COLUMN:My breakfast is like an eagle soaring
July 29, 2002
Future Songwriters of the world:
Some time ago, Paul McCartney wrote that “some people want to fill the world with silly love songs.” It seems these days everyone wants to fill the world with love songs, only they are not silly. They’re stupid and filled with the same recycled clich‚s that have existed since people first began to write songs.
I don’t think that you, as songwriters, should continue to write love songs.
Maybe love songs are your thing, and you want to write a love song about that girl you can’t get out of your head. Don’t worry, there are many, many love songs to choose from.
I imagine that if there were some type of search engine for songs (which there probably is, I’m just too lazy to look for it), no other word would generate as many results as “love.”
I don’t think that love in and of itself is boring or fake, it’s just that it appears to be metaphorically related to very few things in this world. I’m guessing, for example, that “your love” is probably like an eagle soaring; or the stars above; or like a hurricane, spinning out of control.
By now someone is probably going to chime in with the argument that “what the world needs now IS love, sweet love” and that “we don’t need another mountain.” They would be wrong, though, and we in fact DO need mountains, especially in Iowa.
Still others will argue that “All you need is love,” but they are wrong as well. You need a whole lot more than love – if you’re going to last beyond the first date.
Seriously, it’s getting harder and harder to find anything different on the radio, and I’m really tired of it. What I’m asking for, future songwriters, is for songs about something else, with the exception of teen angst. We definitely do not need any more songs filled with bogus teen angst.
This doesn’t have to be hard. You can write about breakfast, lunch or dinner. You can write about your job. You can write about high-school shop class. You can even write about your first-grade teacher (as long as you don’t love him or her, because that would be both counter-productive and sick).
I really don’t care what it’s about. As long as it’s not love or teen angst, I will enjoy hearing about what you have to say. The burden upon your shoulders gets heavier each day a new song filled with horribly predictable lyrics is released.
And it’s not just any one genre of music that is responsible for this sad state we’ve fallen into. Rock ‘n’ Roll, R&B, hip-hop, hard rock, college rock, alternative, emo and pop are all becoming one big love song.
There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish sky and high and bye bye bye didn’t rhyme, or forever and together, or much and touch. The English language is large and varied. There are many words appropriate for songwriting. Please feel free to use as many as you would like. Contrary to popular belief, they don’t even have to sound alike.
Of course, not everyone wants to fill the world with silly love songs, and they still manage to make outstanding music. Paul Simon, for example, is probably the best living songwriter, and while he does write the occasional love song, he also found time to pen great songs like “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,” “The Sound of Silence” and “Kodachrome,” to name just a few.
There are others, such as Ben Folds and The Clash, who have long escaped falling into the trap of the clich‚d love song and have managed great careers unscathed. I mean, really, if “Weird Al” Yankovic can do it, surely it’s not that hard.
Good love or bad love, it’s really getting old.
If you need any suggestions, you can feel free to write me, because as you can probably tell, I write about stupid stuff all the time.
Take care,
P.L. O’Bryan
Patrick O’Bryan is a senior in English from Indianola.