How much do you value meaning and coherence in songs?

[Magpel]

I don't really have time to from this question properly, but I am going to let it fly anyway. I am kind of obsessed with this issue.

 

How would you characterize your tastes in song lyrics? Play by my arbitrary rules for just a moment if you would be so kind?

 

1. In your humbop, do the best songs really hold together on the thematic level and have that great poem-like quality where every cliche-free image and detail supports a strong theme or dominant image? On some levels are song lyrics arguments or propositions? Do they hold up to analysis and reveal a well-integrated theme?

 

2. Or do you allow, enjoy, even encourage more free flowing, associative, post-mod lyrics where the demands for clear meaning and coherence are pretty slight, but you sorta judge the lyrics on the cool vibe factor, the evocations and references, clever snippets, a really cool striking phrase or image here or there, maybe a global mood or character to the song

 

There are many currently revered lyricists who, to my ears, really fall into Cat. 2 (Jeff Tweedy, Stephen Malkmus, James Mercer from The Shins, Tom Waits come to mind). And sometimes I can't tell if they're hiding behind willful obscurity or whether they really are post-modern poets of the John Ashbury school. They toy and tease their listeners with meaning without ever fully committing to it, snatching away as if to reprimand the listener for expecting emotional gratification and identification with the singer.

 

James Joyce is often accused of doing this in Ulysses, using the first quarter of the book or so to get the reader emotionally attached to the character of Leopold Bloom before just kinda snatching him back and throwing him into a wild blender of stylistic experimentation for the rest of the novel.

 

Then there are lyricists who work really hard to make the lyrics stand up. Paul Simon comes to mind, or even Billy Joel, who may not be the deepest cat, but his lyrics are very internally consistent and theme-centered. To my mind, Peter Gabriel has always been an overly-deliberate writer whose lyrics read like an outline/precis for a non-fiction book.

Randy Newman is a rare guy who can write a song that is a coherent argument.

 

How willing are you to work, as a listener?

 

Sometimes I think I just like the well-seated phrase, like McCartney's soft-peddled near cliches...doesn't matter what they say--only that they sing.

[Kendrix]

This is a great post. Ive struggled with this myself.

 

When, on occasion, Ive had the opportunity to have a song reviewed by A&R types I find most of them like to see a coherent lyric.

However, there are many excellent songs out there that dont come close to this.

 

I note that some listeners are really focused on the lyric and some on the sonics/the music.

When I listen I rarely find fault if a lyric is "floating".

I tend to focus on the sonics.

However, when i write i tend towards the coherent side of this fence.

 

I think both forms are valid.

In either case prosody is important.

[Magpel]

 

In either case prosody is important.

 

 

Right. Really good metrics, really good phrasing can excuse a lot of nonsense and redeem a lot of cliches.

[Lee Flier]

There are a lot of different types of lyrics I can like, if the phrasing and rhythm is good and it goes along with the song. It could be anything from meaningless nonsense to wordy poetry to stream of consciousness to concise and pointed. It's all good, if it's good. But they can all suck, too.

[Lee Knight]

To me... a lyric doesn't exist outside of its world. Its world does not include the lyric sheet. It only exists coming off the tongue of a singer, surrounded by the harmonic and rhythmic trappings the writer deems fit.

 

I listened to Costello, John Hiatt, and Graham Parker for years believing they were gods. As I later dissected their work on paper it became clear that this was not where their work belonged. All three of those guys are great on paper, no doubt, but their real genius was in understanding the medium they were working and packing that medium as tightly and explosive as possible.

 

Making concessions to the lyric sheet robbed that wallop, so it was forgone for its aural delivery. And that delivery could curl your eyebrows.

 

On paper, the coherence is slight. But out of the angry mouth of a 22 year Elvis C... yeah, I know what you're spitting on about El. Yeah right, welcome to the working week.

 

When Parker sang, "Yeah, you better stick to me" you knew he thought she wouldn't... and he was pissed. But on paper it was just some weightless advice. Hang with me kid and you'll go far. But it wasn't that. Parker, with just that phrase and his snarl conveyed all the self doubt, anger, and hurt of young relationships.

 

When Donna Summer wrapped her lips around Moroder's arrangement of I Feel Love... um, well, the 1st time I heard it, and like, I didn't like that kind of shallow euro disco flap... well, she didn't need, nor was it advisable to use more words than that. The adolescent woody was listening. Deep meaning be damned!

 

When Neil Finn sings...

 

Blood dries up

Like rain, like rain

Fills my cup

Like four seasons in one day...

 

...I have no idea what he's talking about. And yet on a much deeper level, I do. When Johnny sang, "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die", well you can't get much more literal than that. But when he hears that train leaving him right where he will remain forever? That song, out of the mouth of the man in black means consequence. If you're a godless asshole, you will pay the price. Per Johnny.

 

Lyrics are meant to be sung and listened to... not read. Their meaning washes over you in waves. Coherence? Sure, if it works. But grabbing your heart is the motive. Sometimes coherence has nothing to do with that.

 

And sometimes sham-a-lam-a-ding-dong does.

[eeglug]

This topic is discussed with some frequency on the Songwriting forum. Both Lee's are correct in my book. The various options outlined in Magpel's first post aren't a "pick only one" multiple choice test - I want all of them open and available for me both as a listener and as a writer.

[Magpel]

 

This topic is discussed with some frequency on the Songwriting forum. Both Lee's are correct in my book. The various options outlined in Magpel's first post aren't a "pick only one" multiple choice test - I want all of them open and available for me both as a listener and as a writer.

 

 

Yeah, me too. I was just wondering about poeple's biases. I do, in fact, know people, who simply can't abide the looseness of meaning in the Indie world. They find it infuriating and cheap. And likewise I know people who seem to believe that meaning is dead.

 

It's obviously not a "pick one" question.

[eeglug]

I don't have a bias...but the Songwriting forum tends to attract the type who want coherence and meaning to things. Just recently, "I Am The Walrus" was summarily dismissed by a poster who characterized it as being something you could just pull out of your arse any time you want (I'm paraphrasing but you get the gist).

[Lee Knight]

 

I do, in fact, know people, who simply can't abide the looseness of meaning in the Indie world. They find it infuriating and cheap.

 

 

Cheap is cheap. A blag is a blag. Some of that stuff is cheap and infuriating. It's the slacker work ethic. I love ART! If true art happens easily, so be it. But if an artist is only willing to do what's easy, he should be strung up in the middle of town and mocked by those who care about such things.

 

Lazy is lazy. {censored}ty is {censored}ty...

 

So it's not of question of coherence vs. impressionism. It's more a question of succeeding in your artistic endeavor (communicating) or failing miserably out of laziness. I don't think Jackson Pollack was lazy. And he sure as hell wasn't coherent.

[blue2blue]

I take the same approach to music that I do (at this point in my life) to art:

 

I know a fair amount about music and art and many of the aesthetic theories behind various strains -- and I really try not to let that get in the way of whether or not I like something.

 

Mind you, that does, to some extent give me the analytical tools to pierce some less obvious aesthetic avenues -- I've spent a lot of time in both music and art at the fringes yet I've also spent a fair amount of time with classical approaches to both, as well (I'v seen maybe around 120 symphonic concerts and been to the Louvre a couple times -- it's not around the corner ).

 

I've learned to distrust any doctrinaire approach to aesthetic endeavor, whether it's classicist or avant garde.

[slight-return]

I'm kinda reading it (just my take on it) as not so much a question about theme or meaning, but maybe the use of narrative - esp linear narrative.

 

I don't think I'd classify the use of the non/loose-narrative as, specifically, "Indie".

 

and it certainly ain't limited to English speakers

 

A friend of mine translated some Japanese pop for me and when I was trying to wrap my head around it, she mentioned "sometimes they just put words together b/c they sound cool"

 

If you want some really freaky odd divergence -- Inuit folktales. You really get a different way of thinking, where dream and waking thought intermingle, when you have a night that lasts for 2+months...that's some twisty stuff

 

 

but, I don't find that the non-narrative style has a lack of meaning -- rather that the theme is maybe working obliquely across stories/typically defined "subject groups" or concrete situations (use of metaphor, colage to evoke a theme that isn't explicitly portrayed in a particular narrative-so the individual elements seem disjoint outside the context of the theme -- that kind of thing)

 

ugh, that came out badly

[Anderton]

Well, these words worked pretty well...

 

Tutti-fruitti

All a-rooty

Tutti-fruitti

All rooty

Tutti-fruitti

All rooty

Tutti-fruitti

All a-rooty

Tutti-fruitti

All a-rooty

Ah wahp bap a loolah, a wom bam boom!

[Anderton]

But seriously...I really see lyrics as serving different functions, depending on the song. I like a well-crafted story that's set to music, but sometimes, more "impressionistic" lyrics can throw more attention onto the song...and sometimes that's what you want.

 

There are also "in-between" lyrics that give the listener a fair degree of freedom in interpreting them. For example, from one of my songs:

 

"I've seen the future

And she has secrets.

I kissed tomorrow

And she held me.

 

I've seen the future

And she has secrets

I'm not afraid

Of where she'll take me."

 

So what I am singing about? Well, I think it would be pretty hard to figure out until I said it was written about my daughter shortly after she was born, and then I think what I was saying would fall into place. But it could be interpreted in other ways, and I kind of like that...I enjoy lyrics that are a bit of a Rorschach test, and people see a reflection of themselves in the lyrics.

[Lee Flier]

 

I don't have a bias...but the Songwriting forum tends to attract the type who want coherence and meaning to things. Just recently, "I Am The Walrus" was summarily dismissed by a poster who characterized it as being something you could just pull out of your arse any time you want (I'm paraphrasing but you get the gist).

 

 

Yeah, and by his own admission, Lennon DID just pull those lyrics out of his arse. But most people including myself consider that song brilliant. Not just anybody could pull random stuff out of their arse and have it be that. And that's what infuriates some people about art, and great artists - many people want it to be quantifiable: "If you work hard enough and use X technique and follow steps 1, 2 and 3 you can become a great artist." Not true.

 

I don't have any bias, as mentioned. I suppose when it comes down to it, the lyrics that move me most are concise, easily understood, emotionally charged/revealing. Stuff like "Love Hurts" or "Mystery Girl" or "Dimming of the Day". But by no means do all of my favorite songs have that type of lyric.

[Magpel]

I don't think I'd classify the use of the non/loose-narrative as, specifically, "Indie".

 

Well, I don't think I did either! Kinda the reverse; I classified the typical '90s Indie as specifically non/loose narrative. I mean, as far as I know, Marcel Duchamp wasn't in the Archers of Loaf!

 

Here are the lyrics to the Pavement classic Gold Soundz. As Lee wisely points out, lyrics on the page are not the art, are not the song. But if you know the song--and there was a time when you should've -- you know it has a stirring, emotive melody and delivery, and key phrases are strongly evocative emotionally--"'cause you're empty, and I'm empty," etc., yet, move in a little closer and you will find your attempt to connect thoroughly rebuffed. Its that almost contentious, stubborn resistance of wholeness that is so typical/sympotmatic of the Indie thing. And that's one reason people love it--the oblique, evasive general strategy with with what appear to me moments of naked feeling sticking through.

 

 

(Tune your Rhapasody to the classic Pavement album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain if you want to conisder the lyrics in context.)

 

Go back to those gold soundz

And keep my advent to your self

Because its nothing I don't like

Is it a crisis or a boring change?

When its central, so essential,

It has a nice ring when you laugh

At the low life opinions

And they're coming to the chorus now...

I keep your address to myself cause we need secrets

We need secrets crets crets crets crets crets back right now

 

Because I never wanna make you feel

That you're social

Never ignorant soul

Believe in what you wanna do

And do you think that is a major flaw

When they rise up in the falling rain

And if you stay around with your knuckles ground down

The trials over, weapons found

Keep my address to myself because its secret

Cuz its secret cret cret cret [etc.]... back right now

 

So drunk in the august sun

And you're the kind of girl I like

Because you're empty and Im empty

And you can never quarantine the past

Did you remember in December

That I wont eat you when I'm gone

And if I go there, I wont stay there

Because Im sitting here too long

Ive been sitting here too long

And Ive been wasted

Advocating that word for the last word

Last words come up all you've got to waste

[Kendrix]

I agree that the song can only be judged by considering both lyric and music and their interplay. However, I think the lyric can be judged on its own.

 

With the non-linear lyric there is sometimes a fine line between genius and silliness. When it soars it really soars.

 

"Who are thse children that scheme and run wild

and speak with their wings and the way that they smile

and what are the secrets they trace in the sky

and why do you tremble each time they fly by?"

 

I just love that one. Its actually coherent in that these are proper sentences.

However, the words are completely obtuse.

I'm not even sure how you categorize that.

Coherent, linear, yet totally ambiguous and highly suggestive.

[slight-return]

 

Well, I don't think I did either! Kinda the reverse; I classified the typical '90s Indie as specifically non/loose narrative.

 

 

 

Sorry, didn't mean to imply you did (was actually looking to unload that meaning )

 

One kinda interesting thing to do is find out how the people from

I do, in fact, know people, who simply can't abide the looseness of meaning in the Indie world.

 

 

react to looseness of meaning in non-Indie music?

 

How do they react to more linear Indie music? (like do they feel more comfortable with something like pavement's "haircut" or "underused")

 

 

--------------

 

On an unrelated note - noticed an audio theater link in your sig. You involved in that?

big audiotheatre fan myself

[Magpel]

 

On an unrelated note - noticed an audio theater link in your sig. You involved in that? big audiotheatre fan myself

 

 

Yes, thx for asking. It's a group that used to be very active. We still do a weekly half hour broadcast--mostly doddering improvs cut with our shorter prerecorded material, but our "glory days" of writing and recording are quite well behind us, unless something very surprising happens.

[rasputin1963]

I love meaning and coherence in a lyric, I must confess. I especially love a lyric which can be scanned and punctuated as if it were pure prose.... Yet it remains "poetry" as well. (Inverted commas here, because a lyric is NOT poetry... Run like the wind from magazine ads which read YOUR POEMS NEEDED FOR SONGS).

 

Take a lyric like this 1955 Andrews Sisters record:

 

I CAN DREAM, CAN'T I?(Words by Irving Kahal and Music by Sammy Fain)

 

 

I can see

That no matter how near you'll be,

You'll never belong to me;

But I can dream, can't I?

 

Can't I pretend

That I'm locked in the bend of your embrace?

For dreams are just like wine

And I am drunk with mine.

 

I'm aware

My heart is a sad affair;

There's much disillusion there--

But I can dream, can't I?

 

Can't I adore you

Although we are oceans apart?

I can't make you open your heart,

But I can dream, can't I?

 

To me, this is just the best kind of lyric there is. Notice how each declaration of the lyric can be parsed and punctuated as a prose sentence... Deft alliterations like "dreams" and "drunk". Artful assonances like "alTHOUGH we are O-". Yet the lyric still "sings" and flows. Now THAT'S craft.

 

Less impressed am I with what I call the "psychedelic" or "impressionistic" lyric, which came into vogue roughly in 1963 (my birth year) along with the emergence of Mr. Zimmerman:

 

Johnny's in the basement

Mixing up the medicine

I'm on the pavement

Thinking about the government

The man in the trench coat

Badge out, laid off

Says he's got a bad cough

Wants to get it paid off

Look out kid

It's somethin' you did

God knows when

But you're doin' it again

You better duck down the alleyway

Lookin' for a new friend

The man in the coon-skin cap

In the pig pen

Wants eleven dollar bills

You only got ten

 

Maggie comes fleet foot

Face full of black soot

Talkin' that the heat put

Plants in the bed but

Phone's tapped anyway

Maggie says the men they say

They must bust in early May

Orders from the D. A.

Look out kid

Don't matter what you did

Walk on your tip toes

Don

[rasputin1963]

(my post continued here)

 

There's nothing "Country" or "friendly" or "relaxed" or "honest" about plain old stupid, hamfisted lyric-writing. Especially when the Grandaddy of Country himself could write ingenious, clever, idiomatic, toneful, flawlessly perfect lyrics like:

 

 

Goodbye Joe, me gotta go, me-oh-my-oh!

Me gotta go pole the pirogue down the bayou.

My Yvonne, the sweetest one, me-oh-my-oh!

Son-of-a-gun, we'll have big fun on the bayou.

 

JAMBALAYA, crawfish pie and a fil

[the stranger]

Great lyrics transcend these obsessions. It's good, or it's not good. It moves you, or it doesn't. The structure is irrelevant.

[rasputin1963]

Great lyrics transcend these obsessions. It's good, or it's not good. It moves you, or it doesn't. The structure is irrelevant.

 

 

But "God is in the details", as they say. Structure is only irrelevant to those who do not know or understand structure. Presumably, if we've made it as far as Craig's SSS page, we've graduated from that ignorance...?

 

KOOL-AID and 1961 Chateau Lafitte-Rothschild are both beverages....

[the stranger]

Yeah, my answer is an obvious sign of complete laziness and lack of motivation on my part to add something relative to the discussion. I'm kinda of tired and getting my quick forum fix [workin in a coal mine, actually we were wiring this remodel and it was a bit of a pain which kept us working on it until like 8pm...at which point I had to haul ass to my bro-in-law's wedding rehearsal dinner [i missed the rehearsal, of course] and my ass is beat!

 

[4-5 hours sleep last night because I stayed up too late surfing wiki.]

 

[Etienne Rambert]

Good writing is good writing. Bad writing is garbage.

I don't care about the style or subject matter.

 

Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, Hank Williams or Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, pick your poison.

 

Any way you go, you can't go wrong.

 

 

Rasputin 1963: (quoting Hank Williams): "Thibodeaux, Fontainebleau, the place is buzzin';"

 

 

FWIW, it's "Fontenot", not Fontainebleau. Fontenot is a very common Louisiana name.

 

(Usually Pronounced: Fon-ton-no)

[phaeton]

When I listen to music, I don't even really hear the lyrics at all. I just hear the instruments themselves. I catch bits and pieces of the lyrics, maybe a little more if they're just backing harmonies, etc (such as doo-wop and Motown). In fact, if I even attempt to listen to the lyrics, I have a hard time understanding them, sometimes. Maybe I'm too distracted?

 

Fwiw, I also really dig instrumental music. I also listen to a bunch of music from around the world where the lyrics are in Japanese, French, Finnish, Vietnamese, Hmong, Arabic, Spanish, or Italian. I don't speak any of these languages.

 

So I guess that I could say, for me, the lyrics in a song are virtually meaningless.