[Marko]

Lyrics that are written for public consumption,

 

that the writer wants others to read and appreciate,

 

that are designed to take another person on a trip.

 

 

 

In your opinion, what minimal structure/guidance/clarity/whatever, should the lyricist offer the listener, if any?

 

 

 

Just curious what others think.

[Red 5]

using real instances people can feel when they listen always works for me. the lyrics are like the road signs and the music is the road, you can get where you are going without them, but most people need them to feel included with the motion of it all.

[blue2blue]

For me, I need to have the sense that lyrics mean something to someone.

 

I don't want to try puzzling meaning out of something only to end up feeling like the puzzle was bogus in the first place.

[Marko]

Wow

[blue2blue]

Right! I don't mind working, digging a little to find some answers -- I just don't want to feel like someone's sent me on a lyrical wild goose chase with a lot of phrases that they just thought sounded good.

 

That said, the proof of a pudding is in the eating -- and if someone can throw a bunch of unrelated phrases into the mix and come out with something that makes me feel like it all means something, well... a pretty sunset is just a certain arrangement of clouds of vapor, caught by the last rays of the sun.

[Sentry68]

I had a feeling this post was going to come up with all the recent discussion of same.

 

Personally I tend to write openly. Ideally I want to set a framework that creates a scenario and maybe introduces characters while leaving the listener to fill in their own details; I think it lets the song be more personal to them. Often times I get too vague in the metaphor- I ask my bandmates to tell me what they think a new song is about and that can get downright hilarious. I'm usually happy even if I get widely varying responses that aren't close to the original thought as long as they get something- if everyone just says, "I don't know at all," it's time to start rewriting.

 

I think Eddie Vedder is very good at this open style. He creates a good backdrop and then gives glimpses of a story, sparse enough to let him cover a lot of ground without spelling out every detail, but keeping it coherent enough to not lose the overall idea. For me it creates a real curiosity in the story. Love it or hate it, he's a friggin' master of the abstract style in my book.

 

Less often I have a specific topic and something to say about that. It's much more concrete, but at this point you ain't gonna find much worth saying that hasn't been written about before, so I tend to shy away from it.

[myredshoes]

I hardly ever write for public consumption; I usually write in an attempt to communicate something fairly specific that I think it is important to communicate. I do not often feel the need to write otherwise. Most of my lyric writing is the result of my failure to communicate well in any more direct manner. I tend to write less when my communications with those around me are successful and fulfilling.

To just make something up out of the blue for lyric seems like a lot of work for nothing. I don't see the motivation to do so.

[Marko]

 

To just make something up out of the blue for lyric seems like a lot of work for nothing. I don't see the motivation to do so.

 

 

Many people enjoy it as a hobby.

 

It

[Li10]

 

For me, I need to have the sense that lyrics mean something to someone. I don't want to try puzzling meaning out of something only to end up feeling like the puzzle was bogus in the first place.

 

 

that's what makes it so hard for me, making it mean something to somebody other than me, but making it interesting.

 

And it must be a puzzle for me. If not, it's gotta have loads of imagery.

[Li10]

 

Many people enjoy it as a hobby.   It

[myredshoes]

Being in a cover band would be the least-fulfilling musical experience I could imagine.

 

I just can't imagine doing covers. I have friends who do and I understand this is the steadiest best-compensated work in local small town (bar band) music. When I go to see them though they are playing the same (other people's) songs they played three years ago. How? I don't know. It's hard to even listen to, it's like listening to a classic rock station on the radio in a car with ten people smoking in it, driving nowhere...

 

I like playing my songs for the most part though some I abandon, but the musical part of songwriting is the hobby to me, something I struggle with but enjoy; a puzzle. The lyric writing though is very necessary - I feel a need to write as I often do not speak well and it is as often out of some sort of anguish as anything, just something I have to get out of me somehow. Consequently I sometimes find I have a lot of sad/painful songs written almost compulsively, while when things are going very well for me and I am stable and getting along well with others I hardly care or make time to write.

Currently we are learning to play together and piling up lots of bass and guitar tracks and playing with a drum machine and having lots of fun.

I have been given a good job in my own field that pays very well.

I am not writing much lyric.

I would say that song lyrics usually need to be both true and "necessary" for me to write. In the same way, a painting has to have an absolute intent and function before I will paint it.

On the other hand, I bang away thoughtlessly and happily on a guitar for no reason at all.

I think everybody has their own reasons for creating and I think that creating and sharing helps us all move forward. I don't know if our individual "reasons" matter so much.

 

I'm glad we also have a lot of local bands who choose to play their own original music for almost nothing. Their following is more dedicated and engaged.

[Marko]

 

that's what makes it so hard for me, making it mean something to somebody other than me, but making it interesting. And it must be a puzzle for me. If not, it's gotta have loads of imagery.

 

 

Don

[Li10]

Don

[Eclepto Funk]

i don't like to listen to (or read) lyrics that are full of cliches and easy, pat phrases that anybody could have written ... lots of the lyrics posted on here are so general that i feel any 18 year old out there could crank them out

 

if the writer is that lazy, why should i care?

 

i like lyrics that surprise me either with new details or new observations about life, or that look at something from an honest angle ... actually, i LOVE those lyrics

 

oh and that cut and paste lyric thing, it is abhorrence personified. as if there werent' enough incoherent dribble in lyrics out there without AUTOMATING the process

 

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

what you call abhorrence is the posts #01-#13 with words deleted...

 

 

"I Don't Like Top Listen"

 

to lyrics that are

cliches and easy

pat phrases that anybody could

lots of the lyrics posted

 

are general that i

a 18 year old could crank

if the writer is

why should i care?

 

i like lyrics that either

new details or new

that look at an angle

lyric thing, it is

 

abstract in song lyrics

personified enough

without AUTOMATING

personified enough

 

a car with ten people

smoking in it, driving nowhere

a car with ten people

smoking in it, driving nowhere

 

a car with ten people

smoking in it, driving nowhere

a car with ten people

smoking in it, driving nowhere

[Eclepto Funk]

what you call abhorrence is the posts #01-#13 with words deleted...

 

really? no way!

 

[Eclepto Funk]

" I Don't Like Top Listen " to lyrics that are cliches and easy pat phrases that anybody could lots of the lyrics posted are general that i a 18 year old could crank if the writer is why should i care? i like lyrics that either new details or new that look at an angle lyric thing, it is personified enough dribble in without AUTOMATING

 

now, that's poetry!

 

what genius wrote that?

 

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

now, that's poetry! what genius wrote that?

 

 

[Poor Yorick]

I like lyrics that create a world that holds up on it's own. They don't have to make linear sense in the same way that a piece of fiction or reporting does, but I like a coherence of imagery. Take Elvis Costello's "Green Shirt" for instance. What "happens" in this song? Eh -- who knows. But it builds a world out of paranoia and fascist imagery. I like those little details like the "quisling clinic" and the "venus line" which work as allusions and as suggestions as to the world a song is from.

 

Theres a smart young woman on a light blue screen

Who comes into my house every night.

And she takes all the red, yellow, orange and green

And she turns them into black and white.

 

But you tease, and you flirt

And you shine all the buttons on your green shirt

You can please yourself but somebodys gonna get it

 

Better cut off all identifying labels

Before they put you on the torture table

 

cause somewhere in the quisling clinic

Theres a shorthand typist taking seconds over minutes

Shes listening in to the venus line

Shes picking out names

I hope none of them are mine

 

But you tease, and you flirt...

 

Never said I was a stool pigeon

I never said I was a diplomat

Everybody is under suspicion

But you dont wanna hear about that

 

cause you tease, and you flirt...

 

Better send a begging letter to the big investigation

Who put these fingerprints on my imagination?

 

You tease, and you flirt...

 

You can please yourself but somebodys gonna get it

You can please yourself but somebodys gonna get it

 

The old folksong "Cuckoo" is actually just random lines from other forgotten songs strung together. They don't *mean* any one thing, but together they suggest a certain world where these snippets of information are important and meaningful. They're evocative lyrics, and there's no mistaking which song each individual line comes from. It's employing economical language to build an entire way of being.

 

Oh the cuckoo she'a pretty bird

She wobbles as she flies

She don't never holler cuckoo

'Til the fourth day of July

 

Gonna build me log cabin

On the mountain so high

So that I can see Willie

As he goes on by

 

Jack of Diamonds, Jack of Diamonds

I know you of old

You done robbed my poor pockets

Of my silver and gold

 

I've played cards in England

I've played cards in Spain

I bet you ten dollars

I'll beat you again

 

Oh the cuckoo she'a pretty bird

She wobbles as she flies

She don't never holler cuckoo

'Til the fourth day of July

[eeglug]

 

Lyrics that are written for public consumption, that the writer wants others to read and appreciate,

 

 

I don't think all songwriters want their lyrics to be read and appreciated - your phrasing sort of implies that the lyrics are a separate object from the music. This is music, not literature. I cringe every time I think of Paul McCartney publishing a book of his lyrics and then going on a tour reciting them to promote the book. I cringe only slightly less when I think of Lou Reed doing something similar.

 

For me (and this is strictly my personal opinion) the issue of wanting lyrics to make sense all the time raises the question of what you are going to this art form for in the first place. If the song is in a language you don't understand, what then? Is it worthless because you don't understand it? Do you inwardly assure yourself that the words must mean something in order to enjoy listening to it? Or do you not listen to music outside of your native tongue? Do the actual notes and chords and rhythm actually hold no meaning in and of themselves for you? Do you like instrumental music?

 

My own 'line in the sand' is that the lyrics not be banal or annoying in some way. If it's neither of those things, I'll accept them for what they are. I like it when a song tells a story coherently in a skillful poignant manner. I also like it when the words appear to make no sense at all. But above all the melody, harmony and rhythm have to do something for me first before I even think about the words. And there are some songs that I enjoy that I never have learned the lyrics of.

 

These are just my opinions...I know many of you are more lyric-centric than I am.

[Marko]

Actually, I

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

Pop song lyrics are basically in the same form and modus like poems, that's about all what I can say.

 

If I like or dislike a pop song has certainly nothing to do how simple or primitive the content and the language is.