no they don't.
do lyrics REALLY matter?
- Thread starter ez_willis
- Start date
no they don't.
kcearl
I see deaf people
of course they matter...i can listen to great melodies and if someones reading a shopping list to it its not going to mean as much to me as great lyrics...shit theres songs a like because of the lyrics..
To dismiss them because they arent important to you is like a keyboardist saying guitars arent important...
Im not saying every song needs great lyrics but they are important, if the song is getting a message across, or is a vehicle for someone expressing something other than just a musical idea..
Im going to kill a kitten now because you guys are so stupid
To dismiss them because they arent important to you is like a keyboardist saying guitars arent important...
Im not saying every song needs great lyrics but they are important, if the song is getting a message across, or is a vehicle for someone expressing something other than just a musical idea..
Im going to kill a kitten now because you guys are so stupid
rayc
retroreprobate
It works this way:
Greg actually writes good witty, smartarse lyric. He personally doesn't care for lyrics but does go to the trouble of writing good ones often.
ez_willis can't, won't or is so disaffected by some of the twadde that is used in popular music that to him they don't.
I use song lyrics to teach values & ethics as well as rhyming schemes, metre, the joy of making interesting word sounds and fun.
I struggle to write lyrics but would like them to be witty, smartarse and something to be proud of. I go to the trouble of trying because lyrics matter to me.
Three people, three perspectives: I take that as meaning the value of lyrics differs amongst individuals due to musical taste, literary preference, pretension and current state of mind.
Greg actually writes good witty, smartarse lyric. He personally doesn't care for lyrics but does go to the trouble of writing good ones often.
ez_willis can't, won't or is so disaffected by some of the twadde that is used in popular music that to him they don't.
I use song lyrics to teach values & ethics as well as rhyming schemes, metre, the joy of making interesting word sounds and fun.
I struggle to write lyrics but would like them to be witty, smartarse and something to be proud of. I go to the trouble of trying because lyrics matter to me.
Three people, three perspectives: I take that as meaning the value of lyrics differs amongst individuals due to musical taste, literary preference, pretension and current state of mind.
kcearl
I see deaf people
kcearl is a gullible suckass tweener.
easy fall back when you've been outed as a fish eating fool
cashcohen
Jewnior Member
NPZ! Whenever I went on high school jazz band trips, my motel room buddies and I would declare our room an NPZ (No Pants Zone) by shouting "NPZ! NPZ!!" loudly and repeatedly at anyone who entered (whilst wearing only boxers, of course). Girls rarely came to our room....of course, there WERE only TWO girls in our band. And THIRTY guys. So really, pants or no pants, girls-in-our-room was a statistical improbability.
But about lyrics, most listeners (especially Lenny Kravitz fans) don't pay attention to the lyrics. I mean, it's hard to understand what most pop singers are singing anyway....poor diction is rampant in rock. But in most rock music, the lyrics ARE pretty unimportant. It's the delivery....the rhythm, the groove, the feel.
However, if I'm listening to folk music....Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, what have you....then YES, I AM listening to the lyrics and YES they DO matter. The melody is important, but the music plays second fiddle. Who gives a shit about how a folk song is arranged? If that makes me a girl....well, I always knew I had feminine tendencies.
kcearl
I see deaf people
yes. but i don't listen to folk music 'cause it sucks.
+1000000000000
R
RAMI
Guest
I agree with you for the most part. But, just for the sake of argument.....and I'm bored.....I'll say that they matter a little more than "not at all". Lyrics don't have to be good, or have a message, BUT they can't be bad to the point that you "notice" how bad they are. I think that's the only responsibility a song-writer has...to not be noticeably bad.
I don't think "My Generation" would be the classic it is today if the lyrics were.....Oh, I don't know...."Sunshine Makes Me feel So Happy", and the whole song was exactly the same except that the lyrics were about how nice he feels when it's sunny outside
So, basically, just don't totally suck. If I don't notice the lyrics to a song first time I hear it, that's a good thing. If I notice the lyrics, it's probably because there are some really lame rhymes or really awkward phrases that got my attention.
I agree with you for the most part. But, just for the sake of argument.....and I'm bored.....I'll say that they matter a little more than "not at all". Lyrics don't have to be good, or have a message, BUT they can't be bad to the point that you "notice" how bad they are. I think that's the only responsibility a song-writer has...to not be noticeably bad.
I don't think "My Generation" would be the classic it is today if the lyrics were.....Oh, I don't know...."Sunshine Makes Me feel So Happy", and the whole song was exactly the same except that the lyrics were about how nice he feels when it's sunny outside
So, basically, just don't totally suck. If I don't notice to the lyrics to a song first time I hear it, that's a good thing. If I notice the lyrics, it's probably because there are some really lame rhymes or really awkward phrases that got my attention.
Right, I can agree with that. Lyrics only matter when they're really bad.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
Looked at from a certain point of view, there's alot to be said for that. If you took a vocalist singing a song, whether reggae, rock, folk or buja-buja, pretty much regardless of the genre, the vocal performance, the melody and the cadence are more important than the lyric. Especially if you factor in that the language of the lyric may be unknown to the listener or that you may not understand what the singer is actually saying some or much of the time, interspersed with the bits that you do understand. Also, sometimes, even with what you may consider to be a great and wonderful lyric, you just want to hear an overall sound/song without having to actually do any work listening to and thinking about what is being said.
But it's too simplistic to say that the actual words mean jack shit. Most of the time, words mean something, even if the writer of those words has just strung them together without thinking anything deep. That whole "lyrics are meaningless" thing is, ironically an overhang from the 60s when hippies began taking the lyrics of the bands at the time just too seriously and you had people like the weathermen and the Manson family committing atrocities but thinking that there was support for their actions in song lyrics. Naturally, the artists backtracked - from saying their songs could change consciousness (and by extension, 'the world'), they started coming out with "Oh, these are just words. They don't mean anything !". How can the major carrier of communication among the human race not mean anything ? ! ?
Also, I think that those for whom lyrics mean nothing or are unimportant are most definitely purveyors of a minority sport.
It wasn't just the loud and raucous instruments of punk that got much of the anst and rage across because heavy rock had been doing that musically for a decade. It was lyrics like "Whatever happened to the British empire ? You bastards turned it into manure !" or "God save the Queen ! /She ain't no human being..../and there ain't no future/in England's dream". Those lyrics said something and spoke to loads of people that felt the same way. Of course, the effect of those kind of lyrics would've been totally lost if the vocal performances hadn't been memorable.
Reggae was good and pretty solid musically, but in truth, it would never have resonated with black kids without it's lyrics. They communicated, if only for a few years through the 70s and 80s, a feeling of pride and positivity that resounds to this day. And a number of English punks were secret black wannabees that wished they had something they could be really be angry about and write it in song......
While it's fun to discuss and debate over, what Greg's quote points at, at least to me, is that songs are wholes that are actually more important than any of the individual elements within them.
That all said, rock, soul, R&B, pop, so many forms of popular western music are absolutely peppered with songs that have what many consider to be shitty lyrics. Lyrics so rubbishy, that it's not hard to conclude that lyrics don't matter. Especially when those songs are hits. But not all music is one inseparable homogenous lump.
R
RAMI
Guest
tl/dr, but I'm sure it's awesome.
Actually, it was awesome. I almost read the whole thing.
R
RAMI
Guest
Holy shit. Me and Greg have exactly the same number of posts.
Weird. Wild.
EDIT: No. I read it wrong. Never mind.
Weird. Wild.
EDIT: No. I read it wrong. Never mind.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
Thinking that what you have to say is important or that people actually care about it is not pompous. It's human.I keep my lyrics light-hearted and silly because I'm not pompous enough to think that anyone really cares about anything I'd have to say - if I actually had something to say.
And there's the rub. "My generation" was a landmark song in British rock, not just because of the madcap octopus drumming, the vocalist's stutter and the bass solo, but because for possibly the first time, a lyricist in England actually identified and articulated, in song, in the language of the street ("put us down", "get around", "die before I get old", "why don't you all fade away", "dig what we all say") a sizeable group of people and their thoughts, feelings and sentiments. In terms of the sound, the Nashville Teens' "Tobacco Road" and the Kinks' "You really got me" were pretty much just as incendiary. But it was what Townshend was saying that got really contributed towards 'the powers that be' getting worried, plus of course what came forth in interviews. And that's when people started looking at songs released here, like the Byrds "Eight miles high", scouring them for all kinds of messages - some of which wasn't there !I agree with you for the most part. But, just for the sake of argument.....and I'm bored.....I'll say that they matter a little more than "not at all". Lyrics don't have to be good, or have a message, BUT they can't be bad to the point that you "notice" how bad they are. I think that's the only responsibility a song-writer has...to not be noticeably bad.
I don't think "My Generation" would be the classic it is today if the lyrics were.....Oh, I don't know...."Sunshine Makes Me feel So Happy", and the whole song was exactly the same except that the lyrics were about how nice he feels when it's sunny outside
Whether one wants to sneer at it or not, there are too many people who glean more input and comfort from lyrics than sometimes their own parents and family (regardless of the rights and wrongs of that) to say they matter not.
I bet when John Lydon got a broken bottle pushed into his face during the Queen of England's silver jubilee in '77 after the Pistols did "God save the Queen" to incite the royalists, he didn't think the lyrics didn't matter !