Artistry With Words

“Capture the moment, carry the day
Stay with the chase as long as you may
Follow the dreamer, the fool and the sage
Back to the days of the innocent age
Storybook endings never appear
They’re just someone’s way of leading us here
Waiting for wisdom to open the cage
We forged in the fires of the innocent age

Back at the start it was easy to see
No one to own to, nowhere to be
Deep in the heartlands a sad memory calls to me (calls to me)
Fretful horizons, worrisome skies
Tearful misgivings burning your eyes
Yearnings unanswered, reckon the wage you pay
To recapture the innocent age”

I was thinking about the evolution of song lyrics the other day. Don’t ask me why, it just popped into my head, like the old Whack-A-Mole arcade game, and when it popped, I knew I had to do a piece on it. Welcome to that piece!

The lyrics above were written by Dan Fogelberg. The song, “The Innocent Age,” was released in 1981.  I’ve mentioned many times the awe I feel when I really study some of Fogelberg’s lyrics, an awe I never really felt, listening to music, in the 50’s and early 60’s.  Think about it and tell me I’m wrong, but lyrics to songs, prior to say, 1963 or 1964, were ridiculously simplistic.  Songs penned in the 30’s, the 40’s, the 50’s, were all about melody, and lyrics were almost an afterthought.

And it seems to me, and this is simply my memory and random thoughts, that it all changed when the folk singers of the late 50’s and early 60’s became popular.  Those folk singers were all about the message, and not so much about the melody, and suddenly we see Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, a major shift in songwriting, really poetry to music.

Of course there are exceptions to this theory of mine, but the music industry, as a whole, really leapt forward as I was entering my teen years, and I’m thankful for it. I can’t imagine my teen years being filled with The Lettermen, Paul Anka, and nothing more.

Poetry to music – so beautiful!

What does that have to do with the passion of writing? The name of this blog is “Artistry With Words” so yes, it has much to do with it.

Write on! The world needs more beauty, and you have the talent to add to our supply.

Bill

“Helping writers to spread their wings and fly.”