Quote:
Originally Posted by Lisnaholic
I think it`s mainly dj and Carpe M who are saying "Go ahead and change the lyrics" and I`d agree with them.
Firstly, gender changes are not always about appeasing homophobics as some posters seem to`ve assumed. As Carpe demonstrates with her well-chosen examples, it`s about how convincing the song sounds.
Secondly, isn`t the whole point of doing a cover song to put something of yourself into the original ? Musically and lyrically, a slavish imitation of the original is a pretty sterile exercise imo. No need to treat song lyrics like Moses treated the word of God; I say change lyrics around as much as you like and let time -or the public- decide if it`s an improvement or a travesty. In effect, what dj said.
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A song with a male voice singing what was originally sung by a female voice or vice versa is, by its very nature,
not a slavish imitation of the original though. And keeping the lyrics the same while changing the gender of the singer is potentially
more of a change to the context and meaning of the lyrics than switching them.
I'm not opposed to changing the lyrics by the way, I'm just saying I don't think it's a big deal or find it distracting if they stay the same.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lisnaholic
Usually I like a vocalist to sound sincere and sometimes a gender change helps that along. As Janszoon mentions, there are plenty of songs in which the singer adopts the voice of a different persona, but my suspicion is that those are less common and often less powerful than the confessional "this is the real me" song. Which rather brings us back to this thread:-
http://www.musicbanter.com/general-m...-matter-3.html |
I think one can tell a powerful and sincere fictional story without pretending it's autobiographical. Some of my favorite lyricists—people like Nick Cave and Tom Waits—have made careers out of doing this. We don't question the sincerity of the emotions in a film just because it's not a documentary about the director's life. We don't question the sincerity of the emotions in a novel just because it's not a memoir. I've never understood why there's this weird double standard that's so often applied to song lyrics.