Let’s face it, deciphering lyrics can be a wild ride. Especially when you’re dealing with the Queen of Soul herself, Aretha Franklin. Take her iconic anthem “Respect” for example. For years, I completely butchered a key section. Instead of: R-E-S-P-E-C-T, take out the TCB I heard: R-E-S-P-E-C-T, take out the …
When God created the English language He very sensibly took several words and made them nearly unrhymable. He did this to stop bad poets going on about love, life and the world. Though you can make it to hurled, you then get stuck with curled and furled. You can’t even …
Deor may be the name of an Anglo-Saxon scop (pronounced “shop,” a kind of early English minstrel or bard), or it may be a pseudonym. It literally means something like “wild animal” and may refer to the poet’s low or “wild” station. Whoever this was, he left behind a poem …
Known as František Kočvara in his native Prague, this rather odd fellow was a skilled double bass player and composer. He seems to have traveled considerably, finally finding a home in London where his works were published from the 1770s. He left little of note except one popular composition, …
Johan Schobert’s exact birth year seems uncertain and has been listed as anywhere between 1720 and 1740, with a cautious consensus of 1735. Beginning in 1760 he was a harpsichordist in the service of the Prince de Conti in Paris. He had interactions with the Mozart family, specifically the …
Lets hear it for Jean-Baptiste Krumpholtz (1742–1790) who was a minor composer not particularly well known these days, maybe because his last name sounds a bit like a German skin complaint. He was revered in his time as a skilled harpist, indeed one of the greatest of the later …
