At the end of my post yesterday I said "Candlelight" is the happiest song on the album. That's because it's a much less angsty version of Mmhmm's song "The One I'm Waiting For." Or there's parallels, at least. Musically, "Candlelight" incorporates aspects of Swing (heavy syncopation) and maybe some steel drum. It sounds like steel drum? Anyway, that gives it a sort of summer vacation on the beach in California feel in some places. There also seems to be heavier use of acoustic guitars, with electric guitars using much less distortion. All of these pep up the feel of the song. Then there's the lyrics, which I'll discuss after you've had a chance to peruse them yourself.
I should also point out that we've come upon the first instance of an interesting method Relient K employed on this album. Several songs on the album have a tailing track that serves as an afterthought or a brief musical reprise. I've included the lyrics of "Flare" below. For the most part, I consider these tracks as part of the totality of the song that precedes them, and for that reason I'll be putting them up with their respective songs as I have today.
Candlelight
(lyrics by Matthew Thiessen and Matthew Hoopes)
To know her is to love her
I'm goin' undercover
To catch a glimpse but not get caught.
But to see her could be worse
If I don't get my head straight first—
On second though I guess I'll not.
She's almost brighter than the sun
Seems to me to be unfair
When you consider everyone
Who pales when they compare
When they compare
Can't hold a candle to her
'Cause all the moths get in the way
And they'll begin to chew her
Entire attire until it frays
For she outshines anyone who ever might
Dare to bask in the same candlelight
Oh please don't seat us in the back
With all the insects and the trash
She is a lady I'm a tramp
Collecting stares from pairs close by
Then flutters in the butterfly
You're just the moth drawn to the lamp
She's like an ancient artifact
Something you're lucky to have found
She'll pinch the nerves in all the necks
As she turns those heads around
Those heads around
Can't hold a candle to her
'Cause all the moths get in the way
And they'll begin to chew her
Entire attire until it frays
For she outshines anyone who ever might
Dare to bask in the same candlelight
Who may dare to bask in the same candlelight
She's almost brighter than the sun
Seems to me to be unfair
When you consider everyone
Who pales when they compare
When they compare
Can't hold a candle to her
'Cause all the moths get in the way
And they'll begin to chew her
Entire attire until it frays
For she outshines anyone who ever might
Dare to bask in the same candlelight
In the same candlelight
Flare
(lyrics by Matthew Thiessen)
A solar flare
Shines through her hair
It's so unfair
When you compare
The one who's fairest of the fair
x2
----
This song is pretty clearly talking about the positive qualities of the woman behind the album. With this as subject matter it's interesting that this should be the happiest song on the album. If Thiessen was your typical rock-oriented heartbroken songwriter, or even approaching this relationship and its end with the level of maturity he demonstrated previously in his music (songs like "From End to End," "Overthinking," and "Which to Bury, Us or the Hatchet?" come to mind), we wouldn't be getting a song about a beautiful woman. But we are, and the fact that we are is foreshadowed by the previous song, about how she "and life remain beautiful."
I don't have a lot to say about the writing here. It all adds up to a positive picture of the woman as superlative, to the point that it's unfair to compare other people to her. Most of the wordplay comes in metaphors, and playing with the concept of "candlelight" with moths, their relatives butterflies, and then in the afterthought track the hugeification of something as small as candlelight into a solar flare.
I take note that by the end of this, we're four tracks in out of fifteen, ten minutes out of a forty-two minute album, and we haven't encountered any real harsh sentiments from our frontman. He may not be forgetting, but he's also not slowing down.
As usual, I suggest you go take a listen to this song. It's a pretty good example of the evolution of Relient K's sound, infusing a few more esoteric elements into the core of their musical presentation. I know this blog post is pretty short compared to the previous two, but again I don't have much to say about "Candlelight."
I probably will have a lot to say about the next song, though. See ya then!
Showing posts with label word choice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label word choice. Show all posts
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Friday, June 1, 2012
Diction is More Than What You Say (It's What You Don't)
This morning I ordered a physical proof of my novel and it should arrive in ten days, so I have at least that long to wait to push the ball forward another inch.
Yesterday I told you in no uncertain terms that I haven't "made it" in writing, but I do kind of have a degree in it now. So now I'm going to give you a lesson on writing fantasy.
Well, honestly this lesson sort of applies to whatever sort of writing you're doing. It's about diction—your word choice—and it basically goes like this:
What words you use (or don't use) when you're writing a particular work make up the pieces of the world your reader builds in their heads.
This is a pretty big thing. It's actually why I rarely write contemporary fiction. What does it mean? It means you can cue a reader in on the kind of places and people they're reading about starting with your first sentence. It means books of certain genres tend to use similar words to describe similar concepts. It means someone who understands the way words create space and can use that constructive power well will be an artful writer regardless of what kind of writing they engage in. Even technical writing.
This isn't the only thing by any means, but it's huge. People who can't do this end up with pretty big communication barriers, and it's mistakes in this realm that I find the most irritating—but also the most difficult to hold against the instigator. I'd put infer/imply swapping and they're/their/there mix-ups on the far end of diction, as they're obvious mistakes.
A better example of a diction mistake is an anachronism. If television didn't exist during the time you're writing about, it should never be mentioned. Except when it should. There's a world of ironic humor that involves placing anachronisms all over settings that shouldn't have them, and a time travel story will be filled with these anyway (a good one will place them well). Also, there is no such thing as an anachronism in contemporary writing, so long as characters are eccentric/eclectic/well-read enough to know the words. That doesn't qualify for, say, people speaking Latin as their first language or something, but anyway.
I'll give another example of word choice that will hopefully illustrate what I'm getting at. In the world of Hearthstead that my cousin and I created, there is no such thing as the undead. There are no necromancers and no ghosts and no zombies digging their way out of shallow graves. Further, the possibility doesn't really cross most people's minds. Because of this, no one uses the word "undead," and the only way you might catch onto this is because there is one character in the series who has a crippling fear of the idea of revenants (undead). Because no one else bothers with the idea, he doesn't think of them as "undead," and his very concept of them is much more vague than our encyclopedic mythologies of the various forms of Risen Dead. Now, when I was writing the book, I could have included the word "undead," but it made more sense for one person not to try to coin a word for something that didn't even exist.
As another example, one of the things I used to do more often than I do now was to create a sense of antiquity to the world by removing all contractions from my narrative and from character's dialogue. It is possible to make natural-sounding dialogue and narration without contractions, even to the point where readers don't necessarily notice the absence (unless they're looking for it), but a people who naturally won't think or speak in contractions is a people who haven't had a reason to compress their speech. It's a remarkably plain way to change things up.
Similarly, if you fill your writing with as many words as possible that contain three or more syllables, no one will take you seriously. Sometimes, what you need is a short, sweet summary.
"'Nuff said."
I might talk more about diction tomorrow, or whatever else I wanna do. I might not have the chance to blog at all, since I'll be across the state and possibly attending a bachelor party. Then Sunday is my cousin's wedding, so maybe I'll get to blog that evening? We'll see. Maybe I'll have some face-punch videos for you for Monday. Like I said, we'll see.
Real quick I have to talk about two things I love. One is that Lego is finally doing stuff with Lord of the Rings, and it is hands down the best thing. Ever. Also, a huge chunk of my video game life has been dedicated to the Final Fantasy Advance games, with their addictive power creep, Dual-wielding glory, and strategy-rpg blend that's just fantastic.
Speaking of Final Fantasy, a friend of mine recently started a thing on Tumblr involving pants and FF, so if you start hearing about Final Pantasy, just remember that I know that guy, and he's even cooler than FP makes him seem.
And I think that's all for now.
Ciao.
Yesterday I told you in no uncertain terms that I haven't "made it" in writing, but I do kind of have a degree in it now. So now I'm going to give you a lesson on writing fantasy.
Well, honestly this lesson sort of applies to whatever sort of writing you're doing. It's about diction—your word choice—and it basically goes like this:
What words you use (or don't use) when you're writing a particular work make up the pieces of the world your reader builds in their heads.
This is a pretty big thing. It's actually why I rarely write contemporary fiction. What does it mean? It means you can cue a reader in on the kind of places and people they're reading about starting with your first sentence. It means books of certain genres tend to use similar words to describe similar concepts. It means someone who understands the way words create space and can use that constructive power well will be an artful writer regardless of what kind of writing they engage in. Even technical writing.
This isn't the only thing by any means, but it's huge. People who can't do this end up with pretty big communication barriers, and it's mistakes in this realm that I find the most irritating—but also the most difficult to hold against the instigator. I'd put infer/imply swapping and they're/their/there mix-ups on the far end of diction, as they're obvious mistakes.
A better example of a diction mistake is an anachronism. If television didn't exist during the time you're writing about, it should never be mentioned. Except when it should. There's a world of ironic humor that involves placing anachronisms all over settings that shouldn't have them, and a time travel story will be filled with these anyway (a good one will place them well). Also, there is no such thing as an anachronism in contemporary writing, so long as characters are eccentric/eclectic/well-read enough to know the words. That doesn't qualify for, say, people speaking Latin as their first language or something, but anyway.
I'll give another example of word choice that will hopefully illustrate what I'm getting at. In the world of Hearthstead that my cousin and I created, there is no such thing as the undead. There are no necromancers and no ghosts and no zombies digging their way out of shallow graves. Further, the possibility doesn't really cross most people's minds. Because of this, no one uses the word "undead," and the only way you might catch onto this is because there is one character in the series who has a crippling fear of the idea of revenants (undead). Because no one else bothers with the idea, he doesn't think of them as "undead," and his very concept of them is much more vague than our encyclopedic mythologies of the various forms of Risen Dead. Now, when I was writing the book, I could have included the word "undead," but it made more sense for one person not to try to coin a word for something that didn't even exist.
As another example, one of the things I used to do more often than I do now was to create a sense of antiquity to the world by removing all contractions from my narrative and from character's dialogue. It is possible to make natural-sounding dialogue and narration without contractions, even to the point where readers don't necessarily notice the absence (unless they're looking for it), but a people who naturally won't think or speak in contractions is a people who haven't had a reason to compress their speech. It's a remarkably plain way to change things up.
Similarly, if you fill your writing with as many words as possible that contain three or more syllables, no one will take you seriously. Sometimes, what you need is a short, sweet summary.
"'Nuff said."
I might talk more about diction tomorrow, or whatever else I wanna do. I might not have the chance to blog at all, since I'll be across the state and possibly attending a bachelor party. Then Sunday is my cousin's wedding, so maybe I'll get to blog that evening? We'll see. Maybe I'll have some face-punch videos for you for Monday. Like I said, we'll see.
Real quick I have to talk about two things I love. One is that Lego is finally doing stuff with Lord of the Rings, and it is hands down the best thing. Ever. Also, a huge chunk of my video game life has been dedicated to the Final Fantasy Advance games, with their addictive power creep, Dual-wielding glory, and strategy-rpg blend that's just fantastic.
Speaking of Final Fantasy, a friend of mine recently started a thing on Tumblr involving pants and FF, so if you start hearing about Final Pantasy, just remember that I know that guy, and he's even cooler than FP makes him seem.
And I think that's all for now.
Ciao.
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