A week or so ago, someone posted a clever piece on Facebook titled "The Differences Between Musical Genres." It started with a simple declarative sentence - "I saw a flower" - and then showed now that sentence might be turned into the lyrics of a song in various genres. As a linguist and a lover of music, how could I possibly turn down the opportunity to share it, and add a few of my own ideas? Here we go ...
Basic Lyric:
"I saw a flower"
Rap:
"Yo, I was hangin' wit my $%#%! homies and we saw a *#^%! flowa in a @$!%*! garden ..."
Pop:
"I saw a flower
a flower
a flower
It had blue petals
blue petals
blue petals ... "
Gospel:
"I saw a flower by the road to heaven
While Jesus called me home."
Reggae:
"I saw a flower,
A beautiful flower
And it smoked up so fine ..."
Acid Rock:
"In empty fields where nothing grew but weeds
I saw a flower,
And it turned into a dragon"
Barbershop Quartet:
"I saw a flower
(I saw a flower)
It smelled so fine
(It smelled so fine)"
Emo:
"I came across a beautiful flower, but it effin' DIED!"
Heavy Metal:
"AAAARRRRGGGGHHH ...
FLOOOOOOOOWWWWEEEEERRRR ...
AAUUGGHH ...
IN A FIEEEELLLLLD!!!"
Calypso:
"Down Jamaica way, mon,
I saw de flower a-growing by de road."
Country:
"I was ridin' my tractor in the rain
And drinkin' a beer
And I saw a flower, and I said,
We didn't have them flowers in the yard
When I was in prison!"
Grand Opera:
"I SAW A FLOWER!
A FLOWER, A FLOWER, A FLOWER,
MI AMORE
MI AMORE MI AMORE MI AMORE!!"
Any other ideas? Leave a comment.
Have a good day, and have it tunefully. More thoughts on Thursday.
Bilbo
7 comments:
Great renditions of how different music forms would handle a flower, Bilbo!
Folk:
"Where have all the flowers gone,
Long time passing.
Gone to florists everyone,
Oh when will they ever learn?"
Spare us from Gregorian Chant!
Spare us from Christian heavy metal music. There is such a genre. Pat Boone tried it. Badly.
Never heard of Emo before. And it's from the 80's. After reading the explanation I'm glad I didn't know what it was.
I shudder what the J-Pop version would be!
Angel - as it happens, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" is one of my favorite songs...The Kingston Trio sang the definitive version, IMHO. And I love Gregorian Chants - they are perfect, soothing background music for while you're working on some complicated task.
Heidi - I had forgotten about Christian Heavy Metal and the horror of Pat Boone's dabbling with it.
Mike - I'd never heard of it, either. And I'd probably not listen to it very much.
Elvis - There are some things we should just step away from and not think about.
J-Pop is sort of strange:
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/04/world/asia/japan-akb48/
The bluegrass version would have a twang.
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