Music Without Melody

Jim Carroll on singing rock and roll as another rhythm instrument

I’ve been re-reading a lot of Jim Carroll lately. In a passage in Forced Entries: The Downtown Diaries 1971-1973, he reveals that he’s been thinking about writing lyrics for some rock and roll bands. “Certain friends have prompted me toward this idea for years,” he writes. “Some, like Jenny Ann [Patti Smith] have even made the ridiculous proposition that I sing these songs . . . that I actually front a band! They tell me they see the possibilities when I give readings of my poems and diaries. The way I move. The phrasing.”

Considering this a bit further, weighing the exciting possibilities against his own perceived limitations, Carroll offers a brief but potent theory of good rock and roll singing: “I do believe that a poet would possess a stronger intuitive sense of phrasing with a rock song . . . that there is a way to tap into the emotions of an audience simply by the cross of a certain phrase, even a single word, against a certain chord. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

But I respect craft. I believe in technique . . . and my singing abilities are so serious a handicap that it would take a whole new scale to make the entire thing less than ludicrous. Music without melody, where my voice would simply be another rhythm instrument, like a drum.

Sounds to me like the template for many a raw and untutored rock and roll classic. Like this one Carroll and his band cut at the end of the decade: