| re: A number of questions about '1776' the movie | |
| Posted by: peter3053 07:15 pm EDT 07/06/21 | |
| In reply to: re: A number of questions about '1776' the movie - ryhog 10:26 am EDT 07/06/21 | |
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| The antique store rejected me - they said I wasn't crafted well enough. I think the suggestion that most folks wouldn't notice the "crowds/aloud" fault supports my point; I agree; it could be an indication of how far standards have dropped since the Gold Age of Berlin, Porter, Lerner and all the rest. I think that when popular song writing moved from the theater and musical movies to the world of radio, untethered by the demands of the drama, it lost allegiance to precision. Perhaps the lack of directors and actors asking "What's going on here?" made a difference. Perhaps since so much music was popularized over the radio there was not the immediacy of an audience present sounding confused ("What did she just say??"), and then when the fans went to the concerts they went to scream more than listen. I don't know. Human truth demands precision in a way no other - if there is any other truth - does. We crave truth, and we crave to know precisely. Hence, when a lyric comes along like that of The Beatles, (towards the start of the split between theater popular songwriting and the newer "music industry" pop songwriting), such as "Yesterday", in which the supposed character says on the one hand that "Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away" but on the other that "Yesterday came suddenly", one is left wondering when "She" left the poor guy - at dusk??? It's true that great artists sometimes break the rules - for artistic purpose. Sometimes, too, even the best can find it impossible to match their highest standard occasionally. But the standards are not there for their own sake - they are there because of the search for human truth. That truth can be comical or tragic; it is multifaceted, of course. But could many modern pop writers achieve a "You Can't Get a Man with a Gun" one minute and a "I Got Lost in His Arms" the next? Or "Just One of Those Things" and "Can Can", with the finesse required of each? Or shape "Rose's Turn" out of the entire score that preceded it? And a drama over two to three hours requires those skills of variety of experience. There are reasons we speak of a Golden Age of Broadway, and the supreme skills of theatrical lyric writing and compositional know-how were the fons-et-origo, as indeed all great theatrical creation is built from the power of the right word and the absolute best note. |
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