Music vs. Lyrics: What's Important?
I've been thinking a lot lately about music, and specifically lyrics. I pose this question:
How important are the lyrics to whether you like/dislike a song?
Ideally, this would create open discussion (ie - leave a comment), but since no one likes to leave comments, I'm not going to count on it. Anyway, I'll delve further...
There exists some song, and you love everything about it musically, but you don't like the lyrics. Do you like the song? Do you listen to the song?
This question is being raised in my head now by a Modest Mouse song I've just discovered, Bukowski. Musically, the song is awesome. It's kind of slow and dreary, but picks up a bit, uses the slide guitar well, and reminds me a lot of Mount Moriah (Jenks and Josiah's band). Bukowski was a poet, who didn't believe in friendship/relationships, and rather turned to alcohol. His works showed a very free yet slobby life.
The song is a look at life, and basically (at least in my interpretation) is saying that life ends up more like how Bukowski sees it than how most people do,
and he questions why God would want to control his life.
If God controls the land and disease,A quick aside about me: I am a practicing Christian, though I have always been taught/believed that not only is questioning everything ok, but it is important.
keeps a watchful eye on me,
If he's really so damn mighty,
my problem is I can't see,
well who would wanna be?
Who would wanna be such a control freak?
So, in an effort to keep this moving, I'll sum up this song and move on. At first I wasn't sure how to feel about these lyrics, but after some thought, I find them an interesting (and depressing) outlook on life. They make you think. And I think that is a very important part of any art.
But now to the bigger question at hand: What kind of lyrics makes a song unlistenable?
I can think of three reasons why someone may not like some lyrics:
- They are stupid
- They are idealistically different from what you believe in
- Something like Bukowski, or something like Creed to a non-Christian.
- They are offensive
- Something like Eminem's song Kim, where he describes how he is going to kill his wife.
- A lot of rock/metal/pop songs fall into this category. Metallica singing about crushing them all to NSYNC singing about dancing around.
Where I get stuck is on the idealistic differences. I have no problem listening to someone else's opinion of things. In fact, I welcome it. And anytime anything makes you think about something, I think that is a good thing (because really, thinking is good). Still, do you really want something you completely disagree with pounded into your head over and over again? Whether you are paying attention or now, lyrics get ingrained into your head. That's why we can all sing along to a song after we've heard it twice. In the end, Bukowski is one of the most played songs by my ipod. And I don't have a problem with that...
2 Comments:
As a semi-professional musician I can't even begin to tell you the debate over what music means and what kind of message it gives. I have written way too many papers on this topic. In fact I handed one in today. Almost all of the music I play as no lyrics and people have made careers over debating what the notes are supposed to mean, let alone when you throw in words. People actually agrue that we shouldn't study religous music in school because of its message yet there is so much of it and it is so important to Western Music's history it would be rediculous to ignore it. With all that said I listen to music in 2 different ways. I listen to country music because the lyrics remind me of home. Musically its as dumb downed and stupid as you can get, but I still enjoy it. And then I also listen to other music to be moved musically by the notes, whether thats Hendrix's guitar lics or Mahler's Second Symphony. I think if you are listening to music for the right reasons (ie. for enjoyment and not to sing along to violent/imoral lyrics) thats just fine with me. Course I wouldn't have a career if no one was listening.
I know this is a very old post, but I've been thinking about this topic too. I was going to write a blog article about it, but since you beat me to it, I'll just summarize how I feel about it here. My own personal opinion is I have to like the 'sound' of a song initially, otherwise I will not choose to listen to it (i.e. I hear one screamo/emo song and I completely switch off, because the sound of it doesn't do anything for me). However, saying this, most of the biggest influences upon me as a musician are The Kinks, Morrissey (The Smiths) and Bob Dylan, mainly because of their lyrics. So, in the end, the most influential music for me is music with good songwriting (which I consider to be good melody matched with insightful and meaningful lyrics I can relate to). There's a lot of inane lyrics in the charts, and though I might like the music of it (i.e. hip hop has an amazing sound, but most of it has rubbish lyrics, though in the "socially conscious" era this was not the case). Anyway, because I cannot relate to the lyrics, I can enjoy listening to some music, but it doesn't make a lasting impression in the same way that hearing a song with something lyrically inspiring would. In a way, what I'm saying is that good music with ignorable lyrics, in effect, makes the song ignorable to me too. I think it's something to do with commercialism, since lyrics are downplayed in favour of a sound which appeals to the masses, so in my eyes, that's why unless it has good lyrics or a meaning it doesn't merit my attention. But anyway, interesting topic.
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