10th October 2009

Audio with 1 note

Dead Kennedys - I Fought the Law
Give Me Convenience or Give me Death (Alternative Tentacles)

“The essential message is usually conveyed by the music, whether vocal or instrumental.  Thus, regardless of how scrupulously accurate the singer’s rendition of even the most powerful lyrics, that verbal statement can be contradicted and in effect canceled by any musical counterstatement.” - Albert Murray (Stomping the Blues)

Many take lyrics to be the primary element of music, so much so that an otherwise completely uninteresting musical piece can be elevated to an absurd amount of significance simply because the listener likes that “clever” lyrical construction.  This treatment of music as poetry is backwards and ignores much of what’s truly interesting about music.  Lyrics can be an important part of the composition, but the end result is not a poem, and should not be treated as such.

Murray, in Stomping the Blues, says the focus on literal content of lyrics is misguided.  Let’s take a look at some “updated” blues lyrics.  A literal reading of Dead Kennedys’ cover of “I Fought the Law,” could potentially lead to an idea of the song as a victory march of fascism.  The speaker of the “poem” is Dan White, who, through a diminished capacity defense, was not found guilty of murder, but only “voluntary manslaughter,” after assassinating George Moscone and Harvey Milk.  He committed a crime for which he did not pay the price. He fought the law, and he won.

To give these lyrics a literal reading is to miss the entire point of the song.  The sarcasm and irony found in the actual singing of the lyrics and performance of the song completely changes the meaning.  This is a song protesting injustice, as anyone listening to the complete piece can easily discern.

Lyrics are an important facet of the composition.  Much of what’s interesting about a song like this is the inversion of the lyrics; the sarcasm and the irony is really the truly appealing aspect, much more so than anything else.  But to treat the lyrics as being of primary significance, and to treat them too literally leads to a disastrous misunderstanding of the piece as a whole, and is simply dim-witted.

Tagged: nazi poets fuck off