A note about lyrics

Back in July, Robert Malone included in his “Sunday Strip” post (for the 17th of that month) a “proof of concept demo” called Hotel Paranoia. This used a karaoke track of Hotel California with new lyrics written by Ned Buratovich, with singing by a “musician friend, who wished to remain anonymous”. Ned also says on his blog that he is hoping it will come to the attention of the Eagles who have planned a “huge Hotel California tour for 2022”.

I assume it is described as a “proof of concept demo” (rather than being released as a single into the music ecosystem) because, as a “derivative work”, it would require permission from the copyright owner to “cover” the song with a substantial change to the lyrics (in this case, a complete re-write of the lyrics).

An alternative approach is to use the time-honoured tradition in hymn writing of a metrical index. This counts the number of syllables in lines (and hence verses) to express the meter of the text. For example, the Christmas carol “O little town of Bethlehem” is normally sung to the tune “Forest Green” (an English traditional melody), and “It came upon a midnight clear” sung to the tune “Noel” (a traditional air, adapted by Sir A. Sullivan). Both carols are written in DCM (Double Common Meter: 8 6 8 6 8 6 8 6) and so the tunes are interchangeable. Try it!

So, it is possible for a lyricist to write a new hymn to an existing tune if they structure their lyrics to a known meter. Likewise, it is possible for a music composer to write a new tune to existing lyrics. Or a song-writer can do both!

Hence, if Ned Buratovich had written an alternative tune using the same meter, then it would be possible to release the song as an original (and not a “derivative”) work. And it could be billed as “can also be sung to the tune of Hotel California”.

That’s what Not Fit For Purpose is doing (for some releases). Well, sort of.

I started with the lyric meter for Surfin’ USA, wrote the lyrics to Hurtin’ USA and then the musical composition took its own route (and required some adjustments to the lyrics to accommodate the new tune). So it is a parody in the sense that it imitates aspects of the characteristic style of the Beach Boys’ song, but it is certainly not for comic effect or ridicule (the subject is too serious).

A similar thing happened with Quit You Cheater. That started as a word play on Chiquitita, the ABBA classic. I then took the lyric meter and used that as a starting point for this new song, and it grew from there - new lyrics, new tune, new chords, changed lyric meter, and different instrumental line up.

Protest songs are written in a variety of genres. Hurtin’ USA is styled in the reggae genre, whereas Quit You Cheater could be described as folk pop.

The Twelve Waves of COVID also followed a similar creative process, starting with the traditional Christmas carol, making some tweaks to the melody (to accommodate the new lyrics) and then adding a new chorus (“who said gain-of-function is a risk worth taking”) to top and tail the track. The advantage of a cumulative song is that the message gets hammered home - something that suits satirical lyrics (what if governments round the world had said some of these lines, instead of the exact opposite?).

Which brings me to the band’s first release: Did COVID emerge? This is also a cumulative song, and the starting point (in terms of lyric meter) was the children’s rhyme: There was an old lady who swallowed a fly. As with the other songs, the composition (both music and lyrics) grew to the extent that you may not have detected its nursery rhyme inspiration had I not mentioned it!