7.A MUSIC & TEXT A good music can surely stand on its own.

But there are some genres,where the lyrics have the same importance as the music, or they are even more important: mostly "songs" - pop, rock, folk, alternative genres I personaly often listen to music, where the lyrics play an important role. 2 kinds of lyricists: 1. songwriters - performers/2. professional lyricists 1. their lyrics are mostly more intimate/familiar - about their personal feelings or show their strong opinions about the society/politics; sometimes they are not so professional,but the quality is in a lot of cases very high - genres like folk,rock. Joni Mitchell - strong lyrics, but also very through-composed music (the problem of songwriters, who write songs on "3 chords") 2. professional, they have to be very emphatic - writing for sb else,they are "puting their words into sb's mouth" - pop, country, jazz - for the CR is typical translating/ poeticizing of engl. lyrics; some of the prof. lyricist co-operate close with one musician a special case (Jon Hendricks) - later written texts for jazz standards. I like the logic in it. There is a long tradition of writing lyrics in the CR: Voskovec - Werich - Jeek Such - litr Svrk - Uhl Hapka - Horek = strong creative couples untill the late sixties: a lot of cheery naive lyrics - jazz standards (Zdenk Hoec) - sang by Josef Zma, Vlasta Prchov,W. Matuka; popular songs; songs of Semafor (established 1959) after 1968, occupation - strong reaction of many artists, anti-comunististic protestsongs: Kryl (1.album: Bratku, zavrej vrtka), Hutka, Nohavica a lot of artists were persecuted and mustn't perform also J. Such - signature of "2000 words"... Modlitba pro Martu: music Jindich Brabec, lyrics Petr Rada; recorded by M.Kubiov 23.8.1968 I am not sure, if lyrics can really change the society - but it can be a support for people, it can be a motivation to think about what is happening among the people professional lyricists - not performers: Ivo Fischer - "translated" american folk songs (he could leave them in a "popular" mood), wrote for Waldemar Matuka (J, ten zrly, Slavci z Madridu, Sbohem, lsko) Zdenk Hoec Zdenk Borovec - as probably the first wirked as a freelance lyricist; shortly tought at Jeek's

conservatory; translated musicals; A ty se pt co j, Pejdi Jordn, Paganini (standard), Mm mal stan Pavel Vrba - poular songs; skupina Olympic (nap. Jasn zprva), Blue Effect (alba Svt hleda i 33), Vra pinarov, Petr Splen, Helena Vondrkov, Petr Novk, Michal David a Karel Gott. I like lyrics which can stand on their own like poems (for example Zuzana Navarov, Nohavica, Kryl...). But they don't need to be like this necessarilly. The most important thing is: they must talk to you.