Man these podcasts are impeccable man. The way you dig. The way you prod. How you get to the bottom of these otherwise overlooked phenomena of everyday life is truly incredible to experience and Im grateful of you and the entire team RH team. God bless Brother Gladwell
my mom died in 1976, i am 54, i was 7 when she passed, i hate mother's day. but today on mother's day, i really appreciate this podcast. God Bless you.
So much of current country is just product placement and preaching, but you're still correct for the most part. I guess this applies to a lot if music.
I want to put forward a contradictory opinion about specificity in lyrics. Specificity in song lyrics also creates an OBJECTIVITY. The song is firmly about something and you the listener are outside of that thing, you are watching. There's a fourth wall. Abstraction in song lyrics creates subjectivity, and I think that if it's done really well, the subject is YOU. Your own life. I think it's what makes some of the best pop and rock songs so effective. Coldplay's Fix You is a song that illustrates that to me. "when you try your best but dont succeed. when you get what you want, but not what you need" what is that line about? To me it's becomes about my own very specific failures and disappointments. In being a little more impressionist, I think the listener is invited to insert themselves into the song and draw on all of the meaning of their own life. It's like they wrote a song that's about me. Additionally I think that the hope presented in the song is abstracted to the point of unity. I think of Ursula Le Guin's The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. At the beginning of that short story she presents a 'perfect society' as the backdrop to a thought experiment. She writes "perhaps it would be best to imagine it as your own fancy bids... I can not suit you all." I think the lyrics of great pop and rock songs can invite you to do the same. Imagine it as your own fancy bids. "lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones, and I will try to fix you" Great Podcast!
Great episode and I love sad country music but I don't think you can write off sad rock music that easily. Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here? Fleetwood Mac's Go Your Own Way? Heartbreak city with all the specific, personal pain pouring salt directly into the wound.
Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" made me cry the other day even though I've heard it a thousand times, so I'm definitely not dead inside, but I've always found country music unbearably mawkish. 🤷♂ You got a fast car I got a job that pays all our bills You stay out drinkin' late at the bar See more of your friends than you do of your kids I'd always hoped for better Thought maybe together you and me'd find it I got no plans, I ain't going nowhere So take your fast car and keep on driving...
Though not a fan of country music, I have always appreciated the story telling, the way the songwriters truly grasped the issues/subjects that touch people deeply, and create capsulated moments of emotion. My parents were big CW fans so I grew up with some familiarity, and I never made the connection between he stopped loving her today meaning his death. I also really enjoyed the comments about the choral performance at the library and the bits of rock and roll history. I think my top50 would probably not match Rolling Stone's. Great podcast, thanks to my son for guiding me this way. Have subscribed and expect to spend many satisfying hours listening to Mr. Gladwell.
Great episode. But Malcolm is a little unfair to rock n' roll in his methods. Unlike country, the best rock is not to be found on a list of hits. The lesser-known great rock songs completely defy his description of the genre. Also, "Hotel California" is about a lot more than drugs. Show me a country song that uses metaphor so masterfully. Country music is great at specificity, but it rarely achieves the literary conceits of epic rock.
Great first few minutes when dedicated specifically to the authenticity of Country music and its lyrics. The integration of the library performance was a stretch, in my opinion, and not only unnecessary but contrived. Slipping in Russia in a negative sense did not help. The analysis of Wild Horses and Emmy Lou Harris’ song was pedantic and narrowly confined to Malcolm’s own critical elements, which limits any kind of generalizability-which is what he was going for. All my opinion, of course.
I can cry just hearing the story of Anne Frank but the music was startlingly repellent. It seemed stilted and artificial. Is pop cool because of emotional detachment I wonder? or cool because it's urban chic or is that the same thing?
Man these podcasts are impeccable man. The way you dig. The way you prod. How you get to the bottom of these otherwise overlooked phenomena of everyday life is truly incredible to experience and Im grateful of you and the entire team RH team. God bless Brother Gladwell
my mom died in 1976, i am 54, i was 7 when she passed, i hate mother's day. but today on mother's day, i really appreciate this podcast. God Bless you.
Rock and roll is what we want. Country music is what we are.
An excellent line. I will always remember it.
So much of current country is just product placement and preaching, but you're still correct for the most part. I guess this applies to a lot if music.
I loved living in Grenoble because they not only didn’t play country-western they didn’t even sell it.
Whoo doggie the ending was just beautiful. Thank you.
That was brilliant.
I am in tears
Thank you.
Specificity increases sadness in every genre of music.
Wow.. this was good.
Country music grew from Celtic music, which is primarily about crying or fighting. We are a rather emotionally unstable people...
I've gotta say that I have wept at "Like a Rolling Stone." It was 1973, or so, a bootleg, live performance, and I was high. Make what you will.
There's a fun book by Tom Reynolds - "I hate myself and want to die - the 52 most depressing songs you've ever heard"
I want to put forward a contradictory opinion about specificity in lyrics. Specificity in song lyrics also creates an OBJECTIVITY. The song is firmly about something and you the listener are outside of that thing, you are watching. There's a fourth wall. Abstraction in song lyrics creates subjectivity, and I think that if it's done really well, the subject is YOU. Your own life. I think it's what makes some of the best pop and rock songs so effective. Coldplay's Fix You is a song that illustrates that to me. "when you try your best but dont succeed. when you get what you want, but not what you need" what is that line about? To me it's becomes about my own very specific failures and disappointments. In being a little more impressionist, I think the listener is invited to insert themselves into the song and draw on all of the meaning of their own life. It's like they wrote a song that's about me.
Additionally I think that the hope presented in the song is abstracted to the point of unity. I think of Ursula Le Guin's The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. At the beginning of that short story she presents a 'perfect society' as the backdrop to a thought experiment. She writes "perhaps it would be best to imagine it as your own fancy bids... I can not suit you all." I think the lyrics of great pop and rock songs can invite you to do the same. Imagine it as your own fancy bids. "lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones, and I will try to fix you"
Great Podcast!
Great episode and I love sad country music but I don't think you can write off sad rock music that easily. Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here? Fleetwood Mac's Go Your Own Way? Heartbreak city with all the specific, personal pain pouring salt directly into the wound.
Even "Big Love" is more devastating than any country song I've ever heard...
I wake up
Alone with it all
I wake up
But only to fall...
Pearl jams black
And some of Tom Petty's songs break your heart. It's all right for now is just one of many.
Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" made me cry the other day even though I've heard it a thousand times, so I'm definitely not dead inside, but I've always found country music unbearably mawkish. 🤷♂
You got a fast car
I got a job that pays all our bills
You stay out drinkin' late at the bar
See more of your friends than you do of your kids
I'd always hoped for better
Thought maybe together you and me'd find it
I got no plans, I ain't going nowhere
So take your fast car and keep on driving...
That was a real tear-jerker Malcolm! I dont even listen to Country 😅
I spent 40 minutes thinking this was hokey as heck and then started bawling. Just saying.
Though not a fan of country music, I have always appreciated the story telling, the way the songwriters truly grasped the issues/subjects that touch people deeply, and create capsulated moments of emotion. My parents were big CW fans so I grew up with some familiarity, and I never made the connection between he stopped loving her today meaning his death. I also really enjoyed the comments about the choral performance at the library and the bits of rock and roll history. I think my top50 would probably not match Rolling Stone's. Great podcast, thanks to my son for guiding me this way. Have subscribed and expect to spend many satisfying hours listening to Mr. Gladwell.
Great episode. But Malcolm is a little unfair to rock n' roll in his methods. Unlike country, the best rock is not to be found on a list of hits. The lesser-known great rock songs completely defy his description of the genre. Also, "Hotel California" is about a lot more than drugs. Show me a country song that uses metaphor so masterfully. Country music is great at specificity, but it rarely achieves the literary conceits of epic rock.
Contrast Nine Inch Nails “Hurt” to Johnny Cash’s later cover. Trent Rezner, the writer said, “It’s no longer mine. It belongs completely to him.”
Being dead inside is how many coped with fascism in the past and how I cope with it's return today.
Great first few minutes when dedicated specifically to the authenticity of Country music and its lyrics. The integration of the library performance was a stretch, in my opinion, and not only unnecessary but contrived. Slipping in Russia in a negative sense did not help. The analysis of Wild Horses and Emmy Lou Harris’ song was pedantic and narrowly confined to Malcolm’s own critical elements, which limits any kind of generalizability-which is what he was going for. All my opinion, of course.
Like A Rolling Stone is about Edie Sedgwick. She left Bob and gave her silver spoon to that freak Warhol.
Someone’s going to write a masterclass on “Cherry Picking” and link directly here
I respectfully disagree. George Jones did sing the saddest song ever, but it was “The Grand Tour”. Check it out
I can cry just hearing the story of Anne Frank but the music was startlingly repellent. It seemed stilted and artificial. Is pop cool because of emotional detachment I wonder? or cool because it's urban chic or is that the same thing?
Sorry, but ‘Wild Horses’ sure does if for me, as does John Prine.
country music is the worst. wild horses is too.