Bemoaning, each day, the parlous state of popular music, we began thinking of songs with lyrics that actually made sense. There was a time when pop musicians, e.g., the Beatles, the Stones, could write lyrics--"I Don't Get No Satisfaction," "Eleanor Rigby"--but the current group, among them an increasing number of Canadians who should never have been allowed out of the garage, are recording songs that have a single line, repeated over and over and over and over. And the line is usually some tattered old adage--"You always hurt the one you love." "A stitch in time saves nine." "Beggars can't be choosers."
Made us think, happily, of the satirical song Guy Marks wrote for the Guy Lombardo band. We know, one doesn't usually associate Guy Lombardo with satire. But this worked. The Lombardo band used always to include a medley of pop tunes. The Marks medley had "Your Red Scarf Matches Your Eyes," "Close Cover Before Striking," "Papa Had the Shipfitter Blues" and "Loving You Has Made Me Bananas."
Okay, we no longer have Cole Porter, or Johnny Mercer, or Ira Gershwin, or Yip Harburg, or Frank Loesser or Alan Jay Lerner, but is it too much to ask that the people who presume to perform and record songs show some degree of acquaintance with the language?
Huh?
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