CAUTION AHEAD — CREAMED ASPARAGUS: A whiff of épater le bourgeois crossed with nostalgie de la boue i.e. Eighties effluvia insulting propriety, decorum, decency, good taste, all the sensitivities of right-thinking persons i.e. Depraved frippery from a “low dishonest decade” blessedly relegated to our collective past i.e. Horrid, callous, vestigial hiccup of barbarism from an era put firmly behind us i.e. Visceral venting of frolicking, wonky stinkpots i.e. That’s as much unctuous apologia pro vita sua as I can proffer for wrenching this text-stream from its well-earned obscurity. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
[From CB to HH & JMN:]
I sat relishing the feel of the florescent light on the cheap fabric of my imitation Henry Grenthel shirt and listened as Teena’s phone conversation wafted up the ventilation system like the plaintive cry of a chicken hawk across the dark, gothic prairie. Suddenly, I was borne on the wings of remembrance to those cherished moments when, a boy of twelve, I would sit pensively in Grandmother’s parlor rocker and listen as, upstairs, she thrilled herself with the tapered end of the late Mr. B***’s powder horn. I knew that I would soon be required to don the ill-fitting WWI Army uniform and, bowl of creamed asparagus in hand, climb the stair….
[From HH to CB & JMN:]
They arrived, first one, then the other. Pristine envelopes lent them a superficial dignity, but they stank a stray-cat scent of expired literary license. First there was JMN, with his thinly-masked discourse on uvula angst. On his heel CB, cesspool-of-consciousness’s unclaimed master. I should have known there’d always be some punk poe-taster writing into town. They were rank all right, but not amateur; they were prose. How to retort? “I think — therefore iamb?” No…, that would be putting Descartes before the horses….
(c) 2018 JMN.
EthicalDative 
Understanding Lyrics
Jakob Dylan, from his Facebook page.
My sister told me I had to listen to “One Headlight” by Jakob Dylan and The Wallflowers. A friend had introduced her to the song. “Before you hear it,” she said, “I just want to say, you’re going to find that the drums are crisp.” She gave plosive emphasis to the ‘p.’
I listened to the song and liked it: a steady, upbeat tempo (crisp), pleasing melody and chorus, a thrilling chord change or modulation midway — however you say it musically — all things I respond to readily as an unschooled listener. The son’s voice reminded me of the father’s. I nodded approvingly when the song finished, thinking of adding it to my pop playlist.
Only then did I reflect that I hadn’t understood a word of the lyrics of this wildly successful song. “Did you understand any of the words?” I asked my sister. “I think I picked up ‘Cinderella,’” she said. That was all, and she had listened to “One Headlight” several times.
I ponder with fascination what seems to be an evolution in pop (and folk) music away from understandable lyrics to ones that are not (for me at least). I can understand the Beatles’s lyrics; can’t understand Robert Plant’s. I can understand Paul Simon’s lyrics; Elton John’s not so much. It’s maddeningly difficult for me to follow what Sarah Jarosz is saying — her words get trapped somewhere in her nasal recesses, falling shy of her tongue, palate and lips; Suzanne Vega is clearer. Listen to “The Wanderer” sung by Dion in the dark ages, then by Status Quo later.
Frankly, the lyrics of a great percentage of pop music simply get past me. One working theory of mine is that instrumentation or accompaniment — call it what you will — simply overwhelms the vocals. It’s largely a matter of volume. The singing is backgrounded, inverting an earlier relationship. Also, singing legibly use to involve a certain exaggerated articulation, unnatural in conversation, whereas many modern artists sing the same as they talk, and sense gets swamped. Idle thoughts.
(c) 2018 JMN.