You'd go a million miles? Really? And your love is the size of Wales? Or is that a whale? Or Luxembourg? Or an iceberg, or a double-decker bus? What? It will only take a minute? But now you say it will go on for ever! That's a mighty long/short time. How far away are you? Light years? Or is that in squared light years? That's a big area. And that's no surprise, as this week we're looking at songs that have a tendency to declare and speculate, sometimes gloriously, sometimes ridiculously, in mentioning all manner of measurements of time and distance, whether in specific terms or employing vast exaggerations or generalisations.
Is there any harm in a little hyperbole? Perhaps the format of song demands it. So, in a little twist moving on from last week's tremendous response to songs about small things, ingenious RR friends, feel free also to nominate those that use specific units of distance or time, especially if you suspect, despite sincerity of feeling, they are totally made up. And so with anything from rood to hide, furlong to rod, pole to perch, lap to league, mile to microsecond, aeon to instant, let's create a chain of measurement references that, whether silly speculation or sonorously stupendous, are also artfully approximate.
Continue reading...
by Peter Kimpton via Electronic music | The Guardian
No comments:
Post a Comment