So once upon a time, I was reading up on World Salad Lyrics on ye olde TV Tropes and, of course, the Manics get mentioned (I'll be the first person to put my hands up and say I don't always listen to them for the lyrics - but when I do put my listening head on, it is An Experience).
(On looking on that page again, apparently REM are good at this, too, and the page mentions my three favourite REM songs (It's The End of The World..., Orange Crush, and Drive. I've been listening to Drive a lot recently). Obviously I like word salad more than I thought).
So now, every fucking time I listen to the Manics, I get "word salad" in my brain. Which is to say I start listening and then I think, "Yeah. Word Salad." (On a related note, next time someone says something I really agree with, I'm not going to trot out word burger! No. Word. Salad).
And then yesterday, I get to thinking, "Gee, I'm glad I never I wrote anything that could be construed as that!"
Except that I totally did. Some of my best poems from the last eight years have been word salads. I look at the sentences, and I think, "What does that even fucking mean?" (I don't actually care, and it doesn't, and shouldn't, matter). And when I was but a wee thing of fifteen, one of my best poems from then was...well, it wasn't fully formed salad, but it doesn't make any narrative sense. Or any real sense at all (I'd post it, but have you met my paranoia?)
A thought did occur to me, because 1996 was the year I discovered the Manics. That's a story for another post, so the thought that occurred was maybe that I'd listened to too much of them, and hey presto (I mimic writing styles easily). However I don't think that's the case. I think the poem came first (if I could at all get at my old journals, that would solve it, but I can't).
Which obviously says to me that my default state of mind is word salad. I don't do it when I'm thinking about writing - most of the time. I was talking to mum about it last night, and I said the first thing you learn about poetry is that it always rhymes. Then you're told that it has to make some sort of narrative sense.
Of course then you're told that actually, no, poetry doesn't have to rhyme. But you're never told it doesn't have to make narrative sense. Never in a million years. And then you go away and you discover e.e. cummings.
Does he make any sense? Not really. (I was going to link to my favourite poem of his, but either my google-fu fails, or it's just not posted on the internet. I can't even find the original poetry book I read it in). Does it matter? Not really.
I may look like I'm digressing but, to me, lyrics are poetry set to music.
Perhaps this is why I always hated English lessons at school. Well, not all of them. Just the ones where we tried to analyse writing. That ingrained in me something that remains to this day, which is that why does there have to be a hidden meaning behind stuff? Why not write something for the pleasure of writing it, whether it makes sense or not?
(It extends to art as well. I used to frustrate the crap out of at least one of my tutors by not having any more input on anything than "I like that" "That's a pile of shit, though". And when asked what my stuff was about or what it meant, I'd be all, "Um, it just is? It's a picture of my cat. It has nothing to do with being on the dole and the meaninglessness of life.")
So where this is going is that I shouldn't be ashamed if some of my best stuff is word salad. So freaking what? Good luck to any scholars of the future who pick up my stuff and try to analyse it (hopefully they won't; I'm not famous. I don't know as I'm ever going to be). Have fun, but don't tell me what hidden meaning you think I've put in there. I wrote it because I like words and I like the way they sound together, and that is all.
I think too much stock is put on making things make sense (or at least, with poetry/lyrics, a narrative sense) or making it "mean" something. I think if you create something, you do it because you like doing that activity, and that should be the end of it.
~*~
Notes:
*I just wanted to point out that the word salad effect re: the Manics is not applicable to Everything Must Go and anything after that. Well, it can be applied to bits of Everything Must Go, and probably to Journal For Plague Lovers, but I haven't listened to that yet, so I wouldn't know. But given it was Richey wrote all the songs on it, I'm guessing it's likely.
*I also wanted to say that I ramble with no real point to anything. Although since I'm rambling about not making much sense anyway, maybe I'm just being incredibly meta and I don't know it.
*I should probably hit post.
(On looking on that page again, apparently REM are good at this, too, and the page mentions my three favourite REM songs (It's The End of The World..., Orange Crush, and Drive. I've been listening to Drive a lot recently). Obviously I like word salad more than I thought).
So now, every fucking time I listen to the Manics, I get "word salad" in my brain. Which is to say I start listening and then I think, "Yeah. Word Salad." (On a related note, next time someone says something I really agree with, I'm not going to trot out word burger! No. Word. Salad).
And then yesterday, I get to thinking, "Gee, I'm glad I never I wrote anything that could be construed as that!"
Except that I totally did. Some of my best poems from the last eight years have been word salads. I look at the sentences, and I think, "What does that even fucking mean?" (I don't actually care, and it doesn't, and shouldn't, matter). And when I was but a wee thing of fifteen, one of my best poems from then was...well, it wasn't fully formed salad, but it doesn't make any narrative sense. Or any real sense at all (I'd post it, but have you met my paranoia?)
A thought did occur to me, because 1996 was the year I discovered the Manics. That's a story for another post, so the thought that occurred was maybe that I'd listened to too much of them, and hey presto (I mimic writing styles easily). However I don't think that's the case. I think the poem came first (if I could at all get at my old journals, that would solve it, but I can't).
Which obviously says to me that my default state of mind is word salad. I don't do it when I'm thinking about writing - most of the time. I was talking to mum about it last night, and I said the first thing you learn about poetry is that it always rhymes. Then you're told that it has to make some sort of narrative sense.
Of course then you're told that actually, no, poetry doesn't have to rhyme. But you're never told it doesn't have to make narrative sense. Never in a million years. And then you go away and you discover e.e. cummings.
Does he make any sense? Not really. (I was going to link to my favourite poem of his, but either my google-fu fails, or it's just not posted on the internet. I can't even find the original poetry book I read it in). Does it matter? Not really.
I may look like I'm digressing but, to me, lyrics are poetry set to music.
Perhaps this is why I always hated English lessons at school. Well, not all of them. Just the ones where we tried to analyse writing. That ingrained in me something that remains to this day, which is that why does there have to be a hidden meaning behind stuff? Why not write something for the pleasure of writing it, whether it makes sense or not?
(It extends to art as well. I used to frustrate the crap out of at least one of my tutors by not having any more input on anything than "I like that" "That's a pile of shit, though". And when asked what my stuff was about or what it meant, I'd be all, "Um, it just is? It's a picture of my cat. It has nothing to do with being on the dole and the meaninglessness of life.")
So where this is going is that I shouldn't be ashamed if some of my best stuff is word salad. So freaking what? Good luck to any scholars of the future who pick up my stuff and try to analyse it (hopefully they won't; I'm not famous. I don't know as I'm ever going to be). Have fun, but don't tell me what hidden meaning you think I've put in there. I wrote it because I like words and I like the way they sound together, and that is all.
I think too much stock is put on making things make sense (or at least, with poetry/lyrics, a narrative sense) or making it "mean" something. I think if you create something, you do it because you like doing that activity, and that should be the end of it.
~*~
Notes:
*I just wanted to point out that the word salad effect re: the Manics is not applicable to Everything Must Go and anything after that. Well, it can be applied to bits of Everything Must Go, and probably to Journal For Plague Lovers, but I haven't listened to that yet, so I wouldn't know. But given it was Richey wrote all the songs on it, I'm guessing it's likely.
*I also wanted to say that I ramble with no real point to anything. Although since I'm rambling about not making much sense anyway, maybe I'm just being incredibly meta and I don't know it.
*I should probably hit post.
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