The words of music
I’ve been reintroduced to an old song that reminds me how important words are in music.The song is — now, no giggling or catcalls, please — an old Sons of the Pioneers number called ‘Cool Water.’
Antiquated, yes. Outdated, no. As a leitmotif, a fancy word for a recurring musical theme, “Cool Water” is as effective today as it was when Bob Nolan wrote it in 1941. It’s a simple song with only three chords (what musicians call the I, IV and V chords) where all the verses end in the same words — “cool, clear water.” But, oh, what words lead up to them.
All day I face the barren waste without a taste of water — cool water. Old Dan and I with throats burned dry and souls that cry for water — cool, clear water.
If you can get through that and the other three verses without thinking about a beverage, you’re better than I am.
“Cool Water” came up as a request from a resident at a local nursing home where our family band does weekly singalongs. And speaking of that, another song with words that affect me is ‘Silver Threads Among the Gold,’* which, as I’ve said before, I can’t sing without getting teary-eyed:
Darling, I am growing old. Silver threads among the gold
Shine upon my brow today. Life is fading fast away. . .
But, my darling, you will be always young and fair to me.
The golden age of lyrics was 1910 to 1950 with a revival from 1960 to 1975. For eloquence, try the 1915 song that speaks of “Memories, memories, dreams of love so true. O’er the sea of memory, I’m drifting back to you.” For cleverness, try Ira Gershwin’s 1930 lyric: “I’m just bidin’ my time, ’cause that’s the kind of guy I’m.” But for pure ingenuity, my prize goes to 1925’s ‘Five Foot Two’, which manages to get the expression ‘coochie-coo’ — in those days, it meant an exotic dance — embedded as a homonym at the end of a line that goes, “But could she love, could she woo, could she, could she, could she coo?”
From the golden age’s latter days, one of my favorites is Pete Ham and Tom Evans’ 1970 song ‘Without You,’ which was redone explosively by Harry Nilsson in 1971 and was covered, also with resounding success, by Mariah Carey as recently as 1994:
No, I can’t forget tomorrow
When I think of all my sorrow. . .
And now it’s only fair that I should let you know
What you should know:
I can’t live if living is without you. . .
Lyrical cleverness hasn’t gone anywhere. In fact, it abounds in the rap lines of hip hop music. Now if they could just add some melodies. Because — sorry, kids — words and rhythm by themselves are to music what drum-and-bugle corps is to an orchestra.
Melody is a key ingredient to classics like “Without You,” complex as it is, and, yes, “Cool Water,” simple though it may be.
But one of the most beautiful popular songs of all time — words, rhythm and melody — is a gondolier song called “Barcarolle.” Of course, it was a pop song in 1881, and it’s in French. It’s from an operetta — no hissing, please — called “The Tales of Hoffman” by Jacques Offenbach. Give it a listen here (be patient — the orchestral introduction is more than a minute long). And while you’re at it, listen to this ‘Life Is Beautiful’ spinoff I found by an Israeli singer named Noa, proof that people are still writing — and singing — great songs.
Today’s new offerings in Works:
• Chapter Two of R.J. Keller’s novel Waiting for Spring about a woman in small-town Maine forced to confront her painful life.
• Chapter 20: Preparing for Departure of Steve Karmazenuk’s science fiction novel The Unearthing.
• Chapter 14: Pacific Heights of Gerard Jones’ nonfiction novel Ginny Good.
– Sid Leavitt
NOTE:
*If you follow the link to the YouTube version, please note that the song isn’t ‘country.’ Just these performers are.
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May 23, 2008 at 10:39 am
In the audio version of Chapter Fourteen I’ve stuck in two old songs, “Hello Central, Give Me Heaven,” from a 1907 recording, and “Red Wing.” G.
There once was an Indian maid a shy little prairie maid
who sang all day a love song gay as through the fields she’d while the hours away.
She loved an Indian brave this shy little prairie maid
and then one day he rode away to battle far away..
{Chorus}
Oh the moon shines tonight on pretty Red Wing,
the breeze is sighing, the night birds crying,
For a far far away her brave is dying
and Red Wing’s crying her heart away.
She watched for him day and night,
She kept all the campfires bright,
And under the sky,
Each night she would lie,
And dream about his coming by and by
But when all the braves returned the heart of Red Wing yearned
for far far away her warrior brave fell bravely in the fray.
{chorus}
Now the Moon shines tonight on pretty Red Wing,
the breeze is sighing, the night birds crying,
for afar ‘neath his star her brave is sleeping,
while Red Wing’s weeping her heart away.
May 23, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Two great songs, Gerard. You can’t get more sentimental than a little girl trying to telephone her dead mother or an Indian maid weeping for her dead brave.
“Red Wing,” by the way, was written in the same year as your recording, 1907, and “Hello Central” in 1901. The latter is one of those wonderful songs that reflect the days when the telephone was still a novelty that, like all cutting-edge technology in its day, people found fascinating. Another of those songs, dating from 1899, is “Hello, My Baby,” still a favorite at the nursing home where we do the weekly singalongs. (”Send me a kiss by wire,” indeed.)
Apropos of nothing, it’s hard to think that in 1899, the telephone already had been around for two decades — longer than the first commercial electric company.
Our band also does “Red Wing,” but in a common variation where it’s inserted as a bridge in “Listen to the Mocking Bird.”
I’m familiar with “Hello Central,” and we may have to add it to our repertoire. But, you know, as sad as telephoning a dead mother might be, I’m still much more affected by “Silver Threads.” In the case of the former, the sentiment is clearly over the top. But in the latter, it’s an elderly husband telling his elderly wife how beautiful she still is to him. What a lovely thought.
Or maybe it’s just my age.
May 24, 2008 at 6:06 am
Oh, no, Silver Threads Among the Gold is a golden thread among the silver. I stuck another old song in the introduction to the audio book of GG, “Ain’t We Got Fun.” It’s a late-comer, though, 1921. G.
http://everyonewhosanyone.com/audio/GGch00introm.mp3
May 24, 2008 at 10:14 am
Yes, and another fave at the nursing home.
A very modern song in many ways: “There’s nothing surer: The rich get rich and the poor get poorer. In the meantime, in between time, . . . .” The new words, of course, are “we’ve got ‘American Idol.’”
May 24, 2008 at 12:47 pm
You have a ways yet to go before you get as cynical as me but American Idol is as good a place to start as any. G.
May 24, 2008 at 9:02 pm
I’m all about standards … I have dozens of CD’s of this kind of music. To me, Cole Porter is the master of the clever lyric … and the poignant one. Every Time We Say Goodbye is the one that never fails to get me all misty-eyed.
Another favorite is Rodgers and Hart’s Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered … Ella did it best.
After one whole quart of brandy
Like a daisy I awake
With no Bromo Seltzer handy,
I don’t even shake.
Men are not a new sensation;
I’ve done pretty well, I think.
But this half-pint imitation
Put me on the blink
I’m wild again
Beguiled again
A simpering, whimpering child again
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I
Couldn’t sleep
And wouldn’t sleep
Until I could sleep where I shouldn’t sleep
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I
Lost my heart but what of it?
My mistake, I agree.
He’s a laugh, but I love it
Because the laugh’s on me.
A pill he is
But still he is
All mine and I’ll keep him until he is
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered
Like me.
Seen a lot
I mean I lot
But now I’m like sweet seventeen a lot
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I
I’ll sing to him
Each spring to him
And worship the trousers that cling to him
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I
When he talks he is seeking
Words to get off his chest.
Horizontally speaking
He’s at his very best.
Vexed again
Perplexed again
Thank God I can be oversexed again
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I
May 24, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Ella did everything best.
May 24, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Thanks for the Rodgers and Hart lyrics, Jenny. Lorenz Hart probably was one of the two top lyricists of all time, the other being Ira Gershwin. And Richard Rodgers — my god, I still remember the first time I heard “Victory at Sea.” It was the theme music for a post-World War II television series of the same name, one of the first TV documentaries, narrated by the intense bass voice of a well-known newsreel announcer of the day, Westbrook Van Voorhis. Americans were still grieving sailors lost during the war, and that series seemed to validate their deaths.
As for Cole Porter, perhaps the best combination songwriter-lyricist of all time. To tell the truth, I wasn’t familiar with “Every Time We Say Goodbye,” but I am now.
There’s no love song finer,
but how strange the change
from major to minor…
ev’ry time we say goodbye.
Wow.
Oh, by the way, my mother-in-law would never forgive me if I didn’t mention that Cole Porter was a Hoosier. Born in Peru, Ind. Maybe the classiest Hoosier of all time (excepting you, my in-laws and my wife, of course).
Talk about sophistication. His one ‘cowboy’ song that I know of, “Don’t Fence Me In,” reeks of cleverness:
Just turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western skies.
On my cayuse, let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise.
It makes me smile, really. Porter, a member of a wealthy family, was an accomplished equestrian — in fact, it was a riding accident that left him in pain for the rest of his life — and I can never picture him ’straddling his old saddle’ or mounting any horse that could be described as a ‘cayuse.’ An Arabian or a Thoroughbred, perhaps, but never a cowboy pony.
May 24, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Thank you, too, R.J. I can see that all of us in the comments section — and Tess Dyer, the heroine of your novel, Waiting for Spring — have similar tastes in fine music.
May 28, 2008 at 7:04 am
Hey, I know some of those songs.
I love Cool Clear Water.
And Ghost Riders in the Sky.
May 28, 2008 at 8:27 am
Ah, another Vaughn Monroe fan. “Racing with the moon. . .”
Thanks, Bernita.