Is Song Reading Underrated?

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rayc

rayc

retroreprobate
If I like a song I usually want to get my head around the lyrics. Even as a squid I'd buy the books that were around that had the lyrics to the current batch of pap/pop if it had the lyric of a song that grabbed my attention.
My greatest delight in this obscure little passtime was when Elvis Costello finally brought out an LP with the lyrics included, (the superb Imperial Bedroom - & typically EC style the lyrics weren't easily set out etc). &, it was VERY satisfying to me to read the puns, word plays, and tricks his, then, excellent wordsmithing would construct.
I also enjoy reading about the intent or otherwise of a songwriter in regard to the lyric.
I'm certain I'm not alone in this but it would seem that I may be in a minority.
WHADAYAREKON?
 
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You may well be in the minority. I'm right in that minority with you though. I do think that sometimes the lyrics don't matter {my conclusion is that it's paradoxical}, but even when they don't, I still pay attention to them. I'm of the opinion that even when lyrics are slung together with little thought or no thought at all, it still reflects something of the mind of the writer. So often, things come out, even in odd lines, that reveal a world within the ones from whom the lines came. And I'm a nosey so and so, I like to know what's going on within people. :D
This is something I can trace right back to childhood, the kids I knew always seemed to know the words of songs. It was great trying to figure out what the words were because half the time we'd get them wrong. Both the Sweet and David Essex had big hits ("Coco" and "Rock on" respectively) that involved lyrics that were so close to the way my younger sister's friends pronounced her name; having magazines like "Disco 45" that printed out lyrics of the top 50 chart songs that week or month was really good for settling arguments. And though I didn't realize it back in the early to mid 70s, for me it meant that I tended to regard artists {whether they wrote the songs or not or whether they sang or not} as people with something to say, which is why I've long scoured books and magazine interviews for info on peoples' takes on songs. And therefore, for me they can't totally absolve themselves of some responsibility for some of the responses of younger, impressionable minds although that's a whole other story.
I think there are good writers of lyrics in every genre. I nearly always want to know what a lyric means or points at or reflects. Words are not always as obvious as they seem.
 
I think it depends upon the artist(s).
I know for John Lennon's stuff I very much enjoy reading the lyrics because he put so much of himself into those words.
A lot of his stuff was so Autobiographical that you almost felt you knew him.
When he died it affected a lot of us because we were so intimate with is music, there was and is a connection.
Certain Beatles songs are like this too...snapshots of people, places where we grew up and when we grew up.
Even songs like 'Yellow Submarine' you find yourself singing the words because they are so important and integral to the melody.
'American Pie', ' The Sound of Silence' 'Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' the lyrics are integral to these songs....I could go on....but I think I've made my point.

YouTube - Please Tell Me Why
 
I've always been a lyrics guy and I try to write songs that have a point, or story and use words well ... most times I think I succeed.

Agree with you RayC on Imperial Bedroom.... EC is a great lyricist although a blt too clever for his own good sometimes perhaps, but I'm a long time fan.

StevenJacksonMu - to each their own of course, but I find some of John Lennon's lyrics amongst the most cringeworthy on the planet. Absolutely cannot stand a lot of his solo stuff... for autobographical lyrics, give me Joni Mitchell any day...
 
Mr Grim,
I LOVE mondegreens (?) the misheard lyric. There was a big hit in the 80s by Australian Crawl & I heard "Downhearted, broken rhythm, never really started." he said "Downhearted, broken dreams that never really start." Now, James Reyne is famous for chewing his words into a mangled mess but I was way out. Mind you, I quite like the mangle I heard.
It would seem our relationship with lyrics stems from a similar origin. Darwin's Origins of the Lyric Anorak anyone?

SJM,
I'm with you re Lennon, but on the other side re Mitchel - she's too personal & the music too naked for my liking. I'd suggest the Beatle Boys had a lot to answer for: they sent millions scurrying for a lyric sheet, thesuarus and an interpretive discussion. An English teacher had us study Sound of Silence in about '72. She was cute, so we did. I started writing (bad) poetry soon after, (for her? Not directly), so the idea of lyrics as words of someone trying to express something has been part of my psyche from then I guess.
Armistice,
The 3rd EC album, (Get Happy), was, to me, where he peaked as Mr Clever Cloggs: "Real double dutch with a real double duchess". After that he seemed to think a little more & write a little less. Pills & Soap or Shipbuilding are right up there in terms of message unobscured by wordplay. Mind, "...fag ends of the aristocracy..." was pretty close to too clever.
 
I am generally moved by the entirety of a song . . . its melody, structure, instrumentation and lyrics. I don't worry too much about how 'intellectual" the lyrics are, so long as the syllables and phrases "sound" ok (e.g. "I am the Walrus" - Beatles). However, I am much more impressed by a song where the lyrics are really well put together (e.g. "Hello Friend" - Chris Rea.
 
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