Lyrics
The church (Catholic, silly) once feared that the lyrical content of any hymn would be ignored in favor of the sounds coming from the instruments. Even to this day, musicians have the same complaint. Some of them choose to voice their concerns in their songs. Blues Traveler's Hook is one such song. Although I'm not a musician, I can understand why a musician would get upset about this. They often work as hard, if not harder on the lyrical content to a song than they do on the instrumental portion. Even worse is when a musician writes very personal lyrics and then later comes up with the instrumental support only to find that no one seems to appreciate the lyrics. It must drive some of them nuts.
I imagine it's usually not a big problem for most musicians though. Songs with sad lyrics usually sound sad too. Songs about sunshine and lollipops usually sound like sunshine and lollipops. However, there are occasions where the feel of a song and its lyrics don't match.
I started thinking about this as I listened to one of my favorite songs. Zero7's Somersault. Sia's talents as a singer certainly aren't wasted on the track. The song has a very strong feeling of love. You certainly believe she's in love. Unfortunately the lyrical content doesn't back it up. Feeding other people's parking meters and giving your significant other a jellybean doesn't exactly prove to anyone how awesome you are. A friend pointed out that Pearl Jam's Better Man is a song about a woman who won't leave an abusive relationship. The same friend also pointed out that people at the Pearl jam concert were dancing with their boy/girlfriends to this song. That's a little bit weird. There are plenty of examples of the lyrical content not matching the feel of the song. The 70's, country music, and 70's country music are filled with them, but my favorite example comes from the 80's. The Human League's Don't You Want Me? is a favorite dance song of many, but the thing is that it's an argument between the male and female singers! Just pretend for a minute that you were at their concert and there there was no musical accompaniment and they weren't arguing to a beat. It would be very awkward for you to be there to listen to this. You'd probably start thinking of an excuse to leave!
I'm not some sort of a lyrics snob. I enjoy my bubblegum pop as well as my serious stuff with a meaning, but sometimes the inconsistency between the lyrics and the feel of a song is really fascinating. I wonder if there's a formal name for it...
posted by SumThing @ 9:42 PM
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