Talk:I'm Your Captain (Closer to Home)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:I'm Your Captain (Closer to Home)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Zeagler (talk) 18:45, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

   • "Ten minutes in duration, it is the band's longest studio recording. One of the group's best-known songs, it is composed as two distinct but closely related movements." These consecutive sentences should be rewritten in a more encyclopedic tone.
   • "Accordingly, its title has been rendered in various ways..." The use of 'accordingly' makes it sound as if songs with more than one movement must suffer from inconsistent renderings of their titles.
   • "Several interpretations of the song have been given, with most revolving..." With + verb-ing is an awkward link. How about a semicolon followed by "most revolve around..."?
   • "It has since gone on to become a classic rock staple..."
   • Everything written in the lead must be covered in the body.
   • "It served either as ... or by soldiers who were returning from the war." Huh?
   • "'Wretched was the word to describe Grand Funk's music. Although the group occasionally achieve an interesting song—'I'm Your Captain' was about the best of the early ones ...'[18]" Awkward quoting here; try just extracting phrases and sticking them in your own sentences.
   • Check the rest of the prose for further instances of the above problems. Also, I suggest reading WP:1A.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   • You sell your source short by stating that compound binary form "was used for several well-known songs in the late 1960s and early 1970s". The source goes beyond the examples it provides and says that particular form was "heard mainly" in those decades. That's more relevant to this article than merely saying that other examples of the form exist.
   • "...which aspiring young guitarists of the time learned to imitate". Do you really think your source for this is to be taken literally?
   • "And with its melodic strengths and dramatic feel it is often considered one of the best rock songs of all time." You can't support "often..." with just one example. Furthermore, your source doesn't say the song's 'melodic strengths' and 'dramatic feel' have anything to do with his considering it great.
   • "The song has been a staple of Farner concert performances in the decades since its recording..." Unsupported.
   • "(or to some ears, D to Cadd9)" Unsupported.
   • Much of the 'Writing and recording' section is original research.
   • "It is considered to be the standout track on the Closer to Home album..." You can't support this with just one example.
   • "It was far more successful on progressive rock radio stations, such as those in New York, where its length and epic feel[9][10] were an asset and where it became a mainstay that appealed to a broad spectrum of rock fans outside Grand Funk's immediate listener base." Nothing is supported in this sentence except that the song has 'length' and an 'epic feel'. The sources say nothing about how the song's progressive rock radio airplay compared to that on any other format, nothing about New York, nothing about its attributes being assets, and nothing about its appeal outside GFR's immediate listener base.
   • "Its airplay helped the album reach the Top 10 of the U.S. albums chart within a month of its release." Does the Behind the Music episode really attribute the album's chart placing to the song's airplay? Similarly, does the episode really attribute the song's supposed following among American soldiers in Vietnam to the band's having a similar background as the soldiers? One has to question the credibility of VH1 here...
   • Songmeanings.net is not reliable.
   • "Comparisons have been made to Walt Whitman's poem "O Captain! My Captain!" in its use of the rank to mean Abraham Lincoln." Just one source, so how about "A comparison has been made..."?

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   • The 'Later appearances' section seems like miscellaneous information thrown together.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   • "Released as a single, it was modestly successful in early fall 1970, reaching number 22 on the U.S. pop singles chart as the group's first hit single." 'Modestly successful' and 'hit' are POV. You've already given the chart position, so let the reader decide for himself whether that constitutes a 'modestly successful' or 'hit' single.
   • "It was far more successful on progressive rock radio stations..." What does 'far more successful' mean?

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

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Writing and recording - errors in keys & chords

Different sources are cited for the chords in the first & 2nd movements, and both are problematic, leading to bad information in the article. The first source is an interviewer making a comment to Mark Farner about a D-G-G6/C progression, and Farner did not comment or correct the interviewer. He was not asked if that was correct, and I don't believe it is. (I believe it's D-Cadd9, but I'm not a RS, just a musician and guitar teacher in our public school system.) I don't think an interviewer's comment that was not explicitly replied to can be a RS if the interviewer himself is not a RS.

For the second movement, the song was transposed down to a different key in the source cited, so the chords given are a whole step flat. They are not "C to B♭add9," as written in the article, but D to Csus2. (A sus2 chord is, for our purposes, the same as an add9 chord.) The second movement is absolutely not played as a C to a B♭ chord of any kind in the Grand Funk Railroad studio recording. There is a slow break in the first movement that goes from Dm to B♭ and back, finishing with F then A before returning to the 1st movement chord progression.

I don't know how to properly source this and fix it. Any musician with an ear can tell what's on the page now is dead wrong (certainly the key of the 2nd movement), but I can't do OR and give my own transcription, right? So what now? Dcs002 (talk) 01:59, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

@Dcs002: This happens fairly often with song articles and it's a case of WP:NOTTRUTH compounded by everyone's ear being a bit different. I think your best bet is just to remove the two statements, giving an edit summary saying you think the sources are weak or wrong, and not replace them with anything. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:56, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I removed the chords with a summary that also pointed back here. It would be cool to have them in the article, but I think you're right. I know how editors can be when one insists they are more correct than the other, and I think it's best to avoid all that. I'm totally in support of restoring the correct chords if they are from the same RS, or at least in the same key. Dcs002 (talk) 03:28, 12 July 2022 (UTC)