Two motivations for this post:
1. Hearing Ashlee Simpson’s single Outta My Head today. It’s quite possibly the worst song ever made. It was written by SIX!!! people. As a comparison, ‘Yesterday’, the most covered song in history, was written by Paul McCartney, one man, in his sleep.
So what’s gone wrong in the last 40 years, that we’ve gone from Yesterday to “Ay ya ya ya ya”?
Well, McCartney was a songwriting genius, right? Well maybe, but that genius didn’t spring out of thin air. He’d done his homework, and was steeped in rock’n’roll and blues, folk, ragtime, musicals, Tin Pan Alley standards, church hymns and classical music – all influences working on him when he composed. The writers of ‘Outta My Head’ are influenced by market forces and the few hit records of the last 18 months, all of which eschew melody for the novelty of the studio and the tyranny of whatever rhythm is moving the clubfloors at this particular moment.
As a balance to this argument, let’s remember that McCartney and his contemporaries have produced a fair amount of rubbish in their time. And the leading lights of pop/r’n’b between about 1999 and 2002 (Aaliyah, Kelis, Destiny’s Child, the Neptunes) let loose a wave of truly future-facing, heart-stopping records.
But for the last 3 years it’s been a downward spiral; with popular music across genres deteriorating massively as writers and performers completely misplace the melody.
2. What can you do about it? Well, let’s get one thing straight. You’ve bought a guitar or a keyboard or a kazoo, and learned to play some chords. You’ve watched some videos of, I dunno, James Morrison, or the Enemy, or Justin Timberlake, or whatever, and thought, “Hey I could do this, doesn’t seem too hard”, and started strumming away.
Well stop. You don’t know shit. These are not the people you should be listening to.
“Yeah,” says indie hipster boy, who’s put a few 7 inches out and played the Monarch a couple times. “Go get Forever Changes and Revolver and Astral Weeks, you losers.”
Fuck you too. You don’t know shit either. You think those records came out of nowhere? You think that music began with ‘Love Me Do’? You’re an idiot, and it’s people like you, just as much as the guileless naifs with their acoustic piffle and the capitalist r’n’b overlords, that are fucking up music for the rest of us.
So stop now, go out and buy these records, and start again.
1. Buddy Holly’s Greatest Hits
Buddy Holly only wrote 40 songs, but most of them are perfect pop confections. If all music was destroyed except for this album, it’s possible that we’d be ok. More importantly, we could start again, because everything you need to know about song writing on this record.
Don’t even bother if you’re not at least going to try and write a song as good as: Everyday
2. Sam Cooke: Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964
Sam Cooke is renowned for his voice, but as a songwriter he had no equal in the early ‘60s. Simple melodies conveying complex emotions: that’s what it’s all about.
Don’t even bother if you’re not at least going to try and write a song as good as: You Send Me
3. In The Wee Small Hours
If you want to know what people mean when they talk about The Great American Songbook, here’s the place to start. This album contains the pinnacle of sophisticated romantic songwriting from the most important melodic craftsmen of all time. Cole Porter’s the name everyone knows, but Harold Arlen had the edge. Check the credits and go buy everything you can by these composers.
Don’t even bother if you’re not at least going to try and write a song as good as: Can’t We Be Friends
4. West Side Story
Musicals, especially from the golden age of the ‘40s and ‘50s, were a huge influence on the key ‘60s pop songwriters – but let’s face it, they’re pretty embarrassing to listen to these days. Bernstein made the genre wholly modern in one fell swoop with West Side Story. He absorbed a ton of influences – jazz, pop, Latin American music - to create little worlds contained in 4 minutes of melody.
Don’t even bother if you’re not at least going to try and write a song as good as: Tonight
5. The Anthology of American Folk Music
Without this music there’d be no Bob Dylan, a man who wrote more classic songs by the time he was 24, than most people working in music today will ever produce in a lifetime. It’s all about communication: got nothing new or compelling to communicate? Then give up now.
Don’t even bother if you’re not at least going to try and write a song as good as: Down On Penny's Farm
6. Bach: Violin Concertos
No I’m not joking. Want to know about melody? Bach was a non-stop hitmaker. And he influenced countless Beatles tunes, from Penny Lane to Blackbird.
Don’t even bother if you’re not at least going to try and write a song as good as: Double Violin Concerto in D Minor
7. Infiniment: 40 Chansons
Jacques Brel literally wrestled with melody, twisting and contorting it, taking it in completely outlandish directions, and ended up with a songbook that’s quite frankly unequalled in modern culture – nobody else writes like him, and that originality of voice is something to aspire to.
Don’t even bother if you’re not at least going to try and write a song as good as: La Chanson De Jacky
8. The Songmaker's Collection: Music from the Brill Building
There is no great Goffin & King collection – although Dusty Springfield’s Songbooks, which takes in Bacharach & David as well, is obviously an essential purchase if you want to hear the best of their mid-‘60s work. This collection of Brill Building classics includes ‘It’s Too Late’, ‘Up On The Roof’ and others, and also handily compiles the top tunes from the Brill Building’s other key songwriters, all of whom were crammed in tiny rooms day after day in the early ‘60s churning out pop hits to order. Incredible songs that prove how working under pressure is good for your musical creativity.
Don’t even bother if you’re not at least going to try and write a song as good as: It’s Too Late
9. The Best Of The Goon Show
Looks like an odd choice. And certainly it’s not here because of any songs they wrote or recorded (although The Ying Tong Song and I’m Walking Back For Christmas are worth hearing). But The Goons were an important influence on the key British songwriters of the ‘60s, especially Lennon and Syd Barrett. In a sense, they helped invent psychedelia. Spike Milligan, with his manic wordplay, the odd connections he made, his utterly skewed approach to any subject, helped give birth to ‘I Am The Walrus’ – and he can still be a powerful influence on anyone writing today, proving what can be done when form and content are stretched to absurd limits.
Don’t even bother if you’re not at least going to try and write a song as good as: The Ying Tong Song
10. Chuck Berry Is On Top
He could be here for his melodies, but actually I’m singling him out for his lyrics. Of all the people on this list, Berry can lay closest claim to having invented the language of pop and rock. There are greater technical lyricists at work on In The Wee Small Hours, but they’re essentially writing poetry. Berry is doing something different, mashing slang, pop culture references, and a mythologized take on the towns and highways of America, and bringing a new rhythm to the song lyric. The greatest lyricist of the ‘60s (if not ever), Bob Dylan, started here and look where he ended up.
Don’t even bother if you’re not at least going to try and write a song as good as: Sweet Little Sixteen
Christian Ward, July 2010
