Nice......I liked the definition for R-O-C-K M-U-S-I-C!!!!!!!!!!!!

"I can't believe the news today ...

How Long ... How Long Must we sing this song ... Sunday Bloody Sunday"

Hope this sunday won't be Bloody, but U2 did get somewhere to get Good Friday agreement going.

Indignation gets pretty well expressed in rock, but so it does in some other Irish music too

"Up with halbert
out with sword
On we go for
By the Lord
Feagh Mac Hugh has given his word
So follow me up to Carlow!"

Not to play devil's advocate or anything, but isn't the modern form of lyrics sung over music merely a form of poetry set to a beat? And doesn't a lot of poetry not really make sense when you read it?

So there ya go.

Lyrics sung over music is indeed poetry set to a beat.

Lyrics/poetry that do not make sense are certainly more prevalent in the XX th C than otherwise, but Rock is not more infected than Avant-Garde Poetry, like Elliot's Waste Land.

Whether Led Zeppelin sold their souls to the devil on a backmasked passage or not, Stairway to Heaven is poetry that makes sense. In the last verse, unfortunately in a bad way, like the other last verse of another song I like, Times of Trouble. Most of it is Paul McCartney, and memories of his real mother. Last verse "is of course" - that is what I presume, I do not actually know it - Marxist cum Hindoo Mystagogue Ideologist Mr Lennon himself.

Both last verses suggest that dropping religion is what is needed to have a decent life on earth for society. And that is wrong. It has much to do with the rock 'n' roll establishment - Chess Studios that set Rolling Stones going are Polish Jews, their son was interviewed in Swedish media recently - but not so much with rock as an art form.

CSL and RnR (in French despite title)

Disagreeing with TFP

Lyrics dot com · A-Z Lyrics

For searching the texts as reading, to see what texts are and what are not as meaningless as one or meaningfull as other example on message and comments above, not just getting impressions from listening.

Of course their is non-vocal modern entertainment music, like Apache too.

It's so depressing to see little girls posting idiotic "self-love" "girl-power" "you are BEAUTIFUL!!!" "lyrics" all over their gmail statuses. I wonder if some of their parents know they listen to that noise. And memorize the words better than they memorize a hymn.

If their parents cared about hymns maybe they would care less about some of that.

Maybe not all though.

Which of the lyrics are you referring to, b t w?

Rihanna and Taylor Swift, neither of them quite chaste b t w, are not so much about self-love as about possessiveness.

But, rock, tango, salsa, cinema, theatre, cheezeburgers (as a lol-cat reminded me on FB), pancakes and so on might want to wait till Easter now!

Happy Lent!

(PS, I do not regard the internet as noisy public entertainment, so I won't be giving that one up)

OK, this one might do even for Lent, since Leatherman was to all appearance a French Catholic living for 33 years like St Benedict Joseph Labre: Leatherman by Pearl Jam - I have no ring tone receiver, so I have no idea how this sounds.

Excuse me for posting my question on comments of this post, but is google blocking the search in US too?

I have tried two different Libraries with two different computer systems in Paris (to search, copy a piece of text and google for it with copypasted quote in quotation marks):

http://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2011/03/variation-on-scriptoria-game.html

Like this blog and message is NOT blocked, as you can see:

http://www.google.fr/search?hl=fr&source=hp&q=%22Hope+this+sunday+won%27t+be+Bloody%2C+but+U2+did+get+somewhere+to+get+Good+Friday+agreement+going%22&btnG=Recherche+Google&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=

well perhaps it is not clear, but one thing I mean is in what rock music represents and it's nonsensical poetry. Rock music's "Poetry" is a very shallow poetry representing the very base emotions and men controlled or consumed by their passions. Besides it is very angry, or depressive, not anger as in a righteous anger as some ballads; but a very self-righteous, prideful anger.
At best it is a man moaning about his fight against his passions, or his seeking justification or gratification or rather ratification of his manhood through his emotional relationship with a woman. So my problem with Rock music "poetry" is that it is very shallow.. I am not even talking.... very "romantic", or in a lustful way. I'll be honest I have heard some poems that are pretty "suggestive" but are Good poetry, well written, and still not... shallow...

And I can listen to Native American music, or African music, or what ever very drummy music with little or no problem. But, Rock music gives me a terrible head-ache.
Now I admit is some of it sometimes "enjoyable", very basely almost involuntary, for a short time? I guess........ But does it make one happy ,no, it quite makes it one angry or unhappy. I hope this addresses some of y'all's comments, or questions.

Terrible headache from Rock?

Funny phenomenon. I got stomach ache from Turkish Oriental music. But that was when I was small.

Rock music's "Poetry" is a very shallow poetry representing the very base emotions and men controlled or consumed by their passions. Besides it is very angry, or depressive, not anger as in a righteous anger as some ballads; but a very self-righteous, prideful anger.

Sounds pretty much like Catullus times the number of the rock poets you are referring to. There are others.

Do you even count Elvis Presley as Rock? Or Lennon McCartney? I am an inveterate Elvis fan and I like quite a few Beatles songs as well as Post-Beatles McCartney Mull of Kintyre (but you can argue Mull of Kintyre is not Rock, of course).

Your observations on physical effect of rock - to return to them - is about what I feel about Metallic style, esp. Black Metal. I usually avoid it, and was amased one Swedish Catholic was "listening to Black Metal" and referred to Dimmur Borgir (who sacrificed a goat on scene) and Burzum (after a word in the Ring verse, yes, as Count Grishnak/Varg Vikernes identifies or identified Sauron with Odin). He told me both were different but both worth listening to.

Now Varg Vikernes had been in prison for burning Churches (in parts of rural Norway with old wooden churches it is not physically impossible to burn a Church to the ground), and he had expressed remorse for that. So, I tried a youtube with one of his newest works. It was so dark and dull, I could not listen to it.

I vastly prefer that other youtube from yesterday, where the set of Irish Rebel songs was ended with one by an Irishman wishing the British Troops a pleasant journey home to England or Scotland or Wales or whatever, with that very charitable ending "but forgive me if I smile"!

As for Beatles, it is true that some of their songs are very tainted by Anticlerical idealism (especially in some last stanzas, like in "Times of Trouble" last stanza), but otherwise it is often about charity and good sense they sing. On ma's 64th B-day, a few weeks ago, their "When I'm 64" was just a must, and things like "Hey Jude" or "With a little help from my friends" contains good advice for anyone.

But, maybe, Beatles might count as Pop rather than Rock where you are?

I do NOT like Rolling Stones or AC/DC.

A los hispanofones de la familia Errauzkin:

un debate sobre Chesterton en - creo que la Complutense de Madrid:

primera parte
secunda parte
tercera parte

I suppose I count Beatles and McCartney and such as "rock" but the Beatles and McCartney and generally the older stuff ( I generally have that in mine own head as in a different category) I will admit I was giving little consideration to in this post. (And Elvis.... I don't really know how I categorize him personally in my own thought processes.) I suppose with much of the older stuff, I had always listened too my mother singing them to us or humming them to us or showing them to us because it was what she listened to or liked, and enjoy them almost out of the nostalgia.( such as Beatles, or Monkees, or Simon and Garfunkel, or The Eagles. Though they do support such ridicules philosophies or movements.

But in this post I was mainly referring to the newer stuff, I don't know who they are or when they are I suppose, but I mean when you turn the radio on to your local rock station. Even newer not so heavy stuff like "Owl City" are especially good at what I was saying about ridicules, shallow, "nonsensical" lyrics. Though these groups are much more tolerable to me and on the whole have something that makes them sometimes enjoyable, except for when you actually read or listen to their lyrics, then one can't help but saying.... WHAT?!!?! what does that even mean! this is SO STUPID!!

But this is how I feel about "Rock Music"

May I purely objectively point out that the music you're talking about is not actually rock, but pop and hip hop and therefore you're "definition" is completely wrong because the music in discussion is not actually rock.

Do you mean you count Beatles and Presley as Pop?

Blessed Feast of Annunciation!

You are correct Stick-Figure-Girl, I suppose this thing is a combination of a bit of both. XD

I believe SFG was talking about Owl City, not the Beatles or Presly.

Owl City? What is that? Rock?

I was provoked to this blog post. Not just by what Tom wrote about rock, but by my situation too:

Is rock music staccato lyrics and more fun than profound?

no its pop which is what sfg was saying

Pop or rock, I have never heard of Owl City.

I agree with this acrostical assessment of rock music.

Pride, U2, with Lyrics
Good Tradition, composed but here not sung by Tanita Tikaram, with Lyrics
Power of love, sung by Céline Dion, With Lyrics

I rest my case.

Excuse me, but does "FRIDAY":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0
with parody "SUNDAY":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npgdw5Zb7TY
count as pop or rock'n'roll to you?
This used to be called rock:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS6OhC-4Zyw
I sense a divergence about semantics of terminology.

hmmm, well it seems the Term "Rock" is one problem, it seems to cover such a huge spectrem. I speak of Songs such as "Feeding the wovles" by I have no idea, and other stuff perhaps on the heavier end of "Rock". A loud, angry, whiney, and/or hateful music. And Owl City is a new some kind of "pop" or "rock" group.

and I'll correct myself if I said it, or if I didn't, am not saying there is NO decent poetry in modern music, that they don't have a poetic line between them.

After further thought; I would like to correct that perhaps it is not the lyrics lacking poetry that I dislike, but, rather the non-stop singing " I love you baby, I miss you, I need you here.", about something so few have really tasted or know anything about. speaking of love. Something entierly selfless in a time of self righteousness. Modern man feasts on unripe pears bethinking them most delicious, writes so much music(rock), and has so much to say about them; when he has never tasted a ripe pear, and does not know that he feast on something yet to be fullfilled. He is contented with the hard-tart-sweetness of a unripe love, he sucks the tree dry in desperate attempt to find satisfaction and then devorces/leaves and gets a new wife/girl friend or what ever, and continues an unsatisfied life without true love, God, or real Manhood. I suppose it is "Rock" music express the times, and I suppose it is the times behind modern rock, what modern rock expresses, that I have a problem with.

There you have a point.

The reason why there are so many love hits would be:

a) each gets a hit when people liking the tune and the idea in the words take to it as a luck charm, this is when couples are forming to it, but obviously not everyone who wants to gets in a couple;

b) each loses hit status as too many disappointed people - still single or couples formed at it but already broken up - feel it is awkward to listen to (ok, it may gety back to lists when the couples who did form to it and raise children find a second youth);

c) as soon as a hit loses status as such, it needs a replacement.

This cycle may take 1 to 3 months, or 6 months with a big hit. A real big hit, like Tengo la camisa negra would maye last a bit longer, but as far as I could make out the words, sung fast in Spanish, it is not too optimistic in love.

When I write fully composed sheet music, it typically has no lyrics:

http://hglundahlsmusik.blogspot.com

and when I write lyrics improvising a melody, I usually do not do love lyrics, or if I do, about a love that can still be rejected, or about repairing a marriage:

http://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.com/search/label/poesis%20et%20cantus

Last post so far?

OK, as for me this post of mine, was just defended these days in this discussion.

And this discussion - also on P Z Myers' blog - sparked off last post so far on my somewhere else blog.

Enjoy!