Music in ancient Greece was considered not any less sacred than many other sorts of divine and moral concepts. It was embedded in ancient Greek socio-religious life and the musical myths were essential features the respect and admiration for music was deeply rooted not just in individuals’ lives, but also in the social beliefs and practices of Greek. Many of Gods and Goddesses in ancient Greek mythology played musical instrument and inspired other gods and humans with the sound of music; for instance, Muses were daughters to Zeus (the king and leader of all Gods) and they all used to play and sing in order to motivate people. Musical instruments often had divine origins as well; Hermes (the God of boundaries and travellers) was considered to be the inventor of Lyre, an instrument which developed to Kithara and eventually guitar. (It should be mentioned that according to some other interpretations of ancient Greek mythology, Apollo was the inventor of Lyre)
Music in ancient Greece was one of the basic parts of religious ceremonies, marriages and funerals, stage dramas, etc; and of course each event had a different music associated with it. In general, it is relatively difficult to separate music, literature, drama, painting and other sorts of arts in ancient Greece.
One of the remarkable figures of music in ancient Greece is Pythagoras; a philosopher, mathematician and scientist who had big influences on Greece in many dimensions. His school and his followers had important impacts on moral and ethical values of Greek society. They were envisioning music as a paradigm of harmonious order reflecting the cosmos and the human soul. Pythagoras’ religious teachings were bases of these impacts for the most part.
According to Edward Lippman’s book Musical Thought in Ancient Greece, one of the elements affecting and dealing with (and also leading) the feelings and the wills of individuals was so-called “Musical magic”. It is notable to take into consideration that in ancient Greece, magic was one of the ways people had to describe their environment with. Not having as powerful tools as we have now, they needed some idea or logic for the world around them to make senses. Myths are after all creations of “humans”, religious responses to human experiences laid down in mythical narratives, which were and referred to phenomena of common reality, such as music. Music had such significant effects which could not be analysed and explained and therefore it was frequently referred to as “Magic”.
On the other hand, as mentioned, there was a deep philosophical conception of music as well; its role was definitely not just providing events with “something”! It was considered to play important roles in daily lives of people, their character and their positions in the society. Lippman describes the relation between ethics, philosophy, education and music in his book:
“The chief basis of the ethical philosophy of music, however, is not magic and orgy, but the customary educational and social uses of art. There is obviously an interrelationship between these fields of musical practice; the ethical value cannot be confined to formal education, for schooling simply foreshadows, or more usually echoes, life in general: the place of music in education should provide a view of its place in society, or in society as it once was or desires itself to be. And at the same time, social occasions not explicitly defined as educative may be of the greatest significance in moulding ideals and character.”
The sacred and divine conception of music was (and is) not unique to Greek culture and history. In many other civilisations and cultures (mostly those with roots in ancient traditions; i.e. Egyptian, Indian, Persian, etc.) music had “heavenly” origins. One of the noteworthy similarities between ancient Greek concept of music and Indian (particularly Hindu) interpretation of this art is the fact that in both of these thoughts, the element of “harmony” plays a significant role in the way the universe works. All the creatures are necessarily supposed to exist and function in harmony with each other, and the harmony by which the universe is systemised is apparent in the way music is created, played and influential. In fact, according to Indian perception of music, one of the ways to realise this comprehensive harmony is to deeply observe how music affects living beings. (It is notable that particularly in Hinduism, the world has effects on ALL humans AND animals more or less in a similar way; thus music –as an important divine creature- deals with the entire spirits of living objects.) In ancient India, one of the worst acts of a person was to play music “badly”, “in the wrong time” or “in the wrong place”.
Persians had both different and similar principals with Greek in the way they regarded music. Music in ancient Persian culture was highly associated with beauty and joy which existed only because of the will of God. During Achaemenid empire period (559 BC–330 BC), the “Palace” musician (whose duty was to play exclusively for the king) was the only person who needed no permission to enter the palace.
Throughout history, however, these concepts of music and musicians dramatically changed. In some cases music became a tool of devil to tempt masses to committing sin. If not that “harsh”, music was some times considered a tool of the “enemy” by which that enemy tried to invade a culture. (Cuba as an example of recent history; during Castro’s revolution Saxophone was banned because it was invented in Germany, a capitalist country and it was a sign of Jazz, an American imperialistic art!)
In general nevertheless, apart from few periods of time and few places, music kept its concept of being adorable, respected and a valuable cultural phenomenon. Amongst other sorts of art, it became a very popular and common way of interconnection between different cultures and traditions. Many classical musicians in Europe were supported, funded and encouraged by the governments to be as much active and creative as they could be. In almost all the cases, these musicians were considered elites of the society; therefore their manners were figures to others. Schools of music were founded to secure and enrich this important part of culture.
The perception of music being divine might not be a predominant idea any more but in practice, in many places it still is a pleasant object with mysterious effects on people and societies.
In recent years, music –as an element with a big role in the industry of media- is frequently used to deliver moral and ethical messages. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that music has been participating in shaping societies’ lifestyles and defining their values. It was a medium through which morality and philosophy was expressed in ancient Greece; now it is a place where in many senses the world observes the evolution of these values.
In some cases it is amazing to understand how much music is involved in forming the minds of individuals. As one example, having cooperated with (and utilised) the new technology and new-born music styles, “Christian Rock” carries the messages of the Bible and the church to Christians; using music to promote religion is exactly what Pythagoras and his followers were doing. Even in cultures and societies not descendant from Europeans and less acquainted with Europe (and in particular Greece)’s traditions, it is often found that music is a way of exchanging and promoting ideas. A part of Muslims (Shiites) hold funerals on days their religious leaders were killed incorporating music (particularly sad music) and mourning for them every year.
There have even been cases in which music has been considered to be able to inspire non-living objects. Japanese author Masaru Emoto has come up with a controversial idea that says human ideas could shape water crystals. One of the ways he “inspires” water is to play music for a water container. He published his book Messages from Water in 1999.
As the time goes on and human being achieves more and as civilisations develop, ethical and moral values and principals evolve; so does music, its conceptions and interpretations. However, the respect for arts in general and artists in particular has remained an important and obvious part of each and every culture throughout history. In comparison to modern societies, music might have been thought of -or respected- differently in a society like ancient Greece but overall it has been a significant part of every culture. Since naturally people tend to keep their cultural values, music has more or less been taken care of in different parts of the world; and it has been a very common tool to deliver cultural messages. Thanks to the fast-developing technology of today, it has become very easy for people to interconnect and exchange their ideas and feelings; music is no exception to this.
.
References:
Gould, J. 1985 "On making sense of Greek religion." in Greek Religion and Society. eds. P.E. Easterling & J.V. Muir Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1-33.
Hemingway, Colette, and Seán Hemingway. 2000. "Music in Ancient Greece". In Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art,. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/grmu/hd_grmu.htm (Accessed [08.05.2007])
Lippman, Edward A.1964. Musical Thought in ancient Greece. London and New York: Columbia University Press.
Masaru Emoto, official website http://www.masaru-emoto.net (Accessed [10.06.2007])
Michaelides, Solon. 1978. The Music of Ancient Greece; an Encyclopaedia. London: Faber and Faber Limited in association with Faber Music Limited.
Smith, Hermann. 1904. The world’s earliest music : traced to its beginnings in ancient lands by collected evidence of relics, records, history, and musical instruments from Greece, Etruria, Egypt, China, through Assyria and Babylonia, to the primitive home the land of Akkad and Sumer. London: William Reeves.
West, Martin L. 1992. Ancient Greek Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press
Monday, 11 June 2007
Essay for the subject "From Elvis to U2". 2007
Controversial ideas of John Lennon and Roger Waters;
Their solo albums’ lyrics.
Both John Lennon and Roger Waters are surely remarkable figures in the history of Rock N’ Roll. Both were members of influential English bands; had big roles in the successes their bands achieved; and both left their bands to start releasing their solo albums. The focus of this writing is on the similarities and differences their ideas –expressed in their solo works and their lyrics- had; for the most part their social, political, anti-governmental and anti-religion thoughts.
John Lennon
Born in 1940 in Liverpool, England, John Winston Ono Lennon formed the band The Beatles in 1957 initially named the Quarrymen. The name and the members, however, changed a few times till 1960, when the “Fab-Four” line-up was established with Ringo Starr as the drummer.
He left the band in September 1969 and started his solo career mainly in collaboration with Yoko Ono, his wife, and her band called the Plastic Ono Band. Lennon added to his reputation as an activist by writing and singing anti-war lyrics and opposing many politicians and officials in several performances of his and also a number of controversies such as his Bed-Ins. Bed-ins (March 25th till March 31st and May 26th till June 2nd 1969) were one-week protests by which the couple promoted world peace.
After a short retirement in the late 70s, Lennon released his last album Double Fantasy in 1980 produced by Ono. Soon after that, on December of the same year, he got shot by one of his fans Mark David Chapman.
Roger Waters
George Roger Waters is also born in Liverpool; but three years after Lennon. He formed Pink Floyd in 1965 along with Syd Barrett. After Barrett quit the band, David Gilmour replaced him and eventually became Pink Floyd’s leader. Nevertheless, a big part of the band’s music and its innovative stage appearances were based on Waters’ ideas.
Roger Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 and announced the termination of the band’s career. Despite his disagreement, the other members re-started Pink Floyd a few years later and went through a long legal dispute about the rights of the songs and other issues related to the band. However, both sides ended up having the permission to perform most of Pink Floyd’s songs prior to 1985.
Waters released four solo albums after that including Ça Ira, an opera released in 2004. He rejoined the band just for the concert of Live8 in 2005.
Lennon’s reputation as a political activist escalated mainly during the Vietnam War. However, the influence of Bob Dylan (whom he met the first time in 1964) played a significant role in change of Lennon’s attitude towards writing lyrics and his musical and super-star figure. 1969’s song “Give Peace A Chance” gained the awareness of the media and American politicians; it quickly became the anthem of anti-war movement protests. Followed by that, Richard Nixon’s administration struggled to silence Lennon by trying to deport him from America on the ground of his drug convictions in Britain.
Lennon, however, did not leave the United States and continued performing with Ono, as well as other radical and anti-war musicians like Phil Ochs and Stevie Wonder in several concerts.
The 1972 album Some Time In New York City, contained lyrics objecting sexism (“Woman Is The Nigger Of The World”), police inhumane and racist actions (“Attica State”), the British brutal policy in the Northern Ireland (“Sunday Bloody Sunday”) and many other political and social issues. It is signified as an important political piece of music throughout the history of Rock N’ Roll, particularly during 70s.
In a phrase from “Attica State” Lennon says:
“Come together join the movement,
Take a stand for human rights,
Fear and hatred clouds our judgement,
Free us all from endless night,…“
Waters’ political ideas were not dominant in Pink Floyd’s early works. Instead, it was experimentalism – both in lyrics and music-, which denoted Floyd in late 60’s. Yet, in 1973s Dark Side of The Moon, Waters openly criticised social and political situation of that time. The lyrics censured the materialism of the western world as a result of human’s greed (particularly in the song "Money") and scorned the –in Waters’ opinion- messed-up world politics and lifestyle of their time. Later, influenced by George Orwell’s book Animal Farm, Waters referred to many ordinary people as “Sheep”, led by “Dogs” and “Pigs”.
Having lost his dad in the WWII, he based the lyrics of their 1979’s album on his childhood. The Wall abstractly is about the sad way in which an individual’s attitude, behaviours and actions would evolve and change in a society manipulated by pro-war, power-hungry and corrupt officials and politicians.
In his last album as a member of Pink Floyd, he directly opposed Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Menachem Begin, Leonid Brezhnev, and many more.
After splitting from Pink Floyd, Waters expressed more of his anti-government, anti-religion and anti-media opinions in his lyrics; whereas Pink Floyd’s lyrics mostly kept articulating an abstract view of life, people’s correlations and many of other non-political issues.
Waters and Lennon came from the same country and the same city. They were born almost the same time and both were interested in left-wing politics; Lennon donated the Trotskyist Workers Revolutionary Party (Wikipedia, accessed May 2007) and Waters was a self proclaimed socialist strongly influenced by Karl Marx. All these, especially their political views, resulted in similar orientations of their lyrics.
Many of the “political-music” fans adore Lennon and Waters because of their anti-war and pro-liberty attitudes. Despite being expressed in different time periods, both of these artists’ messages mostly objected acts of the American and British governments. Nixon, Thatcher, Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai-shek and many of other officials who were criticised by Lennon and Waters were Republicans, Conservatives, dictators, military generals and typically right-winged politicians.
It is notable that Lennon’s early solo lyrics were quite similar to Beatles’ lyrics in structure. Many of those were initially written by both McCartney and Lennon but even the lyrics of Lennon/Ono Plastic Band more or less had “Beatlish” formations; particularly the simple arrangements of the songs and the phrases. Like many of Beatles’ songs, Lennon’s solo works were based upon simple and (excluding few exceptions) major chord progressions.
The same principal existed in early solo works of Roger Waters. As the main lyricist of Pink Floyd, he obviously kept his way of writing and applied it to his solo works. In fact, the Floyd album The Final Cut practically is done predominantly by Roger Waters; he did not even let Gilmour and Richard Wright (the keyboardist) to play and sing in many of album’s tracks. With similarities to many Floyd songs, Waters tended to directly “name” the individuals who he used to criticise.
However, in the media, Roger Waters was not as controversial as John Lennon. He was never threatened by deportation, never convicted for drug-problems and for the most part no one attempted to assassinate him.
Waters’ lyrics opposed issues and particular individuals in more direct means. Lennon had to apologise when in 1966 he said “We’re more famous than Jesus”. Roger Waters released albums in a time that phrases like “Fuck your God, your Lord, your Christ” (“Judith” from A Perfect Circle, Mer Der Noms. 2000) were openly broadcasted in media. Lennon’s (actually, Ono’s) song “We Are All Water” in “Some Time In New York City” starts with the phrase –as one of their most direct and clear statements- “There may be not much difference between Chairmon Mao and Richard Nixon if we stripped them naked”. In the song “Leaving Beirut” Waters –as one of the few examples of him being straight-forward towards politicians- refers to George W. Bush and says “Oh George! That Texas education must have fucked you up when you were very small”.
Overall the explicitness of Waters’ lyrics is more than Lennon’s; not just in terms of the expression of their political ideas, but also when they criticised religion. The song “Imagine” became a controversial tune of Lennon just because of the sentence “Imagine there’s no religion”. He had to attend many interviews and re-explain many of his opinions as a result of the effects of that song. In contrast –and without facing any major problem- Waters says “God wants sedition, God wants sex, God wants freedom, God wants Semtex” in the song “What God Wants”.
On the other hand, the fact that Waters’ reputation as a solo artist was brought to him almost a decade after Lennon’s, notably affected their career and differentiated the way each of them expressed his thoughts. The major issue of Lennon’s time was the Vietnam War and the conflicts of the USSR and the US; whereas Waters faced the Falkland wars, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Bosnian war, the Gulf War, Tony Blair and George Bush’s –again, in Waters’ opinion- unjustified decisions , and finally the Iraq War. All these in addition to the social changes in the western world –mainly the United Kingdom - somehow changed the theme of Waters’ lyrics in the course of criticising materialism, daily-life of youngsters, television and many more social issues. Lennon was more focused on his personal problems with Nixon’s administration and the anti-war movement of 70s.
Having a look at the careers of John Lennon and Roger Waters, and especially the way they promoted their political ideas and views, notes many important facts which apply to numerous lyricists in different time periods. World politics is always changing and evolving. Apparently there are many principals in common between different politically-active musicians but their methods of expression necessarily change during the time. John Lennon became one of the leaders of anti-war movement of America in the 70s and his controversy escalated to a level in which when he got assassinated, the incident arose more controversies. (Many people believe that his murder was an FBI conspiracy). Roger Waters, regardless of having more advanced and complex political messages in many senses, lives like many other musicians. His appearance in media –as one of the biggest sources of information- is not comparable with Lennon’s. Lennon’s music was banned to be played in many radio stations in America but Waters’ anti-media songs are produced and promoted by Sony, one of the biggest corporations in the entire music industry.
Despite all these facts, the main point is that no matter what necessities the time has, or what makes money, there still would be musicians expressing opinions that many governments or politicians would not like, even if they supported the records for the sake of the profits.
Here are the lyrics of two of Lennon’s and Waters’ hits; Imagine (from Lennon’s 1971 album with the same title) and Waters’ “Too Much Rope” from his 1994 album Amused To Death:
.
Imagine
Composed by John Lennon
Produced by John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
.
Too Much Rope
Composed and produced by Roger Waters
When the sleigh is heavy
And the timber wolves are getting bold
You look at your companions
And test the water of their friendship
With you toe
They significantly edge
Closer to the gold
Each man has his price Bob
And yours was pretty low
History is short the sun just a minor star
The poor man sells his kidneys
In some colonial bazaar
Que sera sera
Is that your new Ferrari car
Nice but I'll think I'll wait for the F50
You don't have to be a Jew
To disapprove of murder
Tears burn my eyes
Moslem or Christians Mullah or Pope
Preacher or poet who was it wrote
Give any one species too much rope
And they'll fuck it up
And last night on TV
A Vietnam vet
Takes his beard and his pain
And his alienation twenty years
Back to Asia again
Sees the monsters they made
In formaldehyde floating 'round
Meets a gook on a bike
A good little tyke
A nice enough guy
With the same soldier's eyes
Tears burn my eyes
What does it mean
This tear-jerking scene
Beamed into my home
That it moves me so much
Why all the fuss
It's only two humans being
It's only two humans being
Tears burn my eyes
What does it means
This tender TV
This tear-jerking scene
Beamed into my home
You don't have to be a Jew
To disapprove my murder
Tears burn my eyes
Moslem or Christian Mullah or Pope
Preachers or poet who was it wrote
Give any one species too much rope
And they'll fuck it up
- References:
Ahlkvist, John A. October 2001. “Sound and Vision: Using Progressive Rock to Teach” Social Theory Teaching Sociology, 29 (4): 471-482
Denselow, Robin. October 1990. “When the Music’s Over: The Story of Political Pop” Popular Music, 9 (3): 388
Harry, Bill. 2000. John Lennon Encyclopaedia London: Virgin.
James, David.1989. “The Vietnam War and American Music” Social Text, 23: 122-143.
John and Yoko's Montreal bed-in. (Video Recording) The CBC Digital Archives Website. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.. [Accessed [07.06.2007.]
“John Lennon”, Wikipedia (Accessed [25.05.2007]),
Lennon, John. 1981. Give Peace A Chance. LP Record. EMI-Odeon.
Thomas Erlewine, Stephen. “John Lennon; Biography” All Music Guide website. (Accessed [05.05.2007]
A Perfect Circle. 2000. Mer Der Noms. CDRom. Virgin Records US.
Waters, Roger. 1992. Amused to Death. CDRom. Sony.
William Ruhlmann, “Imagine; song review”, All Music Guide website (Accessed [01.06.2007]),
Their solo albums’ lyrics.
Both John Lennon and Roger Waters are surely remarkable figures in the history of Rock N’ Roll. Both were members of influential English bands; had big roles in the successes their bands achieved; and both left their bands to start releasing their solo albums. The focus of this writing is on the similarities and differences their ideas –expressed in their solo works and their lyrics- had; for the most part their social, political, anti-governmental and anti-religion thoughts.
John Lennon
Born in 1940 in Liverpool, England, John Winston Ono Lennon formed the band The Beatles in 1957 initially named the Quarrymen. The name and the members, however, changed a few times till 1960, when the “Fab-Four” line-up was established with Ringo Starr as the drummer.
He left the band in September 1969 and started his solo career mainly in collaboration with Yoko Ono, his wife, and her band called the Plastic Ono Band. Lennon added to his reputation as an activist by writing and singing anti-war lyrics and opposing many politicians and officials in several performances of his and also a number of controversies such as his Bed-Ins. Bed-ins (March 25th till March 31st and May 26th till June 2nd 1969) were one-week protests by which the couple promoted world peace.
After a short retirement in the late 70s, Lennon released his last album Double Fantasy in 1980 produced by Ono. Soon after that, on December of the same year, he got shot by one of his fans Mark David Chapman.
Roger Waters
George Roger Waters is also born in Liverpool; but three years after Lennon. He formed Pink Floyd in 1965 along with Syd Barrett. After Barrett quit the band, David Gilmour replaced him and eventually became Pink Floyd’s leader. Nevertheless, a big part of the band’s music and its innovative stage appearances were based on Waters’ ideas.
Roger Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 and announced the termination of the band’s career. Despite his disagreement, the other members re-started Pink Floyd a few years later and went through a long legal dispute about the rights of the songs and other issues related to the band. However, both sides ended up having the permission to perform most of Pink Floyd’s songs prior to 1985.
Waters released four solo albums after that including Ça Ira, an opera released in 2004. He rejoined the band just for the concert of Live8 in 2005.
Lennon’s reputation as a political activist escalated mainly during the Vietnam War. However, the influence of Bob Dylan (whom he met the first time in 1964) played a significant role in change of Lennon’s attitude towards writing lyrics and his musical and super-star figure. 1969’s song “Give Peace A Chance” gained the awareness of the media and American politicians; it quickly became the anthem of anti-war movement protests. Followed by that, Richard Nixon’s administration struggled to silence Lennon by trying to deport him from America on the ground of his drug convictions in Britain.
Lennon, however, did not leave the United States and continued performing with Ono, as well as other radical and anti-war musicians like Phil Ochs and Stevie Wonder in several concerts.
The 1972 album Some Time In New York City, contained lyrics objecting sexism (“Woman Is The Nigger Of The World”), police inhumane and racist actions (“Attica State”), the British brutal policy in the Northern Ireland (“Sunday Bloody Sunday”) and many other political and social issues. It is signified as an important political piece of music throughout the history of Rock N’ Roll, particularly during 70s.
In a phrase from “Attica State” Lennon says:
“Come together join the movement,
Take a stand for human rights,
Fear and hatred clouds our judgement,
Free us all from endless night,…“
Waters’ political ideas were not dominant in Pink Floyd’s early works. Instead, it was experimentalism – both in lyrics and music-, which denoted Floyd in late 60’s. Yet, in 1973s Dark Side of The Moon, Waters openly criticised social and political situation of that time. The lyrics censured the materialism of the western world as a result of human’s greed (particularly in the song "Money") and scorned the –in Waters’ opinion- messed-up world politics and lifestyle of their time. Later, influenced by George Orwell’s book Animal Farm, Waters referred to many ordinary people as “Sheep”, led by “Dogs” and “Pigs”.
Having lost his dad in the WWII, he based the lyrics of their 1979’s album on his childhood. The Wall abstractly is about the sad way in which an individual’s attitude, behaviours and actions would evolve and change in a society manipulated by pro-war, power-hungry and corrupt officials and politicians.
In his last album as a member of Pink Floyd, he directly opposed Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Menachem Begin, Leonid Brezhnev, and many more.
After splitting from Pink Floyd, Waters expressed more of his anti-government, anti-religion and anti-media opinions in his lyrics; whereas Pink Floyd’s lyrics mostly kept articulating an abstract view of life, people’s correlations and many of other non-political issues.
Waters and Lennon came from the same country and the same city. They were born almost the same time and both were interested in left-wing politics; Lennon donated the Trotskyist Workers Revolutionary Party (Wikipedia, accessed May 2007) and Waters was a self proclaimed socialist strongly influenced by Karl Marx. All these, especially their political views, resulted in similar orientations of their lyrics.
Many of the “political-music” fans adore Lennon and Waters because of their anti-war and pro-liberty attitudes. Despite being expressed in different time periods, both of these artists’ messages mostly objected acts of the American and British governments. Nixon, Thatcher, Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai-shek and many of other officials who were criticised by Lennon and Waters were Republicans, Conservatives, dictators, military generals and typically right-winged politicians.
It is notable that Lennon’s early solo lyrics were quite similar to Beatles’ lyrics in structure. Many of those were initially written by both McCartney and Lennon but even the lyrics of Lennon/Ono Plastic Band more or less had “Beatlish” formations; particularly the simple arrangements of the songs and the phrases. Like many of Beatles’ songs, Lennon’s solo works were based upon simple and (excluding few exceptions) major chord progressions.
The same principal existed in early solo works of Roger Waters. As the main lyricist of Pink Floyd, he obviously kept his way of writing and applied it to his solo works. In fact, the Floyd album The Final Cut practically is done predominantly by Roger Waters; he did not even let Gilmour and Richard Wright (the keyboardist) to play and sing in many of album’s tracks. With similarities to many Floyd songs, Waters tended to directly “name” the individuals who he used to criticise.
However, in the media, Roger Waters was not as controversial as John Lennon. He was never threatened by deportation, never convicted for drug-problems and for the most part no one attempted to assassinate him.
Waters’ lyrics opposed issues and particular individuals in more direct means. Lennon had to apologise when in 1966 he said “We’re more famous than Jesus”. Roger Waters released albums in a time that phrases like “Fuck your God, your Lord, your Christ” (“Judith” from A Perfect Circle, Mer Der Noms. 2000) were openly broadcasted in media. Lennon’s (actually, Ono’s) song “We Are All Water” in “Some Time In New York City” starts with the phrase –as one of their most direct and clear statements- “There may be not much difference between Chairmon Mao and Richard Nixon if we stripped them naked”. In the song “Leaving Beirut” Waters –as one of the few examples of him being straight-forward towards politicians- refers to George W. Bush and says “Oh George! That Texas education must have fucked you up when you were very small”.
Overall the explicitness of Waters’ lyrics is more than Lennon’s; not just in terms of the expression of their political ideas, but also when they criticised religion. The song “Imagine” became a controversial tune of Lennon just because of the sentence “Imagine there’s no religion”. He had to attend many interviews and re-explain many of his opinions as a result of the effects of that song. In contrast –and without facing any major problem- Waters says “God wants sedition, God wants sex, God wants freedom, God wants Semtex” in the song “What God Wants”.
On the other hand, the fact that Waters’ reputation as a solo artist was brought to him almost a decade after Lennon’s, notably affected their career and differentiated the way each of them expressed his thoughts. The major issue of Lennon’s time was the Vietnam War and the conflicts of the USSR and the US; whereas Waters faced the Falkland wars, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Bosnian war, the Gulf War, Tony Blair and George Bush’s –again, in Waters’ opinion- unjustified decisions , and finally the Iraq War. All these in addition to the social changes in the western world –mainly the United Kingdom - somehow changed the theme of Waters’ lyrics in the course of criticising materialism, daily-life of youngsters, television and many more social issues. Lennon was more focused on his personal problems with Nixon’s administration and the anti-war movement of 70s.
Having a look at the careers of John Lennon and Roger Waters, and especially the way they promoted their political ideas and views, notes many important facts which apply to numerous lyricists in different time periods. World politics is always changing and evolving. Apparently there are many principals in common between different politically-active musicians but their methods of expression necessarily change during the time. John Lennon became one of the leaders of anti-war movement of America in the 70s and his controversy escalated to a level in which when he got assassinated, the incident arose more controversies. (Many people believe that his murder was an FBI conspiracy). Roger Waters, regardless of having more advanced and complex political messages in many senses, lives like many other musicians. His appearance in media –as one of the biggest sources of information- is not comparable with Lennon’s. Lennon’s music was banned to be played in many radio stations in America but Waters’ anti-media songs are produced and promoted by Sony, one of the biggest corporations in the entire music industry.
Despite all these facts, the main point is that no matter what necessities the time has, or what makes money, there still would be musicians expressing opinions that many governments or politicians would not like, even if they supported the records for the sake of the profits.
Here are the lyrics of two of Lennon’s and Waters’ hits; Imagine (from Lennon’s 1971 album with the same title) and Waters’ “Too Much Rope” from his 1994 album Amused To Death:
.
Imagine
Composed by John Lennon
Produced by John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
.
Too Much Rope
Composed and produced by Roger Waters
When the sleigh is heavy
And the timber wolves are getting bold
You look at your companions
And test the water of their friendship
With you toe
They significantly edge
Closer to the gold
Each man has his price Bob
And yours was pretty low
History is short the sun just a minor star
The poor man sells his kidneys
In some colonial bazaar
Que sera sera
Is that your new Ferrari car
Nice but I'll think I'll wait for the F50
You don't have to be a Jew
To disapprove of murder
Tears burn my eyes
Moslem or Christians Mullah or Pope
Preacher or poet who was it wrote
Give any one species too much rope
And they'll fuck it up
And last night on TV
A Vietnam vet
Takes his beard and his pain
And his alienation twenty years
Back to Asia again
Sees the monsters they made
In formaldehyde floating 'round
Meets a gook on a bike
A good little tyke
A nice enough guy
With the same soldier's eyes
Tears burn my eyes
What does it mean
This tear-jerking scene
Beamed into my home
That it moves me so much
Why all the fuss
It's only two humans being
It's only two humans being
Tears burn my eyes
What does it means
This tender TV
This tear-jerking scene
Beamed into my home
You don't have to be a Jew
To disapprove my murder
Tears burn my eyes
Moslem or Christian Mullah or Pope
Preachers or poet who was it wrote
Give any one species too much rope
And they'll fuck it up
- References:
Ahlkvist, John A. October 2001. “Sound and Vision: Using Progressive Rock to Teach” Social Theory Teaching Sociology, 29 (4): 471-482
Denselow, Robin. October 1990. “When the Music’s Over: The Story of Political Pop” Popular Music, 9 (3): 388
Harry, Bill. 2000. John Lennon Encyclopaedia London: Virgin.
James, David.1989. “The Vietnam War and American Music” Social Text, 23: 122-143.
John and Yoko's Montreal bed-in. (Video Recording) The CBC Digital Archives Website. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
“John Lennon”, Wikipedia
Lennon, John. 1981. Give Peace A Chance. LP Record. EMI-Odeon.
Thomas Erlewine, Stephen. “John Lennon; Biography” All Music Guide website.
A Perfect Circle. 2000. Mer Der Noms. CDRom. Virgin Records US.
Waters, Roger. 1992. Amused to Death. CDRom. Sony.
William Ruhlmann, “Imagine; song review”, All Music Guide website
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