>
Me:
> > I'd argue,
> > again purely from an aesthetic standpoint, that whereas a lot of Skeeter
> > Davis' stuff cried out for a glossy pop treatment, that a song about a
> > displaced Appalachian, making do in Detroit, just isn't the type of song
> > where that kind of crap makes artistic sense.
>
Jon:
> Obviously not to you, but I don't see exactly what you mean by "artistic
> sense." Do you mean songs about happy subjects should be bouncy? Songs
> about sad subjects slow and in minor keys? What I find distressing about
> this line of reasoning, though, is the implication, which you may or may not
> want to make (or maybe I'm just reading it in) that it's inappropriate or
> inauthentic for an artist or artists of a working-class background, or for a
> piece of music with a working-class subject, to be given a musical treatment
> other than one that jibes with someone else's notion of what it's supposed
> to sound like. (BTW, Chet Atkins wasn't exactly an Ivy Leaguer himself, you
> know.)
>
Me again: OK, let's try this again. Pretend you're composing a sound track
for a movie about a lonely rural guy from Kentucky or West Virginia, who's
living in Detroit making a buck in the auto factories, and who spends a
lot of time pining for his old home, and wondering just what the heck he's
doing in this big depressing city. Now would you use an arrangement that
sounded like it employed some off-duty singers from the Comet commercial
being taped in the next studio, or would you use something a bit less
jingle-like and glossy? I fet the feeling that Chet shoe-horned everybody
into his own poppy world, whether they belonged their or not.
I still don't understand why debating decisions on arrangements is such a
bad thing. It has everything to do with the way a record winds up
sounding, so what's wrong with making a value judgment about it? I get the
impression that you folks who are chewing this issue with me can't fathom
