To ask whether you’re a lyrics person?

[Forwardthinkingcrayfish]

Having heard various people say many times this year that Taylor Swift “is a lyrical genius”, it suddenly dawned on me that when I’m listening to any vocal music (even my favourite artists/bands) I don’t pay attention to the meaning of the lyrics!

Disclaimer: I’m a classically trained pianist (without wanting to come across as snobby… believe me I listen to cheesy pop too!). I believe my mind has been trained to focus on rhythm, chords, melody and some other aspects that, when put together, make the general “feeling” of a song for me… but lyrics really don’t fall into this list.

I genuinely think that a song could be about monkeys in a zoo or the treatment of sewage and if it’s sung with feeling, then I’ll enjoy it and wouldn’t probably pay any attention. I enjoy rap music because of the rhythmic and rhyming nature of the lyrics, but don’t especially care about the content of the lyrics themselves.

Of course, there is no right or wrong answer to this poll but I’m intrigued:

YABU - Lyrics are really important to me and I pay great attention to them when listening to a song
YANBU - I don’t/rarely pay attention to lyrics

I love meaningful lyrics and very much enjoy TS’s storytelling. But there has to be interesting melody to really catch me. The lyrics are the story but the melody is the shape of a song. I could happily listen to good shapes with no words but not good shape with shit lyrics. If that makes sense!

Oh, and I learn lyrics really quickly as well. But then when I was younger I used to know a lot of poetry, Shakespeare etc off by heart too, so it's just the way my brain works.

Interesting thread!

All my favourite artists are, in my view, great lyricists. I get irritated by inane lyrics or lazy rhyming. I love someone who writes songs that would work on paper as a poem but sets them to music.

I also love words

It depends completely on the song. Sometimes lyrics really resonate with me and are obviously the focus of the song (e.g. songs like 'The first time ever I saw your face', a lot of Amy Winehouse music etc). Sometimes melody is the most important thing and you can hardly even hear the lyrics.

Lyrics are equally as important. I get great pleasure from a turn of phrase in a beautifully crafted and performed song. Elbow are a marvellous example of this. Too many options to share, but I firmly believe Guy Garvey is a poet.

I also attend poetry readings and read poetry regularly so that tells you something about me!

Sometimes melody is the most important thing and you can hardly even hear the lyrics.

Yeah, this thread has got me thinking about how two of my favourite songwriters ever have a good line in actual nonsense lyrics, despite what I've said here!

Liz Fraser from The Cocteau Twins and Rosie Vela (who only ever released one album in the 80s but it's a cracker) - some of their lyrics are genuine gibberish but the songs are beautiful.

I’m a music person. It’s not that I don’t enjoy good lyrics (or notice bad ones!), but they’re always secondary to the music. Even now, songs I’ve been singing for years, I’ll realise oh it really means THAT, what I’ve been thinking the lyrics are is basically nonsense.

This has occasionally got me into trouble with partners who do find meaning in lyrics, if I’ve played them something I love, and they’re like Whoa what are you thinking here… and then I’ll actually “notice” the lyrics and think hmmm I really hadn’t thought about the song like that.

Not that many, to be honest! Nobody consistently. It's more that there are moments here and there with artists. I tend to like the point-of-view a lyricist chooses to work from and within that I find lyrical moments I love. The best ones seem able to conjure up a small feeling and transform it within a few lines; then they create the musical environment that evokes the feelings or the story.

Yes, and this is why I am a Taylor Swift fan. I am very much in lyrics. I've not RTFT but I suspect as many other threads, there's a whole load of "Taylor Swift is SHIT, she writes shit lyrics, she only writes about relationships...blah blah blah".

Actually, if you’d RTFR you would have seen that people have been really respectful

I, too, was a classically trained pianist and never listen to words other than something blindingly obvious like a chorus or similar.

Maybe this is why I listen to so much house and classical music 😜

Edited to add: Wow, I think you and I work exactly the same way, OP. I pay no attention to the meaning of song lyrics, but resonate strongly with the music and overall feel.

Interestingly, reading PP's posts, as well as being musically trained (albeit a very long time ago), I also have a literature degree! So lyrics should probably be more important to me. (They are if/when I read them, I suppose)

Yes, in fairness it's not been the usual tedious pile-on, which is nice to see!

I do think she's a fantastic lyricist. She's got a wonderful turn of phrase, uses language very cleverly to explore complex emotions and her grasp of imagery and metaphor is spot on. But I also love eg: Elvis Costello or Andrew Bird for the same reasons (am an old gimmer).

The best ones seem able to conjure up a small feeling and transform it within a few lines; then they create the musical environment that evokes the feelings or the story.

I would say that's exactly what TS does (not so much in the obvious chart hits, granted). But I'm learning to accept that not everyone gets that from her music 😉

Anyway this isn't really a thread about TS so I won't derail further!

I am a lyrics person but I don't think TS is a lyrical genius.

@Candleabra so much this - but the worst is what I sing to my babies. Apparently Bob Dylan’s “it ain’t me babe” doesn’t paint me in the best maternal light…

I think it just depends on the song and genre of music for me. If I'm listening to, for example, The Mountain Goats or Nick Cave or Belle & Sebastian, then I pay a lot of attention to the lyrics and the lyrics probably mean more to me than the music.

But I also like plenty of music where the lyrics just aren't remotely important. I mean, I'm very fond of Twist & Shout by The Beatles, Can't Get You Out Of My Head by Kylie Minogue and Ride On Time by Black Box. I don't think anyone would argue that the lyrics are important in those songs; it's about the music and the vibe, not the words.

The Mountain Goats or Nick Cave or Belle & Sebastian

Oh, you have some fine taste in music there! Love all of those artists, but 'San Bernadino' on Heretic Pride gives me such a lump in my throat, every time.

I have become a lyrics person as I get older. When I was a teenager I was obsessed with Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance, whose singers do not use recognisable words. Now I am a Sparks obsessive, and part of their appeal for is the often witty lyrics.

I’m another very active, highly trained musician (clue’s in the user name) but also a linguist and I respond to both music and lyrics. I think there is a crucial art in writing songs of both a suitable melody, accompaniment figure etc AND clever lyrics. In particular, there is what I call “the principle of the quirky word”, jokes and puns which can be what makes a song. For instance the old song “Dinah” which is about a girl of that name, the middle eight section goes “Every night, I wake in such a fright/Because my Dinah might/ Change her mind about me!” making a nice play on words with “Dynamite”. Or more recently in Billy Bragg’s song “A New England” (best known in the version by Kirsty MacColl) where he writes “I put you on a pedestal/You put me on the pill”. Even back in the time of Gilbert and Sullivan, look at a song called “If you go in, you’re sure to win” from “Iolanthe” where, in the choruses, every line is a proverb or cliché that works and rhymes!

I love that Billy Bragg lyric - I think it's a zeugma...? (Also a linguist, and, as I said upthread, a classically trained singer!)

I think classical pieces are an interesting one, too, because it's relatively (though not wholly, before anyone comes for me with various opera libretti) unusual for lyrics and music to be written in conjunction with each other, as opposed to the music being written for the pre-existing lyrics, and even more so for both to be written by the same person - quite often, both have been written by extremely accomplished artists in their respective areas and it's a genuine pleasure to appreciate both aspects

I can appreciate instrumentals and songs with good tunes/melodies but I'm a lyrics person. I banned "Mr Brightside" from my wedding for this reason. Plus I hate it.

I don't mind slightly out there/trivial/light/nonsensical lyrics but I prefer more meaningful or at least story telling ones and it does annoy me when I can't at least get the gist of the song or hear most of the words. Some songs ARE the lyrics, too. Ode to Billie Joe is a story. Venus by Bananarama is a good tune but it's the lyrics that make it fun. I don't know how you can overlook or tune out the lyrics in songs like that- you miss a huge vital chunks of the experience. John Belushi singing Soul Man is a delicious example - it's a great musical version / cover of the song and he's a good singer but John Belushi + those lyrics = perfect.

I was listening more closely to the lyrics of an Oasis song earlier as a result of this thread, and realised for the first time what a load of twaddle they sing.

Oasis lyrics are the absolute pits. Really bad. Both DH and DS are fans and I cannot bear it when they play their songs in the house, it hurts my soul 😂

I don’t mind a weird nonsense Oasis lyric.

I do object to Ed Sheeran’s “we push and pull like a magnet do” though.