BUT IS IT ART?

Sampled drum loops like this are referred to as ‘beats’
And you can use them straight out of the box.
This fake stuff often sounds lifeless and dull,
But just occasionally it rocks
And originally, someone must have hit those drums
Maybe ten, maybe twenty years back,
Some anonymous, hard-working session player
In a cheap Los Angeles twenty-four track.

Perhaps the technology brings things together,
Or perhaps the technology splits them apart,
But I swear I can hear that drummer laughing. He says
‘It’s clever, but is it art?’
It’s clever, but is it art?

But the rest of the drumming on this record
Comes from a human pair of hands,
René Van Commenée, who recorded his tracks
In Utrecht, in the Netherlands.

And Michael keeps his organs and accordions and so forth
More than fifty miles away,
So he’s recorded all his stuff over there.
It’s how a lot of music’s done today.

I don’t have some post-modern structural agenda.
I’m not having a bit of conceptual fun,
It’s just that given the time, and given the budget
This is just how things came to be done. (But it made me think...)

So did this technology bring us together,
Or did this technology keep us apart?
The devil sat on my shoulder and whispered
‘It’s clever, but is it art?’
It’s clever, but is it art?

Only Fury’s here in the studio with me,
Two grumpy old men rocking out.
But look! He’s still playing the bass, but now he’s got his guitar.
I mean... Jesus! What’s that all about?

All music’s done with smoke and mirrors,
It’s truths always come with a dash of deceit.
Mozart’s got more tricks than a barrel of monkeys
Even Bach and Beethoven cheat.

But do the smoke and mirrors bring the music together,
Or do the monkey tricks blow the music apart?
And the music critics in their powdered wigs said
‘It’s clever, but is it art?’
It’s clever, but is it art?

Is it effortless trash, or honest endeavour?
Is it one off the wrist, or one from the heart?
These are serious, pertinent questions,
But you just know some fool’s gonna start with
‘It’s clever, but is it art?’

My studio computer was built in Korea,
The OS comes from the USA
While my software is splendidly German
In a ‘Vorsprung durch Technic’ kind of way.

And whether we can bring the whole world together,
Or we finally manage to crack it apart,
In a thousand years, they’ll define us
By the fragments of what we call art,
The clever stuff that we call art.