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| Why are lyrics vapid in isolation?
Some musings/analysis on a question that's bothered me for a while. Stemmed from me telling friends about good lyrics and wondering why it felt a lot more profound in my head. TL;DR for you lazy heads at the bottom.
List are albums with great lyrics that emphasise my points. | | 1 |  | There Will Be Fireworks
The Dark, Dark Bright
Have you ever tried to explain to someone why a particular lyric is especially profound, beautiful, meaningful and has brought you to the point of tears? You’re animated, passionate and convinced that the receiver will understand exactly the cocktail of emotions a few sung words made you feel. Only… they don’t. They look unimpressed, despite you repeating the lyrics word for word. And even when you say it out loud, it doesn’t quite ring the same; the emotional power just… isn’t there. As if it’s evaporated into thin air and occasionally you think actually, those lyrics don’t quite sound so good now that I’ve spoken it out loud. | | 2 |  | Enter Shikari
The Spark
Well I have and I’ve bored countless friends over the years but all this has left an important question circulating in my thoughts and comes to mind: Why do lyrics have so much more impact when sung and with the backing of music? Well here’s a non-academic analysis by some dude on the internet. | | 3 |  | Kishi Bashi
Omoiyari
I think it’s safe to say that vocal communication in a void has minimal meaning, as highlighted from the above anecdote. Naturally, some information is being processed by default but on its own it may feel hollow and lifeless. This perhaps makes sense if we use the idea that only 7% of communication is verbal. By that logic, a lyric out of context without the singing or background music (or lack of) is only 7% as powerful as the memory you have in your head. This would at least explain the look of ‘… it’s not that deep, mate’ that seems a common response in my experience. | | 4 |  | Katie Pruitt
Expectations
Sound is one of our strongest innate forms of communication, hardwired to interpret certain timbres and inflections to convey various meaning. We can certainly FEEL the weight and emotion behind vocal dynamics and similarly, the intended emotions conveyed through any instrument. The interpretation will differ between tastes and cultures but for the most part, I’d say music has a unique way of translating a feeling through empathy from artist to listener. To take away the musical element is to rob the human emotion from the message. | | 5 |  | Thantifaxath
Thantifaxath
But hang on, instrumental music can be equally and often more effective without vocals and yes this is something I completely agree with. However, I would argue whilst the experience is equally as rewarding, it’s not entirely equal. Instrumental music can portray beautiful emotions but will be more dependent on interpretation of the listener to contextualise the mood and atmosphere. Some emotions certainly lend themselves to interpretation better, especially those that are raw and intense. I can’t see the black metal community, for instance, disagreeing with this point. | | 6 |  | SZA
Ctrl
And here’s where lyrics brings its own value: it contextualises the music and vocal delivery into a less ambiguous story or concept. This still allows room for our own interpretation but in a much more focused way, with the preferred openness of interpretation dependent on listener preferences. The plot is written but you get to choose the mise-en-scene, the characters and all the minute things that your imagination allows. That smooth crooning voice I’ve been listening to is yearning… but for what? Well for that girl in the black dress and now I see my own version in my head too. Probably why when the lyrics and the music don’t match up, it can feel, for lack of a better word, cringe (too many trap artists, unfortunately). | | 7 |  | Touche Amore
Stage Four
Conclusion/TL;DR:
Music is an inherently empathetic communication tool and conveys all the necessary feeling on its own. Lyrics provide context to the vocal delivery and backing music eliminating some of the ambiguous interpretation of what the music and vocals may infer. It assigns emotion to every word sung and crafts a story, one we can empathise with and relish in an understanding experience through our own imagination. | |
ChoccyPhilly
07.25.20 | c'mon lads, lets get some DISCUSSION in this house.
Or else i'll go to reddit and see what they think, even if their opinion is inferior | budgie
07.25.20 | disagree with your tldr because the only lyrics i like are ambiguous | ChoccyPhilly
07.25.20 | see point 6.
Although I wasnt clear about that in the tl;dr so I've updated it, cheers | budgie
07.25.20 | well now what am i supposed to disagree with | budgie
07.25.20 | asshole | bgillesp
07.25.20 | Feature this. Neat thinky thing. | avery14th
07.25.20 | I really like this. I had a moment when I was in a band rehearsing for a gig, and we were playing obstacle 1 by interpol, one of my favorite songs (for some sentimental reasons, but also because its a damn good song imo). Point being, the lyrics meant quite a bit to me. The singer, also a good friend of mine, was looking over the lyrics and going "wow these are awful" and started repeating them out loud and... yeah they sounded a bit silly in that context. I tried to argue, but like what can I say other than well I just really like them? this list explains it fairly well though. Cool read. I especially noticed this kind of thing when I got more into poetry and realized the potential of the beauty in words is 99% of the time barely even touched by lyrics on their own. | Sowing
07.25.20 | Great discussion topic idea | Jots
07.26.20 | most music lyrics are not that good imo and tbh the *feel* of the song lends more to me enjoying it. there’s a certain art to good lyrics I guess but if you spend enough time reading (poems, short stories), most lyrics become less and less impressive. | Jots
07.26.20 | I didn’t read your blurbs yet but at a glance I’m suspecting I’ll agree(?) | Jots
07.26.20 | so to answer your question, most lyrics are vapid in isolation because most lyrics are.. well, kinda vapid. | ChoccyPhilly
07.26.20 | Poetry is an interesting shout. I suppose it relies on crafting a contained atmosphere to deliver the message, whereas in music, the musical element IS the atmosphere. So then the lyrics dont need to be so descriptive and can be more blunt in its expression, making it a bit strange if read with no context.
I dunno, I'm hardly well versed in poetry. Can someone more qualified than me refute this? | Jots
07.26.20 | I don’t really like poetry as a medium lol, but I mean objectively speaking a decent poet is better with wordplay than like 99% of rock songwriters | Lord(e)Po)))ts
07.26.20 | isolation got tay swizz singing about mouth fuckin' so i dnno what u guys are on about | ChoccyPhilly
07.26.20 | Lol fuck I did not realise the title could be read like that, nice one pots | Lord(e)Po)))ts
07.26.20 | on a serious note tho i think this concept is particularly apparent in certain genres and much less so in others. metal adjacent lyrics particularly seem written with absolutely zero or very elementary level poetic, artistic, or literary etc consideration. case 1:
PULL
HARDER
STRINGS
MARTYR
well written hip-hop on the other hand can he read in isolation while retaining much more value in that regards because it is actually specifically written with those things in mind and is the literal intersection between music and poetry. case 2:
the entirety of "The Return To Innocence Lost" by the Roots | avery14th
07.26.20 | thread is getting better and better to read so ima come back to this but i have nothing more 2 contribute intelligently. hip hop is an important point tho | budgie
07.26.20 | It's like that and it's like this
I took her to tha pad and we started tah kiss
Now my dick's on hard ya know what I'm thinkin'
Took tha panties off and the pussy wasn't stinkin'
Pulled off my draws and we started to begin
Now tha pussy's wet so my dick slides in | Lord(e)Po)))ts
07.26.20 | hip hop is also important so that turbo virgins like budgie can imagine getting laid | Kompys2000
07.26.20 | A point my friend brought up a while ago that I like to parrot is that music can make a bad joke into an okay joke and an okay joke into a great joke
Lyrics don't usually stand well on their own because they aren't usually written to stand well on their own | bloc
07.26.20 | Songs are all about the sum of their parts | deathofasalesman
07.26.20 | I stayed far away from Father John Misty because I was told how profound his lyrics were. Just sounded like a whiny white dude, complaining about being sad. But then I'll listen to another whiny white dude and think he's brilliant so...eh.
I remember the time I connected on a lyrical moment with a friend through The Smith Street Band. We listened high as fuck to the lyrics of "The Arrogance of the Drunk Pedestrian" and it just hit him in the gut, just like it did to me. That was pretty cool. Haven't talked to him in years. | TheSpaceMan
07.27.20 | awesome list. and the answer is cause context | theBoneyKing
07.27.20 | 1’s lyrics are vapid in context too | TheSpaceMan
07.27.20 | FATALITY | sixdegrees
07.27.20 | disagree | Ryus
07.27.20 | 1 is just bad in general | Lord(e)Po)))ts
07.27.20 | 1's band name alone should be enough to tell you they gonna be shit | ChoccyPhilly
07.27.20 | "answer is cause context" Of course, but I just wanted to explore and elaborate on that idea.
re: poetry and hip hop. Totally agree with everything that's been said. Think that's why i struggled for so many years to connect with hip hop. I always go into music trying to connect with the sound first and then the lyrics but hip hop doesnt work that way, especially 90s hiphop | EphemeralEternity
07.28.20 | why don't actors look as badasss when you see them in front of a green screen with a sound boom dangling over them?
It's about the context, plus your friends have been force fed the lyrics they haven't connected with them the same way you did | solrage
07.28.20 | Long, serious reply ahead:
I actually spent much of my 20s writing/studying poetry, and one of the chapters in a poetry textbook had us analyzing song lyrics with/without the music and comparing it with written poetry. The general idea is that in poetry (and regular literature, to an extent) you don't have sound or visuals to enhance anything so the language has to do all the work of evoking and expressing the emotions, ideas, etc. So all the devices of poetry--sound, rhyme, line, form, rhetoric, metaphor, symbolism, figures of speech, etc.--are all there to convey that.
In music it's entirely different. Music evokes and expresses emotion in its own right and by itself. You don't even need lyrics to do that, though you're correct that without lyrics the emotions of music tend to be more ambiguous (though there are general agreements; minor keys tend to be sadder than major keys, chromaticism and modulation is used to create tension, tonics are used to resolve tension, etc.). It helps to think of a hybrid medium like opera, that's a mix of drama and music. In the best operas, the music exists to enhance, express, contradict, commentate on, narrate, etc. what's happening in the drama. So you can tie musical ideas to characters or events, you can use music to express emotion that's not directly being expressed, or to parody/satirize what's being expressed, etc.
Pt. 1 | solrage
07.28.20 | Pt. 2
There are several ideas that follow from this. One is that, because music is doing most of the heavy lifting in terms of emotion, aesthetics, etc., the words don't have to do all the work. The vast majority of opera doesn't work as drama the same way most lyrics don't work as poetry. The great 20th century poet WH Auden actually wrote opera librettos, and he said one thing he learned from his first to his last was that the more poetic the libretto, the more it clashed with the music. So by the time he wrote one his last librettos, The Rake's Progress for Igor Stravinsky, he's learned to keep the language extremely plain so that the music could do all the work. The words become like vague outlines of a painting that the composer is then able to fully paint using the music.
Popular music is like opera, except instead of being drama+music it's more lyric poetry+music, but the basic idea is the same. Lyrics can (perhaps even should) be plain so that the music has the ability to color their meaning. A simple way of putting it is that it's not WHAT's said, but HOW it's said. In poetry, "how it's said" is all about the devices mentioned above, but in songs the "how it's said" is all about the music. The music is what determines whether a line is meant seriously or ironically, whether it's bitter or regretful or mournful or defiant or whatever. Reading lyrics without the music would be like listening to a movie without watching it. Sure, maybe you'll get the basic idea of what the film is about, but you're defeating the purpose of how it's meant to be experienced.
Finally, the simple reason lyrics seem profound when heard with music is precisely because the music is dictating the emotional reaction you're having to them. You may THINK you're just reacting to profound lyrics, but what you're really reacting to is the profound impression the music is making on those lyrics. It's not like literature is much different. Rewrite Hamlet's To Be or Not to Be soliloquy and you can get the same meaning but lose all of the power: "is it better to exist or not? Is it better to suffer life's shit or just kill myself? Dying is just sleeping, and if I'm dead I won't have to put up with crap anymore. Seems like something everyone would want, just sleeping forever. But what about what comes after death? Yeah, that's what makes everyone afraid of it..." etc. Not nearly as profound now, is it? | robertsona
07.28.20 | this is a good idea for a thread, I'll have to think about it. I will say that some of my friends pick up lyrics the first go around and are able to think about them whereas I never catch lyrics until way later, if ever | avery14th
07.29.20 | nice read solrage. came back here to see if anyone gave any other interesting take and lo and behold | Trundle
07.30.20 | I've really gotten into Nick Cave & the bad seeds older stuff,
but ya the whole minimalism on Skeleton Tree + the lyrics just made me cringe | solrage
07.31.20 | Thanks, avery. | ChoccyPhilly
07.31.20 | yeah man, that was the response I wanted rather than 'cuz context". Think I can die in peace now that this is largely resolved but i will refute one thing:
"You may THINK you're just reacting to profound lyrics, but what you're really reacting to is the profound impression the music is making on those lyrics."
I might disagree with this and place more emphasis on the lyrics themselves too. Simply put, you might play me the most beautiful, meaningful melody man has known, whose emotion is as clear as day but if the lyrics don't really fit then it feels... off. I've never really liked when overly happy music has sad lyrics. Always felt it made the music feel a bit disingenuous. So to say my impression is purely on the music isnt quite right in my mind.
I would argue good lyrics create the context and the music provides the emotional context of said story, rather than vice versa. However, this is wholly optional as a lot of us can just ignore the lyrics and let the music itself tell the story. | Jots
07.31.20 | I feel like solrage said what I was sorta leaning into but obv more eloquently and learned | Lord(e)Po)))ts
07.31.20 | I didnt read what solrage said but what solrage said [3] | Jots
07.31.20 | he’s my alt | ChoccyPhilly
08.01.20 | Yeah solrage put this thread to bed | ArsMoriendi
08.01.20 | I feel like a lot of lyrics I've looked up while not listening to a song still felt deep
Maybe you're paying attention to the lyrics of the wrong songs, Choccy | ChoccyPhilly
08.01.20 | Hard disagree tbh, most lyrics seem to follow this rule or maybe you just get off with mediocre lyrics | ArsMoriendi
08.01.20 | Listen to more singer/songwriter types, Patti Smith's 70s work is always a good choice
Or like Potsy said: hip hop should work too |
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