Does it take a chaingang man to sing a chaingang song?

Discussion in 'Art & Culture' started by decons, Dec 25, 2009.

  1. decons scrambled egg Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    144
    I know a blues song called "It takes a chaingang" performed by Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry. According to the song, the answer to the title question is, Yes, it does.

    What do you think? How relevant should the life experiences be to the stories we tell or songs we sing?
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    If a writer were required to have personal experience with a situation before he could be counted on to write well about it, then there wouldn't be very many novelists in the world, much less full-time career novelists who write dozens of stories about vastly different characters and milieus.

    Writing the kind of song you're talking about is telling a story, just like writing a novel.

    You don't have to know ever single intimate detail about an experience to write about it. Especially in a song, which only covers a limited amount of ground, you focus on some aspect of it and you write about that. You may know about it from second-hand experience of someone who's been there, or you may have read about it extensively. You may even have seen a couple of accurately portrayed movies, or heard some very passionate songs about it.

    You can also synthesize what you know. You may never have been on a chain gang, but you've listened to all the blues songs about workin' on a chain gang. You've seen "Cool Hand Luke" and other good movies about chain gangs (sorry I can't name any but I'm not the guy who's trying to write a song about them

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    ). You've had teachers, sports coaches, bosses and other people in your life who treated you despotically. You've been separated from your loved ones by work, school, or perhaps something really dreadful like military service. You've felt pain, despair, heartache, loneliness, disrespect, hopelessness, loss and many other negative emotions.

    You can put all of that together and describe the way a person on a chain gang feels. They're all different, so even if you don't describe any individual prisoner with perfect accuracy, you've still got a good representation--if you're a good writer!

    The whole point of the technology of language is that to a greater or lesser extent when one person knows something, he can share that knowledge with others.

    It's easy to write songs about love and hate and partying because we've all done those things. But that means the songs start to sound alike and it's difficult to make yours stand out. If you write a song about something that most people don't write about, and you do a good job, then you might stand out just because it's a little unusual.

    I remember Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee from the great blues and folk music craze of the 1960s. I doubt very much that those guys had actually had every single experience they wrote about.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    For example, I don't see anything in their Wikipedia bios to make me suspect that either one had ever been in prison, much less on a chain gang! Brownie was lame in one leg, he wouldn't have lasted two days.

    The most important thing is not to have a lot of experience, but to have good writing skill. If you're not certain about your ability, then by all means sign up for a songwriters' workshop. They'll tell you the same things I just said, but they'll also teach you your craft.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. decons scrambled egg Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    144
    Thanks for the extensive answer. I agree about personal experience being only one of the motivations for the creation of artwork.

    I agree with everything you said. "Chaingang" was a metaphor for any life experience, but another good film coming to my mind about chain gang is "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and the chain gang song called "Po' Lazarus" by James Carter and The Prisoners.
     
    Last edited: Dec 26, 2009
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.

Share This Page