Painting with Words and Music

Life in a Northern Town by Dream Academy is one of my all-time favorite songs, and it's an example of three things that can make a song great, for me:

1. Painting with Words: Though I have included the video with the song, and though I did see the video in the old days when MTV actually had music videos, the song itself creates a mood and a set of imagery with its combination of lyrics, melody and instrumentation. This creates a story in my mind which is far larger than the song itself.
2. Natural melody: There is something organic and true about the basic melody of the song. I am never tempted to harmonize the primary verses, or to improvise when the tune gets going in my head. The melody fits the lyrics and the story so well, there is nothing more to be done. Then the chorus is such a study in beautiful harmony, as the story of the song moves from the singular storyteller to include the full town (and audience.) [Now, having just written this, I will go listen to the Sugarland version to see what they've done, but for me, the original is perfect in its purity.]
3. Apparent Simplicity - Intrinsic Complexity: When I first heard the song, and fell in love with it, I said "I could do something like this." Of course, I can't, but why did I feel that way? Because the phrases seemed so simple. The combinations of words, as they flowed from the singer, didn't seem hard to produce, so why would we not be able to manage the same thing. But "They sat on the stony ground, and he took a cigarette out, and everyone else came down to listen" is evocative, but non-specific. Who took a cigarette out? The singer is telling a story, but hasn't introduced the character specifically. Yet the previous verse contains "like Sinatra in a younger day" and so the songwriter has placed an image of a person in our minds, actually mentioning him. This sort of lyric, this sort of poetry, conjures images with seeming simplicity, but it's very, very hard to find the right phrases. Try it.
   

Perhaps on another day I'll write about other such songs. Right now, I'll just imbed the video, and go listen to the song.