Luke Gullickson
  • About
  • News
  • Music
  • A Word

Word 25

7/17/2018

 
For some reason, none of my friends seem to publish their lyrics on Bandcamp. I’ve always done this, since I started releasing music there in (gulp) 2010. Bandcamp offers arguments in favor: people will google your lyrics, they suggest, and you want those googlers to end up here, where they can buy your album, and where the lyrics will be correct: “If you haven’t added lyrics on Bandcamp, those fans are likely ending up on lyriczzzbay.com instead, who’s showing them ads for Applebee’s.”

Ben has the best counter-argument. They’re lyrics, he has told me, not poetry. They’re meant to be heard, not read. I suppose there is valuable mystery in this. The words are supposed to be music, and like music maybe they should fly past you and disappear. Maybe if you sing a word ambiguously and people can’t understand it, maybe that’s part of the experience; mondegreens are a tradition unto themselves.

Me, I just can’t resist carefully telling everyone how I like my lyrics punctuated, where the line breaks are. I like precise capitalization—it’s one of my preferred methods of resisting the current presidential administration. I like revealing the spelling of fictional place and character-names. I like specifying that I’m using “O” rather than “Oh,” in the sense of Shakespearean ecphonesis. I like supplying quotation marks where a quotation is taking place. Looking back, I see that the only exceptions are Crazy Cloud in Dream World (probably because I didn’t write all of the lyrics), Captivity Songs (probably because I was depressed), and the song “Red (for Sam Amidon)” from On Blue Trails (probably because I was quoting, and because I wanted it to be mysterious).

I think I’ll keep doing it. If nothing else, it’s nice to have them all archived in one place. Did you know that Bob Dylan’s official website has a complete listing of all the songs he’s released, with lyrics, discography, the first time he played it live, the most recent time he’s played it live, and the total number of times he’s played it live?

Comments are closed.

    A Selection

    Gone Walkabout
    Migration
    Crossroads II
    10 Best of 2014
    January: Wyoming and the Open
    ​February: New Mexico and the Holes
    Coming Up
    Notes on The Accounts
    Crossroad Blues
    Labyrinths

    Archives

    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    September 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    December 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    August 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010

    RSS Feed

  • About
  • News
  • Music
  • A Word