Are they really that important??????

  • Thread starter Thread starter F_cksia
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censorship/lyrics

Do you really wonder if the newspapers (or record companies, or, worst of all A and R men/women) are deciding what information we should or should not have? Do you ever wonder why people always preface their statements about rap with, "I don't really like rap, but..."? I remember the first time I heard Ice-T's Cool Ice and wondering where people could hear it, because I sure as hell hadn't. The lyrical depth is incredible if you haven't heard it.

Pop songs may have a limited shelf life as far as selling records goes, but how many people do you all know who can recite the lyrics to, say, a Squeeze song in its entirety and tell you why they remember it? If a song was ever worth listening to it's worth listening to again. Long anthemic numbers often have the least memorable lyrics. I listened to the third side of "Tales from Topographic Oceans" everyday for six months when I was in high school (twenty years ago) and couldn't tell you a word then or now. But the words to "My Generation"? Well, you know what I mean. Pop songs are popular because they are well written, for the most part, and are definitely well written if they have any staying power (and they all do, with someone).

Do words matter? Of course they do. Don MacLean's ability to make me physically ill every time I hear his right wing, sentimental drivel is testament to his songwriting ability. What I've always hated about that stupid song (can't even write the bloody title for the rage it instills in me...) is that everybody knows every despicable word to it. There is something subversive about the way it has people entranced. I find it frightening, but would not be able to if it weren't well written.... Crap cannot be cemented into somebody's head because we are not hard drives. Minds young and old, given critical sensibilities and access to information, are able to decide on their own. I was much less acceptant of other types of music when I was younger only because I had not realized that music could be good even if I did not identify with it. With some critical equipment we all can tell what is "good" in any genre.

Thank god for Counting Crowes and other bands writing great songs that I love. Top ten, A-circuit crap does not offend by its not being well written. There are people who identify with Bryan Adams; they are not me, but they are lucky that somebody has written and performed songs that they'll take to the grave with them...

MH
 
I was listening to some 60-70s stuff lately. It all has this cool old sound to it, really gets me in the mood to party. (Wouldn't play it as background though.)

And then this song comes:
If I had a hammer...
I'd hammer in the morning...
I'd hammer in the evening...

And I just go wild. Start dancing in the living room. LMAO.
Sometimes they do matter.

Then I got this CD of roger waters: pro's and cons of hitchhiking. I never listened to the lyrics, but there's this strange atmosphere in it, very nice...
So then they don't matter...

You gotta look to it in a listeners perspective. As a whole...
 
Re: censorship/lyrics

Mad Hack said:

Crap cannot be cemented into somebody's head because we are not hard drives. Minds young and old, given critical sensibilities and access to information, are able to decide on their own.
Click to expand...

Of course I agree that our brains are far more complex than hard drives. However, there is a mountain of scientific and anecdotal evidence that music has a profound effect on the human mind. The Mozart Effect, for example.

I'm not a New Age type person at all. I have just been exposed to a lot of this research, and it is pretty undeniable.

To tie it back into the topic, I don't really think lyrics themselves are the key to this. I think it lies in the order of music. Music is so full of order that it's almost mathematical. It creates a space for memory like nothing else. When lyrics are tied to the music, they are part of that memory. If I were to ask you to tell me the ABC's, how would you do it? Certainly not spoken in some random order. Chances are you would sing them, like the rest of us, to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Have you ever tried to memorize the capitols of all 50 states? It's kind of hard. But there is a song called "The Nifty Fifty States" that you can learn in about an hour that lists them all.

That's why none of us can get the words to "American Pie" out of our heads.

Aaron
http://www.aaroncheney.com
 
lyrics

Hi,
I would never dispute the function of music as a memory aid. I am just saying that for lyrics to sustain a lasting emotional or intellectual effect (the alphabet has less meaningful resonance than the words to twinkle, twinkle, little star...) they have to have meaning coupled with rhythmic effect, operating in concert with music. If mathematics were in fact music it would be easier to memorize formulae as well. Scientists tend to think of mathematics as primary, but I would argue that music then language (not much difference there I would also argue) are primary and mathematics but a distant abstract cousin. Music may be easy to remember if you HEAR it, but a sheet of music (its abstraction) is another matter.

The reason I can't get the words of that damn song out of the old memory bank is that they ARE coupled with the music, but also because they strike such a negative emotional chord in me as regards their meaning...
MH
 
.....Which brings up a good point: what in the heck DO those lyrics mean, anyway?
I'm not a fan of the song either, and you seem to know more about them than I do. Enlighten me....unless it's too painful.
Aaron
http://www.aaroncheney.com
 
Are you talking about to American Pie? The first part refers to the plane crash in Feb 1959 that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and The Big Bopper. ("February made me shiver, with every paper I'd deliver. Bad news on the doorstep…."). This was "the day the music died".
However, I don't think anyone knows what the rest of the song means. From what I've heard, DM won't talk about any part except that beginning part.

When I mentioned Don McLean, I was thinking more of Empty Chairs or Vincent. But I guess if you don't like him, you don't like him.

Censorship was mentioned…hope I didn't imply that in my original post. Maybe the word "danger" was too strong. I only meant that people seem to think that a claim is more likely true if it set to music.

Jim
 
Painful...

Ok, OK, so I was a "little" melodramatic...

Anyway, I will answer what I think the song means and am working on it, but it'll take a little time.

I do think messages combined with music are more potent: certainly more memorable. Messages, however, have little to do with the writer's intentions. Once you write something it is out there to be interpreted and nobody will "be wrong" unless they read between the lines, which of course is impossible. What people take from poetry (lyrics included) or any kind of writing (including posts to any forum) is always a product of what is written, if people are listening or reading critically (and by critically I do not mean with an eye to criticize in its negative sense or make value judgements). The event that you have described that instigated (inspired?) the writing of American Pie has no intrinsic meaning in itself. Don MacLean's take on what his song says is possibly the least reliable unless he can detach himself from what he wanted to say, so it's a good thing he hasn't commented on it. I do like his songwriting, by the way, and I think that was my point. His music is powerful and well written, it is what is powerfully expressed in American Pie that bothers me. (Sweet Home Alabama too for that matter, but that's another story)

MH
 
INTERESTiNg LYRICS

Thanks for the exchange on censorship guys...some good thinking out there. Someone brought up Don M and american pie
What's it about????Whatever you want it to be about, and there is it's charm and mystique. I wish all of you, as songwriters , the gift of writing a lyric as evocative as that one. Another evocative and mysterious lryic to ponder..MacArthur Park and a lot of other stuff by that guy whose name I swore I'd never forget. It's the mood and images that these strings of words call out of the listener rather than the literal meaning of the sentences that gives them value. Is that what we mean when we talk about
ART?? How 'bout Bob Dylan's LIKe A WOMAN??? These songs
keep me coming back and back for more. God I wish I could write like that!!!
To sum up....Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. Art is what happens inside us when we see , hear, or otherwise experience
the creative product of another mind, up to and including the mind of GOD. His greatest gift to us is the ability to DIG IT!!
Anyone here read "STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND"?

GROK!
Regards from East-Central Illinois, Home of the
HAL9000
 
Too much Don McLean talk for me.

Great thread.
I'm not quite sure how censorship got brought up but everyone raises some good points.
Let's look at what censorship is. Someone deciding to take away another someone's rights. How could this be even fathomable in a free society? The answer is simple. A free society does not and never will exist. The very nature of society trades rights for social protections. The problem is that we can't always choose what what rights our society is going to trade. No one has rights by nature. We only have rights because someone, somewhere wants to take them away.

And censorship is the dirtiest word of them all.

Jeez, it's fun to rant.
 
Hey Cactus.....whatever happened to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness??? Oh , I forgot, they don't teach those till the 11th grade.
 
With Dylan, the lyrics are all important. His voice and music are the delivery system and, also, inseparable and all important. When Pink sings Dylan naked........ now that's really important.
 
hey hix, what's the deal with the naked pink thing?????




It must be sumpthin I saw on Sci-Fi.....





See ya



Upstate:cool:
 
Here's an acid test you can apply to any song with lyrics.

Remove the lyrics, and if the song still holds up well musically, the lyrics are not important. The importance of lyrics is proportionate to the amount a song suffers in their absence.
 
Lyrics are really important when they tell a joke.
 
Ha...Ha...Ha...Ha...

Was I supposed to laugh there?

I love you hixmix. Can you tell I've even been trying to emulate you with my recent posts in this miserable forum as I plod along in my merry quest for 500 posts?

How am I doing?

Don't make me start my own moronic thread.
 
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