What the hell happened to music and songwriting?
In this day and age of celebrating ignorance and stupidity, it gets harder and harder to find great songs with great lyrics.
The craftsmanship of penning a great song has been pushed to the wayside in favour of producing bland, weak-hooked, shitty lyric schmaltz…songs that keep repeating the lame flavours that a dumbed down North American audience keeps consuming.
Case in point, the current #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, ‘Girl Like You’, by Maroon 5 and Cardi B. Here’s some great songwriting for you! 🤪
“Girls like you
Love fun, yeah me too
What I want when I come through
I need a girl like you, yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah
I need a girl like you, yeah yeah”.
Nice to see that grade six creative writing skills are getting a workout!
In contrast, back in 1976, Bob Dylan put pen to paper to tell the story of Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter in a song that only reached #33 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“Four in the mornin’ and they haul Rubin in
Take him to the hospital and they bring him upstairs
The wounded man looks up through his one dyin’ eye
Says, “Wha’d you bring him in here for? He ain’t the guy!”
Yes, here’s the story of the Hurricane
The man the authorities came to blame
For somethin’ that he never done”.
Dylan created 8 minutes and 33 seconds of thought-provoking music that would be lost on today’s audience. Take a listen and be entertained by a true artist that knows how to craft great songs!