Saturday, July 5, 2008

Prosidy

When I first started writing songs, I started searching out songwriting websites. Everywhere I looked, I kept reading about something called "prosidy". I had no idea what that meant. It seemed like a made-up word to me.

FINALLY, I figured out what prosidy meant. In a nutshell, it meant that words in a song, when sung, should be pronounced correctly. You don't want to put the emphasis on the wrong syllable.

For example, "something" should not be pronounced, "some-THING".

Of course, prosidy is all well and good, but I could find scores of examples in which prosidy was ignored, and yet the song became a hit.

I thought of this today, as I was driving back from buying booze and cigarettes (just kidding!). I heard the song, "Dreams", by Fleetwood Mac on the car radio.

It's a nice song. I never really was a Fleetwood Mac fan, but in retrospect, they did have some good songs.

Anyhoo, Stevie Nicks was singing:

When the rain wash-SHEZ you clean
You'll know

Maybe it's the French pronunciation. Wash-SHEZ.

But, regardless of whether Stevie pronounces her words strangely, this song was a hit, and it's a good song.

Take a listen, and tell me if you agree that prosidy was ignored:

FLEETWOOD MAC - DREAMS



Of course, when I think of Fleetwood Mac, I think of Lindsey Buckingham, and when I think of Lindsey Buckingham, I think of the movie, "National Lampoon's Vacation".

So, to go off on a completely unrelated tangent, here is Lindsey's video of "Holiday Road" (from the movie, "National Lampoon's Vacation"):

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM - HOLIDAY ROAD


So, that got me thinking, of course. And since I'd already gone off on a wildly divergent tangent, I searched out some video of the movie itself.

Here is the trailer:

TRAILER FOR "NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION"


Not to belabor the subject, but I love this clip of Clark dancing with the sandwich. It's just so dorky.

THE "SANDWICH" CLIP


And then, later, Clark goes nuts. This is, I believe, just before Clark decides to kidnap John Candy and take him on the rollercoaster.

I love this movie. I haven't seen it in ages, but don't you agree that it's a classic?

CLARK GOES CRAZY


So, if you follow the dots, this whole post makes perfect sense.

I started out talking about prosidy, then I found the video clip of Fleetwood Mac, which led to a clip of Lindsey Buckingham, which naturally led to clips from one of my favorite movies.

It all seems perfectly reasonable to me.

I never said it would be easy to follow any of my posts.

That's why they're so interesting.

2 comments:

MacGyver said...

Thank you for help me understanding 'prosidy' term. (: I was looking for that word in some dictionaries, but it was just waste of time.

richfarmers said...

I never understood prosidy, either, MacGyver. People on message boards would throw it around all the time, but never explained what it meant. Glad I was of some assistance!