Post by Tatooedskin1889Hello group,
The credits for Berlin state "all songs written by Lou Reed", yet "orchestrated
by Bob Ezrin." Well, when the orchestrations are taken away, there isn't much
left that Lou could have done besides the lyrics.
When Lou is credited for writing a song, what exactly is he credited for? Just
the lyrics, or the music, or just some of the music?
And another thing: Lou is credited for writing Walk on the Wild Side, but I
just read someone else wrote the bass line. Can someone explain what's going on
here. Was Lou really talented, or did he just always have really good
producers? I want to believe with all my heart that it wasn't the latter, and
that his music is so good because he's extremely talented.
Thanks for any help anyone can give me. I hope everyone has a great holiday.
Regards,
Jon
There are essentially two parts to a song: the words and the tune.
The latter is the melody that the lyric follows, not the musical
accompaniment that happens to be played behind it. Thus when the Byrds play
"Going Back" by Goffin/King and put it in a new arrangement and a different
key to that played by say Dusty Springfield, they have not re-written the
song, because those essential elements remain intact.
Having said that, the idea of who wrote a song can always be debated.
Sterling Morrison was always of the opinion that his and John's contribution
have been written out of history. However, Lou successfuly won the legal
rights to the songs on the Loaded LP which undemines this claim.
My view follows, and I speak from the biased experience of having played in
a band.
Where do songs come from:
Bands are rarely are all equal: Some members write more songs than others.
Others bring nothing.
Sometimes the musicians jam and work up songs from the results.
When the material comes in, the bands have to determine what is promising
and what isn't. Since bands are rarely equal, this gives certain members far
greater powers of veto than others. eg. If the singer refuses to sing a
certain song, then it makes things more difficult. In my experience, the
singer and guitarist usually decide what they are going to do. The bassist
or drummer have much less say, although obvious exceptions exist like Cream
or The Beatles. Other factors might be who owns the transport or who owns
the rehearsal space. The point being that interpersonal politics is pretty
important to determining what gets in.
Do songs come in fully formed: in my experience that depends upon the
personalities.
In the worst bands I played with there was little debate. The writer would
get very upset at constructive changes.
The best bands I played with had a process whereby a song would arrive and
we would work out a way to play it. This would evolve over several practices
as different people thought about what would make it work better. Sometimes
the songs would get changed drastically. After some time, (often after a
gig), the song would get reviewed. This might result in no change, complete
junking or further modification. Dead songs would often have a good chorus
yanked out of them and married to a good verse from yet another dead song.
Often a player had worked out a "good" riff or piece which needed a song to
go around it. The lyrics would often be modified as this process took place.
The question arises now of who wrote such a song. There may only be 20% left
of the original song and everyone may have contributed to the process of
review. Yet often the credit remains unchanged. Pink Floyd credits might be
a suitable case for examination here.
Of course few examples of incorrect credit match the following:
Dazed and Confused by Led Zeppelin was entirely credited to Jimmy Page. Yet
the song was played earlier with modified lyrics by the Yardbirds, who
credit the song to Jake Holmes. On Jake Holmes LP, he claims the credit for
both lyrics and music. Having heard both I would say that the changes are
minimal.
http://www.turnmeondeadman.net/Zep/DazedAndConfused.html
http://www.furious.com/perfect/jakeholmes.html
http://www.furious.com/perfect/jimmypage.html