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Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 113
Serious Contributor
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OP
Serious Contributor
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 113 |
Well, you may call Knopfler's lyric a train wreck. I call it brilliant. Tying in the Shakespeare and West Side Story images with the heartbreak and pathos of a lost love works for me. And, remember, here Knopfler is writing for himself as an artist (and not a country artist), not for Jerry Jeff Walker or another artist. So, he can afford the poetic license he uses. Other genres of pop music don't require the kind of literal language that country writing does. More poetic images can be open to interpretation. If you applied literal criterion to some of Paul Simon's work, you might also see a train wreck. But, great songwriting can take many shapes and forms -- and beauty is in the ear of the listener, I guess...
Inspiration and success to us all!
Rand Bishop
songwriter/producer/author - Makin' Stuff Up, secrets of song-craft and survival in the music-biz
Rand Bishop
Songwriter/producer/author
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