearing my mother read it to us every year. Of course, the composers couldn't have had any of this in mind when they wrote the song, but it's a pretty close fit to my situation. (And most people would tell you that that's just about as far as the analogy between me and Christ can be stretched!)
Question: Have any of you ever listened to a song about a fairly particular situation, and either thought that it directly described some aspect of your life, or that it was at least a very good metaphor for some part of your life (e.g., When You Come Back Down pretty perfectly describes my leaving my friends and family to go to law school in my twilight years, but more metaphorically than literally)?
...Rob
It seems a simple enough observation that one attribute that makes a musician, writer, or band great is the ability to write prose to which people relate. The members of Pink Floyd, for example, of whom I have always been a tremendous fan, will be the first to admit that their technical playing skill is (unlike Nickel Creek's!) just good. One of the things I've always felt made them great (and I admit it's a personal assessment) was how many times I've listened to one of their songs and thought how the [expletive] could they possibly know THAT about ME, much less feel it as personally as it must have taken to compose this song?! In addition to some embarassingly talented technical ability, Nickel Creek (with only a little help from a few folks from whom they've borrowed) also have this ability. I don't think it's anything that a band consciously tries to do; if they did, the songs would be so mushy and vague that they'd sound like a fortune cookie or a horoscope.
What really fascinates me, though, is how a song that seems so particular can, in the wild, bear so much weight. The Hand Song is a good example for me. When I was very young (and equally poor), my folks used to humidify our apartment by putting a pan of water on the floor furnace (a large, gas-fired grill [literally] in the middle of the floor; can you say bad design?). One time when my mom had taken the protective fence down that they had around the grate to keep me from crawling on it so she could refill the water pan (you can see this coming, can't you?), I must have heard her and tried to get to her. Yup, that's right: Not pretty. Without going into too much detail, it took all the meat off both hands right down to the bone. Ouch.
When I heard The Hand Song, it really struck a nerve (so to speak) with me; like many of us, I can still nearly recite the Christmas story from Luke just from hearing my mother read it to us every year. Of course, the composers couldn't have had any of this in mind when they wrote the song, but it's a pretty close fit to my situation. (And most people would tell you that that's just about as far as the analogy between me and Christ can be stretched!)
Question: Have any of you ever listened to a song about a fairly particular situation, and either thought that it directly described some aspect of your life, or that it was at least a very good metaphor for some part of your life (e.g., When You Come Back Down pretty perfectly describes my leaving my friends and family to go to law school in my twilight years, but more metaphorically than literally)?
...Rob