'All' for One

Whilst songs beginning with the word ‘A’ were sparse, in my collection at least, the word ‘All’ seems to bring up numerous titles. I currently have twelve songs that start with ‘All’:

All Along the Watchtower - The Fratellis (cover version from the Radio 1 Est. 1967 album, I did used to have Dylan’s on here too when I had The Essential Bob Dylan on my iPod)

All Around the World or The Myth of Fingerprints - Paul Simon

All at Once - Jack Johnson

All Day and All of the Night - The Kinks

All in White - The Vaccines

All My Friends - Counting Crows

All Night Long (All Night Long) - Lionel Richie

All Right Now - Free

All Star - Smashmouth

All the Eastern Girls - Chapel Club

All the Lovers - Kylie Minogue

All You Need Is Love - The Beatles

Already I love the strange mixture of music that’s put together, just from looking at the words that link them. I’m slightly embarrassed by some of them – Kylie, Smashmouth and Lionel Richie all have a whiff of the cheese, but some of the cheesiest songs can actually be truthfully awesome in my opinion – the majority of Abba’s songs being a case in point. Also, it probably looks bad that I have a Fratellis cover of Watchtower, but it’s not like I don’t know the Hendrix version, and in fact I’m not a fan of the song in general, anyway. I think this song is still on there because I selected The Fratellis as an artist to be placed on my iPod, just due to the one other song of theirs that I have and I do quite like – Flathead, I think… but maybe I’ll try to get rid of this specific song, I never listen to it anyway.

But why is the word ‘All’ such a productive word for songwriters? Maybe it’s the sort of totality of the word, it’s not some, but all, everyone, everything… and perhaps that’s why the indefinite ‘A’ doesn’t get used much, it’s too nondescript, general etc. But, who knows really?

L x

About these ads