Do You Identify With Lyrics, And Ifso, How?

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

I think the situation here in Finland is pretty much the same as what Moka describes. The only rap and country tunes that become big hits are ones with a catchy chorus and/or a dance-friendly beat, few people care about (or even know; generally Finns have a good knowledge of English, but rap slang often goes above their heads) what the vocalists are saying. And "Empire State of Mind" is the only Jay-Z tune I've heard played in a club in here too, if you don't count clubs that specialize in rap.

And ever since the early 00s Finnish rap music has been more popular than American rap... Which only makes sense, since the language the rappers use and the subjects they talk about are more familiar to Finns than those in American rap.

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

This is true but unreflective of his widespread and long lasting popularity in the US. The only rap artists who have sold more here are Tupac and Eminem.

But my point is I'm not sure in what universe something like the aforementioned "I Just Wanna Love U" doesn't have "a catchy chorus and a dance-friendly beat".

So as not to derail the Pfork thread…

To those among us who heavily skew towards the lyrical side of the admittedly porous words/music divide, do you read poetry at all? If so, how often? And if not, why?

I'm a lyrics person but I don't read poetry all that much, and I prefer lyrics that sound like lyrics to lyrics that sound like poetry that then happened to get set to music. If that makes sense.

Like, during all those debates about whether Dylan deserved his Nobel, I saw a lot of people copy/pasting lyrics to try to prove they were poetry, which seemed really pointless to me - they're not going to have the same impact on the page, and if they do, what's the point of this being a song in the first place?

To those among us who heavily skew towards the lyrical side of the admittedly porous words/music divide, do you read poetry at all? If so, how often? And if not, why?

A question that might interest me is "if so, what kind of poetry?". I'm no literary scholar (and obv don't skew towards the lyrical side of that divide) but I wonder if popular song lyric might be a sort of bastion for 'traditional' poetry in the sense of more strictly metrical rhymed verse. When I do get into song lyrics, what I get from them usually does feel qualitatively and experientially different from what I get out of most modern poetry (but maybe less different from what I get out of Wordsworth?).

Half-baked thoughts

I’ve typed this so many times but lyrics =/= poetry— in fact, historically, “good poetry” suffers when set to music, and composers are generally advised to pick lesser work so as to have something that a musical setting can improve upon. Lyrics can be more oblique, take more time to transpire, can have intention coloured by the musical accompaniment, and (in the recorded medium) are performed; the specific mood created by Megan saying “enh” is something for which there is no equivalent in poetry

Good points; the comparison would seem to be limited. The relationship between music and text is definitely what I want to consider any time I've analysed songs.

I perennially cite Kathleen Hanna singing “everything you think and / everything you feel is alright alright alright alright all riiight” as being “The Best Lyric Ever” just because it’s a perfect example of simple-ish words being elevated by musical context and performance into a powerful sentiment that is unique to songwriting, like “poetry could never” because poetry is a different medium

I used to, haven't much lately but that's more a function of spare time than preference -- that said, a non-trivial amount of poetry was meant to be read aloud

The two poems I do find myself frequently thinking of in the context of rock/pop/etc. are "Dover Beach" and "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock." "Dover Beach" because it shares so many of the preoccupations of 20th century music - I feel like you can draw a line from "Dover Beach" straight through "September 1, 1939" all the way to "Gimme Shelter" and "The Boy in the Bubble" and so on, all these apocalyptic songs about people clinging together as the world outside gets worse and worse. And then Prufrock because it seems in so many ways to be the model for what you can do with stream of consciousness and description and storytelling in rock lyrics - like, I can't imagine "Madame George" or "Desolation Row" existing without Prufrock.

I mean, this is probably obvious, but the title does say "love song"

No

at the age of 40 I still fundamentally do not get what "identifying with something" means. Do people really imagine they are characters in songs or films for that matter?

their band could be my life

Thanks, all, for your thoughtful answers (to my question – I'm mostly ignoring the thread's kick-off).

I didn't meant to suggest that lyrics and poetry are made of the exact same stuff. As soon as you set words to music, they are transformed by it (and this goes both ways, of course); they are no longer 'just words'. That said, grafting them onto a purely verbal medium (in an album review, for instance) remains a perennial possibility – lyrics can be quoted without being sung, and some lend themselves quite well to pixels or paper. So while I tend to think of lyrics in terms of consubstantiality (words and music, forever and ever), there's an underlying flightiness and a fragility to this encounter that, in many cases, makes it all too easy to divorce one element from the other, ushering us back to square one.

The musicality of poetry is an even thornier affair… Eliot, who not uncoincidentally wrote The Four Quartets and an essay titled 'The Music of Poetry', had a fine ear, especially in his earlier works (although you could argue that the perceived clunkiness of some of his later poems was deliberate – prosaic phrasing as a means of approximating high modernist dissonance). At the most fundamental level, the musicality of poetry also happens to be what makes poetry, well, poetic (pace less common strains meant for the eyes), hearkening back to the Orphic/Sapphic model: a noticeable emphasis on the phonetic potential of language and the invention of structures that override or at the very least play with conventional discourse. At its best (in my estimation, at least) poetry appears to supply its own music, which ties into fgti's comment about lesser works being more pliable from the composer/musician's perspective: the lacunae call for a semblance of completion.

I don't really know where I'm going with this…

Oh, and funny you should mention 'Dover Beach', Lily. Samuel Barber made a setting of it – it was one of his very first compositions, if memory serves.