[FM] which songs?

[elbert]

Well, now that I've blasted out of lurking mode, I was wondering if anyone
might want to discuss something related, but tangential to the songwriting
contest thread.

I've been thinking a lot about songs I love that would never win a
songwriting contest.  Or at least they wouldn't have won if I was judging.
And it made me wonder what folks on the list think of as favorite songs of
that ilk and how they differ from ones that *are* good contest songs.

I know that is a bit vague.  Clearly to win a songwriting contest, a song
has to be wonderful, but it seems to me that it also has to be able to
engage people the first time they every hear it.  For example, the first
time I ever heard Greg Brown's "Canned Goods", I more than enjoyed it... I
was absolutely captured by it.  It is a smart and well crafted song, but I
think for me, it was more the way it struck a chord and went right to my own
experience (a trait in most great songs).  It evoked emotions and memories
of my youth that kind of came on in a flood.  If I had been a song contest
judge, I would have swooned for that song.

A counter example (again, only for me mind you) is Patty Griffin's terrific
song "Poor Man's House".  I absolutely love this song (and the whole album,
for that matter), but the first time I heard it, I kind of passed it over
for other things on the album...I just didn't connect with it as strongly
right away as I did after hearing it four or five times and a few of the
lines just killed me.  Maybe I'm just slow, but some of my favorite songs,
songs I don't think I can live without, really took me a while to "get".
And I can't find any simple explanation for it... like more sophisticated
lyrical concepts or unusual harmonic structure, or sleep deprivation of the
listener(!).

So, I'm just wondering if people have thoughts on this.  What makes a song
something you love right away, versus something that grows on you?  Are your
most prized songs more likely to be of one type or the other?  Or doesn't it
matter?

Just wondering-
David Elbert
elbert@jhu.edu