Words and music

And Max staring at... something or other. I'm not exactly sure what he thought he was seeing.

He has nice vibrissae though, don't you think?

Yeah, I know. Shut up, Biology Girl.

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I was watching (well, half-watching. The other half was getting ready for bed while coughing and nose-blowing, even if the Toronto office is offering no sympathy at all on that point) a Pete Seeger thing last night and found myself singing along with the music (when I wasn't coughing or nose-blowing). You can't really help singing along if you grew up with those songs like I did, but I have to admit that singing along while watching the documentary gave me a little bit of a guilty feeling.

You see, Pete Seeger's all about the message. I'm... not.

I know there's a lot of meaning behind the words, but for the most part I sing along because I like the tunes.

Blasphemy, I suppose.

I used to perform quite a lot, although I don't really do it now. Singing, mostly. Choirs, small groups, solo work... you name it. You tend to be exposed to a fair amount of different music when you have that kind of background, and there's not much of it that I don't like.

As music, that is.

As for the thoughts behind the words, I can often take or leave them. Do you think that's a bad thing? I mean, if you take a tune out of context and away from its words, have you lost the point of the music?

If I sing, for example, Where Have All the Flowers Gone? can I enjoy it for the music itself without getting into some sort of anti-war fervour?

Um... ok, that wasn't the best example to choose. That particular song always makes me sad.

Let's come at it from a different angle, then. Over the years I've sung a lot of religious music from several different religions. Is it taking something away from that music if I don't happen to believe in the words that I'm singing? If I was an atheist, would it be wrong to have a favourite hymn?

I don't know.

You can always tell when I don't know because the posts become nothing but questions.

The whole thing can be taken in another direction, of course. What if you think that "message music" can't be separated from the message? Do you see messages in all music, in that case? Do you become the kind of person who refuses to let your family listen to heavy metal music in case they become devil worshippers? Does the so-called message get to you whether you want it to or not?

Even if you don't believe that there really is a message?

I suppose that things can be taken too far in both directions. Seeing messages in everything is weirdly paranoid, as far as I can tell, but ignoring messages when they're obviously there and obviously important to the artists? Well, I guess that's debasing the art.

It's not going to stop me from liking a good tune, though.

And... there's my brain off on a completely different tack with that one statement. I like a nice dance -- you're forced to. Good grief. Short attention span rears its ugly head.

Means I should stop typing then.

All right.