The new face of song
July 12 2010
What happened to the song?
Song. Sing. Songs. The song. A song. Singsong.
When did the song become the Big Mac?
The Pianobabbler composes songs. Instrumental only. Most people expect to find a duality in songs. Words and music. Like all musicians, though, the Pianobabbler plays songs. They oxygenate, feed, inform and express the music the Pianobabbler makes.
Art song. Theme song. Pop song. Folk song.
Song surrounds us.
Songs surround us.
Song of prayer. Song of hope. Song of freedom. Song and dance.
The Pianobabbler ins't surveying the history of music or the song here. What you need to know: the song evolved over centuries until, in the 20th century, it became the basic molecule of popular culture. With the advent of radio, television, musicals and recordings, songs reached every place and every person everywhere. We marinated in songs and the song.
The 1960’s: songs became the collective conscience' official broadcast channel. Bob Dylan, Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Buffy Sainte-Marie. An on-and-ongoing list of musicians distilled public and private feeling into hummable hymns of diatonic essence. Like a Rolling Stone. Revolution. A Change Is Gonna Come.
And then...
Around the time processing started turning what we eat into food that was different from all-natural food, music took a similar turn. We now live in a world of song and all-natural song.
Music has become manufactured. Technology enables once unimaginable processing. The composer has become the composed. Metrics of past success dictate future form and content. Composing looks backward not forward, re-creating not creating.
Love song.Torch song. Enchantment (from Latin to sing.)
The song has disappeared. What we commonly hear is often a product of accounting principles, marketing studies, and technology. Songs wear standardized grey suits now.
The prevailing song today is a Big Mac. Engineered taste that appeals to the most deadened senses, and then deadens them more.
How sad.
The song has not really died. It lives strong and free among indie non-industrial musicians. Brock Simpson. Daniela Nardi (my wife.) Many others. They write all-natural songs. But they don't have the machinery to propagate them as far and wide as the industrial behemoths. The all-natural song remains local, the robo-song global. The Big Mac.
How sad.
Swan song.
The Pianobabbler has babbled.
The Pianobabbler is a RonDavisMusic production. The Pianobabbler's blog posts appear weekly at pianobabber.com. Please remember to leave your comments and thoughts below. Subscribe to the RSS feed. And subscribe to RonDavisNews by clicking on the link, above right. And follow us on Twitter.
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