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A great melody first, then lyrics,(only) THEN 'vocals'


Mark Blackburn

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I think that every song part have to be taken care of, because they are all important, but i think that the "Melody" is what attracts most people because it plays directly with their brains, so i try to gather a lot of ideas in order to write a good one.

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Thanks, "NetBrian" -- I'm just now reflecting on your note, and how it has been applied by various great song-writers of the past -- a back-and-forth, give-and-take where . . . first there's a song idea, expressed in a snippet of lyric perhaps, and the composer is inspired, in turn, by that underlying thought. Then, maybe some further give-and-take, where the composer may offer to change the melody in places, to achieve a perfect fit with a lyric "you wouldn't want to change." (See earlier this thread, and Sammy Cahn agonizing for weeks to find words for Jimmy Van Heusen's "don't change a note for me" melody -- "ONLY THE LONELY" the title track for arguably Sinatra's greatest album of ballads, circa 1958.)

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I see we've turned 20,000 "views" and just wanted to thank all the (much)younger folk who've tuned in to see which great old song is being celebrated this day. As it happens, I would like to praise something I just heard in the past hour on satellite radio . . . a case of old wine (two) combined in one new bottle by one of today's great singers, Tierney Sutton. First an aside, if you'll permit.

In long ago 1959, my favorite romantic, humorous lyricist Sammy Cahn, and his collaborator/composer Jimmy Van Heusen, wrote the title track for a best-selling album by Sinatra --

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On the drive in to work this morning I was listening, not for the first time, to Bob Dylan performing a straight-up cover of a song Dean Martin made famous (back when Bob and I were both about ten years old!) Funny thing, just before the song came on satellite radio, channel 75 this morning, I

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One of my all time favorite tunes. It's what made Chaplin great instead of just very talented. It's what separated him from the others in that early era of popular entertainment. To be so funny and yet to write such hopeful sadness... in a melody.

Great lyric as well by Parsons and Turner. thumb.gif

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