Lyrical Maxims

Big Frank has been pretty busy lately so he has to apologize for the lateness in getting this next promised posting up. First of all I would like to thank the three people who visited the site over the past week or so. Unfortunately we have no additions of other lyrical maxims so that’s that for the time being.

On to the next deal: maxims that could be turned into songs. Big Frank suggests that we look at a couple of rich sources in order to show what could be done. These two sources, not coincidentally, carry the name of Frank! Frank Zappa and Frank La Rochefoucauld (well, OK, technically it is François for the latter, but in these informal times Frank will do).

Keep in mind that the idea is to pick a maxim or proverb that could conceivably carry an entire song. In other words the maxim has to have bulk. It has to allow for wandering thoughts and feelings to accompany the meandering music that goes into this song. The emotions and thoughts of the listener have to have a large scaffolding to climb around on. “Early to bed and early rise . . .” is just not going to do it. No matter how rich the melody and how intricate the leads the listener is going to be handicapped by the limited scope of that maxim.

This blog is verbal, not musical, so after listing the maxim Big Frank can’t fill in the tune – well, at least not yet (stay tuned)- so he will have to meander verbally to give some indication of what could be done with such lyrical maxims.

Example #1: “Without deviation from the norm progress is not possible”. – Frank Zappa.
This ones shakes things up in a very subtle way. The norm – is the so-called foundation of sanity and civilization. We say of those outcasts and freaks – they are ABNORMAL – in the same way that we castigate the weirdoes and criminals. That is to say that normal is the bounds of acceptable and those that wander outside that fence have passed beyond the bounds of acceptability. However – and this is a very large HOWEVER, it is the abnormal that leads to progress both individually and collectively. Jesus was abnormal, Edison too, Bill Gates, Franklin, Ford and Gutenberg – all abnormal. Democracy is not normal (within history or the family), capitalism – not the norm, and loving your enemies – give me a break!

Example #2: “The head is forever fooled by the heart.” - François La Rochefoucauld.
In typical La Rochefoucauld fashion we have a paradoxical truth thrust at us. Paradoxical because these days we are constantly being told by new agers and their ilk about how the mind has misled us – how it is the secret driver that calls all the shots and that we need to “get in touch” with our feelings in order to take the controls away from the untrustworthy driver – “the head”. Well it just ain’t so. The heart is the five thousand pound behemoth that is being ridden by that small head. The head has no control whatsoever over the behemoth of a heart and yet it has no end of confabulation of rationales that pretend to explain what the heart is up to and that it is really all part of the head’s plan.