uTopianTurtleTop

at the point in the project where the heavy questions set in . . . WTF do i think i'm doing here anyway? and so on . . .

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late night distractions:

indie rock -- Lois, sometimes known as Lois Maffeo, shambling propulsive strumming guitar & sweet moody melodies -- lovely melodies.

virtuoso rhyming: in the Tin Pan tradition, virtuoso rhyming is almost always in the surface of comedy or satire, only occasionally in service of pathos. this tradition pre-dates Tin Pan's late 19th century birth by many decades: Byron's comic poems "Don Juan" and "The Vision of Judgment" abound in virtuoso comic rhymes. Problem with late Dylan and much Elvis Costello -- the virtuoso rhyming often makes me say Hey, Cool Rhyme, Delightful, in the middle of a song that's supposed to be bitter; rhyming working at cross-purposes to the song's strengths.

Elvis Costello, great singer -- when he usurped both the Dionne Warwick and the Hal David roles in his collaboration with Burt Bacharach, he didn't embarrass himself as a singer, not at all -- and that's saying something. Wordswise, though, I missed Hal David's concision and focus.