Do You Identify With Lyrics, And Ifso, How?

i identify w/regulate by warren g

from another thread:

For years I read fiction and poetry with the expectation that “connections” with the material were besides the point. I’d empathize with characters and scenarios and study the prose rhythms and mimic them in my own work but that’s it. When I told a friend I was reading George Eliot and h/she would say “Ugh, no, I can’t relate,” I’d recoil. I’d think “What does that have to do with anything? Can’t you use your imagination and enter this complicated mid 19th century rural world?”

When I accepted my sexuality I realized these responses were in part stunted. For some novels and poems my neutrality stemmed from my inability to point at a heterosexual romance and “relate” to it. To some extent I still do it and as some of you know I’m still loath to consider intentions as a valid way to judge work, but I’m aware. For a gay Hispanic man in his thirties the act of reading demands a constant negotiation among contrary impulses, animal curiosity about the way literature is assembled, and awareness of privilege. I still have a lot to learn.

Lyrics are both more and less complicated. "Less" because thanks to my graduate degree from the Bernard Sumner School of Verse Writing I trust a vocalist's timbre (at the very least) and an eye for the arresting image regardless of logic, "more" because I admire many songwriters precisely because their lyrics serve the music and are beautiful in their own right.

"Relating" to them is another matter entirely.

as soon as i began writing songs, i also began identifying with the writer of any song i heard. we used to have lengthy discussions in my band about whether the drums should be mixed from the drummer's perspective (snare and hat on the left, floor tom on the right) or the audience perspective (i.e. the reverse). our drummer would fight for the former; the rest of us would want the latter. in the end, who really cares?, but that was basically the drummer wanting to identify with himself. i identify with writers and with singers, who, if they're not the same person, often are the writer's avatar. i like to insert myself in any song as i like as writer and performer, which is to say, i don't think i'm identifying with the lyric so much as i'm identifying with the creation of the lyric. but also the music. it's hard-to-impossible for me to separate lyric and music. what i like about lyrics tends to be less what they say and more how they use the language and grammar of music to say it.

the "identification" for me is part fantasy, but also part studying from within. it makes no difference if the singer is male or female, young or old, or singing in my language. i have been madonna, i have been patrick leonard, i have been neil young, i have been miranda lambert, i have been sky ferreira, i have been max martin. it makes all the difference in the world, though, if i like the song. if i don't, the fantasy goes cold, fast.

I

go back and forth between identifying with subject and object depending on circumstances I will would describe

except I can find no pattern to it, Nico version of I'll keep it with mine has been both, same for Summertime

normally I identify with the subject; if I identify with the object it's actively uncomfortable (sung *at* is probably closer to the feeling), and if a song switches from subject to object for whatever reason it's enough to make me never be able to hear it again. (right up there with "it reminds me of an ex" and "I reviewed it and I am embarrassed about the review")

there's no easy, single answer here. more often than not, i look at lyrics as crafted things existing outside the author. they inevitably express an authorial sensibility, but that sensibility isn't necessarily expressed in a direct manner. it doesn't matter to me whether or not stephen merritt really hates the california girls (or whether thurston moore really wants to kill them). i'm more interested in what's revealed by the artistic choices, what the artist thinks is funny, valuable, contemptible or whatever.

another way to put this is to say that i relate not to the characters and situations depicted in songs - or even to their implied narrators - but to the authorial mindset behind them. i suppose this comes very close to BB's I don't identify with either singer or subject, I just listen to them as little stories or vignettes, but i wanted to place emphasis on the extent to which (authorial) identification is still important.

but that's just a rule of thumb. the more precisely and poignantly a lyric seems to express or portray something relatable, the more i DO get sucked into the foreground story. whether it's killer mike or belle & sebastian, i'm not immune to identification with the story told (subject or object, it depends).

the subject/object distinction seems irresolvable to me. shel silverstein's "the ballad of lucy jordan" devastates me (at least when sung by marianne faithfull) because i so strongly identify with the object, the "she". the POV voice matters only when i notice how lucy's story is being framed and to what end, and i'm usually too caught up in the surface color to notice such things.

when i listen to liz phair's exile in guyville, otoh, i'm much more likely to identify with the voice, the protagonist, the unnamed "i". though she tells the tale, i suppose she's also ultimately the albums's object, the character most prominently portrayed. whatever the case, i can just as easily relate to teller as tale, and deciding where to place that emphasis is a big part of songwriting, imo.

on further reflection (well, re-reflection, I've written about this before) it's more complicated. for instance "call your girlfriend" is unlistenable because I identify with the girlfriend

speaking of subject/object and liz phair, i have to mention "rocket boy" as an example of how foggy the intersection gets. the song is ostensibly about its object, the titular boy, but spends at least as much word-time on self-portraiture, the "i" lens through which he's viewed. the song KILLS ME, but i'm not sure i relate to either. i relate to the music, the colossal yearning and sadness expressed in the sounds and chord changes, something that might just as well exist if it were about anteaters or even instrumental. feelings are hard to take apart.

i realize that this is a lyrics thread, so i overstepped myself with that "or even instrumental". the lyrics are important. the songs hangs on "now you're just my rocket" and the chorus' "when are you gonna land", and the hook is clearly subjective, the narrator's desire. still, the music is doing 90% of the work. it's what makes the lyrics mean something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkQ2tQ4aY2E&feature=player_embedded

i relate to the music, the colossal yearning and sadness expressed in the sounds and chord changes, something that might just as well exist if it were about anteaters or even instrumental. feelings are hard to take apart.

This. OTM.

Alfred, I'm really really glad that you reposted that, because I do remember you talking about all that from the last time we had this discussion (though I couldn't for the life of me remember what thread it was on, and where.) But that post and your observations in it have stayed with me and resonated over time.

Katherine, you make really good points. And I love that you brought up the example of that song, because it's so complicated (and I kinda like how uncomfortable it makes me feel) because I think it's intentional(?) not knowing if you are supposed to relate to the "you" in the song or the "girlfriend." I have at some point been every person in that situation and can relate to all three points of view, but it's still the pain of having been the "girlfriend" too often that both makes it difficult to listen to, but gives the song its emotional kick.

fact checking cuz, you actually bring up an interesting point. Like how, when you cover a song, and have to portray it from the inside, how that can change your relation to lyrics. (Mostly because when I've covered songs, I don't usually want to duplicate the exact scenario and emotions and "OMG, this is exactly the emotions I want to portray!" as shift and change the emotions or mood or slant slightly or overtly, and thus change the meaning of the lyrics.

I selected some other option

a) I listen to lyrics, for me they can be the most important part of the song, and they have to be good if the record is gonna get more than a couple listens. Cannot understand people who do not listen to lyrics. That is like saying "I watch films but don't pay attention to the dialogue". For most of my life I couldn't enjoy instrumental "rock" music, because I felt no lyrics was a cop-out. (Still can't enjoy post-rock.)

b) Unintelligible lyrics are awesome. I love when I can only make out a snatch of something here or there and the rest is obscured. That is a good sound for rock music.

c) I don't ever identify with "narrator" or "you" and I never have. The singer is singing about somebody else and I derive aesthetic enjoyment from them describing their experience. Who I am does not factor into that appreciation. I don't like the "Bow down bitches" line in "***Flawless" but that's because I don't think the pop star/monarch metaphor is very interesting.

Great thread idea. I went with I don't identify with either singer or subject, I just listen to them as little stories or vignettes but more in line with Branwell's "poetical/literary/good combination of words" clarifier.

I definitely mean "narrator" rather than "author".

I think I actually do find myself identifying (or wanting to identify) with the author a lot of the time, in that lyrics often get me thinking about why they chose to express these sentiments/ideas in this particular way, that sort of thing just interests me.

I don't ever identify with "narrator" or "you" and I never have.

I have wasted my life writing songs that address flamboyant goon tie included exclusively :(

Just cuz I can't feel you doesn't mean I don't care for you

I hope one of you writes that one down.

in my version of the song using that line it's sung by the Frankenstein monster and it's the saddest song of all time

I identify with lyrics that make me feel some type of way

Some lyrics demand identification to be enjoyed: when Katy Perry sings "you held me down, but I got up", the pleasure comes from imagining yourself as the one challenging her adversaries; nobody who enjoys that lyric is identifying with the person holding her down. Except maybe whiney

I listened to instrumental music or music with unintelligible lyrics so I could multitask and read at the same time. I would listen to New Order repeatedly, not really being able to articulate why they were my favourite band, but every time I heard them I noticed more and more things in Bernard’s lyrics, even if I couldn’t understand them.

Then I would listen to Joy Division because of the New Order connection, but it was only later I would appreciate Ian Curtis in his own right. They would’t be the sort of lyrics that I would have consciously decided to seek out.

Then I’d listen to A Certain ration bcos of the factory connection. I couldn’t really tell you anything about their lyrics. And so it went on, one band would lead to another, getting into something new every month or so, and another band would be shuffled into rotation. I am going somewhere with this, I promise!

So now I do a lot of my listening on shuffle and somebody like John Grant will come on, who I’ve got on my iPod because it was produced by one of GusGus, and suddenly a lyric that I’d never paid much attention resonates with me so hard that I have to go back and relisten to it again and again and suddenly I’m playing the John Grant album on a loop and singing along to the songs in my head.

I find that when I’m singing something that for the duration I become the singer - not the same person, but that the song is mine, I wrote it, and even if actual details about what they are singing about doesn’t relate exactly to me it’s coded - almost like the lyrics are saying one thing, but because I’m the song I know they actually mean something different, something I didn’t know how to express any other way.

*A Certain Ratio, oops

I think, as a teenager, I used to force myself to think I related to lyrics more than I really did. For years I pretty much just listened to Jens Lekman and it's quite easy when yr a 15 old to pretend that you're a super romantic, misunderstood spurned man, and that his lyrics really really chimed with how I saw the world. in reality I was a frustrated boy who spent most of his time hating life and wanking. So I think I grew out of that kind of identification. I listen to house/techno far more than anything else these days so lyrics don't figure into the equation so much. Which doesn't mean that I don't care about them any more, just that I'm less focused on them.

I was thinking the other morning about why I love Heartland so much; I don't think we're meant to identify with them a huge amount (though if their writer wants to dispute that then I'm open to discussion)but you, or at least I, find yourself (/myself) becoming the characters somewhat...not sure what I'm getting at here other than pointing out that singing "The stony hiss of cockatrice has cast us into serfdom/I close my eyes and spur Imelda down the mountainside, for a liberated Spectrum!" is a really fun thing to do in the shower.

as far as the subject/object thing goes, i want to mention leonard cohen's "suzanne". going on the text alone, it's hard to argue convincingly that the song is more about "her" (titular suzy), than the "you" to whom the narrator addresses himself (and i'm saying "him" for only the most obvious reasons). after all, the lyrics conclude with "and you know that you can trust her / for she's touched your perfect body with her mind." this said as though "you" were ultimately the subject. but that's wrong, the song is wrong, leonard's wrong.

as far as my own emotional identification is concerned, suzanne is the only character onscreen. i see her, of course, from the song's narrative vantage and understand that she only exists (relative to me) from that vantage. nevertheless, its she to whom my heart clings. i don't care about the narrator's lovestruck woes, don't care how that narrator relates to cohen as author. i see only suzanne, and frankly wish everyone else would excuse themselves from view.

which only means that it's a good song, ftr

interesting thread, thanks BB. kind of timely for me because i feel like my whole relationship with lyrics has changed as i've gotten older, or maybe it hasn't changed and instead i've just clarified it a little more. for while i thought i was squarely in the "i don't give a shit about lyrics" camp, just hearing voice as sound without any relationship to the words, but now for me that's just not the case. it could be the type of music i used to mostly listen to when i felt that way - mostly jazz & experimental music, and the change could've been sparked over the past 5 years as i've just kind of really deepened a connection to more lyrically-based music, singer-songwriters, country music, folk music.

i probably vote the first option, that i usually identify with the singer/narrator. really fascinating to read the gendered/racialized aspects people are talking about. i'll freely admit that singers/lyricists i most strongly identify with are certainly masculine - bill callahan, dylan, neil young, townes van zandt, leonard cohen, kris kristofferson, george jones. callahan especially really changed how i relate to words and lyrics and how they're sung. there's joni mitchell too who has been a huge presence in my life recently and i do identify with her.

w/ the exception of callahan none of these voices are hyper-masculine, though, even callahan hasn't really had the super-deep male baritone until the past 8 years or so. i rarely identify w/ hyper-masculine voices whether they are coming from a machismo kind of place or are something super-deep like johhny cash. i listen to a lot of cash but it's more of an admiration and appreciation rather than identification.

pitchfork get's shat on here all the time obviously (by myself too), but i really enjoyed this piece from a couple years ago about gender and musical identification - http://pitchfork.com/features/resonant-frequency/8789-you-masculine-you/, the writer talks about grimes and bill callahan and his relationship to each of them as affected by gender. it's kind of rambling piece but there were some things that spoke to me in it.

the importance of lyrics depends on the song. if they're just used as another instrument, and the results aren't embarrassingly bad, i can let them fade into the background. but mostly i pay attention to lyrics, and they're important to me. not sure if i "identify" with the singer, but i do try to see the lyrics from the artist's perspective and my perspective. lyrics can make-or-break a song for me.

Because of my 22listens exercise, I've been thinking about places where you have to distance the singer from the narrator, like where lyrics are very obviously written from a pose or detachment. Character songs, where the character singing the song is not only not contiguous with the singer, but also kind of an asshole and it's actually critical to the enjoyment of the song to realise that this is not the persona of the song singing it, but a narrator you are *supposed* to think is kind of a jerk, and not identify with at all.

There are stupid and annoying ways to announce "I'm singing as a CHARACTER now!!!!' i.e. Damon Albarn, and then there are more effective ways to just sing as a character i.e. Ray Davies, but I'm starting to have more of an appreciation for those more subtle and difficult to tell ones, where you're left wondering, is this a narrator's pose, or is this a mask to tell the truth?

I thought of a perfect example of one of my favorite kinds of lyrics that makes it complicated to answer the original question itt.

When I was in 7th gr and buying music for myself regularly for the first time, REM was one of my favorite bands. I pretty much bought everything I could find at the mall record store because I didn't have to talk to anyone there. Dead Letter Office was one of the first tapes of theirs that I bought without having any idea what it was, and I listened to it incessantly. I didn't really understand the concept of outtakes or even covers really, and "Voice of Harold" was one of my favorite songs on there. When I finally heard "Seven Chinese Brothers", it was really disappointing because it wasn't "Voice of Harold." I've always like the Dead Letter Office version better because of the strange lyrics, which are just Michael Stipe reading the back of a gospel record iirc. I listened to it again today and surprise, I still love it.

My only point is to note that even at that age, I preferred rambling nonsense to words that make sense. Did I "identify" with this song? No, but I liked it a whole lot in part because of the lyrics, which I thought were amusing and weird (esp compared to most of the stuff I heard on the radio, this was 1987-88.)

Funny, I don't think I've ever thought to relate to the 'you' in songs, i think when my brain tries to 'relate' to lyrics, I'm either relating to the narrator or relating to the scene being described. One of my favorite lyrics is "snow drums" by Piano Magic, which is just a really brief but visceral description of a band riding in a van in the snow. But I'm definitely not immune to the power of something like springsteen going "i wanna find one face that isn't looking through me" or erykah badu going "tried to turn the sauna up to hotter, drunk a whole jar of holy water; still it won't let go"... In those cases, I think it's a place and time thing. Like, both those lyrics evoke specific periods in my life, etc, and I don't know if I would have identified with them had I been a more satisfied person at the time.

Thank you, interesting comments, both of you. It's a good perspective to hear from people who don't look for a "you" or a "me" in a song, too.

(Reminding me a bit of NV's "safe to be cracked vs shiny metal box" line of argument from 22 Listens. Like, some people actually prefer the shiny metal box with its logical incomprehensibility, to the idea of a song to be crawled inside.)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Ha, I nearly forgot to vote in mine own poll.

I didn't see this thread originally, late to the game so sorry if my comments double up on others that are better expressed etc :)

As a teenager I know I definitely identified with lyrics much more, which is maybe more common idk...searching for shared experience, trying to not feel like you're an island/weirdo, the whole idea of being a unique individual was kind of terrifying at that age (ie 13-15...by the time I was 16 I was all about being a freaky weirdo and that all went by the wayside)

but yeah at that early age of teenagedom, it was EXCITING to hear a song that I could identify with and I would latch onto those hard. like 'omg they feel just like I do omg yaaaaaay' *clings to lifeboat*

but since then I don't think I really seek to identify with the narrator, and I think again that's more maybe because I'm not really seeking as hard to be a part of something anymore? maybe I'm not saying it the right way.

anyhoo

I definitely notice lyrics first over pretty much anything, and if they're story-telling kind of lyrics that are formulated in a way where you can get a clear sense of meaning of some kind, then I guess I treat it like I'm being told a story? so option 4 would be me

Oh, what an excellent answer! Thank you for sharing that. I, too, remember that thrill of hearing something on the radio that suddenly made me go "OMG, I am a normal human being, other people feel like this, too." I think as one ages, one becomes more reassured of one's humanity to the point where one doesn't need pop songs to reinforce it? I don't know. Maybe I'll never get there.

hmm yeah maybe!

this is a v good thread/question though, I honestly had never thought about it very deeply until today

"I feel like telling everyone to fuck off all the time," (from John Grant's "Why Don't You Love Me Anymore") pops into my head a lot. And I like the fact that the narrator is also 43.

Not sure how to answer this poll. I've always been attracted to music, not lyrics. I can't recall an instance of a song that I liked because I primarily appreciated its lyrics. In fact, in many cases, I don't even both to find out the lyrics until I *really love* the song -- this might seem strange. How could I love a song, and not even be really familiar with the lyrics? Melodies, chord progressions, beats are what stand out to me in music. To this day, I probably couldn't sing most of my favorite songs all the way through without a lyric sheet in front of me.

That said, once I actually do latch onto the lyrics, they tend to stay with me. Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is?", Randy Newman's "Lonely At the Top", Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years". In most cases, the lyrics are simple, and there isn't necessarily a message apparent, or an obvious moral. IMO most songs aren't like that, and just as I have a hard time taking anyone else's word without a grain of salt, I have difficulty with lyrics that seem to suggest something in an obvious way, or demand that I accept the given perspective on its own terms. Also, in general, I'm not interested in obscure/abstract/poetic lyrics.

Really, unless I'm drawn to the music, it doesn't matter how good the lyrics are. I can appreciate a good lyric or phrase the same way I appreciate a well-made piece of furniture, but unless my body/subconscious mind is drawn to the song, they'll fall on deaf ears.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Interesting.

*bump*

Because a lot of people are talking about this topic on the FKA Twigs thread, and it's really a super-interesting topic to me, but I think it may be of wider interest than just that thread?

At least 90% of the music I listen to is in English, yet English not being my first language I can easily turn my "inner translator" off and listen to music without paying attention to the lyrics (which to be honest they are completely stupid most of the time). I think this is one of the main reasons why Country, R&B and Hip Hop very rarely makes it to the top charts in non-english countries. Nobody pays attention to the lyrics and the music in both genres is very repetitive in order for the lyrics to take the spotlight. If you can dance to it there's an exception to the rule.

Judging by the sales numbers I guess they're huge in America but I swear nobody really cares about Jay Z and Taylor Swift over here. Rihanna is bigger than both since she has many dance club friendly songs.

Azealia Banks and FKA twigs are non existent over here.

On the other hand, in here Daft Punk has been a hit long before Pharrel collaborated with them.

I think Jaÿ-Z might have a few dance club friendly songs.

In fact I literally heard multiple Jay-Z songs at a dance club last night.

(Specifically "I Just Want to Love U" and "Tom Ford")

Did you hear them outside of an English spealing country?

In here the only Jay Z song I've ever heard in a club or a party is Empire State of Mind. Maybe a couple of his collaborations with kanye west. I mean people do know who Jay Z is but they are more aware of him as beyonce's husband than of any of his songs.

Which is apparently his only #1 hit on the US charts as well? Or am I reading it wrong:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Z_discography#Singles