Mark's lack of guitar driven songs

[Rail King]

I was more thinking about One Last Matinee, 5.15am, Devil Baby, Secondary Waltz... stuff that I would call great song writing...

The "great songwriting" songs you mention are some of the very lyrics-driven ones. They're great, yes, but when I say he's a better songwriter as ever, I don't just mean the lyrics. Melodically he's also at the top of his game. If you need examples from the new album, take "Haul Away", "Seattle" or "The Dream of the Drowned Submariner". These songs are very simple lyrically (which mustn't be a bad thing), but the melodies are hauntingly beautiful. Coming up with melodies as good as these is just as difficult and admirable as playing virtuoso guitar, I'd say. I don't know many songwriters who are (or have been) on this level.

[Love Expresso]

Funny that you realized it. I didn't. However it is supporting my opinion - and what I wrote earlier about that lyrics are so important for me. Seems it all works on a unconscious level! You are right about those melodies you mentioned and I might add that I don't think that these are BAD or something..

LE

[MisterYES]

Hm, interesting topic.

We're all aware of those less guitar driven songs but...I'm not sure is it has to do anything with age, in Mark's case. Following that logic, guitarists like Vai, Malmsteen etc etc, should not be able to play 90% of their repertoire after they get over 50ties???

Mark was never that fast, if we can call him a fast at all. But that's not the point. The good side of it and also the reason why i think he will be able to correctly play any of his song for a long long time, is exactly that balanced amount of speed, soul, and technique in his playing.

Maybe he just thinks that if you put more guitar into song, you loose on other (more important) aspects of the song. I personally would disagree with that, but as he said himself - "guitar is just the thing i used to write songs with it".