Word: lyric
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...these respects, Harvard undergraduates are ideal. They usually have real knowledge and passion. They want to engage, if one will only let them. They are not afraid to ask questions, to risk interpretations, to read poems aloud and to listen. So my finest experiences since 1991 teaching (briefly) lyric poetry to first-year students at Harvard have been whipped cream on top of chocolate cake. For those who wonder whether education is alive and well, or who question whether the future will be in good hands, I exhort them to come, to watch and to listen to our students...
...hard to ignore that Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba" was Spanish or that "Sukiyaki" by Q (Kyu) Sakamoto was Japanese; those were the languages the tunes were sung in. Even a few translated songs had the novelty of distance and difference - "Skokian," for instance. As I recall the English lyric, it wore its ethnographic condescension jovially: "Oh, far away in Africa,/ Happy happy Africa,/ They do a bingo-bongo-bingo/ In hokey-smoky-Skokian...
...aside the imposing stats. Giddins is impressed by Crosby's importance in the history of pop singing, his talent for vocal nuance and lyric-reading; rather than a bland stylist, the first easy-listening star, Crosby is promoted as, in Artie Shaw's words, "the first hip white person born in the United States." To Giddins, Bing was more. He embodied an attractive prototype: the casual, unflappable American, at ease in his eminence, who faces life with equanimity, win or lose - but who always wins. Giddins also dares to admire the fullness, longevity and ease of Crosby's success...
...Bing helped Louis, he could be said to have given artistic birth to a generation of singing stars; baritones were the almost exclusive rage for the next two decades. Specifically, his example taught Sinatra that the pulp poetry in a good lyric could be enriched by honoring it, and showed Presley how the low range for his ballads could be as sexy as the squalling tenor of his rockabilly...
Added to my list of online diversions is Scott Slonak’s 1990s Lyrics Quiz (www.artofthemix.org/writings/lyrics.asp). It’s a really simple concept: there’s a list of lines from 200 different songs that were popular in the 90s, and all you have to do is name the song each line came from. It’s infinitely frustrating to stare at a lyric and have the song on the tip of your tongue. Took me forever to remember that “life is demanding without understanding” is a line from...