“Cheap music, childish images, the vulgate in language, in its crassest sense, can penetrate to the deeps of our necessities and dreams. It can assert irrevocable tenure there. The opening bars, the hammer-beat accelerando of Edith Piaf's Je ne regrette rien - the text is infantile, the tune stentorian, and the politics which enlisted the song unattractive - tempt every nerve in me, touch the bone with a cold burn and draw me into God knows what infidelities to reason, each time I hear the song, and hear it, uncalled for, recurrent inside me.” KnowsReasonDreamSongLanguageColdBeatsDrawsBonesBarsOpeningTunesNervesInfidelityHammersGod KnowsPenetrateUnattractiveTenureIrrevocableInfantileEnlisted Book:Real Presences: Is There Anything in What We Say? Source: Real Presences: Is There Anything in What We Say?
“As you can imagine, over the years I have been asked many times to discuss and explain my song "American Pie." I have never discussed the lyrics, but have admitted to the Holly reference in the opening stanzas. You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me. You will find many “interpretations” of my lyrics but none of them by me. Isn’t this fun? Sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence.” ShouldYearsLongHas BeensMovingSongSilenceImagineSorryI RealizedStatementsOpeningInterpretationLong AgoPieSongwritersMaintainingHolliesAmerican Pie Author:Don McLean
“It's the same at a rock-and-roll concert. You have an opening number with a strong entrance; then you go through a lot of the old standards, building up to your hit song at the end.” EndsSongStrongNumbersAtheismRocksBuildingStandardsPositive AtheismOpeningConcertsRock And RollEntrancesBuilding Up Author:Marjoe Gortner
“Every song falls short of the glory of what a song could be. That's why the urge is there to start again and yet again. Often it's the fault of rhyme. I've discovered a hundred times that there just aren't enough rhymes to say what I wanted to say, so I said something else instead. Sometimes it was a better thing, but the thing I meant to say went unsaid. So there's an opening for another song.” SaidSometimesEnoughWantedSongFallGloryHundredFaultsOpeningUrgesRhymeUnsaid Author:Robert Hunter