Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Was It Debussy Or Stravinsky Who Said That Music Occurred In The Spaces Between The Notes?

Consider, if you will, the following lyrics from the recent chart-topping Black Eyed Peas song, Boom Boom Pow:

I'm so 3008
You so 2000 and late
I got that boom, boom, boom
That future boom, boom, boom
Let me get it now

Boom boom boom, gotta get-get
Boom boom boom, gotta get-get
Boom boom boom, gotta get-get
Boom boom boom, gotta get-get

Boom boom boom, now
Boom boom boom, now
Boom boom pow
Boom boom pow

Poetry, I'm sure you'd agree. However, join with me in a flashback to June 2007, the first broadcast of a Flight Of The Conchords episode containing a song featuring the following lyrics:

See ya shaking that boom boom
Who?
See ya looking at my boom boom
What?
You want some boom boom
It's clear it's boom some boom boom ahh

Let me buy you a boom boom
When?
You order a fancy boom
Who?
You like boom, I like boom
Enough small boom lets boom the boom ahh

And that's why I find that Black Eyed Peas song laughable.

Well, that's the main reason, anyway.

6 comments:

Paul McIntyre said...

Brilliant.

laurence timms said...

I experienced the utter joy of watching a French lady listen to Foux du Fafa for the first time the other day.

Wonderousness. She loved it.

Then we watched it on YouTube. Double joy.

It was Debussy, by the way. He also said "Collect impressions. Don’t be in a hurry to write them down."

But he probably said it in French. Something like "Recueillir les impressions. Ne pas être pressé de les écrire."

John Soanes said...

Unfortunately, I have to write stuff down, even in rough form, as I have a brain like swiss cheese. Ah well.
J

laurence timms said...

I think what he meant is that you should let the 'colour' of an idea suffuse you before you commit it to words.

It's that golden time between the moment that an idea strikes and the time you try to express it on paper.

John Soanes said...

Laurence, your use of the words 'colour' and 'golden' made me think of those people who have (I almost write "suffer from", which may not be appropriate at all) synaesthesia, and that rang a bell... and a quick Google suggests that notre ami Claude may have been synaesthetic. Don't know if this was deliberate, but I suspect so, you crafty chap, you.
But I do know what you mean - that period of 'gestation' when the idea's bubbling away in the head, delight both at having thought of it, and as its possibilities start to become clear. I think it's for that reason that some of my favourite bits in films are the moments when detectives put all the pieces together - because I love that 'aha!' feeling when an idea becomes clear.
J

laurence timms said...

Synaesthesia is, I dare say, sometimes a blessing and sometimes a curse.

I must tell you at some point about my personal experience of temporal lobe epilepsy. It's a whole blog post's worth, if not a book.

I didn't mean to be smart with the colour thing but it was a way of expressing my point. It's a super moment, isn't it? The 'aha' moment, the sudden realisation, the euphoria.

Samadhi, almost, I guess. I'm no Zen practitioner.

I also live for those little 'connection' moments where the blocks of a story slide into place and unexpected pictures suddenly appear.