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    33 Great Songs 33 Great Songwriters Vol 2
    33 Great Songs 33 Great Songwriters Vol 2
    33 Great Songs 33 Great Songwriters Vol 2
    Ebook118 pages1 hour

    33 Great Songs 33 Great Songwriters Vol 2

    By Michael J. Roberts

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    About this ebook

    What’s with all the lists I hear you ask? The modern world is awash with them, Bucket Lists, Movies to See Before You Die, Albums To Hear Before You Die, Top Ten of this, Top Ten of That, websites devoted to only….. lists!

    Lists are many things, informative, insipid, imaginative, illogical, inspiring, irritating, indispensable, ridiculous, fantastic and pointless. I could go on; I should make a list…
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateDec 9, 2014
    ISBN9781483546520
    33 Great Songs 33 Great Songwriters Vol 2

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      Book preview

      33 Great Songs 33 Great Songwriters Vol 2 - Michael J. Roberts

      Resources

      33 Great Songs

      33 Great Songwriters

      A Musycks Guide

      Vol 2

      Michael J Roberts

      © 2014

      Author's Note

      Dear Reader,

      What you'll find within these pages, and in the Great Songwriters series of books as they unfold, is detailed information on great songs from the modern era and stories and context about those songs and their writers. The structure is such that aspiring song writers should find good information to augment their craft and the casual music lover should find enough content to deepen their appreciation of the songs involved.

      Any list-based model stands or falls on the selection criteria. Any reading of those lists will be problematic if those criteria remain a mystery. The bias involved in the Great Songs series is towards songs that deepen the human experience and writing that sheds light on the human condition. Music moves us in ways that are sometimes mysterious, even mystical, but that doesn't mean we can't examine the component pieces or try to gain insight into the process.

      Musycks digs deep into the musical soil to extract glittering gems that are not apparent close to the surface. Musycks roams wide, across nearly six decades of modern song writing, uncovering hidden gold and sometimes just reminding us of the quality to be found that's hiding in plain sight. We will submit songs for your listening pleasure of which many will be familiar, many will not, all will be worthwhile. Please track them down and give them a spin.

      The language of music we've codified as humans gives us a special gift with which to comfort, soothe, entertain and beguile, it's one of the great pleasures in life. Ultimately, of course, we should simply relax and enjoy the fruits of this remarkable language, one that lifts our spirits and gladdens our hearts.

      Happy listening

      Musycks

      Michael J Roberts

      Introduction

      What's with all the lists I hear you ask? The modern world is awash with them, Bucket Lists,  Movies to See Before You Die, Albums To Hear Before You Die, Top Ten of this, Top Ten of That, websites devoted to only..... lists!

      Lists are many things, informative, insipid, imaginative, illogical, inspiring, irritating, indispensable, ridiculous, fantastic and pointless. I could go on; I should make a list...

      Something's going on.

      Actually what's going on is a reflection of one thing, information overload. In an age where an achievable ambition is to have all the knowledge humankind has ever possessed, gathered on one website that is free to everyone, we can see that something has fundamentally changed. In a mass media age of instant communication it's also clear that people need good maps to negotiate their way, especially in the area of entertainment where the choices of consumption have grown exponentially since the digital revolution changed everything.

      The challenge now is to source good, trusted, authoritative information, and that's where Musycks comes in. Musycks is a philosophical way of analysing the mystical and transcendent dimension found in great songwriting, and communicating it with insight and passion.

      Now in equal parts to inform, infuriate and in full admission of the silliness on any definitive list, Musycks brings experience and knowledge to the list party. So with that in mind, if you can't beat them....

      Lullabye (Goodnight My Angel)

      Written by – Billy Joel

      Published by – Impulsive Music/EMI Songs

      Copyright – 1993

      Billy Joel brings up different reactions in different people, but to many he represents a bland mainstream talent who plays to the balcony. Whilst he does have that side to him he also has a fine poetic and intuitive flair that produces work with depth and heart. He is also a great example to use in the debate about having technique versus naiveté in the songwriter's bag of tricks. Billy was trained as a classical pianist as a boy, his father was a classical pianist and his family was full of serious musicians but Billy was a Bronx kid obsessed with sports. He took up boxing as a way to protect himself from the bullies who didn't approve of his 'sissy' piano playing. In a way this dichotomy between the beauty of the arts and the heart of a brawling street kid has been an ongoing balancing act in Joel's psyche and it's this exquisite tension that informs his best work.

      Joel was one of many American boys spurred into action by seeing The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, he later said, That one performance changed my life. Up to that moment I'd never considered playing rock as a career and when I saw four guys who didn't look like they'd come out of the Hollywood star mill, who played their own songs and instruments, and especially because you could see this look in John Lennon's face, and he looked like he was always saying: 'Fuck you!', I said: I know these guys, I can relate to these guys, I am these guys.' This is what I'm going to do, play in a rock band'. Like Elton John in England, Billy was a piano player adrift in a sea of guitarists, more a curse than a blessing until the early '70's era of the singer-songwriters opened doors for their brand of commercial, well written pop. Joel became the epitome of '70's soft-rock, but his prickly persona reacted badly to categorisation and he attempted to rock out, with uneven results.

      After some ambitious sonic adventures in the '80's Joel settled into a period of bringing all of his influences into balance on the very fine and under-rated River of Dreams. Joel tapped into his version of white soul to provide a deep and rich collection of songs and Lullaby (Goodnight My Angel) is the beating heart of that collection. The birth of his daughter Alexa in 1985 was the impetus for a father's heartfelt musical love letter to his child, "Goodnight, my angel time to close your eyes and save these questions for another day. I think I know what you've been asking me

      I think you know what I've been trying to say". The song adopts a quasi-classical tone, and after the opening 1 to minor 4 variation (G to Cm6) it moves predominantly through the tonalities of G major (D Em D/C C Am G/B...) along with a major 2 chord (A) placed at the end of the verse. The bridge overtly moves to a full on classical mode, and the G major key gives way to G minor in a beautifully sculpted departure from the main section. Joel moves through a number of key centres through this section with the use of some sophisticated harmonies (e.g. dom7b9 chords) until arriving at a D major chord from a D minor – a veritable Picardy Third.

      Billy touches upon the hope of a kind of immortality that a child represents to a parent, but also the timeless connection a song can make, one that can outlive the writer and touch generations to come. "Someday your child may cry and if you sing this lullabye,

      then in your heart there will always be a part of me". It's a sweet and tender moment from the pug with the poet's heart. Billy's catalogue is filled with fine and delicate gems amidst the obvious and overwrought chart hits, melodic treasures that usually are accompanied by beautifully written lyrics, and one of the most affecting is this lullaby for his baby daughter.

      Joel tired of the music industry treadmill and for all intents and purposes retired in the late '90s, content to write some 'proper' classical pieces for piano and live on his royalties. The decision has stuck in relation to his recording and writing of new material, but he's since returned to the concert stage and remains a vibrant and engaging performer with a repertoire most 'classic rock' acts would envy.

      Definitive version – Billy Joel

      Album – River of Dreams

      Blue

      Written by – Mark Olson/ Gary Louris

      Published by – Pedal Blue Music/Warner Tamerlane

      Copyright – 1995

      The Jayhawks emerged as champions of the nascent Alt-country movement in the early '90s and with other key bands like Uncle Tupelo they affirmed the worth of the roots music that Bob Dylan and The Band had tapped into decades before and also the 'cosmic country' of Gram Parsons. The style ran against the grunge ethos of the time, as chart music fell under the spell of Kurt Cobain and his brand of Seattle rock, but led to the new categorisation/genre of Americana to cover a wide range of 'rougher' country/folk/pop. The Jayhawks coalesced around the central writing

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