Never been blessed with a singing voice. I remember miming hymns at school, or deliberately singing them monotone. Singing can be taught, or the songs of Lloyd Webber wouldn't be infecting my personal space on a regular basis. But on the whole the greatest singers/vocalists are not about being able to sing, they are about being able to communicate something to the listener, whether this is emotion or words or both. No one can deny that Aretha, Elvis, Otis or (insert favourite singer) can hold a tune, but what they do best is emote; you can feel their pain, their joy. For three minutes you can be in their shoes (not always a good place to be), not a wage slave in some dreary office or workplace.
I suppose where I’m going with this is that singing can take on many forms and the mash-up between words and music to create an intellectual, communal, spiritual or physical reaction sometimes needs more than a rhyming couplet.
Allen Ginsberg wasn't just a poet, the delivery of his poems as with his contemporary William Burroughs is just as important as the words. As one of the 'Beat generation' TM, AG has influenced so much of the alternative music scene that sometimes I feel his contribution gets a little lost. He was there with Kerouac; he was around with Burroughs; thats him in the background of the most copied and famous music video of all time, Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues. I can't believe his contribution was just standing around.
I've always been interested in the spoken word element in music, since I first heard the talky bit in Elvis' Are you Lonesome Tonight to modern day Hip-Hop.
Throughout this blog I will be posting tracks and links to music and documentaries that I supposed have moved me in some sort of way - I didn't get Ginsberg until I heard this mash-up with Tom Waits' Closing Time. I've had this track for quite a few years now, but I still don't know who put the two together (anybody feel free to shine a light).
There will be a lot more spoken word stuff to come, and lot more from the people Ginsberg influenced in some sort of way. If you listen this it could be about anywhere at anytime, some of the references may need updating but it is essentially about the same world we live in now.
America
Ahem, tune!
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