Meaning

F

Freddy

New member
I was reading an interview with Paul Simon. He was saying that he likes to not think to much/filter too much. What springs without thought is closer to what he wants to say.

He also doesn't set out to tell you a meaning (or to have one even) but likes to create a canvas on which you can place your own meaning - each person's meaning being equally valid.

Looking at his work, he creates pictures that you can read things into. And it is good.

Interestingly, he also tries to create a record (a musical pallette) before he writes the songs .. hmm. I think this is similar to what I was thinking about in another post when I was thinking about layering and letting a song evolve.

What about you? Do you set out to write a song "about" something, and is it important that the listener receives the message you want them to receive?

For myself, I don't set out to write about anything in particular. An idea comes (maybe a fragment, a lyrical fragment or a musical one) and I play with it, throwing away what doesn't work until I have something I like. It changes shape a number of times usually in the process.

By the time I have finished, I usually have an idea of what it is about, though I can't always express it (well, I did, the song was the expression).

How important is "meaning" to you? And do you try and answer if asked what a song is about?
 
I tend to write a story line that is rather specific - often based around a lyrical hook line. Often I'll hear a phrase in conversation (or a hook will come to me while driving, etc) and I then try to develope a story line. Since I write more in a country genre (because my publisher does well in the genre) the story lines are often somewhat predictable - something a lot of listener's can relate to - examples being:

Hook - Hungry, Drunk & Lonely
Story - A guy who ends up in a diner after drinking and hooks up with an ugly waitress ("Hungry drunk and lonely, that's just no way to be - cause there ain't no ugly women, when you're too blind drunk to see")

Hook - Half Way To Drunk
Story - A guy's ol' lady leaves, he's had 12 beers, there are 12 left to drink - before he's drunk enough to get over her ("I'm half way to drunk and half way over you")

Hook - My Worthless Guy
Story - A woman left her ol' man because he couldn't hold a job, goes back to find him because she decides it's better to have someone who loves her than a jerk with money ("I'm on my way to Fargo, North Dakota - to find that worthless man I left behind")

Hook - I'm Gonna Make Me A Man
Story - A woman isn't satisfied with her man - so she's gonna build a man out of clay and make him to her own specs. ("I'm gonna make me a man, to my own specs, with washboard abs and well defined pecs")

I envy people who can write things that allow the listener to interpret several ways (I don't do that well at all) I guess I'm simply not a deep enough thinker :D
 
I think minimalism is important in narrative songwriting, but not deliberatley obstuse minimalism, whereby details are ignored for the sake of it. For example, I intensely dislike 'cliff-hanging' endings. It's not like a song is a serialised form; nothing is ever served by withholding a resolution totally and completely in your work. This is hypothetical, so to give a couple of examples: Raymond Carver, the short story writer, often removed certain amounts of character motivation, or typical plot development, in his works, but never at the expense of the piece as a whole. He may imply that a wife has cheated on her spouse (as in Are These Actual Miles) and never go into the reasons for it, or the details of it, but - and this is crucial - the immediate fallout of the affair is examined. This is some form of resolution. The reader can develop his/her own theories as to what exacty happened, or why it happened, but they are given something to latch onto.

In fact, this process of ignoring certain traditional narrative techniques can force listeners to engage to a greatern extent with a composition. If they are forced to fill in details themselves, they will deliberately think about what you are saying to a greater degree.

In terms of songwriting, the ballad is often characterised by these 'omissions.' Typically, it has a strongly linear narrative, in which the reader is pulled along, and forced to question or anticipate at the end of each verse. However, the results of certain events are more often dealt with than the events themselves. Think of the traditional Irish/Scottish/American (whatever :confused: ) "Sam Hall", which opens with:

Oh my name it is Sam Hall, damn your eyes.
Oh my name it is Sam Hall, damn your eyes.
Oh my name it is Sam Hall, and I hate you one and all,
But my neck must pay for all, when I die.

I killed a man they said, damn his eyes.
I killed a man they said, damn his eyes.
I killed a man they said, took a lead pipe to his head,
And his blood ran thick and red, damn his eyes.

In the above sample, the motivations for the killing are left unclear, and any confirmation of the alleged events is similarly lacking. Thus, the audience (possibly sub-consciously) creates some form of 'back-story' for the narrator to satisfy their own curiosity. If they do not come to any conclusion, they at least wonder about it, and thus allow the work to have an impact upon them. A similar strategy can be seen in the traditional (again unsure - Irish/English/Scottish???) "Lord Henry" or "Lord Randall", in which the hero is killed by his step-mother (she forces him to eat posioned meat) and returns home to die in his mother's arms. The ballad deals not at all with the why of the murder, but mainly the how.

Okay, what I'm trying to say here I suppose is that: Leave it vague, to allow the listener to do some of the work, but for the love of God, do it sensibly. Don't go taking out lines just to leave gaps. Focus on one aspect of a plot, but not all of it. Present it from the point of view of one character, and do not attempt to speak for all of them. Refrain from being an omniscient narrator, who sees, and then comments upon, everything. Speak from the point of view of one character, and stick to his/her words. Mikeh, you seem to do this single narrator stuff very well. It's great.

Anyay, they're my opinions on the matter. It boils down to leaving some stuff out, but not too much. :)
 
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32-20-Blues has raised a great point about presenting the story from one point of view. Too often, songwriters move from 1st person to 3rd person views and it can make the story very hard to follow (just as bouncing from present tense to past tense, etc. can be hard to follow).

However vauge a writer chooses to be, they still must give the listener a consistant view point. Being vauge to allow intepretation is a valid technique, bouncing perspective or time frame is simply poor writing technique.

32-20-Blues - thanks for your kind words re: my single narrator approach. The country genre normally calls for that sort of approach so I have really worked to delveop an effective technique in that style.
 
mikeh said:
32-20-Blues - thanks for your kind words re: my single narrator approach. The country genre normally calls for that sort of approach so I have really worked to delveop an effective technique in that style.
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You're right on the money with that one. Country music is fantastic, but it needs sparse words - which is what is great about it. You need to really think about it, and condense it. My friend (a phenomenal guitarist) firmly believes that Merle Haggard could sing the bible in three minutes, and I believe him.

Incidentally, I've never really tried country. I believe the economy would be difficult - you know, the whole "I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didnt have the time thing." But yeah, country is where it's at.

Oh yeah, I have these theories that rhinestones and elaborate suits are compensation for the ornamentation that is lacking in country music when compared to other genres. Classical music has crescendos, Bluegrass has intricate melody lines (often doubled identically by other instruments), and Jazz has polyrhythms, counter melodies, etc... What does country have? Three chords, so they roll out the big hair, broad lapels and sharp toed shoes. It's all theatrical, which is great. :)
 
I never thought about it - but the whole rhinestone theory makes sense.

Over the last 10-15 years a lot of LA producers and session people have relocated to Nashville to escape the smog/crime/urban sprawl (when you're 20, LA can be a fun place - when you're 35 with kids to raise - not so much).

Accordingly, country music has become more produced (sometimes they even use 4 chords) so it's not really a bad genre to write in. If someone would have told me back in the 60's and 70's that I would prefer country to heavy metal I would have either laughed or decked them (depending on how loaded I was at the time) :D

That being said - it does require a certain "dumbing down" when it comes to lyrics - clever rhymes vs. profound thoughts, etc.
 
I think you may be a little unfair on country! I'm from the UK so maybe I don't see enough of it, but it seems to me that it is a refuge for both melody and the craft of classical song-writing.

I am not being dismissive of recent fashions in song-writing at all.

I am simply saying that rhythm seems to be king these days, and that many song-writers will focus on getting good and interesting rhythms over almost everything else. In many genres, the words are probably the least important ingredient.

That doesn't seem to be so true for country.

I like the theory about the clothes, but I suspect that it is a simple tradition for country people all over the world to want to dress up when out of their work clothes, and to display their wealth.

I love it (the style), but I don't think I could get away with being that flamboyant here in the Thames Valley (if I value my remaining teeth at all!).

...

Back to the topic and 32-20 Blues' post.

I am 100% with you on the need to have a consistent viewpoint through a song. And a consistent tense. Personally, I believe that you should (ideally) be able to write the lyric out as a paragraph and read it as if it were prose. This isn't a "rule", but I think that if you are to break the rules of grammar or clear writing, you should do so knowingly and with good reason and for the benefit of the song.

I often have to correct myself, especially on tense.

I think that it is only when you have a solid framework like this that you can begin to spread your wings in other ways. Not that I think that it is desirable to avoid a straight narrative (many great songs are straight as a die) but that it offers an alternative.

The way you describe it 32-20 is absolutely right - if you know what you are trying to relate in the song before you write it. Often, surely, we don't. If we don't know what the "whole" is, we can't decide what to leave out - and why would we deliberately leave anything out?

Just ... sometimes ... the truth can't be told in straight lines. Or at least not the most interesting truths - the ones that we may not fully understand ourselves.

Hmm.. can I give an example?

How about Paul Simon, since he is who I started with...

A man walks down the street
It's a street in a strange world
Maybe it's the Third World
Maybe it's his first time around
He doesn't speak the language
He holds no currency
He is a foreign man
He is surrounded by the sound
The sound
Cattle in the marketplace
Scatterlings and orphanages
He looks around, around
He sees angels in the architecture
Spinning in infinity
He says Amen! and Hallelujah!

Doesn't make much sense without the other verses. With those you can see a progression.. he starts straight ..

A man walks down the street
He says why am I soft in the middle now
Why am I soft in the middle
The rest of my life is so hard ...

Actually, even with the other verses it may not make much sense straight off. But it is interesting. And it makes me think. And I get a meaning. Maybe I get a different meaning next time I hear it. Maybe both meanings are valid!

You get the sense that the writer is sharing a thought with us. A non-linear thought, the sort of thoughts we all have from time to time.

I tend to start to write from an idea, a fragment. I then add bits. And I throw away anything that doesn't sound "right" or doesn't belong, and a shape forms.

I then start to see a possible narrative or a possible meaning - and I usually make adjustments to bring that meaning out. To give an answer to the question "what is the song about"?

I suppose I am asking myself whether this last step is needed, and whether it improves the song. I'm not sure - only experiment will tell.

I am also asking whether others know what they want to write about before they begin.

It seems that some of you do - and I confess that I didn't expect that. I like surprises and differences, they make the discussion worthwhile to me.

Postscript:

I have no idea whether I have made sense in this post. Maybe that doesn't matter either. I am simply trying to provoke thought about where songs come from and the variety or similarity in our approaches.

I'm curious is all.

But what matters is the outcome.
 
Freddy said:
The way you describe it 32-20 is absolutely right - if you know what you are trying to relate in the song before you write it. Often, surely, we don't. If we don't know what the "whole" is, we can't decide what to leave out - and why would we deliberately leave anything out?

Just ... sometimes ... the truth can't be told in straight lines. Or at least not the most interesting truths - the ones that we may not fully understand ourselves..
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Very interesting point of view.

As for deliberately leaving things out - I do it all the time, and I think it's related to your second point quoted above. Yes, the most interesting truths are not dependant upon straight lines; by removing certain words, phrases or even entire verses, ambiguity can be strengthened. Omission may facilitate multiple interpretations, which would undermine one universal truth (in a good way), and give rise to many fragmented, subjective versions of the truth - the different interpretations of a song everyone has.

'You Can Call Me Al' is a great song, it illustrates your point well. I like the idea that the words in isolation make little sense, but when used in a precise combination, they convey something, however difficult it is to pin down.

Some of Bob Dylan's early works do something along the same lines, if I follow your reasoning correctly. Words are used as brushstrokes, in the same way an abstract painter composes visually: the literal sense of the exact phrase is secondary to the overall purpose it serves within a massive sentence-based collage.
 
Talkin'bout Paul Simon......

I could say ooo...ooo...ooo...ooo...ooo

And everybody would know what I'm talkin bout

Talkin' bout diamonds on the soles of her shoes.......


This has been the most interesting thread on this BBS in a long time.

Thanks 32-20 and mikeh and the rest....
 
32-20-Blues said:
'You Can Call Me Al' is a great song, it illustrates your point well. I like the idea that the words in isolation make little sense, but when used in a precise combination, they convey something, however difficult it is to pin down.

Some of Bob Dylan's early works do something along the same lines, if I follow your reasoning correctly. Words are used as brushstrokes, in the same way an abstract painter composes visually: the literal sense of the exact phrase is secondary to the overall purpose it serves within a massive sentence-based collage.
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'Tangled Up in Blue' is an interesting approach to a lyrical narrative. And not just because Dylan changes the lyrics depending on his mood! I'm referring to the fact that we are given precise information about the protagonists, i.e

'I got a job in the great North Woods/Workin as a cook for a spell,
But I never did like it all that mcuh/And one day the axe just fell.
So I drifted down to New Orleans/Lookin for to be employed
Workin part time on a fishin' boat/Right outside De La Croix''

In four lines, Dylan has included the narrators resumé and some of his travels. The same can be said of the female in the story, married when they first met but soon to be divorced, working in a topless place etc etc etc.

However, the crucial question, prompted by the fact that the song is one about love, goes unanswered....do the two characters get together? Do they feel the same, but see things from different points of you, or does he 'get to her somehow'?

As for Paul Simon, he's excellent. His minimalist approach (I don't think I'm even referring to minimalism...more...what is undisclosed?) might be better demonstrated in say, ''Graceland'' - I feel 'You Can Call Me Al', though a minor masterpiece, is more about quirky lyrics creating cartoon like images over a similarly-themed musical backdrop. Why is the Narrator going to Graceland? Why has he the child of his first marriage as his companion? Who is the lady that 'comes back to tell him she's gone'? Is it a mourning of loss or passing, or a pilgrimmage in search of redemption?

But in my opinion, Bruce Springsteen comes out on top. I don't know whether you guys are familiar with the song 'State Trooper', but while it suggests much and raises many questions, it gives nothing away. This with the eerie melody seems to suggest tension or discomfort though the lyrics provide only the basis for guesses.
 
All of those songs are good calls.

In fact, I nearly used Graceland as my example..

There's some part of me wants to see
Graceland
And I may be obliged to defend
Every love, every ending
Or maybe there's no obligations now
Maybe I've a reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland

Hmm.. I wonder what Graceland is.. come to that, I wonder what "Tangled up in Blue" means :)

I loved "America" too. And that is a pretty straight narrative, but very evocative.
 
Freddy said:
All of those songs are good calls.

In fact, I nearly used Graceland as my example..

There's some part of me wants to see
Graceland
And I may be obliged to defend
Every love, every ending
Or maybe there's no obligations now
Maybe I've a reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland

Hmm.. I wonder what Graceland is.. come to that, I wonder what "Tangled up in Blue" means :)

I loved "America" too. And that is a pretty straight narrative, but very evocative.
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Freddy, thanks for reminding me just how Great Paul Simon's work is.
 
Freddy said:
come to that, I wonder what "Tangled up in Blue" means :)
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It means that any man who attempts to write a song will, at some point, hang his head in shame, and acknowledge the work of a master :D .
 
Yeah I really don't think about the meaning at all when I write. I just usually kind of freewrite and find lines that stick out to me and seem to suggest themselves.

I usually only discover a meaning in one of my songs (if there is one) after it's been written for 4 or 5 years at least.

Though I do have some songs that are a fairly straightforward narrative, most of my recent lyrics have been more of a stream-of-consciousness type of thing. They're kind of images or thoughts that seem to suggest something to me that I can't quite pin down.

Springsteen is definitely one of my favorite lyricists, along with Paul Simon, Adam Duritz, Thom Yorke, Jeff Tweedy (Wilco), Bob Dylan, and John Lennon.
 
famous beagle said:
Springsteen is definitely one of my favorite lyricists, along with Paul Simon, Adam Duritz, Thom Yorke, Jeff Tweedy (Wilco), Bob Dylan, and John Lennon.
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I'm a massive Adam Durritz fan too, and I can see some of Springsteens influence, but more in their music. He's probably the greatest lyricist to emerge in the last 20 years.
 
TelePaul said:
I'm a massive Adam Durritz fan too, and I can see some of Springsteens influence, but more in their music. He's probably the greatest lyricist to emerge in the last 20 years.
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Durritz? Yeah, he can write a nice couplet, no problem. Great live act too.
 
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