Instrumentals. I don’t like them.
It’s simply laziness on the part of the composer. Sitting at the piano or hunched over the guitar and constructing a tune, it’s the easy route to loll back in the chair and say, “That’s it! My day’s work is done. My opus is complete.”
I’m telling these idle songsters that they need to (as we tune observers like to say) walk the extra mile and add some words to their little melody. What sort of career would Elton have enjoyed if he hadn’t realised the limit of his capabilities and subsequently handed over his albeit catchy compositions to the care of Bernie Taupin. A very limited career is the answer.
What joy Bernie has brought with his well considered lyrics – well, like those for ‘Island Girl’ for example:
I see your teeth flash, Jamaican honey so sweet; Down where Lexington cross 47th Street; She's a big girl, she's standing six foot three; Turning tricks for the dudes in the big city.
Island girl; What you wantin' wid de white man's world; Island girl; Black boy want you in his island world; He want to take you from the racket boss; He want to save you but the cause is lost; Island girl, island girl, island girl; Tell me what you wantin' wid de white man's world
She's black as coal but she burn like a fire; And she wrap herself around you like a well worn tire; You feel her nail scratch your back just like a rake; He one more gone, he one more John who make a mistake.
Oh... no, wait a minute. That’s racist, sexist, and several other ists too, I imagine.
Yet the point is still valid; Elton’s instrumentals are usually doomy affairs, aimed at the dead or dying.
Instrumentals rarely bother the compilers of the charts, because they generally follow the Elton Rule in that you may hear them once or twice, say ‘meh’ and move on to something you can sing along to. Successful instrumentals are usually associated with a visual ‘pick-me-up’ which helps them sell a few copies by association as they form the aural backdrop to television shows or movies.
A list of instrumental hits that have edged into the top twenty in the Billboard Charts shows an almost exclusive adherence to that movie association. In my extensive research (OK, a quick look at Wikipedia) I found that no instrumental has troubled the Billboard Top Twenty since 1996.
We have fallen completely out of love with instrumentals. We’ve had to tell them that it isn’t them, it’s us. We just don’t feel the same and we need to start hearing new tunes. Ones with words.
Yes, I can hear you at the back, shouting out with your Booker T and the MGs, and your Classical Gas. The former’s canon is made up of tunes that are only heard as add-ons to TV shows, and the latter (and its ilk) are just showing off pieces that we listen to with respect; then we say ‘meh’ again, and play Abbey Road.
The most vital deficiency of the instrumental is that the writer can only prompt you in an abstract way. They can only paint a possibility of engagement. They might be able to lift your mood, or lead you to reflection, but they aren’t letting you in.
Words are our most powerful tool. Words stop wars; they break hearts and have the power to repair them.
A tune without words is a monochrome landscape, a dreamless sleep, a straight line that leads us nowhere. Composers of melodies – bring us your words, your thoughts, your dreams, your curved lines, and colour in our panorama.
But maybe don’t give the lyric writing gig to Bernie Taupin.
Terence Dackombe, December 2010
This week I have:
Bought a new car without seeing it or test driving it. What could possibly go wrong?
Marvelled once again at the survival instincts of Stuart ‘The Brand’ Baggs.
Not been knowingly kettled.
Listened extensively and repeatedly to the Greatest Hits of Scott Walker, and The Walker Brothers
Not listened to any instrumentals.
