Algernon Rock

“Rock lyrics should have noisy words. You get to have a lot of double talk and excessive alliteration, and that kind of aligned in my mind to later 19th century or early 20th century writing, before the crystal-clear Ernest Hemingway and William Carlos Williams style. Browning and Swinburne and Kipling, those are the writers who are appropriate to steal from for rock lyrics because they’re big and noisy and vulgar in a certain way like rock music is supposed to be. That’s the costume rock music should be wearing.”

—Matthew Friedberger