When you first listen to a song, how important are lyrics to you?

[Guy Rowland]

When you first listen to a song, how important are lyrics to you?

Had a good chat with friends yesterday on this, all of whom love music and we were all over the map. On a first listen, I'm typically about 5% lyrics, 95% music. Others were 40/60 lyrics, 50/50 and one claimed 100/100 which is a cheat obviously, but he feels so passionately that without both being damn near perfect it's all worthless. He's quite hardcore.

I remember reading in the great Tracey Thorn's autobiography that for her it was almost 100/0 lyrics when she was younger. It really brought me up short, and I realised how differently people hear things. I have so many songs I love where I have no clue what the lyrics are about and I don't really care either. But that's not universally true, there are songs where the lyrics are vitally important to me - but even in those cases it's usually a few listens before I really tune in.

In a movie where there is a song where the lyrics are important, I can rarely follow them. The music itself overwhelms, the feeling of that and the SOUND of the singing is all important, but rarely the words itself.

How about y'all?

[Piet De Ridder]

Depends on the artist. Though, generally speaking, I think I am usually more interested in the musicality of the lyrics — how they sound, which vowels are chosen for which note or notes of the melody, the rhythm they might have, etc. … — than by what is being said. In many cases, I find it can be wiser to try and pay not too much attention to what’s being said or how it is being said as it can ruin the enjoyment of a song. We, non-native speakers may have a slight advantage here, I suspect, in that it’s easier for us to reduce what’s being sung to ‘a meaningless layer of musical sound’. The disadvantage for us is of course that, should we be interested in the lyric, we may miss loads of little things and nuances that belong to the idiom in such a way that they can only be fully understood by native speakers. No matter how well one has mastered the language, there always remain things that elude us.

But I certainly don’t insist on lyrics being ‘deep’ or important or poetic or carrying a strong message or whatever, as a requirement for a good song. “Lorem ipsum” text might make the perfect lyric, in my opinion, if it is an integral part of the song’s musical (id)entity.

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[Lawrence]

I concentrate fairly hard on writing cogent lyrics only to find, much to my dismay, that people I play my songs for aren’t listening to them. As a result, it’s probably easier to have AI spout out some nonsense.

That said, what Beatles fan can forget the deathless “”I am the egg man, they are the egg man, I am the Walrus-googoogajoob”?

[Luciano Storti]

It's all about the music for my ears. I'm actually a little relieved to find that this is not so uncommon.

Having said that, there are times when a song has such a strong lyrical hook, fitting the melody just so, that I can't ignore it (say, Born In The USA), or where the lyrics are using a schemes that diverts my brain's attention away from the music/production (50 Ways To Leave Your Lover). Finally, when the music is written intentionally to function subserviently to the lyrics (usually one musical section repeating while the lyrics change, crescendoing toward a final sort of "reveal" section). That also forces my brain to pay attention to the lyrics.

[wst3]

Wow! Never really thought about it.

I think it depends on the song - the music, the mood, the message, and the craft applied to both, not to mention whatever mood I'm in.

As a teen I listened to the guitars, and then the music, and then the words, unless the words had a message for me, then they came second, sometimes even first. (how many times did I play/sing "Behind Blue Eyes", or "Lonely One", or "We Already Said Goodbye" or any number of sad songs about lost relationships.

These days I'm not sure I separate the two. I just listen - if I am listening for pleasure. If I am listening to learn something then I am concentrating on whatever factor I am trying to learn.

[Ashermusic]

Well, as a lifetime singer-songwriter for me it definitely varies depending on the song and the genre.

[Geoff Grace]

I fall into the camp of music first, lyrics second; but as others have mentioned, there are exceptions to the rule, and there are songs that pull my focus more to the lyrics side to give me a more balanced listening experience.

When I was a kid, it was protest/message songs that pulled my attention to the lyrics. Songs like “For What It’s Worth,” “Big Yellow Taxi,” “Everyday People,” “Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag,” etc. all demanded I focus on the lyrics; but otherwise, I had no idea what many sixties songs were about until years later.

Similarly, clever lines can pull my focus, such as “I step on the brakes to get out of her clutches” from Elvis Costello’s “New Amsterdam.”

On the other hand, I still don’t know what Yes’s “Roundabout” is about; and I don’t really care, despite the fact that I love that song. It’s all about the music for me, when it comes to most progressive rock.

Best,

Geoff

[Guy Rowland]

there are times when a song has such a strong lyrical hook, fitting the melody just so, that I can't ignore it (say, Born In The USA)

Funnily enough, Born In The USA was a song that came up in our chat. It's a curious one - the overwhelming sledgehammer feeling is of American might and patriotism. What makes it particularly interesting though is that while it is a song beloved and embraced by what I'll call American Patriots, its actually an anti-war song. But honestly - the lyrics in the "verses" (does it even have a verse / chorus structure?) don't exactly leap out from the wall of noise.

Another example we talked about was Paula Cole's Where Have All The Cowboys Gone, which shares a popular misreading of what seems very obvious lyrics on the surface. Here, however, I really DO listen to the words - this is to me is a prime example of music supporting words seamlessly, and I think it's a work of satirical genius, a brilliant song in every regard.

It fascinates me when songs can do this, get through to someone as lyrically thick as me. I guess everything is subjective, but to me there are a few rarified songs which you can't but get their meaning and are both highly emotive, and speak to very common but very personal experiences. I'd put Coldplay's "Fix You" and Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn" into this category. These are both lightning-in-a-bottle songs. To take Coldplay, I couldn't tell you what most of their songs are actually about, and again I don't care all that much. They are the masters of mood though - songs like Paradise or Sky Full Of Stars are shamelessly "about" vague euphoria as far as I can tell, and there's no denying they work.

I agree with the comments on how wildly variable the importance of lyrics are - who cares what almost any dance music is about, whereas other forms of music lend themselves to real poetry. I think it's the latter that I feel most insecure about since they often wash over me and I feel terribly shallow (much as with poetry itself, I must confess).

[Ashermusic]

Many years ago, I got to chat with Don McLean when we were on the same telethon. He said that when the record company told them they were releasing “Vincent” as a single, he told them they were crazy, that nobody would understand he was talking about Van Gogh and his famous painting or would know necessarily about either.

They told him that the melody was so gorgeous nobody would care. As it turned out, they were right, although the lyrics are superb.

[Luciano Storti]

there are times when a song has such a strong lyrical hook, fitting the melody just so, that I can't ignore it (say, Born In The USA)

Funnily enough, Born In The USA was a song that came up in our chat. It's a curious one - the overwhelming sledgehammer feeling is of American might and patriotism. What makes it particularly interesting though is that while it is a song beloved and embraced by what I'll call American Patriots, its actually an anti-war song. But honestly - the lyrics in the "verses" (does it even have a verse / chorus structure?) don't exactly leap out from the wall of noise.

Yes. It doesn't help that the song is written like an anthem in the first place. Verses are what they are, but that hooky shout/melody. It was a mild shock to my childhood when later in life I finally *actually* listened to the lyrics, only to find the real meaning behind that hook.

[tack]

I'm with Bill in the "it depends" camp. There are some songs that are very clearly meant to be more about the story told by the lyrics than the music. A solid example is Gordon Lightfoot's The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald: the music is serviceable, pretty good even, but it's repetitive and doesn't develop -- but the lyrics and the story crafted by Lightfoot is absolutely captivating.

Meanwhile, Born in the USA is a great example of a song whose lyrics are white noise and it's all about the vibe.

[esoundcheck]

For me it really does depend on the song and genre like others have said. Sometimes I'm more drawn to the instrumental/production and other times the lyrics really grab me. It's interesting how differently people can hear the same song. I think part of the beauty of music is that it can mean something different to everyone and still connect us in some way.

[Arbee]

With a few exceptions, I couldn't recite many lyrics from many songs I've ever heard, but I could sing you the guitar or sax solo. I hear, and enjoy, the sonic profile of lyrics when it all locks together so cohesively with the melody and melodic rhythm, but the actual words usually just pass straight through me.

[Erik]

I’m in the « music first » team.
It’s even more troubling than that : for years I sang along english songs, or songs written in english, and they didn’t mean anything to me. I mean, I understood the words but they didn’t make sense to me. And later on, when they did finally meant something to my somewhat overloaded by music’s brain, I found them ridiculous, pathos induced, teenangst driven, unsubtle, whatever. Of course, not all of them, but many of my favorite artists.
There are many exceptions. The Divine Comedy, for instance. But I guess I tend toward observational songs more than romantic-love-« society is on the verge of melting down » ones.
A good friend of mine doesn’t like much of foreign songs and artists because he doesn’t grab their lyrics. And when we talk about one track or another, lyrics are where he weights his taste ; and more often than not we end up agreeing we don’t talk about the same thing.

[Ashermusic]

In his autobiography “Anyone Who Had A Heart” Burt Bacharach said that he never really appreciated how great Hal David’s lyrics were until much later. He just treated them as syllables to sing his notes.

He regretted it later.

[Guy Rowland]

Here's another interesting example - Drive, by the Cars. Likely the second you read that, you thought of starving children in Africa. Needless to say, that's not what the band had in mind when they wrote it, and indeed "Who's gonna drive you home tonight?" is utterly nonsensical in that context. EH?!

Yet I still well up. "We can't go on thinking nothing's wrong", with THAT music, over THOSE images touched a generation and it's now inseparable.

I love some songs sung in other languages, Erik. Again I invoke The Shawshank Redemption, Red talking about hearing Mozart's aria - "I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it".

Not just emotive beauty of course. "Wir fahren, fahren, fahren auf der Autobahn" sounds cool to Britons in a way that "We drive, drive, drive down the motorway" really doesn't. This, mind, from the band who solemnly sang "I'm the operator of my pocket calculator". Teutonic irony, perhaps - they loved it at the Tate Modern anyway.

If lyrics are over-literal, it can be excruciating. Lyrical is better. Vague, frankly, is better. Impose your own meaning.

[GR Baumann]

There are lyrics that live by the music.


There is music that lives by the lyrics.