Lyric Intelligence

[Mandolin Picker]

There have been a number of debates about popular music and why it is on the decline. Not sure if this has anything to do with it or not, but over at Seatsmart.com they have an article on lyric intelligence. They looked at the last 10 years of pop music and determined the lyrics readability score. What did they find? Well, most pop lyrics are at a 3rd Grade level (Country scored the highest grade level, Rap the lowest). The longer the song, the lower the average grade score. The number 1, highest grade score song over the past 10 years was Blake Shelton's "All About Tonight" (Average Grade Level 5.8), while the lowest grade score song was "The Good Life" by Three Days Grace (Average Grade Level Score of 0.8).

 

Personally, I would like to see the differences over a longer period of time. And there are some issues with the study and methods, but it was done for fun so we can cut some slack there.

 

You can read the whole article (with plenty of graphs) over at http://www.seatsmart.com/blog/lyric-intelligence/

 

[Hard Truth]

That study is ridiculous and culturally biased. First, nearly all pop music is designed for 13 year olds, mostly girls. It is designed and selected to appeal to the emotional tendencies of young teens and older children or to be suitable for dancing.

 

Also, multi-sylable words aren't more intelligent if they aren't used correctly. To judge inteligence the topic also needs to be considered. A dumb, banal love song that drops big words is going to be shallower than a social commentary song with a unique perspective and shorter words. Intelligence and/or communication of ideas is often done with the music more than it is with lyrics.

 

Plus, its musically difficult to create a dance song with big words because of the rhythmic scheme required to work with the beat. Repetition of words is often used for musical reasons, esp in dance music, not because the lyric writer couldn't think of any other words. Similarly, exclamations, grunts, yelps etc are musical elements, not necessarilly words with a literal meaning.

 

HipHop almost has its own language with words having non-standard meanings. If you don't know what the words mean in the context of the culture and the song you can't judge the intelligence of the lyrics.

[Hard Truth]

I have heard the claim that today's lyrics are stupid compared to the past for over 50 years now. The Beatle's She Loves You (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah) was compared to Cole Porter's best songs. How about comparing this lyric from 1939:

 

"Down in the meadow in a little bitty pool

Were three little fishes and their mama fishy too

"Swim" said the mommy fishy, "Swim if you can"

And they swam and they swam all over the dam"

 

to this one from 1965:

 

"Was she told when she was young that pain

Would lead to pleasure?

Did she understand it when they said

That a man must break his back to earn

His day of leisure?

Will she still believe it when he's dead?"

 

 

 

 

 

[Bucksstudent]

One of my favorite lyrics of all time is the opening line of Richard Thompson's "Walking on a Wire": "I hand you my ball and chain. You just hand me that same old refrain. I'm walkin' on a wire, walkin' on a wire, and I'm falling." Most of the words are one syllable, also known as stone words, and the words are basic enough that anyone can understand them if they speak English. It's the poignancy of the metaphors that make the line cleaver and hit the listener emotionally. Lyrics, as I've learned from writing both songs and poetry for many years, should never be too convoluted. The listener needs to be able to appreciate your sentiment. You're not just singing for yourself when they're other people in ear-shot.

 

Also, not many people want to hear a Progressive Rock concept album on Goethe's Faust. It might be more "intelligent" than Blake Shelton or Taylor Swift, but most people won't get it. Lyrics are not about showing off one's intelligence because almost all music is based on expression emotions and ideas.

 

I happen to think Hip-Hop has some of the most complicated, intelligent lyrics, and they appeal to a wide audience. Kanye West, in particular, impressed me with his quirky references and rhetoric. However, when I've tried to play his music for people of older generations, they've shrugged him off as just another rapper and don't pay any mind to what he's actually saying.

 

I've been digging Three Days Grace's first album for the past week, and I think their lyrics are suitable for the genre and message they're trying to convey. Likewise, I started listening to Matchbox 20's first album in March and haven't stopped. Rob Thomas is no genius, but I can relate to several of his songs because he expresses these ideas and emotions so well. It's not necessarily about being Milton or Browning; it's about finding the right words that flow with the music and get the point across.

 

Simply put, intelligence =/= good music. I've cried while listening to Daniel Johnston, and he's probably got a really low IQ. The more poetic writers like Dylan, Mitchell, Cohen, and others often leave me cold.

[AlamoJoe]

Every generation has it's sages and it's nincompoops.While Dylan is a bit older than me, I am still "Of His Time" in my opinion. His lyrics were some of the best of those times. But ya kinda had to be there then. You had to live then to fully appreciate their relavance. Artists and their work are reflections of the times they inhabit. I cannot expect my 19 year old to feel how I do about the music of Dylan, The Beatles or Byrds...Or even Jeff Beck..Who is as relavant on guitar as ever.

Nor can he expect me to appreciate the endless hours of his preferred soundtrack, Video game heavy metal/theater type stuff. As far as rock music goes...Do ya wanna get rocked? Or do ya wanna get schooled?

It's all a matter of perspective to me. Let the English majors debate this to death...

[timmit65]

Talk about subjectivity! Like any art, I find it very hard to qualify objectively. On a personal note, I think Colin Meloy of The Decemberists can provide some of the "Best" lyrics this side of Bob Dylan!

[elsongs]

As a musician, I could give a crap about lyrics. I'm more about chord progressions, rhythms and melodies. If a song has profound lyrics, then that's just icing on the cake. But you can have a cake without icing. Smooth phrasing is more important than profound lyrics anyway.

 

Besides, "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" isn't exactly Pulitzer-Prize material lyricwise. But it was a nice, catchy song that helped define an era in pop music.

 

Lyrical content is really for "rock critics" and Rolling Stone album reviewers, who judge all music by 90% lyrical content, because they lack the fluency to describe actual music in words.

[blue2blue]

[...]

Also, not many people want to hear a Progressive Rock concept album on Goethe's Faust. It might be more "intelligent" than Blake Shelton or Taylor Swift, but most people won't get it. Lyrics are not about showing off one's intelligence because almost all music is based on expression emotions and ideas.

 

[...]

Goethe's version of the Erlking as told by folkie Steve Gillette...

 

[video=youtube;yCAfrJZDwyc]

 

 

On the general topic... I like some clever stuff, I like some deep stuff, I like some elemental stuff, and, every once in a while, I like some plain old, bone stupid stuff. ("Now I Wanna Be Your Dog," for instance.)

 

Trying to 'measure' writing and sophistication by counting the syllables in words, length/complexity of sentence structures, and so on, is a fool's errand, at least as it's been pursued so far. I remember getting rated as 'graduate level' for my writing complexity, even as my technical writing instructor (technical writing is where you actually try to communicate facts and knowledge about processes) was eviscerating each new assignment. I'd 'grown up' writing (in my mind, anyhow) to impress a long string of generally easy-to-impress teachers (thank you, Mrs Lee, for being one of the few teachers at my potato head high school who wasn't easy).

 

But when the job was straightforward communication, I realized I was in the freakin' weeds.

 

 

Later, when I took a look at my lyrics (not with that foremost in mind but probably lurking) I went through and found that I felt the most kinship and felt like the most solid, effective of the lyrics were those that didn't try to pull in literary references to the Upanishads and Eliot and a bunch of writers I skimmed in college.

[Notes_Norton]

Personally, I don't think lyric grade level has anything to do with it. I remember a song from the 1970s that the entire lyrics consisted of "Get up and boogie" and "That's right". Music was big and popular back then.

 

How about, "We love you Beatles, oh yes we do" "When you're not near to us, we're blue". Not exactly words for a Master's Thesis. Or "Surfin' Bird" by The Trashmen, "Peggy Sue" by Buddy Holly and so on.

 

I think there have always been a mix of grade levels, and true, there may have been some slide since the Great American Songbook days, but I don't think that's why the music has declined. "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing" doesn't have college vocabulary either.

 

I don't really know why music is losing it's importance, but it's probably a combination of factors.

 

I think the music industry had a lot to do with it. When the Columbia, Warner Bros and one or two others bought up all the independent labels, and rigged the airplay with indie promoters (The Network) that charge up to a million dollars to get airplay, the industry lost competition and innovation. It became an industry run by lawyers instead of music people. And the profits were in mostly exploiting talentless singer/songwriters who work for practically nothing while keeping just enough good people to keep credibility.

 

They also fragmented the market. When I was young, we had pop radio (rock n roll), "race" radio, country radio, classical, and easy listening radio. All the young people listened to the same radio station and it became a symbol of the generation. Whether you liked it or not, everybody heard the new Elvis or Beatles song. There was no alternative, dance, EDM, metal, and other radio stations to listen to. That started in the disco era, and it's why Michael Jackson wasn't as big as the Beatles. Every kid heard every new Beatles record. Many kids listened to stations that didn't play Jacko records. The market is fragmented. There are no rock stars that become an icon of a generation, the Beatles were the end of a line that had Elvis before that, Sinatra before that, Crosby before that, and Jolson before that. What one star does every child listen to now?

 

And the promotion of DJs instead of live musicians. It's more personal when your peers are playing the music and not just mixing and sampling the works of others. To see someone your own age playing the instruments is bonding.

 

And the assembling of music where one track is laid down at a time so the musicians and singer aren't interacting takes a lot of the spark out of music. Add to that dynamic compression takes a lot of the expression out of the music. Add auto-tune and no longer will we have those 'Blues Thirds" that are somewhere between a major and minor third, or intentionally pressing on the note (hitting it flat) and pulling it up at the last instant. If you take the interplay and expressive elements out of the music, it has less life, and you can hear that - or more correctly, can't hear it.

 

And of course we have iPhones, Internet, and a large number of other distractions that we never had when I grew up. I'm not saying it's good or bad, just thinking out loud here.

 

There are probably dozens more reasons, but I think these are major contributors, and more important than the grade level of the lyrics.

 

But that's all just my opinion. I could be completely wrong for all I know.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

 

[WRGKMC]

There were several threads on this same topic here a few months ago sighting similar software packages they would analyze lyrics. They all have their own shortcomings.

 

Several years ago I collected lyrics to the top 100 songs each year from 1940 to 2000 to the present. That's about 7000 sets of lyrics.

In the process of this I'd convert them to word files and read them all as you would read poetry.

 

I didn't require any software to tell me what the average reading level of the lyrics were after all of that. Most of it didn't even score as being amateur level poetry, so the first thing you learn is the actual words in music aren't that important. Placement of the words, qualities of the voices producing them, Punctuation, Pronunciation, Clarity, Timing, Accent, Emphasis, Cadence, Drive, Focus, the actual melodic tones, Purity or lack of pure tones, musical arrangement, emotional content, mix quality, and even the singers use of dynamics are surely just as if not much more important.

 

There's a whole lot more to lyrics then just words. If you can get a software program to recognize all those other factors I just mentioned, then maybe you have some useful data. Otherwise its completely useless to analyze lyrics from a purely poetic view involving thought and reflection.

 

The thing is with music you don't have any time to stop and reflect on words and let deeper meanings surface. You are dealing with "real time" interpretation and need to get the meaning and immediately move on you get lost. "Sometimes" you can get a double or triple meaning from some lyrical lines. You may have heard the song several times to "get it" and even then it may be a matter of maturity or environment that lets you paint a new picture.

 

Heck, I used to hear the Doors sing Back Door Man when I was like 10 years old and didn't realize it sexual overtones till I was older. I think allot of lyrics are heard much differently by Old vs Young, Male vs Female, Rich vs Poor, Black vs white etc. Main thing is they are heard by several different groups on several different levels and each individual takes the meaning that suits them best. That will get you the widest audience in the long run.

 

Its really hilarious some of the interpretations some people come up with when they hear lyrics. Look at all the trouble the Beatles had with wacko' coming up with twisted interpretations. Lennon died from one wackos twisted meanings. Manson used them for evil too.

 

Maybe its better the lyrics are simple. I'd hate to think what twisted minds might do with intelligent lyrics.

[blue2blue]

[...] "We love you Beatles' date=' oh yes we do" [...']

 

I'm pretty sure I had not thought of this song since the first half of the 1960s. It's a memory so faint as to seem like a misremembered dream. But I just looked it up and not only does it exist, it was covered by none other than the Sex Pistols, suggesting a certain cultural icon status, I suppose. Not everyone got covered by the Sex Pistols.

 

 

[Folder]

. First' date=' nearly all pop music is designed for 13 year olds, mostly girls. [/quote']

 

I've been listening to pop music all my life.

I was only 13 for a year and I've never been a girl.

 

 

[Anderton]

There are so many different types of lyrics...the narrative/tell a story lyric, the poetry set to music lyric, impressionistic lyrics, we-have-a-vocalist-who-needs-to-do-something lyrics, rhythmic lyrics, lyrics that create a mood, political lyrics, clever rhyming lyrics...and some lyrics from "world" music just describe day-to-day life, almost like an oral history. I don't know how you could compare elements that are so different.

 

Lyrics also reflect the music's "intended application" for lack of a better word. I do music as a means of self-expression, so my lyrics are more like a diary than anything else. But, I'm not trying to write pop songs that appeal to a gazillion people, If I did, I'd probably pay more attention to the lyrics in music that has been bought by a gazillion people.

 

To me, "God save the Queen/we mean it, man/'cause there's no future/and England's dreaming" are just as valid as anything Burt Bacharach wrote...and the phrasing of some of the stuff he wrote is mind-boggling.

 

 

[davd_indigo]

 

Besides, "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" isn't exactly Pulitzer-Prize material lyricwise. But it was a nice, catchy song that helped define an era in pop music.

 

Lyrical content is really for "rock critics" and Rolling Stone album reviewers, who judge all music by 90% lyrical content, because they lack the fluency to describe actual music in words.

 

You brought back to mind some of the Rolling Stone reviews I read some decades ago. I remember thinking that the reviewers didn't seem to know much about music. They would refer to an artist's music, but then talk about nothing but the lyrics.

 

I'd say one has to take the song's recording as a whole package. I wouldn't go out of my way to listen to "I Want To Hold Your Hand" nowadays. But it's a great pop song for 1963. It has a change of key on the chorus. It's not great art, but does have a degree of musical sophistication.

You could take the Beatles lyrics to "Rain" ... "if the rain comes they run and hide their heads....they might as well be dead...if the rain comes...if the rain comes" . Simplistic. But you have to listen to these simplistic lyrics in the context of how the Beatles arranged the music around these lyrics. Similar I'd say to "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" and it's cool white noise toward the end of the song.

 

Incidentally, I read some place years ago (John Lennon's Playboy interview right before he was murdered maybe) that he wrote multi-syllabic words in "Help" in response to criticism that his lyrics were always mono-syllabic.

 

[Notes_Norton]

What I liked about the Beatles is the concise and musically interesting "B" sections to their songs.

 

Add George Martin, Billy Preston, and the magic and for many of the songs, who cares what the words say, they are predominantly just articulation and secondarily pop poetry.

 

If you read the lyrics of the majority of pop music (or opera for that matter) as if it were prose or poetry, it sounds pretty silly. Add the music and it can sound very nice.

 

And Craig, your list is pretty complete, but you left out 'laundry list' lyrics. I saw Mark Murphy (great jazz singer) a few times when he was in his prime and whenever he sang Jobim's "Waters Of March" he had to read the lyrics because they read like a laundry list and he couldn't memorize them.

 

A stick, a stone,

It's the end of the road,

It's the rest of a stump,

It's a little alone

 

It's a sliver of glass,

It is life, it's the sun,

It is night, it is death,

It's a trap, it's a gun

 

The oak when it blooms,

A fox in the brush,

A knot in the wood,

The song of a thrush

 

The wood of the wind,

A cliff, a fall,

A scratch, a lump,

It is nothing at all

 

It's the wind blowing free,

It's the end of the slope,

It's a beam, it's a void,

It's a hunch, it's a hope

 

and so on and so on

 

BTW, the Mark Murphy version on the Stolen Moments album is fantastic - as is that entire album. There isn't a bad cut, or even a mediocre cut, Mark and the Muse All-Stars were all hot on that one.

 

OK, sorry to drift off topic.

 

Even this song doesn't have more than an elementary school vocabulary.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

[MikeRivers]

 

You brought back to mind some of the Rolling Stone reviews I read some decades ago. I remember thinking that the reviewers didn't seem to know much about music. They would refer to an artist's music, but then talk about nothing but the lyrics.

 

There are those who say that the lyrics are the most important part of a song.

 

Some songwriters start with lyrics and then build a melody around them. But others start with a drum pattern or a guitar riff, and then write lyrics that they can sing to that music base. Still others write a melody (or find a melody that's already written) and then write words.

 

Songs that I remember usually started with the words, and the words generally have a point to them and tell a story. Songs I forget, or remember only because of how annoying I find them, are what may be a nice melody, but with words that make no sense to me, and are typically comprised of short phrases repeated over and over. But you don't have to do a lot of writing that way.

 

 

[Notes_Norton]

If the words were the most important part of the song, thousands of songs would have never made the Billboard top 10. But then I guess it depends on the song and the listener.

 

Some of my favorite 'songs' have no words at all, Tchaikovsky's symphonies #4 through 6. Dvoraks #5 through 9. Symphonies by Suk, Shostakovitch, Beethoven, and others.

 

Even with my favorite rock songs, I end up getting tired of the lyrics but still enjoy the music and the interplay between the musicians -- the lyrics just become articulation, Hotel California, Bohemian Rhapsody, 25 or 6 to 4, Abbey Road Medley, and thousands others. But then, I listen with musician's ears, not the ears of the general public, so don't go by my tastes.

 

It seems to me that folk and country have more emphasis on the words than rock.

 

Notes

[MikeRivers]

Here's all you need to know about creating a hit song, courtesy of The Washington Post:

 

http://tinyurl.com/qgy47ay

Tunes have spun on repeat since the days of Greek choruses, but now social scientists are trying to explain how these songs become so viral and addictive. Some studies pin it on background singers. Others tie it to high pitches. One attempted to find a link to our gross domestic product.

 

The newest explanation — and one attracting considerable scholarly interest — looks at lyrics and how the brain processes them. After studying every Billboard hit since 1958, researchers at the University of Southern California have discovered that a song’s popularity is tied to the simplicity of the lyrics and how often they are repeated, exposing the brain’s weakness for plainness.

 

“Tempo does not appear to matter,” the USC researchers wrote in the April issue of the Journal of Consumer Psychology. “While every artist strives to create a catchy hook, they may also consider striving to write a coherent song in which the chorus is repeated frequently while utilizing a limited vocabulary.”

 

Write a verse, write a chorus, repeat 20 times, watch the royalty checks roll in. Frankly, I think the catchy melody and arrangement is what does it.

 

ps - I never heard "Shut Up And Dance" before reading this article. I must not go to many exciting places.

[blue2blue]

As long as there are people writing intelligent music and ways to find them (which is crucial), I'm not that concerned with some academic's word-count measures of supposed sophistication.

 

But, I have to tell you -- for many years I've been listening to the Friday morning movie review show on the arguable best of my local public radio stations. I've been really disheartened by the continual downward spiral of the movies they review, and, increasingly, by the undemanding nature of some of the reviewers.

 

But maybe we should forgive the reviewers somewhat because their brains are clearly being turned to mush by a seemingly endless spew of CGI moronia. If I hear ONE more idiotic, vapid review of one more idiotic, brain dead, Marvel comic turned 'live' action extravaganza, I really think I'm in danger of puking.