Great Songs That Couldn't Be Made Today
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Saturday, July 18, 2026 14:03
VIEWED: 1575
PAGE 3 of 7
You keep working on your writing if it makes you feel good, Brenda. 
Now that your computer situation has been more or less squared away, is there something else that you could do to make it easier to get back into it?
What I mean is, perhaps you don't have your space "situated" right? I believe back in the 90's the wild term for it was Fung Shui?
I'm tellin' ya... I was never a believer in that hippie dippy bullshit before, but after finally getting off my ass and decluttering, figuring out what I have and what my needs were, and spending all that time resituating things and making those charging stations for my smaller tech or for other people to charge their own stuff when they get here, the space is working MUCH more for me than it ever was before.
And it will be even better when I get through a few more long-forgotten projects and then making some more firm decisions and I get even more stuff out of here.
It's a work in progress, and it won't happen overnight. But when I'm finally done I want to have a nice setup in the small bedroom with a good computer to work on projects and stuff. Treat myself to a really nice computer chair too. Something I actually enjoy sitting in. No more hunching over my couch in positions I shouldn't be sitting in for hours at a time if I ever go back to the project.
Think about it... Is there any reason that's keeping you from getting back into it? Is your workspace for writing not as appealing as it could be? Maybe a nice, comfortable chair is all your space needs?
Oh... and yeah. I know all about the hard part. Forgive me. I'm giving you advice I don't follow myself.
But maybe there's somebody out there that you're short-changing by not getting out there and introducing yourself to them. 
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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
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Been reading your stuff too, Jaynez. Just hadn't replied yet.
I'd say you got the point now for sure.
It's funny you mentioned the song "N on the Moon" in your reply. Have you seen that guy before then? Huh... did I post him here before even? That was the song I was actually looking for when I found out his channel had been banned. Honestly, I was shocked it found its way to my home feed and he had so many subscribers already and hadn't been banned way earlier.
Your post is talking some pretty big things, and yeah... it's all fake now. And that was kind of my point with starting this thread with a song as harmless as Lisa Loeb's Stay. I honestly believe that the song could not be made and released today without causing some controversy or another. Meanwhile, all the rap music keeps getting pumped out there for the kids with some of the worst lyrics you've ever heard in your life, and nobody ever seems to have any problem with that.
I don't know man. I've always been a lyrics guy. The person who knew all the words to the songs, and not just the chorus. The guy who could sing karaoke and didn't need to look at the teleprompter. Never knew what notes I was singing either, but I always hit them.
If I'm listening to music with words, I prefer them to mean something to me. Of course it's got to sound good, but if I don't care about what they're saying, I'm not going to have it on my playlist for long no matter how good it sounds.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You keep working on your writing if it makes you feel good, Brenda.
Now that your computer situation has been more or less squared away, is there something else that you could do to make it easier to get back into it?
What I mean is, perhaps you don't have your space "situated" right? I believe back in the 90's the wild term for it was Fung Shui?
I'm tellin' ya... I was never a believer in that hippie dippy bullshit before, but after finally getting off my ass and decluttering, figuring out what I have and what my needs were, and spending all that time resituating things and making those charging stations for my smaller tech or for other people to charge their own stuff when they get here, the space is working MUCH more for me than it ever was before.
And it will be even better when I get through a few more long-forgotten projects and then making some more firm decisions and I get even more stuff out of here.
It's a work in progress, and it won't happen overnight. But when I'm finally done I want to have a nice setup in the small bedroom with a good computer to work on projects and stuff. Treat myself to a really nice computer chair too. Something I actually enjoy sitting in. No more hunching over my couch in positions I shouldn't be sitting in for hours at a time if I ever go back to the project.
Think about it... Is there any reason that's keeping you from getting back into it? Is your workspace for writing not as appealing as it could be? Maybe a nice, comfortable chair is all your space needs?
Oh... and yeah. I know all about the hard part. Forgive me. I'm giving you advice I don't follow myself.
But maybe there's somebody out there that you're short-changing by not getting out there and introducing yourself to them.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
I am but I am having trouble getting the second book I am working just right. I keep writing the prologue and the first 3 chapters. Though I think I am closer now to how I want it to start. I have also sort written an ending for it.
That's me doing things backward.The term was "Fung Shui" which is never really been my thing. I'm just tidying up papers around my table to see what I need and I don't need. Put things away so they aren't in my way.
That's what I always say. I'm a work in progress, specially since I've gotten older.
Oh, I'm sure there maybe someone out there but I just haven't met him yet.
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Here's really another song that couldn't be done now. "Kaw-liga" it was put out in the 50's at least. First line is about a wooden Indian.
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Jaynzes, here's something else you may not realize is music is vibrations. Beethoven was by all stories stone deaf towards the end of his life. But he understood that sound was vibration. It's said that he had the legs cut off of pianos so they laid flat on the floor. Then he would lay on the floor with one ear on it, so he could feel the vibrations to still be able to write.
The greatest symphonies and such were written by Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin and the like. Modern composers cannot in my opinion come close. And neither would bloody AI.
Music is also mathematics. AI may understand the mathematics of music but there is no soul.
There are several things all humans have in common and is music. We all create it in some form. From a simple drum beat to flutes to whatever instrument you want to name. These forms all have soul.
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Yeah.... but....
So much of the music is fake and doesn't have any soul even though there's a living person doing it.
Not that this is anything new by 2026, but it just seems to be more pervasive now since so may "artists" don't actually play any instruments anymore.
I really think that MTV finally killed music.
There's exceptions to the rule, of course, but since the creation of MTV and everything that followed, the bottom line has been that if you're ugly, nobody is going to ever hear your music or care about it no matter how brilliant it is.
That wasn't necessarily the end of the world on its own, but that in tandem with the fact the industry is all run by people who don't care about music unless it makes them money, they don't care if it's good or if it means anything. And over time we've seen the artists become more and more beautiful with less and less music being put out that's worth anything. There may be 3 songs put out per year that anybody will remember 5 years from now, let alone end up being classics that people are still playing 50 years from now.
AI today can't recreate what even the most talentless new artsists can create, but the line in that sand is not very wide. My guess is that if people were okay with the trash shit they put out as "music" today made by actual human beings (or more accurately, performed by human monkeys but created by the algorithm), they're going to be just fine with all of our music being created by AI once it gets a little more advanced. Simply having human bodies there does not dictate that there is any soul to be found.
And again... when tickets for Taylor Swift were going for over $3,000 a piece a few years back, who the hell can blame them from walking away from the "real" artists anyhow.
I buy and pay for nearly half of everything I need to live for an entire year what some people were paying to see Taylor Swift in concert for 2 hours.
It's insanity.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Yeah.... but....
So much of the music is fake and doesn't have any soul even though there's a living person doing it.
Not that this is anything new by 2026, but it just seems to be more pervasive now since so may "artists" don't actually play any instruments anymore.
I really think that MTV finally killed music.
There's exceptions to the rule, of course, but since the creation of MTV and everything that followed, the bottom line has been that if you're ugly, nobody is going to ever hear your music or care about it no matter how brilliant it is.
That wasn't necessarily the end of the world on its own, but that in tandem with the fact the industry is all run by people who don't care about music unless it makes them money, they don't care if it's good or if it means anything. And over time we've seen the artists become more and more beautiful with less and less music being put out that's worth anything. There may be 3 songs put out per year that anybody will remember 5 years from now, let alone end up being classics that people are still playing 50 years from now.
AI today can't recreate what even the most talentless new artsists can create, but the line in that sand is not very wide. My guess is that if people were okay with the trash shit they put out as "music" today made by actual human beings (or more accurately, performed by human monkeys but created by the algorithm), they're going to be just fine with all of our music being created by AI once it gets a little more advanced. Simply having human bodies there does not dictate that there is any soul to be found.
And again... when tickets for Taylor Swift were going for over $3,000 a piece a few years back, who the hell can blame them from walking away from the "real" artists anyhow.
I buy and pay for nearly half of everything I need to live for an entire year what some people were paying to see Taylor Swift in concert for 2 hours.
It's insanity.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
Oh, I agree that a lot of people play or sing and think they are just wonderful but in reality they are horrible. My boss is like. She plays the guitar and thinks is wonderful at it but I've heard her and that is a hard no.
I have noticed that about today's "artists" but that happened in the middle of Surfer music back in the 60s. Some of those groups didn't play anything either.
Oh, I think we all know has the music industry has changed over last decades. But it's not only music producers that can dumb down a singer or a musician. Managers play a huge part in things too.
Like I said AI may understand the mathematics of it but as you said along with me no soul.
Music is about soul. I do not look forward to all that AI garbage. And that will when it happens I will be looking at things more closely.
You wouldn't get me paying anything like that for her. As far as she's concerned all she does is stand there and look pretty.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Oh, I agree that a lot of people play or sing and think they are just wonderful but in reality they are horrible. My boss is like. She plays the guitar and thinks is wonderful at it but I've heard her and that is a hard no.
Yeah... I was that guy. I will admit that younger, more annoying me that still thought I was the bright shiny center of the universe put people through that before. I "played" a lot, but I was never any good. I would have actually had to learn music theory and practice actual drills to get good. I was just trying to use computer tablature and memorize songs I liked, and although that worked out great for my singing and I killed it every Karaoke Night, I was never good at guitar. But that didn't stop me from annoying people with it.
Every time I watch Animal House and John Belushi takes that guy's acoustic guitar and smashes it I cringe because somebody should have done that to me years ago.
Quote:
I have noticed that about today's "artists" but that happened in the middle of Surfer music back in the 60s. Some of those groups didn't play anything either.
I mean, pop music has been around a long time, sure... but usually there were quite a few artists that were real artists doing their thing in the spotlight too. I don't mind at all that music I don't like exists. I just think that the scales have tipped so far one way now that it's hard to find anything new that's good. Every once in a while while working out in my garage during the summer there will be a new one that's worth a listen, but it ain't often. I know full well that's partly because I'm on the bad end of the joke now about how new music becomes nothing but noise to old people... But things genuinely are different this time. My old man's biggest complaint about new music when I was a kid was all the synthesizers and that nobody played instruments anymore. But that wasn't true... A lot of pop acts, especially in the 80's were all synth and computers, but there was always plenty of other music out there with real instruments to listen to as well. Now in most cases if you want that, you've just got to listen to old music. They don't really make that anymore. And like Jaynez said, there's really no "bands" anymore. Most of the time that there are people playing instruments for the stars, they're just studio musicians doing part-time gigs when a star has a song that actually needs real talent to play.
And about Taylor, I'm not even trash talking just to trash talk her. Though she is starting to age now, and I think that's probably contributing to her sudden "not being the most popular thing on the planet", she's always been more than just a pretty face. As far as I know, she writes all of her own stuff. I know that she can play guitar a hell of a lot better than I ever will, even though I would guess most of her fans wouldn't even know that about her unless they were superfans because that's not how she became a household name and that all predates her rise to superstardom.
In fact, there have been 2 songs by Taylor that I really, genuinely liked. And that's despite the fact that a lot or even most of that music behind them are synthisized.
This is one of those...
I'm not a Taylor Swift fan, but I can say that song is objectively a good song despite the fact there isn't a real instrument on display.
And anybody looking at those lyrics and thinking that they're too trite, I would disagree. She's talking about how she's a dangerous mess, and she's aware that she gets away with a lot of shit that most women would never be able to get away with because of her looks. She even says half a dozen times "Don't Say I didn't Warn Ya", in between laughing about how this relationship will probably be over before
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:Quote:
Oh, I think we all know has the music industry has changed over last decades. But it's not only music producers that can dumb down a singer or a musician. Managers play a huge part in things too.
At the end of the day, they do it themselves. That's just the way their bread gets buttered. Keep your integrity and struggle for the rest of your life, or sell out and have some really great times and maybe a really easy life if you're not absolutely terrible with money. I think that's a pretty simple equation for most people who are lucky enough to be presented with it.
That's what I George Michael's was singing about in Freedom...
Official Music Video:
Lyric Video:
Interestingly enough, I think that is an example of a song that I think could easily get made today, yet I'm surprised it got through the various censors and corporate filters it would have needed to in order to get out to the public at all back when it was made. And this has nothing at all to do with the fact he was gay. Other than certain lyrics like "didn't we, boy" that pop up from time to time, there doesn't appear to be any correlation between the exclamation of "FREEDOM" and anything to do with gay culture, whatsoever. Either it was about his personal experiences with other boys when he was younger, or perhaps he is quoting a gay and rapey executive with power and how he was talked to by some big shot back in the days when you couldn't even talk about that stuff. Or maybe it was just a happy lyric talking about friends and that was just how he talked to all of his male friends. The addition of those lyrics is incidental.
90% of the dummies out there never learn a single lyric of any song outside of the chorus. Most of those that do only ever bother for songs they really like. Easy to hide a song like this and the implications behind it by putting on full-blast "HEY AMERICA! GEORGE MICHAEL IS GAY!" and getting everyone to mistake this early attempt at whistleblowing the industry as a pride anthem or some nonsense instead.
Today it doesn't matter because everybody knows about all of it but barely finds the time to care at all. We all get outraged about something for 10 seconds and then it's off to the next thing to be angry about. Maybe George proved that I'm wrong and it didn't matter 30 years ago before the internet was even a thing.
Because I think this song was actually a cry for help that fell completely on deaf ears by his fans, the public in general and everyone close to him in his real life.
An admission that despite all the fame and the success that he was a joke. A pawn. A tool for somebody else who has spent his entire career "taking the knife as well", whenever choosing not to question anything buttering his bread made him do.
I'm really surprised that some corporate suit didn't find a way to bury the idea of this song with George in that casket.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Oh, I agree that a lot of people play or sing and think they are just wonderful but in reality they are horrible. My boss is like. She plays the guitar and thinks is wonderful at it but I've heard her and that is a hard no.
Yeah... I was that guy. I will admit that younger, more annoying me that still thought I was the bright shiny center of the universe put people through that before. I "played" a lot, but I was never any good. I would have actually had to learn music theory and practice actual drills to get good. I was just trying to use computer tablature and memorize songs I liked, and although that worked out great for my singing and I killed it every Karaoke Night, I was never good at guitar. But that didn't stop me from annoying people with it.
Every time I watch Animal House and John Belushi takes that guy's acoustic guitar and smashes it I cringe because somebody should have done that to me years ago.Quote:
I have noticed that about today's "artists" but that happened in the middle of Surfer music back in the 60s. Some of those groups didn't play anything either.
I mean, pop music has been around a long time, sure... but usually there were quite a few artists that were real artists doing their thing in the spotlight too. I don't mind at all that music I don't like exists. I just think that the scales have tipped so far one way now that it's hard to find anything new that's good. Every once in a while while working out in my garage during the summer there will be a new one that's worth a listen, but it ain't often. I know full well that's partly because I'm on the bad end of the joke now about how new music becomes nothing but noise to old people... But things genuinely are different this time. My old man's biggest complaint about new music when I was a kid was all the synthesizers and that nobody played instruments anymore. But that wasn't true... A lot of pop acts, especially in the 80's were all synth and computers, but there was always plenty of other music out there with real instruments to listen to as well. Now in most cases if you want that, you've just got to listen to old music. They don't really make that anymore. And like Jaynez said, there's really no "bands" anymore. Most of the time that there are people playing instruments for the stars, they're just studio musicians doing part-time gigs when a star has a song that actually needs real talent to play.
And about Taylor, I'm not even trash talking just to trash talk her. Though she is starting to age now, and I think that's probably contributing to her sudden "not being the most popular thing on the planet", she's always been more than just a pretty face. As far as I know, she writes all of her own stuff. I know that she can play guitar a hell of a lot better than I ever will, even though I would guess most of her fans wouldn't even know that about her unless they were superfans because that's not how she became a household name and that all predates her rise to superstardom.
In fact, there have been 2 songs by Taylor that I really, genuinely liked. And that's despite the fact that a lot or even most of that music behind them are synthisized.
This is one of those...
I'm not a Taylor Swift fan, but I can say that song is objectively a good song despite the fact there isn't a real instrument on display.
And anybody looking at those lyrics and thinking that they're too trite, I would disagree. She's talking about how she's a dangerous mess, and she's aware that she gets away with a lot of shit that most women would never be able to get away with because of her looks. She even says half a dozen times "Don't Say I didn't Warn Ya", in between laughing about howNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME