Do Lyrics Even Matter?

[Supercreep]

Message in a bottle
Message in a bottle
Message in a bottle
Message in a bottle
Message in a bottle
Message in a bottle
Message in a bottle
Message in a bottle

 

[Mr songwriter]

Didn't someone come out with a version of that called 'Massage in a brothel'?

On a more serious note, I don't think you have totally linear and clear when you're writing lyrics, in fact I think it's perfectly OK to 'paint' with words (strokes beard pretentiously) as long as the end result is interesting, either as a series of words or sylabbles that just sound good together, or trigger off weird asocations, REM's debut album 'Murmur' has many songs where he's mumbling so indistinctly that noone's really sure what he said, though the transcripts that people have triangulated from live performaces and records may leave you none the wiser about what he actually meant by them, eg:

Beside yourself if radio's gonna stay
Reason: it could polish up the grey
Put that, put that, put that up your wall
That this isn't country at all

Raving station, beside yourself

Keep me out of country in the word
Deal the porch is leading us absurd
Push that, push that, push that to the hull
That this isn't nothing at all

Straight off the boat, where to go?
Calling on in transit, calling on in transit
Radio Free Europe

Beside defying media too fast
Instead of pushing palaces to fall
Put that, put that, put that before all
That this isn't fortunate at all

Raving station, beside yourself
Calling on in transit, calling on in transit
Radio Free Europe

Decide yourself, calling all of the medias too fast

Keep me out of country in the word
Disappointers into us absurd

Straight off the boat, where to go?
Calling on in transit, calling on in transit
Radio Free Europe, Free Europe
Calling on in transit, calling on in transit
Radio Free Europe, Free Europe

Still a fantastic song and a real classic, in fact it was at number 379 in the Rolling Stones greatest songs of all time chart.

 

[Folkie]

On a more serious note, I don't think you have totally linear and clear when you're writing lyrics, in fact I think it's perfectly OK to 'paint' with words (strokes beard pretentiously) as long as the end result is interesting, either as a series of words or sylabbles that just sound good together, or trigger off weird asocations, REM's debut album 'Murmur' has many songs where he's mumbling so indistinctly that noone's really sure what he said, though the transcripts that people have triangulated from live performaces and records may leave you none the wiser about what he actually meant by them, eg:

Louie Louie pretty well covers that "What the heck are they saying?" genre. For years parents thought the words were dirty, and banned their kids from listening to it.

For years the kids knew the words were dirty, and listened to it anyway.

Neither of them had a clue what the lyrics really were and both were wrong about them being dirty (a song about a sailor going to sea--I've got the actual lyrics somewhere around here. Next week, when I get organized....)

But that presents us with another variant where how you hear the lyrics matters more than the lyrics themselves.

Endless variety--I guess that's why we like songs so much.

 

[Jack Russell]

Here's a sudden knee-jerk observation for you:

A songwriter is a poet who can't sit still long enough to read a poem.

What do you think?

 

[Folkie]

Here's a sudden knee-jerk observation for you:

A songwriter is a poet who can't sit still long enough to read a poem.

What do you think?

Works for me.

 

[Jack Russell]

Works for me.

LOL........High Five to that!

 

[zrockisaddictin]

makes sense lmao

 

[EddieRay]

Of course lyrics matter!!

Just not to me!

 

[GoldFalcon]

It depends on genre.

In country the lyrics matter because country lyrics make heavy use of puns and wordplay. If you write abstract country songs you will be doing so in your basement and no where else with your dog as your only fan.

Adult alternative or grunge influenced uses more esoteric lyrics that are open to interpretation. If you write alternative music don't use lines like "she broke the only heart I had left".

If you are writing Rap or R&B lyrics nothing else matters except using "dayummm", "ooohhhh", "baby", and learning the various street slang terms for: money, male and female gentalia, sexual positions, the names of various expensive luxury goods, drug names, and firearms.

In any "metal" genre just write any damned thing down and kick it at 640BPM. It doesn't even have to be intelligible.

Americana/roots/folk need story songs, abstract songs, and personal confessional songs. Throw in some political/activist stuff. In this genre it is absolutely paramount that you write music with a meaning and that means lyrics with a meaning or you'll be sitting next to the abstract country writer playing for his dog. People listen CLOSELY to the lyrics here.

Jazz/Blues/Rock-n-Roll - easy the music takes the forefront no matter what until you start talking about acoustic delta blues where the lyrics and not the fretwork come back into play.

I don't think that you could convince Paul Simon, Damien Rice, Bruce Springsteen, Tori Amos, Tracy Chapman, Townes Van Zandt, Johnny Cash, Lori McKenna, Gillian Welch, Ryan Adams, Bob Dylan, Lucinda Williams, or John Gorka that lyrics don't mean anything.

They didn't get what I was meaning, till I stopped meaning too much
-John Gorka "Thoughtless Behavior", Out of the Valley (1994)

 

[radiorabies]

I'm very concious about writing messages in my lyrics. To me, my lyrics are word plays that mean nothing. It's only when I played my first song to someone that I thought that people might think I'm trying to say something when I'm not.

I've been known to change lyrics if I think that people might think they mean something...

 

[GoldFalcon]

As always, it depends. But look at it this way. A poems job is sometimes different than a lyrics job. Great lyrics read as poetry frequently suck shit.
Or if you will, you can catch a bass with cheese and you can catch a bass with a worm. Cheese is not a worm.

Simplistic rhyme schemes work as a lyric because they are there as a mnemonic device - something to help the listener remember and connect. Complex rhyme schemes and narrative devices work in poetry because the point is (sometimes) to create parallell lines of thought and undercurrents of emotion. There are songs that do that too, but they were mostly written by Yes and ELP.

Freefalling is a great Petty tune. Freefalling is not a great poem.

Poetry and lyrics are different, but sometimes they do crossover. Some artists have a knack for writing lyrics that are quite good poetry, and (more rarely) poets write poems that make quite good songs (or bad ones --it has been observed that everything that Emily Dickenson ever wrote can be sung to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas"). Gillian Welch's "I Dream A Highway" reads as a passable poem that, like T.S. Eliot, expects you to do some research to get some of the more obscure references. While it is open to interpretation, she certainly had a meaning in mind:

Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vision come and rest my soul
I dream a highway back to you

John he's kicking out the footlights
The Grand Ole Opry's got a brand new band
Lord, let me die with a hammer in my hand
I dream a highway back to you.

I think I'll move down into Memphis
And thank the hatchet man who forked my tongue
I lie and wait until the wagons come
And dream a highway back to you.

The getaway kicking up cinders
An empty wagon full of rattling bones
Moon in the mirror on a three-hour jones,
I dream a highway back to you.

Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vison come arrest my soul
I dream a highway back to you.

Which lover are you, Jack of Diamonds?
Now you be Emmylou and I'll be Gram
I send a letter, don't know who I am
I dream a highway back to you.

I'm an indisguisable shade of twilight
Any second now I'm gonna turn myself on
In the blue display of the cool cathode ray
I dream a highway back to you.

I wish you knew me, Jack of Diamonds
Fire-riding, wheeling when I lead em up
Drank whisky with my water, sugar in my tea
My sails in rags with the staggers and the jags
I dream a highway back to you.

Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vision come molest my soul
I dream a highway back to you.

Now give me some of what you're having
I'll take you as a viper into my head
A knife into my bed, arsenic when I'm fed
I dream a highway back to you.

Hang overhead from all directions
Radiation from the porcelain light
Blind and blistered by the morning white
I dream a highway back to you.

Sunday morning at the diner
Hollywood trembles on the verge of tears
I watched the waitress for a thousand years
Saw a wheel within a wheel, heard a call within a call
I dreamed a highway back to you.

Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vision come molest my soul
I dream a highway back to you.

Step into the light, poor Lazarus
Don't lie alone behind the window shade
Let me see the mark death made
I dream a highway back to you.
I dream a highway back to you.

What will sustain us through the winter?
Where did last years lessons go?
Walk me out into the rain and snow
I dream a highway back to you.

Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vision come and bless my soul
I dream a highway back to you

I dream a highway back to you
Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vision come and bless my sould
I dream a highway back to you.

 

[thedansound]

lyrics are a funny thing. one can get wrapped up in trying to make something meaningful. the thing is that what you think is meaningful i might consider to be mindless word candy. when i write lyrics most of the good ones "happen". frequently, the longer i toil over a set of words the more i realise that they aren't worth the effort i'm putting in.

this isn't exclusive though. i've certainly taken a long time to write a good lyric and slogged out a lot of really bad ones quickly.

another thing that happens is that sometimes i can assemble lyrics out of a few different bits and somehow make it work.

in the end, the lyric has meaning to the listener. each listener/reader gets something different out of it. at some point your original meaning gets lost.

case/point: jellyfish's my best friend.

i loved this song. it was a really great swingin' number ala brady bunch/bubblegum rock. i always found it to remind me of the courtship of eddies father theme. a happy song about two really good friends. nice and innocent. i came to find out later that the song was about masterbation. frankly, i was quite dissapointed that the writer went down that road. actually, that was the one thing that turned me off about that band and particularly the second (and IMHO superior) album. it seemed like he was trying to be too clever and that he was trying to write with a poison pen.

one bit of advice- avoid politics at all costs. the more "now" you make your song, the more "then" it will seem in the future.

later. see ya at band practice.

 

[Jack Russell]

avoid politics at all costs. the more "now" you make your song, the more "then" it will seem in the future.

Yep. Been there done that. I wrote a tune long ago about the breakdown of the USSR:

"Stalingrad man pays for color t.v.
read New York Times and Pravda machine"

etc. etc... blah blah blah.

But now I don't even know if they have Pravda anymore, or if Stalingrad is even the name of the city! And who care about communism which is dead?

Shows what an old codger I am.

 

[junplugged]

I could swear I answered that question once, but I guess it wasn't in this thread, unless it didn't get posted....

If you are writing lyrics then they matter. But if you are writing words used as another instrument in a jam type thing or in electronica or dance or if they are incidental then they aren't the feature so then they don't. If you're putting poetry to music then they aren't lyrics, but if you're writing what we call a modern song then they do. In Enya they don't. In instrumental music, obviously not. In opera, I don't know the language, but they do tell a story so I'd have to say yes.

 

[Folkie]

Yep. Been there done that. I wrote a tune long ago about the breakdown of the USSR:

"Stalingrad man pays for color t.v.
read New York Times and Pravda machine"

etc. etc... blah blah blah.

But now I don't even know if they have Pravda anymore, or if Stalingrad is even the name of the city! And who care about communism which is dead?

Shows what an old codger I am.

Had you been listening to the Beatles at the time? (Back in the USSR).

 

[mickee]

I like when I write a music that brings me into a "mood" than I like when I come up with lyrics that qive me a "feeling" (sometimes the music leads to words but sometimes the words leads me to the music). But when both, the music and the words togheter, brings me "emotions": I no I wrote something!

If you no what you want to say just say it or write it. If it's not that obvious: write a song!

 

[osus]

this is a thread whose main question could be answered very easily in one of two ways: 1. a gut reaction or 2. an array of degrees in music theory, music history, musicology and one or two in literature & creative writing.

i dropped out of college in year three of an undergrad in lit primarly to pursue my career as the singer for a band, and have ended up inadvertantly teaching myself bass. everything i know about music has been garnered from personal experience and whatever overflow i can absorb from my girlfriend's mfa in operatic singing. so hopefully my answer will be somewhere between 1 and 2.

so, to answer the question posed--for me personally, yes, lyrics matter quite a bit. i think lyrics are typically the most underrated and overlooked instrument in popular music.

the easiest way i can think of to argue with the lyrics-don't-matter attitude is with the somewhat beligerant 'if lyrics don't matter, why have words at all'? which has gotten me into numerous forest-fire-like arguments that i'd rather not rekindle. but you've got to admit it's a pretty good can of oil, if nothing else.

i think some great points have been raised in this thread which help explain why the importance of lyrics in popular music is often so overlooked. i think the biggest reason is that the majority of the song lyrics written for popular music are pretty crappy. and very often the brilliant lyricists of the world don't write the greatest music (or at least write music which is competant, pleasing, but primarily a vessel for thier lyrical ideas). names like leonard cohen and bob dylan spring to mind--not that i think they're the most brilliant lyricists or the worst musicians by a long shot, but they're both historic templates for the singer-songwriter archetype.

words and music are very different challenges, however interrelated their effect can be when used in an artistic medium, and one of the greatest challenges of combining the two is realizing that relying upon the one to carry the other is very easy to get away with. that is to say, if your lyrics are pretty good and contribute to the mood of the music, and/or if your music is pretty good and serves to elaborate on the mood of your lyrics, you can come up with a pretty great song. it can even be downright amazing.

however, there are plenty of songs whose lyrics i've admired but which i don't really like listening to, and conversely there are plenty of songs i thought were really great until i read the lyrics sheet, and wished that i hadn't. (i think this is part of the reason why diction is so unpopular in pop music).

in a somewhat subserviant role, lyrics have an amazing potential to add further depth to the music. i think in the best examples of good songwriting (not necessarily the 'best' songs--or the 'best' lyrics, mind you) lyrics serve to bridge the abstract thematic, emotional and narrative content of the music by connecting it language. in an ideal song this connection would go further than the simple adage of 'write sad songs in minor keys' and work both sypathetically with an as explanation for the structural changes within a song (or lack thereof).

i personally am disappointed when lyrics reveal themselves to be little more than 'wordscapes' to heighten the mood of a song, but this has become a very valid style of songwriting, and used with some great results (i'm thinking of much of the earlier albums by the cure, for instance--unless someone can make a good argument for thematic/narrative content beyond stream-of-consciousness meets heroin and eyeliner).

i suppose ultimately all art is subjective, and song lyrics are hardly less so. what might be meaningful or meaningless to an artist might be just the opposite from the perspective of the listener. however, as i see it the whole purpose of writing songs with words is to do something that cannot be done in instrumental music, in poetry-on-the-page, or in an essay. realizing that lyrics complicate their own meaning in participation with the music so as to inveigle the listener into exploring certain ideas and expanding the conversation (of whatever subject the performer-listener connection determines the song to be about) is an important step it the growth of any songwriter.

i feel just the teensiest bit pompous now, (not to mention disappointed at myself for not better covering all the ideas buzzing in my head) so i'm going to bed.

 

[Folkie]

i feel just the teensiest bit pompous now, (not to mention disappointed at myself for not better covering all the ideas buzzing in my head) so i'm going to bed.

I'm in a humorous mood today, it seems. I'm not disagreeing with anything you've said in your post, but when I read the last paragraph my brain rephrased it into lyrics:

Feelin' pompous now
Guess I'll go to bed
Before I get too disappointed
From all these ideas in my head....

Sorry--not knocking what you say in any way. But there's a song in there somewhere.....

 

[osus]

no offense taken. knowledge is (after all) knowing that you know nothing. a reality i am forced to confront daily whenever i try to write a song (or worse yet, record it!)

 

[kizmotron]

Do lyrics even matter?

i'm not sure if they matter but they certainly should. why not make every element of the song as good as it can be? there are a few songs in my life where i was pulled in on the lyrics alone

sonic youth - skip tracer
rollins band - liar
every weird al song

most importantly, I believe that the entire message of the song usually doesn't register during the first few listens due to the limitations of our attention

very often there will be individual lines that make sense to you

kurt cobain was great at this... his overall messages usually weren't very cohesive or even coherent, but he has a ton of really really good one-liners


Missed Connection

you called me
and i called right back
i didn't know your first name

so can ya call me??
and i'll come crawling right back
I think i lost your number too

your last name
showed up on my
caller i.d. could you
leave a first name

next time?