goinghome
you must not tamper with arrangements
The writer is Glenn Fosbraey. Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Winchester.
An ode to the social realism of ‘boring’ lyrics – from The Kinks to The Streets
The majority of chart artists content themselves with writing lyrics about relationships, breakups or their lavish lifestyles. Take the current top 10 song, Prada by Cassö, RAYE & D-Block Europe. As one might expect from the title, it speaks of designer clothes, fancy hotels and expensive cars. Other artists, however, satisfy themselves with something a little less glamorous – songs about the everyday, with lyrics about the ordinary and banal.Social and literary realism have long been valuable tools in detailing the everyday lives of people, and they have been a staple in popular music for decades. When The Kinks released The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society in 1968, it was perhaps the first album to actively focus on the mundane, everyday aspects of life as lived by the average person in Britain.
It was about as far removed as it was possible to be from the psychedelic introspection that was popular among the biggest selling bands of the time (led, of course, by The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band). The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society delighted in detailing the smaller joys of life, with songwriter Ray Davies singing about strawberry jam, draught beer, custard pies and Desperate Dan in songs that gave an insight into a world that was familiar and relatable to its listeners.
With lyrics that portrayed a life of rented rooms, high-rise estates and motorway service stations, Morrissey was writing lyrics about unexceptional, everyday experiences that jarred with the glitz and glamour the New Romantic bands were singing about.
And while The Smiths provided an alternative to the pomposity of early 1980s music, The Streets’ debut album Original Pirate Material was released in 2002 into a UK music market dominated by cheesy lyrics like “I’m flying high ‘cause your love’s made me see” and “Baby I would climb the Andes solely to count the freckles on your body”. Its lead vocalist Mike Skinner instead wanted “to write good lyrics about contemporary British life”....
- https://theconversation.com/an-ode-...g-lyrics-from-the-kinks-to-the-streets-224320
An ode to the social realism of ‘boring’ lyrics – from The Kinks to The Streets
The majority of chart artists content themselves with writing lyrics about relationships, breakups or their lavish lifestyles. Take the current top 10 song, Prada by Cassö, RAYE & D-Block Europe. As one might expect from the title, it speaks of designer clothes, fancy hotels and expensive cars. Other artists, however, satisfy themselves with something a little less glamorous – songs about the everyday, with lyrics about the ordinary and banal.Social and literary realism have long been valuable tools in detailing the everyday lives of people, and they have been a staple in popular music for decades. When The Kinks released The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society in 1968, it was perhaps the first album to actively focus on the mundane, everyday aspects of life as lived by the average person in Britain.
It was about as far removed as it was possible to be from the psychedelic introspection that was popular among the biggest selling bands of the time (led, of course, by The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band). The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society delighted in detailing the smaller joys of life, with songwriter Ray Davies singing about strawberry jam, draught beer, custard pies and Desperate Dan in songs that gave an insight into a world that was familiar and relatable to its listeners.
The Smiths to The Streets
The Kinks started a trend. In the 1980s, The Smiths chose the name to be as unglamorous and bland as possible, positioning themselves as the antithesis to the Spandau Ballets and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Darks of the music world. Lead singer Morrissey told an interviewer: “It was the most ordinary name and I thought it was time that the ordinary folk of the world showed their faces.”With lyrics that portrayed a life of rented rooms, high-rise estates and motorway service stations, Morrissey was writing lyrics about unexceptional, everyday experiences that jarred with the glitz and glamour the New Romantic bands were singing about.
And while The Smiths provided an alternative to the pomposity of early 1980s music, The Streets’ debut album Original Pirate Material was released in 2002 into a UK music market dominated by cheesy lyrics like “I’m flying high ‘cause your love’s made me see” and “Baby I would climb the Andes solely to count the freckles on your body”. Its lead vocalist Mike Skinner instead wanted “to write good lyrics about contemporary British life”....
- https://theconversation.com/an-ode-...g-lyrics-from-the-kinks-to-the-streets-224320
