Bad Lyrics
Occaisionally, rock lyrics are poetry, but most often, they're just words that are really only moving in conjunction with music. That's perfectly fine, because the lyrics don't have to stand on their own. How often do you sit around reading the lyrics to songs you aren't listening to? The words are part of a larger whole that (hopefully) moves us in some way. Lyrics that could truly stand on their own could even be disruptive to the cohesion of a song. That's not to say that all lyrics should be dummied down so as not to outshine the music. It's just to say that lyrics have to work within the song. But writing lyrics that are too good is typically the least of the rock songwriter's worries. At least as often as we get real poetry, we get real crap. I mean crap so bad that you can't even remember what the music is like, because you can't hear it over your own laughter.
Chuck and I had the good fortune of running across a prime example earlier today. What compelled us to listen to Alaska's "School Girl" escapes me now. Based on the title alone, I know we should have seen a lyric disaster barrelling toward us like a freight train. They hit us with this fine example of the worst rock has to offer first:
"Innocent smile, a tender touch,
I have to know if it's real girl.
To get your lovin' that I need so much,
I'd beg, borrow or steal, girl."
Forget that it's about underage girls and the lyrics are still rotten. Add the endorsement of statutory rape and it's appalling. When we thought it couldn't get worse, they just took it to the next level with this little gem that immediately followed:
"(unintelligible) showing, I can't get enough,
You've got me running for cover.
So don't refuse me, stop making it tough,
Because if I can't have you, I'll have your mother."
Brilliant, gentlemen. You're a regular bunch of geniuses. What is this obsession with underage girls anyway? Maybe that's a rock n roll embarrassment for another post. Right now, I have to go listen to something that has a point (or at least is so cryptic that I don't know it's as dumb as Alaska).
Chuck and I had the good fortune of running across a prime example earlier today. What compelled us to listen to Alaska's "School Girl" escapes me now. Based on the title alone, I know we should have seen a lyric disaster barrelling toward us like a freight train. They hit us with this fine example of the worst rock has to offer first:
"Innocent smile, a tender touch,
I have to know if it's real girl.
To get your lovin' that I need so much,
I'd beg, borrow or steal, girl."
Forget that it's about underage girls and the lyrics are still rotten. Add the endorsement of statutory rape and it's appalling. When we thought it couldn't get worse, they just took it to the next level with this little gem that immediately followed:
"(unintelligible) showing, I can't get enough,
You've got me running for cover.
So don't refuse me, stop making it tough,
Because if I can't have you, I'll have your mother."
Brilliant, gentlemen. You're a regular bunch of geniuses. What is this obsession with underage girls anyway? Maybe that's a rock n roll embarrassment for another post. Right now, I have to go listen to something that has a point (or at least is so cryptic that I don't know it's as dumb as Alaska).
posted by bob_vinyl at 11:31 PM
7 Comments:
Your post has me laughing out loud. You could continue on this particular topic for an endless number of posts, because it brings up so many things. "Don't Stand So Close To Me" is an obvious song that might walk the line between brilliance and buffoonary (is that a word? What about blogging encourages me to make up words)?
I am a lyrics person, maybe mostly because I am a writing person. I do always pull out the CD insert and open it up to see if I can find lyrics. More often than not anymore, artists don't seem to want to print their lyrics inside the CD . . . which involves a visit to the internet for me to determine what the hell they are saying.
I am biased, of course, because he is my very favorite artist, but I feel that, in general, Peter Gabriel is a great example of the marriage of music and poetry. An excellent example is the song Mercy Street from "So." There are others, but I will let you load your crossbow and take aim at that.
Thank you, Bob. Just being reminded of the sheer beauty and brilliance of those lyrics has given me today's first belly laugh.
Here's something to consider: If you make a tiny change to the line
"Innocent smile, a tender touch,
I have to know if it's real girl."
so it reads
"Innocent smile, a tender touch
I have to know if you're a real girl."
The song takes on a whole new mystique. It could be called "School Girl?", and could include something like this:
"Breating heavy, I reach up your skirt,
It's getting hotter and hotter,
I want you so bad, it's making me hurt,
My God, it's just like your father's!"
I'll not make any comments on the underage girls, that violates a condition of my probation.
However, I do want to talk about lyrics people and ... for lack of a better word... music people (I understand lyrics are part of the music).
I'm not a lyrics person at all (some exceptions, ala 2 Skinnie Jays or Blood Hound Gang... witty rap). Sometimes I won't hear the words to a song after 20 or 30 listenings. It's just not important to me. The feeling and mood of the song needs to come to me at a much more primal level. I like it when a song writer can turn a good lyric, or has a good hook I can sing along with, but the passion needs to be there first.
I have friends, however, who listen to music I think is completely sterile, studio, and standardized (I was going to sat formula, but I liked the s's). Upon questioning, it's always "listen to the words." At that point, I would much rather read them myself. Let me find the natural cadence and flow of the poem. Let me digest the words on the page myself. This could be why never liked the college coffee house poetry readings (well besides the bad poetry).
When I listen to The Who's Quadrophenia, I think it's near one of the best teen angst albums recorded. Every song you FEEL angry, sad, confused, or happy. The lyrics though... almost silly...
Up and say I'm green.
I've seen things you never seen.
Talk behind my back,
I'm off the beaten track...
or
I'm going back soon
Home to get the baboon.
Who cut up my eye,
Messed up my Levis.
There's just enough lyrics there to tell the story, but they are nowhere near as important as the wailing guitar, drums, bass or THE NOTES Roger is singing.
(Not to say there arn't any good lyrics in the album, I think ...
It's easy to see that you are one of us.
Ain't it funny how we all seem to look the same?
is one of the most honest observations of pop culture made in a song).
NIN Broken is in my opinion the most full of hate album ever written, the lyrics had so little to do with that they almost don't exist.
Achillies Last Stand is one of the most magical songs I've heard, the lyrics actually dissapointed me greatly when I first "listened" to them.
Is there a point to this post.. Not really... I was just hoping for some better insite as to why some lean more on the lyrics then the tune. 'Cause I don't get it.
Otter
I'm glad to see the previous post before mine bring up the Bloodhound Gang as their lyrics are some of the most hilarious (if not juvenile) but expertly concocted rhymes out there.
I was about to comment about how I've quietly read lyrics without the music in order to prep for band interviews...Norma Jean, Every Time I Die and Unearth being prime examples, because I like to try and probe the heads of the writers first, then set it to the music to see if there's the proper mood that launches the potency of the words, you know?
But then you took that spin with Alaska and that stole any bit of momentum I was going to build because it was so damned funny! It could be worse, though, always remember... Pick a song, ANY song by The Mentors... 'nuff said.
Otter,
I, too, am a music person. I've learned not to even read the lyrics.
U2, probably my favorite band ever, is a perfect example of a band that connects to me musically. Once I've established a solid connection with what the music is saying, only then can I go in and find a connection with the words. I completely dismissed All That You Cannot Leave Behind (or whatever that album was called) because I made the mistake of reading the lyrics before I heard the music. I thought the lyrics were so incredibly trite that I could never get beyond them. I might have liked the album had I not read the words first.
On the other hand, Achtung, Baby would probably top my personal, non-objective list of greatest rock albums. I spent months listening to it -- driving around in the car, listening at work, listening at home, listening at friend's houses -- before I ever concentrated on the words. By the time I got around to deciphering "Love is Blindness" or "Acrobat", I was already so intimately familiar with the spirit of the song that the words made perfect sense.
I posted about an Accept song on my site earlier today, and it's probably a similar thing. I loved that song in high school, but I never listened to the words. That may be part of the reason that I can hear it now, 20 years later, and find redeeming qualities in a band that is known for having terrible lyrics.
It's probably a little late for me to get in on this commentary, but I wanted to follow-up on Otter's post because I am likely to be the person he refers to as saying "listen to the lyrics."
To me lyrics are important not because they necessarily rival Wordsworth or Frost on a poetic level. Rather, to me the music serves to set the scene and mood, while the turn of phrase, as it were, is kind of the outlet for the emotion being expressed. It doesn't have to be some maudlin love song or some passionate ballad about suffering; it can be an expression of silliness or frustration or some of the "lesser" emotions. The lyric is important to me because it is the means through which I access the emotion. I think Otter and the rest of the music people access that emotion differently, so the words themselves are not important. (This is not to say that I don't like non-lyrical songs, I do, I just can't explain why in many circumstances.
My friends, when I was growing up, were incredible musicians, but were pretty poor lyricists because they would just try to fit words into a piece - even some words that on paper were pretty solic - and then try to (my words) sing emotion into the words. This always struck me as the wrong approach. Lyrics are important because they are a vehicle for the emotive aspect of the song. They must, in and of themselves, express something, but they must also express what the music is about. My friends used to fall victim to writing a song that was full of the joy of them jamming and then try to fit within that framework some introspective lyrics that discussed the tragedy of the human condition or some weird intellectual concept. The lyrics should have also expressed something of the joy of the musical aspect of the song.
Two examples of people that I think fall victim to this (Big revered stars) are Nick Cave and Frank Zappa. Two very different styles, which I hope demonstrates the subjective point I'm trying to make. To me, each of these artists was really hit or miss because the intersection of the feeling of the lyrics and the feeling of the music rarely intersected. I think because my focus is on the lyrics, I never appreciated the quality of the music. Especially Zappa, who mocked me in particular with his Album "Over-nite Sensation," which I believe had the subheading "Frank Zappa sells out" (paraphrased). He clearly had me nailed because that is the only album of his that I really liked. I liked it because I think he knew exactly what I was thinking, and was easily capable of crafting songs that fit my model - he just was more focused on some experimental work.
Anyway, some more insight with respect to me in particular. I don't know whether to be embarassed or not about this, but one of the things that goes on in my head when listening to a song is that I separate the artist from the work and insert myself instead. I guess, though it is not that simple, I pretend I am singing the song - that I wrote it based on my experience. That means that a lot of times, I don't dig a song, because I wouldn't have said that. I wouldn't play that song at my show. A bad lyric can ruin an otherwise good song for me. People like Ol' Otter don't understand that because that is not how they put the song together in their heads.
Anyway, while I'm as musically aware as the next guy, whenever I try to listen to just the baseline or just the guitar, I'm lying to myself about what makes that song cool. I think that is different to musicians (and musicians at heart) because they really derive a lot of joy from their ability to do that. I don't, which means that any time I try to list the greatest guitarist or drummer or bassist, I'm reall just being a poser.
Sorry for rambling on so long, but this is a really interesting thread to me. It hits home in a lot of ways, and has prompted me to look further at the issue of why I like this song, but not that one.
Thanks,
Kid Handsome
I’m listening to Kiss’ “Dressed to Kill” and I’m cracking up after all these years about the line where his “Room Service” muse (ha) has her dad getting mad because he know’s Paul’s in need of some room service…baby I could use a meal, we’ll do what you feel, I take the pleasure with the pain, I can’t say no… So how old is his “maid?” The inference is that Paul’s robbing the cradle. Too funny!
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