Vince Taylor

Don’t think I’d read before that you wrote lyrics implementing methods such as these and in the recording studio no less. Am always interested in such methods partly because of reading about Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs being so excited by the cut-up technique and so convinced of its power to reveal hidden meanings and truth/s. Apparently WIlliam, especially, would fall about the floor in fits of laughter sometimes with what emerged, but both him and Brion seemed one hundred percent committed to and convinced by the cut-up technique in painting and writing, audio and film. They were correct as the cut-up technique (I like to think of it as the rearrangement technique) has been very influential. ‘Observatory gardens sing yes no more’ is a dreamlike and beautiful line. The source material is part of this as ‘Country Life’ is a publication obsessed with beautiful things of a certain kind. Likely collages created from it will be beautiful mismatches and rearrangements. “I never finalise or formaliae I only rearrange” from ‘Rooms With Brittle Views’ is one of your lines that springs to mind in this regard and seems like a manifesto unto itself. Wonder what might’ve emerged if the magazine you’d chosen as source material wasn’t ‘Country Life’ but was instead one dedicated to recording gear. Is there another lyric you might remember that you can share that’s emerged using the method you’ve described here or other methods involving chance?

@Alec As far as I remember, alec, that's the only one using that particular method. But I've often delved into my many notebooks and put together lyrics from unused song titles that I'd jotted down at different times across the years. It is strange how just choosing a title from one note book and pairing it with another from a much later notebook can create a phrase that, whilst devoid of actual meaning, can suggest, or imply, a meaningful response in the listeners mind.

Of course, this isn't a random technique as the choice of song titles I cobble together is a conscious act but, after the song is completed, and even though the lyric has no basis in a real event or 'story', I'm often surprised, months later, how it seems to be about something real and not a simple fabrication.

But the Dreamsville poetry experiment also could be seen in a similar fashion. 😉

That makes sense that method of lyric writing of yours as an occasional line from your lyrics stand out like a song title. I like its waste not whatnot packaging.

But the passage of time shows up in subtle ways in the lyrics.

Then there are the pop music bands who steal (appropriate?) song titles from others to create band names, like Gigolo Aunts and Baby Lemonade. Certainly in the case of those two an interesting way to pull in the Sydiots like me to their music. 😁Fortunately, they've made nice tunes as well.

The Dreamsville poetry experiment reminds me the Round Robin method of collaborative fiction or the Exquisite Corpse method of collaborative drawing ...

My friend Alex Jordan and I when we were teenagers used to roll dice and assign each side a note on a scale to see what kinds of melodies emerged. We thought of ourselves as playing with weird messages from the shadow world.

Roman fresco depicting dice players,

source: By Wolfgang Rieger [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.  https://www.instagram.com/p/B-nBBOjlkVP/?igshid=qke1xn92gm4h