Posts Tagged ‘Paul McCartney’
“Words of nuance, words of skill/Words of romance are a thrill/Words are stupid, words are fun/Words can put you on the run”*…
We know them by their words…
For some stars, a big vocabulary is priceless. Singer-songwriters from Patti Smith to Nick Cave have built careers with songs whose rich language is as important as the music. We wondered if today’s chart-toppers used such a diverse word set.
We already know that some Hip Hop artists have access to a breathtaking array of expressions. But what about other contemporary stars?
WordTips counted the words used by 100 modern stars and the 100 greatest singers of all time and added up the number of unique words they used per 1,000. For example, Patti Smith used 2,669 different words across a total word count of 12,291, giving a score of 217/1000.
Key Findings
• The star with the biggest vocabulary overall is legend Patti Smith, who uses 217 unique words per 1,000.
• Billie Eilish is the modern star with the biggest vocabulary: 169 per 1,000.
• Legend Luther Vandross and modern star Trey Songz are tied with 66 for the smallest vocabulary.
• The song with the most unique words is Lou Reed’s The Murder Mystery, recorded by The Velvet Underground, with 639 words…
An interactive that reveals who uses the the widest array of words: “Which Singers Have the Biggest Vocabularies? Modern Stars vs Legends.”
* Tom Tom Club, “Wordy Rappinghood“
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As we express ourselves, we might recall that it was on this date in 1965 that the Beatles released their fifth studio album, Help!, accompanying the movie of the same title. Seven of the fourteen songs, including the singles “Help!” and “Ticket to Ride”, appeared in the film and took up the first side of the vinyl album. The second side included “Yesterday”, by Paul McCartney, the most-covered song ever written. While “Yesterday’ isn’t an especially-demonstrative example, McCartney was a top-ten user of unique words (7,896 across his compositions).
Meet a Beatle…
As a service to bewildered younger viewers of the recent Grammy Awards show, the History Channel and Twitter combined (under the auspices of Funny or Die) to produce the helpful documentary, Who is Paul McCartney?
As we say, “oh yeah (yeah yeah),” we might send heavenly birthday greetings to Renaissance astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus; he was born on this date in 1473. Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres; published just before his death in 1543), with its heliocentric account of the solar system, is often regarded as the beginning both of modern astronomy and of the scientific revolution.
Of all discoveries and opinions, none may have exerted a greater effect on the human spirit than the doctrine of Copernicus. The world had scarcely become known as round and complete in itself when it was asked to waive the tremendous privilege of being the center of the universe. Never, perhaps, was a greater demand made on mankind – for by this admission so many things vanished in mist and smoke! What became of our Eden, our world of innocence, piety and poetry; the testimony of the senses; the conviction of a poetic – religious faith? No wonder his contemporaries did not wish to let all this go and offered every possible resistance to a doctrine which in its converts authorized and demanded a freedom of view and greatness of thought so far unknown, indeed not even dreamed of.
– Goethe
Copernicus (source)
When Worlds Collude…
In the spirit of yesterday’s odd couple, a series of similarly serendipitous snaps at “Awesome People Hanging Out Together.”
As we remind ourselves that this (“You never know…!”) is why our mothers insisted that we always wear clean underclothes, we might recall that it was on this date in 1813 that Captain James Lawrence sailed his ship, the Chesapeake, from Boston Harbor– and immediately engaged the blockading Royal Navy frigate HMS Shannon in a fierce battle. Though the British ship’s cannons disabled the Chesapeake within the first few minutes, Captain Lawrence, mortally wounded by small arms fire, famously commanded his officers: “Don’t give up the ship.” (Shortly afterwards, the Chesapeake was overwhelmed by a British boarding party… and was, after all, given up. James Lawrence died of his wounds three days later… while the Chesapeake was being taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, by her captors.)
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!…
Michael Deal, a Brooklyn-based graphic designer, has created “Charting the Beatles“:
These visualizations are part of an extensive study of the music of the Beatles. Many of the diagrams and charts are based on secondary sources, including but not limited to sales statistics, biographies, recording session notes, sheet music, and raw audio readings.
Consider, for example, “Authorship and Collaboration” (based on authorial attributions quantified by William J. Dowlding in the book Beatlesongs):
See Mike’s other nifty infographics e.g., (Self-Reference, Song Keys) here. And check out the “open source” collection of Beatles charts and graphs that Mike has solicited here… where one will find your correspondent’s favorite:
Many thanks to reader MH-H for the lead.
As we tap our toes, we might recall that on this date in 1964 Tollie Records (the fourth label to release a Beatle’s disc in the U.S.) released “Twist and Shout” (B-side: “There’s a Place”); it went on to spend 11 weeks on the Billboard chart, rising as high as #2.
Across the Pond on this very same day, George Harrison met Patty Boyd, his future wife (and the inspiration for Eric Clapton’s “Layla”), while filming the train sequence for A Hard Day’s Night.
Cyrano de Bureaucrat…
There’s no more uncomfortable deficit than a loss for words. Happily, there’s the Bureau of Communication…
Explore the full range of available forms— and file away!
(Lest we think this anything modern: readers will recall Letters of Note… they’ve just published an example– an apology from a drunken guest— from a 9th century Chinese book of “etiquette forms.” For more of that ancient wisdom, readers can consult the “Dunhuang Bureau of Etiquette.”)
As we fill in the blanks, we might recall that it was on this date in 1969 that Paul McCartney was moved publicly to deny rumors of his own death (“play it backwards, man…”)
Anyway all of the things that have been, that have made these rumors, to my mind have very ordinary, logical explanations. To the people’s minds who prefer to think of them as rumors, then I am not going to interfere, I am not going to spoil that fantasy. You can think of it like that if you like.
However, if the end result, the conclusion you reach is that I am dead, then you are wrong, because I am very much alive, I am alive and living in Scotland.
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