Music vs. Lyrics

I love music, and I sort of believe there are two type of music fans: those that love the lyrics and those that love the music (i.e. everything besides the lyrics). Now, I know some of you are going to say that you like both; it’s not either/or situation. Yes, yes, that can be true, but I think deep down most people who like music gravitate towards one or the other. That is, they like music primarily for the music or for the lyrics.

In some ways I think that actual music reflects this. When you think of music with really interesting lyrics, the music part isn’t so rich. The music that tends to have really rich and complex melodies, harmonies and rhythms tend to be instrumental or contain simpler, less interesting music. Listening to songs/music that is with both rich/complex lyrics and music is very rare, I think.

For me, I’m definintely I prefer the non-lyrical components of music—hence, I like instrumental music the best. I can often enjoy a pop/rock song without understanding the lyrics at all. I also find paying attention to both the meaning of the lyrics and the music very difficult. It feels like these are functions that require separate parts of my brain that cannot function well at the same time.

So what do you all think? Do you agree? If so, are you more drawn to the lyrics or the non-lyrical elements (Sorry, there’s gotta be a better way to express the latter, but I can’t think of any off the top of my head.)

“What comes first
The music
OR
The words?”

I have to say that having grown up with a lot of instrumental music around, I tend to not listen much to lyrics. Therefore, I come up with the most hilariously WRONG ideas about them – the actual words – it’s the source of an ongoing joke with people I’m close to. Also I’ve been known to pick songs without listening to lyrics and then find out that the lyrics exactly match what I was thinking when I picked the song, and what it’s about. Sometimes. Kinda creepy.

Completely contingent on what type of music I’m listening to.

Misheard lyyrics –
Excuse me while I kiss this guy

I tend to like lyrics that create images rather than adjectival blandishments and mainly clichéd feelings. I think. Maybe i’m basing that on the Bernie Taupin lyrics which work for me. But i find it hard to understand how so many apparently intelligent music critics can wax quite so er lyric-al about lyrics which taken alone without music seem hardly examples of literary genius. Leonard Cohen is excellent but with most pop-rock lyricists, come on, it’s pretty basic stuff, it’s more the music that brings it alive. I remember Melvyn Bragg on the South Bank Show interviewing Billy Joel and seeking out (in his usual intellectual poseur style) the deep arty meanings in his lyrics when it was obvious there was no great depth there. That wasn’t Joel’s fault but Bragg’s

I gravitate towards the music first and the lyrics are in the back burner. However, I much prefer lyrical songs to instrumentals. For me, it’s not so much of what’s being said, but how it’s said. The composition of the words. Do the words coalesce with the music to form one beautiful entity? There in lies the predictor of whether I’ll like a song or not. A singer’s voice becomes another instrument. And there are times when a voice can really bother me and I just can’t stand the song. I can’t stand Nico’s voice for example, so I can’t really get into Velvet Underground. Matt Berniger’s voice also doesn’t strike a cord with me (The National).

But again, the primary attribute I look to is great music first, everything else comes second.

Patti Smith’s Horses is a case where the music and lyrics and vocals combined make it so much more powerful and mesmerizing, it takes it all to another plane.

great music first, everything else comes second.

Yes, Patti Smith of course is among the best. A poet having great fun becoming a rock star, very infectious

@Kenji

But i find it hard to understand how so many apparently intelligent music critics can wax quite so er lyric-al about lyrics which taken alone without music seem hardly examples of literary genius. Leonard Cohen is excellent but with most pop-rock lyricists, come on, it’s pretty basic stuff, it’s more the music that brings it alive.

Well, I don’t know. I’m reminded of some interviews of Steven Sondheim that I heard recently. He mentioned something to the effect that lyrics don’t necessarily stand by themselves. They work with the music—which also means they can’t be “overpower” the music as well. So, I don’t think the lyrics have to stand by themselves to be great.

@Malik

Oh, you’re copping out, young man. :) Seriously, I think we have different moods and sometimes we want different things from music, but I tend to believe that if you really think about it, you’ll find that you gravitate towards one or the other. Well, maybe you’re the exception.

@Glem

Another good topic: vocalists whose voice you can’t stand. Me: Geddy Lee of Rush. Good music, but I don’t listen to them because of his voice.

@Odi

Also I’ve been known to pick songs without listening to lyrics and then find out that the lyrics exactly match what I was thinking when I picked the song, and what it’s about. Sometimes. Kinda creepy.

Well, it sort of makes sense. The music and singing should fit the lyrics, so it’s not so odd that you’re impressions of the lyrics were correct, right?

>>Listening to songs/music that is with both rich/complex lyrics and music is very rare<<

I actively seek out bands that excel at both, so I don’t find it that rare at all. Looking at the classic rock “canon,” the best don’t have to choose:

The Beatles
Bruce Springsteen
The Kinks
The Who
Bob Dylan
The Rolling Stones
Neil Young
David Bowie
Elvis Costello
The Clash

ect.

@Brad

I guess this is relative. Compared to typical pop/rock music, perhaps, those bands you mentioned offer very rich and complex music. But I think I’d question some of your choices in terms of providing rich and complex music, the Stones and Kinks, for example. I’m hardly familiar with all of their stuff, but they essentially play rock, and not of the prog rock variety, right? That is not to say the music is bad. I like a lot of rock/pop music, but, by nature, the music is generally pretty simple.

Now, if you compare that to classical music or jazz, I think, in general, there’s little comparison when it comes to musical richness or complexity. Think of the harmonies and melodies and the ways these are developed. Again, one is not better than the other, but they’re diferent.

We’re coming from very different places on this, Jazz. For me the simplicity of straight ahead rock n roll is a vast musical achievement, more vital than much more elaborate arrangements. While both the Stones and Kinks did eventually grow more complex, the guitar riffs from Satisfaction and You Really Got Me have genius in them. Even more basic 50’s rock (Chuck Berry for example) say much more for me than Yes or The Moody Blues ever have. (which is not to say I dislike prog rock, but I’m comparing here.)

I never compare pop/rock to classical or jazz. That’s such a different form that its like comparing painting to sculpture.

@Jazz – yeah I guess you’re right. But it still freaks me out.

GLEMAUD: “I can’t stand Nico’s voice for example, so I can’t really get into Velvet Underground”

Nico sang only in 3 (out of 11) songs from the first (out of 7(?) studio albums by Velvet Underground, so I don’t think her voice could be an obstacle to getting into their music. An obstacle would be not liking Lou Reed’s voice :)

@Brad

I don’t think I’m talking about value judgments—i.e. more complex/rich music is better than less complex/rich. I love a lot of music that can be considered relatively simple—both in terms of lyrics and the music. Perhaps, I should frame the discussion this way—as lyrics become more complex/rich, the music has to be less so—or vice-versa. Or let me put it this way: if the lyrics require a lot of attention to appreciate, the music can’t also require a lot of attention and concentration—or vice-versa. Would you agree with that?

@Janitor

Call it stubbornness, but once I’m turned off, no matter what, I’ll stay turned off. I later learned that Nico actually didn’t have much of an impact on Velvet Underground’s music, but since the first song I heard was with Nico, I’m opposed to all their music.

I’m weird like that.

@ Jazz

First, I’ll agree with you, then I’ll disagree. :)

Leonard Cohen is a poet first and foremost. While he also creates beautiful melodies, he takes care to ensure his lyrics are front and center. Early REM is an aural experience by design and their lyrics were purposefully muddled to take a back seat to the musical arrangements. I love both these artists, but this is only one approach.

Now pick any of the following songs: The Beatles’ Strawberry Fields Forever, Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run, Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Waters, The Rolling Stone’s Sympathy for the Devil, Prince’s When Doves Cry. (I’m choosing popular songs for common ground, but could easily pick countless deep cuts or lesser known artists.)

You could read any of these lyrics and gain an appreciation for the poetry involved, but your experience would be incomplete. Similarly, just listening to the music without the lyrics would rob these songs of their richness. These songs (and so many others) are masterpieces because of the synthesis of music and lyric. I find this true of most (not all) of the music I love. That’s why I balk at separating the two parts of the whole.

@Brad

These songs (and so many others) are masterpieces because of the synthesis of music and lyric.

I basically agree with this (although I’m not sure I’d use “masterpiece”); indeed, I say something similar in a post above. But this doesn’t refute my point about simple-complexity relationship (simpler music must accompany complex lyrics and vice-versa).

I would suggest that all the examples I gave are both musically and lyrically “complex” (not the perfect word for this, but close enough.) Do you disagree with that assessment of those songs or are they not as effective for you because of it?

@ Glemaud

I appreciate weirdness. It just came as a surprise to me of all reasons to dismiss VU’s music, you chose that one. It’s like dismissing a director’s entire oeuvre just because in the debut feature there was an actor in the supporting role that you don’t like :))

Otherwise, to the thread what can I say – music comes first, but good lyrics are always a bonus to be welcome.

@Brad

I would suggest that all the examples I gave are both musically and lyrically “complex” (not the perfect word for this, but close enough.) Do you disagree with that assessment of those songs or are they not as effective for you because of it?

No, I guess I don’t find the lyrics and music really complex (although, I think most of the songs you list are really good—and maybe the lyrics would be on the more “complex”). Let me specify what I mean by “complex.” I think what I mean primarily is the effort and attention required by the listener to fully appreciate the music. With lyrics, that can mean something as simple as trying to understand the lyrics (as some vocalists sing in an unintelligble fashion) or something more complex as following a story and/or interpreting the meaning of the lyrics.

With music, the effort required to hear how the melody and harmony develop over the course of the song; how the musicians arrange the instruments to express these developments; and even the way these instruments interact with each other during the performance. For example, when I’m listening to jazz, I’m paying attention to the individual musicians—and their individual function. The rhythm section forms a “team within a team” and I pay attention to how they’re interacting with each other. I also listen to way the rhythm section interacts with the soloist at the time. I’m listening in the moment as things happen and it requires quite a bit of attention. (I do this with rock/pop groups, too, but usually the interactions are a little more limited and rigid, so it doesn’t require as much concentration on my part.) Most of the songs you mentioned don’t have really rich, complex music coming from the rhythm section, nor do the melody, harmony and rhythm develop in ways that require a whole lot of attention to repeat. (The form is fairly simple with repeating parts.)

I love both music and lyrics, if the lyrics are any good. Had you asked me the same question at 18, I would have totally agreed with you. I only cared about music, but that’s changed as my mind has grown more verbally sensitive. It’s not just about what lyrics mean but how the words sound in conjunction with the music. In that sense, they become part of the music’s rhythm. Thom Yorke has said he often picks words just because he likes the sound of them. :) Good lyrics also plant imagery in your head that enhances the aural experience. Appreciating gpod lyrics has made my experience of popular music that much richer.

I disagree with Kenji in that I don’t believe lyrics have to stand on their own as poetry to be good. A lot of good lyrics will seem overly earnest or simplistic when you strip away the music, but that’s because they’re meant to resonate in a more raw, direct way.

Btw, none of this shift in my thinking was a forced decision to pay more attention to lyrics. It came naturally as I got older.

Some of my favorite lyricists:

Bob Dylan
Leonard Cohen
Bruce Springsteen

Also, to a somewhat lesser extent:

Radiohead
Joy Division
Elliott Smith

Here’s a sample of lyrics I consider good, bearing in mind that they don’t stand up as well without the music:

Waltz #1 by Elliott Smith: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qNuGj6uAyg)

Every time the day darkens down and goes away
Pictures open in my head of me and you
Silent and cliche, all the things we did and didn’t say
Covered up by what we did and didn’t do
Going through every out i used to cop to make the repetition stop
What was I supposed to say?

Now I never leave my zone, we’re both alone
I’m going home
I wish I’d never seen your face

“Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen:

Beyond the Palace hemi-powered drones
Scream down the boulevard
Girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors
And the boys try to look so hard
The amusement park rises bold and stark
Kids are huddled on the beach in the mist

“The Sisters of Mercy” by Leonard Cohen

Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone.
They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can’t go on.
And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song.
Oh I hope you run into them, you who’ve been travelling so long.

Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control.
It begins with your family, but soon it comes around to your soul.
Well I’ve been where you’re hanging, I think I can see how you’re pinned:
When you’re not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you’ve sinned.

Well they lay down beside me, I made my confession to them.
They touched both my eyes and I touched the dew on their hem.
If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn
they will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.

“Chelsea Hotel” by Leonard Cohen:

I rremember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
you were talking so brave and so sweet,
giving me head on the unmade bed,
while the limousines wait in the street.
Those were the reasons and that was New York,
we were running for the money and the flesh.
And that was called love for the workers in song
probably still is for those of them left.

Ah but you got away, didn’t you babe,
you just turned your back on the crowd,
you got away, I never once heard you say,
I need you, I don’t need you,
I need you, I don’t need you
and all of that jiving around.

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend.
You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
you fixed yourself, you said, “Well never mind,
we are ugly but we have the music.”

“Shadowplay” by Joy Division:

In the shadowplay acting out your own death, knowing no more
As the assassins all grouped in four lines, dancing on the floor
And with cold steel, odour on their bodies made a move to connect
I could only stare in disbelief as the crowds all left

@ Glemaud — The composition of the words. Do the words coalesce with the music to form one beautiful entity?

Exactly! Although, I think I appreciate meaning just as much, if there’s any meaning to be had.

@Glemaud — But Nico only sang a small sample of the Velvet Underground’s songs. Most of their best songs are sung by Lou Reed.

@Jazz:
Well, I don’t know. I’m reminded of some interviews of Steven Sondheim that I heard recently. He mentioned something to the effect that lyrics don’t necessarily stand by themselves. They work with the music—which also means they can’t be “overpower” the music as well. So, I don’t think the lyrics have to stand by themselves to be great.

Yep, this is what I was getting at.

Also a lot of classic musicals and the jazz standards they inspired have excellent lyrics. It’s sad how under-appreciated the classic era musicals are today:

“I’ve Grown Accustomed to her Face,” from Fair Lady

Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn!
I’ve grown accustomed to her face.
She almost makes the day begin.
I’ve grown accustomed to the tune
That she whistles night and noon.
Her smiles, her frowns,
Her ups, her downs
Are second nature to me now,
Like breathing out and breathing in.

I was serenly independent
And content before we met.
Surely I could always be that way again – and yet,
I’ve grown accustomed to her look,
Accustomed to her voice,
Accustomed to her face.

(Spoken)
Marry Freddy. What an infantile idea. What a heartless,
wicked, brainless thing to do. But she’ll regret it. It’s
doomed before they even take the vow.

I can see her now, Mrs. Freddy Eynsford-Hill,
In a wretched little flat above a store.
I can see her now, not a penny in the till,
And a bill collector beating at the door.
She’ll try to teach the things I taught her,
And end up selling flowers instead.
Begging for her bread and water,
While her husband has his breakfast in bed.

In a year or so, when she’s prematurely grey,
And the blossom in her cheek has turned to chalk,
She’ll come home and lo,
He’ll have upped and run away,
With a social-climbing heiress from New York.
Poor Eliza. How simply frightful!
How humiliating! How delightful!

How poignant it’ll be on that inevitable night
When she hammers on my door in tears and rags.
Miserable and lonely, repentant and contrite,
Will I take her in or hurl her to the walls?
Give her kindness or the treatment she deserves?
Will I take her back or throw the baggage out?

But, I’m a most forgiving man,
The sort who never could, never would,
Take a position and staunchly never budge.
A most forgiving man.

But I shall never take take her back
If she were even crawling on her knees.
Let her promise to atone,
Let her shiver, let her moan,
I’ll slam the door and let the hell-cat freeze!

Marry Freddy, HA!

But I’m so used to hear her day,
“Good morning” ev’ry day.
Her joys, her woes,
Her highs, her lows,
Are second nature to me now,
Like breathing out and breathing in.

I’m very grateful she’s a woman,
And so easy to forget, rather like a habit
One can always break – and yet,
I’ve grown accustomed to the trace,
Of something in the air,
Accustomed to her face.

@ Kate – Awesome choices!

@ Jazz – Don’t know why I didn’t start out with this question, since its clear we’re not seeing eye to eye, even as far as definitions go, but can you throw out a few examples of songs where the music is so complex that it impedes appreciation for the lyrics.