Jeff Buckley: Hallelujah
[purchase]
It goes like this: the fourth, the fifth,
the minor fall, the major lift
the baffled king composing Hallelujah.
My absolute favorite theme to write for, here on Star Maker Machine? No question about it: Songwriting week.
The task was to address the process of song craft - to switch from speaking of sound and sense to attend to the development process from which music springs forth. And man, did it get intellectual in here. Our small hearty band of bloggers took to the task like a pack of starving college professors trying to prove their readiness for tenure. Several of us even emerged with highly specified sub-themes, focusing on a particular aspect or type of the songwriting process; I myself cranked out three lengthy posts on songwriting through adaptation of existing texts, as befits a coverblogger who spends his days teaching communications and culture, and his nights considering the folkways.
There were less posts that week, as it turns out - this was back when we were at it fast and furious, averaging well over 30 posts per theme, but the sheer work it required to crank out the type of depth and detail that the theme demanded resulted in but 17 entries on our logsheet. And the songs are long-gone, of course. But for sheer chutzpah and analytical depth, the writing is not to be missed. Head back into the depths of 2008 for more.
