The lyrics

[kimba]

What do you make of this.

Some lady messaged me on myspace to tell me I got the lyrics wrong to Cheek to Cheek...

I know I did, that's just what came out on the day and I thought it was alright...

For some reason, I feel bothered by it. Do you think she's being pedantic, or should singers sing the right words? I always change the words of standards depending on my mood, or how many drinks I've had...

[Kenny]

Half empty response: Damn cheek (so to speak)!

Half full response: Huzza! Someone was actually listening closely enough to twig I messed with a standard's lyric.

[isaacs]

It seems to me that what a jazz musician does when playing a standard is transform the melody (or its attendant harmonies). If you didn't, you wouldn't be a jazz musician! You are not expected to render the tune note-for-note as the composer wrote it, on the contrary.

It also seems to follow that jazz singing should in theory allow for the same liberties of paraphrase with the other intellectual property in the song, the lyrics (though this seems to be less common, as jazz is about musical rather than textual inventiveness).

But why the hell not........reharmonise.......recontextualise......!

I used to play around with lyrics for fun at home. Specifically I liked turning saccharine love songs into their opposite, like "I Should Care" becoming "I Don't Care". There's a line in "Like Someone in Love" that goes "Each time I look at you I'm limp as a glove". I'd simply sing "Each time I look at you I'm limp" - works for a male singer, and the space created by the attendant truncation of the melody can be made hip too.

[kimba]

Thanks guys - both excellent and enlightened responses!

I love to mess around with the words, I really feel it's another kind of improvisation. Ms. O'hara always taught me that when you start to solo as a singer, you can start with using different words, to create different patterns, to improve rhythm, and to feel your way around the chords. Once you got new words down, take them away and use horn sounds.

Then again, I kinda DID mess the words up that day - but thought little of it. I guess the myspacer picked me up on that!

[marksiks]

as long as you sing the lyrics like you mean them, you can sing any lrics you want amd it'll be ok.
whenever billie sings, after the song is done i feel like i understand what the song is truly about... i'm so over singers doing vocal acrobatics but singing without feeling.
how dull...

when i'm drawn into a song by a singer... i know they're really good...

m6

[mim]

We've spoken about the lyrics of this tune before I believe, Kimba. On my demo I mess up the words, in a totally different way to you. And Ella and Louis play with the lyrics slightly differently to each other, and to each of us also. If it was good enough for them, it's good enough for me. (But then again, it would bother me somewhat if someone felt they had to point it out to me...)

And also, what m6 said.

[Frank Di Sario]

Remember that some lyricist somewhere might have agonised over a line or a rhyme for hours. If someone is to tamper with the work of a lyricist (especially one as good as Larry Hart, Cole Porter Slim Dusty) it should be done with absolute respect, not because someone forgot the lyrics or ........

[kimba]

totally...

but the best take's the best take too, if you know what I mean!

I think it's def. something where you should change with intention...

[tinky]

there is a lot of difference between a mistake and a variation. Personally, I prefer a mistake any day, espec if you make something from it. As far as respect for lyrics go, words mean so many things to different people, so no matter what you say, someone will interperate it differently to you anyhow. Thats the main reason I dont really care about the lyrics to most tunes, apart from the fact most are lame one dimentional shit, the musical interpretation of the words are far more subjective than the literal interpretation. After all, who can tell me what is apropriate to play on a love song, or a funeral song or whatever, or what notes or sounds make you feel the words of 'my one and only love'?
One thing that really gets me is when people worry about the words to a tune when the words were written after the fact. Who gives a rats arse, make up your own just like they did. The same can go the other way round, you like the words, make your own tune. If you want to have respect for great artists, be one yourself by doing it your own way like they did. The other cowering respect is for historians.

[Baked Bean]

I 've always been taught to know the lyrics to a tune to have a better understanding of what im actually playing or the concept of the song.... But i don't understand how some (not all) of the original lyrics to standards can be applicable now... im all for original interpretation...

[plunk]

mmmmm-- sometimes I'll go a fishing
in a river or a creek
But it doesnt thrill me half as much
As blah blah blah


i reckon you can forgive yourself Kimba

[isaacs]

OK, agreed, dancing cheek to cheek is maybe not that thrilling.....

So let's hold a competition to find a more germane closing (rhyming) line. My contribution:

mmmmm-- sometimes I'll go a-fishing
in a river or a creek
But it doesnt thrill me half as much
As stunning press critique

[tinky]

As doing it like a Greek.

[isaacs]

yeah, I left the "Greek" rhyme for you tinky. Thought it might be right up your alley - as it were

[bodgey]

...as Tinky 'cause he's chic.