[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
The Importance of Voice
In conversation with Nick the Wonder Wookie(!), Lindsey and Brooke, I
started thinking about the importance of Voice. The written word of course
evokes a voice, (that tone or tambre you hear in your head as you read;
that echo of someone else that's almost as familiar as your own thoughts)
and some writers contend that without voice, a poem, story or a novel will
fail.
The text of lyric-writing, taken without the accompanying music or the
singer (which is like stripping a tree of its bark, foilage and roots),
must too evoke a voice of a kind.
Now looking at OTR and the Junkies, you have two men who write a large
amount of the lyrics. (Michael Timmins for the Junkies and Linford for
OTR). And you have women who sing them (Margo Timmins for the Junkies and
Karin for OTR). There's an obvious and interesting balance of masculine and
feminine, with multiple layers of Voice coming through.
For you Romantics out there, I think it was Keats who believed that the
best poets would necessarily be androgynous. Could be wrong.
And here you have the man's voice, the lyrics' voice, the woman's (literal)
voice and it creates this huge synergystic whole that is larger than its
component parts.
I don't know what any of this means, if anything, but I find it
fascinating. I think it's why I'm haunted by the music of both of these
great bands after listening to them. Many layers, much depth.
Probably more than pop music deserves, and yet, somehow, pop music is the
only correct vehicle.
Ramblin Matteo