Gordon Lightfoot has my two favorite opening lines…
“If you could read my mind love, what a tale my thoughts could tell…”
“Picking up the pieces of my sweet shattered dream”
I’d never listened to him until now.
And I shall never again listen to him.
The sentiment is cheesy and his voice is a bit crap. so not much to recommend.
I would hate to be you.
Dude, sculptor … the man is a musical god.
Carefree Highway which has the last line as it’s intro is the opposite of cheesy.
He’s talking about “his old friend” ‘not giving a shit about anything’. Thus the name carefree highway. He also talks about one night stands that don’t mean anything and cause ‘the walk of shame’. When states that I feel the ‘morning after blues from my head down to my shoes’
Bob Dylan literally calls Gordon one of his mentors.
You think this is a cheesy song?
Incidentally, this song above has my favorite last line of songs with words… “many are the dead men, too silent to be real”
Actually, I’ll throw this song into the ring…
The incomparable Don McClean at his best.
Dreidel.
Now, this song uses one Jewish reference … the dreidel… it’s a six sided (star of David) spinning top.
Dreidel is a very ancient children’s toy…
I couldn’t find one with lyrics so you’ll have to make it out for yourself or look up the lyrics online without the music behind them.
This song blew my mind when I first heard it.
It talks about life and suicide.
On a scale from Edam to Parmesan I’d give it a Wensledale
TARKUS
This has it all.
50th birthday yesterday!!
youtube.com/watch?v=WKNOlDtZluU
starts in 5/4 time signature. Minor key; Dorian mode, Where the fuck are you going to get that in pop music today?
These guys were in their early 20s when they made this. This is the height of COOL.
Really?!?! They’re just Zappa rip offs. I didn’t even like Zappa much.
Bruh you’ve heard Tarkus? You just went up a level. knuckle bump
Ecman shut the heck up ELP is not a zappa rip-off. Not even kinda, or a little.
It was really difficult to be a prog-rock rip-off band back in the seventies because there were very few existing formulas to be copied and everything was just generally considered progressive. For instance genesis and, say, YES will at times do similar stuff, but you’d not say one or the other was copying anything because they were all doing that kind of stuff at the same time… and nobody had yet owned it or stamped it as their sound. You had a general prog structure to your music or u didn’t, and if it sounded like somebody else, that’s only because their music too has a prog structure.
What happened here is your brain just recognized and compartmentalized that generally progressive rock sound in both zappa and the prog bands you’ve heard.
Like there are prolly a hunerd other bands that ELP sounds more like than zappa.
Sorry if you’re offended.
Zappa was first through the gate.
…including the fact that one person’s ‘best song ever’ is another person’s ‘what the hell…’, and that we all can have questionable tastes at times.
So many elements to a song… let alone the genres and eras to choose from.
Not sure what you think the gate it to…
It is debatable is Zappa is prog in any sense. In fact I think he is something else entirely.
Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Led Zep, ELP, Cream had barely heard of him and were not really influnced by him.
Heavy rock started as early as the Kinks “You really Got Me”.
Beatles Sgt Pepper and Stone His Satanic Majesty Albums set the world on the road to Prog Rock. Freak Out got out first but its a pretty confused bunch of stuff. Derivative and spoofy.
Zappa has his own genre.
It’s more like Political Standup comedy set to music, and MOCK ROCK.
I’d not doubt his skill. In fact some of his stuff is so complex that only Frank could listen to it. And many people bought albums for show but could not listen to them.
You might know how to play keyboards but your sense of musical history is poor indeed, and your taste in music is very limited.
I don’t disagree with that. I have very particular taste buds (to use the analogy) and I’m also allergic to some foods.
That’s how it works with music.
What did you think of the McLean song?
I’m pretty sure it’s doable. You just have to know how to do it. I’d kindly suggest you’re conflating “I can’t do it because I don’t know how / have yet to learn how” with “It’s not possible”.
And I also think there might be a way to determine “the best song ever written”.
I think it’s okay – and fun – but far, very far, from being “the height of cool”.
They shouldn’t call it “progressive”. Rather pretentious term, if you ask me. The proper term would be “experimental”. That’s what they are doing – they are experimenting. They are trying out new, previously untested, things and thereby discovering new interesting ways in which music can be fun. But overall, their efforts aren’t really that great (since they aren’t properly finalized.)
Time Out is also fun but far from being great piece of music. So is anything by Aphex Twin (such as this piece.)
I don’t have narrow tastes and I wouldn’t want to limit myself to these “progressive” pieces. And if I absolutely had to, I’d limit myself to a different kind of music.
No. It’s not because I am stupid. quite the opposite. I know the difference between objective criteria and subective values.
GO on then. But I won’t hold my breath
What are your critieria for he best song ever written?
That’s only because you are not cool, but I am.
That’s only because you are ignorant of the history of music. It is progressive because that words was used to best describe the emerging rack genre of 1970, from the Like of ELP, King Crimson, Pink Floyd and others.
But, you see, Progressive Rock is the best genre by far, and so that is exacly where you will find the best sing ever written.
I like Jazz, so example one is interesting.
I hate example two as it has no musicianship and thatis one of my key criteria for the appreciation of music
I agree with many of your criticisms and musical judgements, but here I must correct you. The reason it is called progressive isn’t the spirit behind it, that it’s super progressive or whatever. Perhaps the confusion was purposefully allowed and it is true that, from that point of view, it is one more reason to dislike these nerds.
But the reason it is called progressive has to do with the musical structure. Rather than unfolding, the melody and harmony progresses. It is not a style of music that has an opening argument, some considerations and a conclusion, an arc shaped arc. Rather, each short amount of bars is its own argument, and the next bar only concerns itself with finding a way to progress from that last bar. There is no care or interest for an overall arc, though one can maybe be found simply by the coherence formed by the progressions. This is why #1 they can allow themselves a genius and freedom of composition that is rarely seen even in academic music and #2 why it seems to lack a soul, anything really to say. It’s like they become so enamoured by and obsessed with the math that they forget they are writing an equation.
^^^ exactly!
The genre didn’t get established until there was enough existing formulaic music and musical trends for which to be contrasted to. It is then called ‘progressive’ by that comparison… because of its abnormality and violation of the expected norms. It must be anatomically different from the standard forms from which it came to be progressive, and that classification continued changing until the nineties. Now nothing more substantial can be done with music, and the genre becomes ambiguous like all the mechanized sound effect crap now called progressive on the radio.