Inaccessible Lyrics

GoWithTheFlow

Hi,

This point has proberbly been touched on before but it really annoys me that some bands that make great music lack depth in their songs due to poor choice of lyrics. You either cant understand what there singing as it so abstract or in some cases you cant even make out the lyrics from the music even if there good or bad! The perfect example was the first band I really got into - the Pixies. I loved the edgy guitars and dynamic of the band but the lyrics in the songs are so obscure and inaccessible. I recently read a review where Frank Black was asked where he sourced his material for his songs:

The lyrics of some of your songs are sort of odd, and some might say controversial, Incest? Biblical violence? Los Angeles? Where do the ideas come from?

"Well… I don't know. My main challenge, I guess, is to figure out what rhymes with cinnamon. You know what I'm saying? Or any word - pick a word. That's the level I'm working and the songs come out the way they come out. Some of them are real friendly sounding and some of them are real scary sounding...At the end of the day, it's entertainment and it's about rhyming words with other words, playing word games, being cryptic, and sometimes not being cryptic...You know what I'm talking about? There's a lot of that going on in my music and I think in most people's music."

This really annoys me as I cant see why he cant write about something relevant in his lyrics instead of obscure biblical stories which are not important to most of his fans! Is the art of songwriting really about finding a word that rhymes with another even if all meaning of the lyric is lost? I eventually lost interest in the pixies because of the shallowness of the lyrics save a few songs whereby the lyrics connected with me. Theres many other examples out there: Kings of Leon and Nirvana-I know im going to get slated for this but have you ever really listened to what Kurts singing in smells like teen spirit:

A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My libido

???

Now maybe there's a meaning or a story behind these lyrics but how am I supposed to know and therefore care! I think its such b*ll*cks in an otherwise excellent song. And then theres the case where the singer is barely audiable in songs. Take the smashing pumpkins, here's an example where sometimes I cant understand or relate to what he's singing but Id at least like to be able to make out his words! I think a lot of great bands fall down when it comes to lyrics. Maybe thats not whats important in there music, or its just entertainment at the end of the day like Frank says but I think more time could definitely be spent on getting the lyrics tighter when it comes to making music. Has anyone else picked up on this? And why is it so common in so many popular artists?

Driver 8

Some bands are more high maintenance than others

And personally, I'd rather struggle, for example, to grasp what Michael Stipe's singing about the first few R.E.M. records than hear Chris Martin's "emoting" loud and clear...

RobertFoster

What Pumpkins lyrics are hard to understand?

I generally find lyrics OK to understand. It doesn't bother me if they don't have some deeper meaning, and the writer was trying to rhyme instead of write a story.

The only lyrics I have problems with are the really heavy thrash metal songs (usually by some Scandinavian band) where some guy is taking sandpaper, a blender and his vocal cords and seeing what sound they all make together.

GoWithTheFlow

Take smashing pumpkins 1979, brilliant song and the lyrics I can make out are pretty good but half the singings drowned out. Another example from the pixies is "Where is my mind?", one of there commercially successful tracks. Its a quality song but im sure its popularity was helped by the strong lyric ie. the title. Yet the rest of the lyrics are absolute crap. It just really annoys me when I think how much better the song could have been. By the way im not against the pixies, as I said they were and are one of my favourite bands but could they have been so much better:D

Legend20

"slowly walkin down the hall, faster than a cannonball"??

cashback

Driver 8 wrote:

Some bands are more high maintenance than others

And personally, I'd rather struggle, for example, to grasp what Michael Stipe's singing about the first few R.E.M. records than hear Chris Martin's "emoting" loud and clear...

True.
I personally don't feel like I have to relate to most lyrics. Why should I unless the song is written for me?
I kind of like lyrics that are a bit out there like Stipes or Frank Blacks.
The Pixies might not speak to me but they always conjure up interesting images in my head. i think there's enough bands out there talking shi*e about their feelings blah blah.

DerekD Goldfish

You think the pixies are hard to decipher?
Try listen to some of the Cocteau Twins mid period stuff Liz Frazer practically made up her own language

GoWithTheFlow

cashback wrote:

True.
I personally don't feel like I have to relate to most lyrics. Why should I unless the song is written for me?
I kind of like lyrics that are a bit out there like Stipes or Frank Blacks.
The Pixies might not speak to me but they always conjure up interesting images in my head. i think there's enough bands out there talking shi*e about their feelings blah blah.

I would agree with you, that some artists do very well using abatact lyrics to compliment their songs. Check out the link http://www.myrem.com/archive/index.pages/t-9562.html. Here some REM fans are trying to dycipher Michael stipes lyrics in Orange Crush. Each one seems to think they(lyrics) say and mean something different with some having very personal stories about what the lyrics mean to them. Even Stipe himself says everyyime he sings the song it has a different meaning for him. I agree that songs dont always have to make sense but I think more time could be spent on making the lyrics better, instead of in some cases just getting the words to rhyme.

I was reading another boards forum about suspiciouly similar songs concerning how different songs by differernt artists sound the same. Maybe theres a similar rhythm or guitar riff ie. Oasis are often highlighted as having some of there material sound very like the beatles. One member posted:

Fact is regarding plagarism/homage that it's almost inevitable. I remember watching (and the more muso heads here can shed more light on this, i'm sure) a fine show on Channel 4 recently about music and presented by a chap called Howard Goodall.

Anyway, his thing was that basically a chord progression became fashionable in the early 20th century which comprised of the Root Chord, the Dominant chord and the Sub-Dominant. You, me and the world (and every wannabe guitar player) knows them as the C, F, G progression (assuming you play in the key of C). For a bit of variety you can chuck in an A minor chord, but that's, scarily, a sizeable percentage of modern music.

If this is true that a lot of music, especially guitar based, ends up sounding similar to whats gone before-does this not highlight the importance of lyrics in modern music? Especially in creating uniqueness in the genre?

magpie

If you stick to the top 40 I'm sure you'll find the lyrics more accessible - "I love you baby oooo-eeeee-oooo" etc.

While you're at it make sure you don't try watching any David Lynch films, reading any Bukowski, or looking at any Picasso.

God, isn't art so irritatingly abstract sometimes?

noby

OP not a Fall fan, I presume?

I read that before about Frank Black using a rhyming dictionary to write his songs. At least he fills in the gaps with strong imagery, not something that sounds like poetry written by a twelve year old.

GoWithTheFlow

magpie wrote:

If you stick to the top 40 I'm sure you'll find the lyrics more accessible - "I love you baby oooo-eeeee-oooo" etc.


Loving the sarcasm man. I know what your saying but I posted this thread in the Alt/indie section and not the pop section for a reason. Im mainly talking about guitar based bands. How about another example. Take Snow Patrol and their song chasing cars. Although it is an over sentimetnal track it has become emensly popular and broke the notoriously difficult American market for them even though its a very simple song. The lyrics in this song are clear and although its not shakespeare Mr Lightbody gets his message across clearly and most people can relate in there own way to the song. Now if we took the song and decided to sing really softly and pump up the guitar volume to drown out his lyrics would his song have been so successful? I mean whats the point in writing lyrics if you cant even hear them in the song. And if the singing is just an accompaniment to the melody why not put more effort in trying to convey something important/relevant (just plain sense) in the words. "I am the walrus" by the beatles anyone? Its a catchy song but I wonder what John Lennon was on when he wrote it! You can hardly say 'Sitting on a cornflake waiting for the van to come' is a great line!

DerekD Goldfish

Some of my Favorite Lyricals of all time sound like incomprehenceable gibberish at times doesnt mean they arnt great.

I know what your saying but I posted this thread in the Alt/indie section and not the pop section for a reason. Im mainly talking about guitar based bands. How about another example. Take Snow Patrol and their song chasing cars. Although it is an over sentimetnal track it has become emensly popular and broke the notoriously difficult American market for them even though its a very simple song.

No all acts want to be succesful some want to create art
sometime a guitar riff is simple and clear sometimes its distored and full of feedback. Music would be pretty boring is all Lyrics were easaly definable

magpie

Snow Patrol lyrics are bad 6th form poetry

We'll do it all
Everything
On our own

We don't need
Anything
Or anyone

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world

The blandness of their lyrics and imagery is only surpassed by the tedium of their song structures and safe watered-down MBV-lite indie-by-numbers music.

Go listen to some Captain Beefhart and give your senses a workout!

GoWithTheFlow

Id agree snow patrols lyrics are bland but at least I can make them out and its not nonsense(although some people might disagree). Its proberbly just a personal thing but I want to hear what an artist is saying in there songs even if I dont understand it and not be drowned out by the music. And id like some artists to care more about what there writing so as fans like me who are interested in what they have to say can make there own opinion. Ive found myself recently liking more and more bands where I can clearly hear the singer-We are scientists, Editors, Blizzards, Maximo park, Arctic Monkeys. I think there popularity is helped by the clear singing on their tracks. Fair enough Maximo park and the Editors have some strange lyrics but at least I can make my own opinion on what they have to say. Id rather listen to a band who've taken time to get their intended meaning across in their lyrics than just picking words to rhyme-thats more like 6th class poetry!

Driver 8

You also have to look at the lyrics in context. I really haven't the faintest idea what Thom Yorke's singing about on a lot of Kid A, but in the context of the song, it really works.

I don't always want to be spoon fed meaning

GoWithTheFlow

Radiohead, thats another band some of whose material id get frustrated with. Im not quite sure what you mean by context? Do you mean it fits with the melody or the mood of the song? Its the same with the pixies the writing just lacks depth if the lyrics are nonsense which means I get board fairly quickly with the song.

Driver 8

Not nonsense. Just not having having a cut and dried, black and white meaning.

Leaving it open to the listeners interpretation.

John

Just because you don't understand what they're singing about doesn't mean they're nonsense. They mean something specific to the person who wrote it, even simple lyrics aren't transparent if it is written about a specific thing which no one but the author has experienced. Some lyricists go for the simple and direct approach, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Personally I'd rather listen to a well crafted lyric that I'd have to work at than a simple throwaway rhyming couplet that mean very little. Like all poetry, the best poems and songs are the ones that marry a well written line with the right amount of depth (which varies depending on the song).

GoWithTheFlow

Driver 8 wrote:

Not nonsense. Just not having having a cut and dried, black and white meaning.

Leaving it open to the listeners interpretation.

Maybe Radiohead is a bad example but you have to agree the pixies and Frank Black could have spent more time on lyrics. I heard a quote once whereby he said songwriting is 95% music and 5% writing. This is where I disagree, when artists see songwriting as an extra rather than one of the main players. Its hard nowadays to explain to someone how great the pixies are when I see such an obvious flaw in the makeup of there music. Pity

On a sidenote since we are talking about lyrics in songs, check out:

http://www.coldplaying.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-1170.html

There's an entertaining post where someone has pited coldplays lyrics against radioheads and coldplay is slated for their blandness all on a coldpaly forum:D

Karlusss

Arguably song lyrics are different to poetry or prose in that they don't have to make sense in themselves so long as they work in the context of the music.

Smiths lyrics are very obvious, and they sort of sit on top of the music. But no-one knows what Sigur Ros are on about at all, when they're even using legitimate language.

It doesn't mean Sigur Ros are necessarily worse just because they aren't relating to you lyrically.

Earthhorse

I agree with you in principle OP. However, I would sooner grow bored of a bland lyric than an obscure or indecipherable one.

Also, be careful of vesting too much faith in what songwriters say about the songwriting process. For the first three Pixies albums Black wrote spontaneously and it wasn't until the fourth album, Trompe le Monde, that this stopped paying off. The lyrics may be largely throwaway but that doesn't mean they're not good. Nimrod's Son may very well have a simple rhyming scheme but that doesn't detract from the imagery and storytelling on display. Indeed, in the very same song Black sings the lines, "Oh bury me, far away, please bury me/Ah ha, the joke has come upon me", which rhymes with nothing. It is probably truer of his more recent offerings though.

Still, I do agree with you at a more general level that throwaway, flippant lyrics give songs a shorter shelf life.

Legend20 wrote:

"slowly walkin down the hall, faster than a cannonball"

A friend and I once worked out that you couldn't slowly walk faster than a cannonball and changed the lyric to, "Slowly rollerblading down the hall, faster than a cannonball".

magpie wrote:

While you're at it make sure you don't try watching any David Lynch films, reading any Bukowski, or looking at any Picasso.

Bukowski doesn't belong in that bunch. He's not abstract at all. In fact he's one of the most accessible and direct writers of the 20th century.

GoWithTheFlow

Karlusss wrote:

Arguably song lyrics are different to poetry or prose in that they don't have to make sense in themselves so long as they work in the context of the music.

Smiths lyrics are very obvious, and they sort of sit on top of the music. But no-one knows what Sigur Ros are on about at all, when they're even using legitimate language.

It doesn't mean Sigur Ros are necessarily worse just because they aren't relating to you lyrically.

Its funny, when I was younger I loved the abrasive singing of Frank Black and the striking imagery in his songs, I found my own meaning in the songs even if it wasnt the intended one and didnt really care what he was singing about. Nowadays I look for somethin deeper in the songs, what he was trying to say or what he was writing about and im just frustrated cause he really didnt care all that much what he writes. I suppose as ive grown up what I want to take from my music has changed and ive grown out of the pixies in a way. I suppose it comes down to taste in the end. Give me a song where I can hear the whole lyrics over the odd word drowned out by the guitar anyday and artists who appreciate the importance of lyrics in their music:D

JC 2K3

GoWithTheFlow wrote:

This point has proberbly been touched on before but it really annoys me that some bands that make great music lack depth in their songs due to poor choice of lyrics. You either cant understand what there singing as it so abstract or in some cases you cant even make out the lyrics from the music even if there good or bad!

Since when do lyrics really matter? Music is about music. If I wanted to relate to words I'd read poetry. Some of the "deepest" music I've heard has been instrumentals.

GoWithTheFlow wrote:

This really annoys me as I cant see why he cant write about something relevant in his lyrics instead of obscure biblical stories which are not important to most of his fans! Is the art of songwriting really about finding a word that rhymes with another even if all meaning of the lyric is lost?

The art of songwriting is not specifically defined. You don't have to write lyrics that relate to your fans and your lyrics don't even have to mean anything if you don't want them to. If songwriting was defined by your narrow criteria then it'd be one hell of a lot shallower than it is now.

GoWithTheFlow wrote:

Now maybe there's a meaning or a story behind these lyrics but how am I supposed to know and therefore care! I think its such b*ll*cks in an otherwise excellent song. And then theres the case where the singer is barely audiable in songs. Take the smashing pumpkins, here's an example where sometimes I cant understand or relate to what he's singing but Id at least like to be able to make out his words! I think a lot of great bands fall down when it comes to lyrics. Maybe thats not whats important in there music, or its just entertainment at the end of the day like Frank says but I think more time could definitely be spent on getting the lyrics tighter when it comes to making music. Has anyone else picked up on this? And why is it so common in so many popular artists?

If you could hear what Billy Corgan was saying clearly in Pumpkins' songs, the effect of his brilliant voice would be lost.

Music is art. You can't tell artists, "You have to make it accessible to a wide audience". If an artist were to obey that against their creative will, that'd be selling out.

Radiohead's lyrics are class btw.

And even ridiculously pretentious and incomprehensible lyrics like those of the Mars Volta can be great, I love getting my dictionary out and deciphering what I've just heard after listening to one of their songs

Marty DiBergi

DerekD Goldfish wrote:

You think the pixies are hard to decipher?
Try listen to some of the Cocteau Twins mid period stuff Liz Frazer practically made up her own language

Like Finnegans Wake to music. Only harder to understand. Don't listen to Liz if you want a Bob Dylanesque story.

Tchocky

magpie wrote:

Go listen to some Captain Beefhart and give your senses a workout!

Oh you f*cking saint

Saaaalty Leave

This is the kind of thing that only bugs me when the lyrics I can hear clearly are amazingly pathetic and throwaway (eg sex on fire - seriously WTF?) or if the singer mumbles in an incoherent accent and clearly can't actually sing.

Usually I just see the vocalist as an extra instrument, someone who by singing particular syllables in particular notes aims to complement the music and the emotion is created through the sound.

Truly meaningful lyrics are a bonus though!

zimovain

The sun's not yellow...it's chicken!

nobby grande

I disagree wholehearedly with you OP. Music for me is about timing, rythms, metarythms. How lyrics and rythms and beats interact with each other. This is where Frank Black / Pixies / REM / Beefheart and all the great artists excel. Music is primary, that is the pacing of the tune through instrumentation, the words are important as a means for projecting an image, but i don't want a transparent story. I want to elevated by the music. (MAAANN!!)
Frank Blacks lyrics are hard to define because he has about 20 albums. If you are talking the Pixies, then he was wilfully abstract in the late 80s as a means to rebel against the big hair metal and synth bands of the time. He wanted to be abrasive, create absract imagery and leave people thinking about what he could mean. He succeeded.
In fact you will often hear artists saying that they do not want to reveal the meaning behind their lyrics. The reason for this is as everyone has their own interpretation. Good art makes people think.

smurgen

i always check out songmeanings.org or .net-cant remember which.anyway i get anoyed when i dont understand what bands mean either. but certain groups like radiohead and pixies have basic enough and interestic topics in their songs.i aint a fan or REM lyrics tho,over-rated in my opinion.

JerryHandbag

JC 2K3 wrote: »

Radiohead's lyrics are class btw.

"Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon" Kid A

smurgen

JerryHandbag wrote: »

"Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon" Kid A

yeah that one's about post natal depression apparantly,go figure