Examples of songs written using Oulipian-style writing constraints?
April 13, 2023 7:27 PM Subscribe
I'm mostly thinking in terms of lyrics: no words containing a particular set of letters, restrictions on the lengths of words, exclusively palindromic lyrics, etc.
Some examples I've already found:
Andrew Huang / Songs To Wear Pants To: "I Am the First Fifty Digits of Pi", "Rapping Without the Letter E", "Alphabetical"
Brett Domino: "Bin Guy", "Lola"
Weird Al Yankovic: "Bob"
Some examples I've already found:
Andrew Huang / Songs To Wear Pants To: "I Am the First Fifty Digits of Pi", "Rapping Without the Letter E", "Alphabetical"
Brett Domino: "Bin Guy", "Lola"
Weird Al Yankovic: "Bob"
Would "Alphabet Aerobics" by Blackalicious count? It's a rap where each verse is almost all words of a different letter of the alphabet ("Artificial amateurs aren't at all amazing/Analytically, I assault, animate things/Broken barriers bounded by the bomb beat/Buildings are broken, basically I'm bombarding"). ....Daniel Radcliffe went viral for singing it on Jimmy Fallon's show, you may recall.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:57 PM on April 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:57 PM on April 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
Sloth John B and every else on Mujeres Encinta's "The Beak Brackets" albums (aka The Beach Boys +7 Series).
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:23 PM on April 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:23 PM on April 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
There must be something by Tom Lehrer. I don't know nearly all his songs. Maybe an expert will come by.
posted by falsedmitri at 9:07 PM on April 13, 2023
posted by falsedmitri at 9:07 PM on April 13, 2023
Response by poster: Re: alphabet aerobics.
Maybe it doesn't technically count since it's only "almost all", but it's still cool.
Re: Tom Lehrer
You'd think that he would have something like that, wouldn't you? But not that I know of. The Elements doesn't really feel like it should count as it's just a specific set of words reordered for rhyming's sake.
But I still love Lehrer.
posted by ErWenn at 5:52 AM on April 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Maybe it doesn't technically count since it's only "almost all", but it's still cool.
Re: Tom Lehrer
You'd think that he would have something like that, wouldn't you? But not that I know of. The Elements doesn't really feel like it should count as it's just a specific set of words reordered for rhyming's sake.
But I still love Lehrer.
posted by ErWenn at 5:52 AM on April 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
TMBG's On Earth My Nina: This song was concocted when John Linnell listened to "Thunderbird" backwards and interpreted his reversed vocals into lyrics. Not so much constrained as re-translated, but I think it's at least in the same spirit.
posted by credulous at 5:45 PM on April 14, 2023
posted by credulous at 5:45 PM on April 14, 2023
Best answer: Ojo Con Los Orozco by León Gieco only uses the "o" vowel. I found this song, which is in Spanish, more effective than most of the English-language e-less songs. I guess that's because English pronunciation is so irregular that a writing constraint doesn't usually come across in a spoken context? I don't know.
posted by Lirp at 11:45 AM on April 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Lirp at 11:45 AM on April 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Re: Break Bracket
This sounds fantastic, but it doesn't seem to be available anywhere online... I mean that sounds like at least partly on purpose, but it does make actually listening to the music difficult.
posted by ErWenn at 2:38 PM on April 15, 2023
This sounds fantastic, but it doesn't seem to be available anywhere online... I mean that sounds like at least partly on purpose, but it does make actually listening to the music difficult.
posted by ErWenn at 2:38 PM on April 15, 2023
An Alabama Gala: an art song by Sky Macklay in which its only non-consonant is A
posted by moonmilk at 8:28 AM on September 11, 2023
posted by moonmilk at 8:28 AM on September 11, 2023
This thread is closed to new comments.
He's a bit of a linguist so while that's the only one I know where he uses the type of constraints you're asking for, he does some fun things with words in a lot his raps. Here's one with some physical constraints.
posted by bondcliff at 7:54 PM on April 13, 2023 [1 favorite]