How can a song have canonical, common-knowledge commentary by the artist? (without putting it in the song) What media allow that? Naming it weirdly is kind of the only way to do it... (inspired by this tweet in @visakanv's thread)
11 tweets · July 2019 · 16 likes · 0 retweets · read on Twitter
How can a song have canonical, common-knowledge commentary by the artist? (without putting it in the song) What media allow that? Naming it weirdly is kind of the only way to do it... (inspired by this tweet in @visakanv's thread)
Here's a really interesting example: James Blake's The Wilhelm Scream The song's lyrics talk about "falling", and those lyrics have a very different meaning due to the title, which also contrasts loudly with the softness of the minimalist ambient genre. youtube.com/watch?v=isIABK…
That in itself would be worth tweeting. #ButWaitTheresMore! Now listen to *this* song (make it to at least 1m30s before you keep reading my thread, if you want the full effect) youtube.com/watch?v=b3SAli…
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Okay, wtf is going on here? Well. James Litherland's song is the original. James Blake's song is... something between a cover and a new song sampling/referencing the old one. And I think that re-titling it something distinct (and not just "Falling") is saying: this is a new song.
And not just "this is a new song" but "this is a new song with a new meaning". The mood of James Blake's song feels kind of nihilistic, dissociated. That, combined with the title The Wilhelm Scream, gives the whole thing somewhat of a dark vibe.
#ButWaitTheresMore: James Litherland is James Blake's father. 🤯
Crazy stuff, right? Anyway, somehow this is all feeling connected to what I was tweeting yesterday about what it would mean to be able to remix books, and how twitter acts as a medium for that. What's possible in music? What does song metadata look like?
One incredible resource for this is whosampled.com, which among other things has caused me to discover that a bunch of riffs I like (from Daft Punk, Pretty Lights, etc) are actually samples from elsewhere!
In searching for that tweet, I discovered an old thread of mine that is very very related to this James Blake/Litherland thing: (click around the thread—there's a great exchange w/ @callumflack that's buried by how twitter organizes replies by default)
Anyway, I'm going to wrap by linking this funk cover of The Wilhelm Scream by @The_Bamboos—my favorite version. It doesn't have this dark vibe and instead feels sensual, and actually closer to the original James Litherland style than to James Blake! 🙃 youtube.com/watch?v=-4CTVt…
