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Music or Lyrics?

If you ask any "serious" (indie?) pop musician what's the most important aspect of their songs, I am sure they would most/all say: the lyrics. They spend so much time and effort on the words, and view this as "what they are saying," which is, to their mind, the reason for writing the song in the first place. (There was a piece by Suzanne Vega in the NY Times a couple of months back.)

But as listeners, what do we think?

For me, for most songs, the words are pretty much irrelevant. (In fact, I can't recite the full lyrics to any song, and can't even make them out on lots of the music I listen to.)

Instead, it's three things:

1. The musical hook

2. The *sound* of the voice(s)

3. The sound of the instrumentation.

In short, it's all about the music, and very little about the lyrics.

Or, to put it another way: I could imagine lots of different lyrics to many of the songs I love, and the song remains the same. But change the music? It becomes an entirely different song.

For example: Take any early passionate U2 anthem. Surely they could be written about other topics, while retaining the same music? Isn't it the music that makes the song compelling?

To be sure: With many/most great songs, we do sing along, and the words are part of our experience. But is it really their *meaning* that's important, or rather their *sound* in the context of the music as a whole? ---I think the latter, and the words could have been different and the song just as popular and compelling.

There are, I'm sure, some exceptions to this rule, where the words are absolutely crucial to making the song compelling. But not too many, I don't think.
jimjoyce25
stevecham
3,298 posts
 
For pop music, the combination of music, lyrical meaning and lyrical phonetic sound (even if you didn't understand the language it's sung in) is what I listen for.

The Beatles understood this and often succeeded in incorporating all three elements in their compositions. Sometimes silly, sometimes nonsense, often with meaning, intended or otherwise.
dodgealum
976 posts
 
This is something my wife and I go back and forth about. She is a words person and is much more interested in what the songwriter has to say. I'm more about the music and sometimes don't know/care what message the song is sending. On the otherhand, like Philjolet, there are some artists who are so gifted lyrically that the words become as important (and in some case more important) than the music. Or better still, the words and music are crafted in such a way as to complement each other and push things to new heights of songcrafting. A few artists come to mind:

Bob Dylan
Joni Mitchell
Jackson Browne
Rosanne Cash
Bruce Springsteen

I'm sure I could come up with a few more but these are to ones that off the top of my head really bring the music and lyrics together in a powerful way.
buconero117
2,311 posts
 
Lyrics, if you can hear them, which you can't on most of the recordings that are produced today. Perhaps it is the focus to listen that most people in the iPod age refuse to do. Multi tasking rules, so little real listening ever occurs. The tune needs to carry the music, not the lyrics.
hodu
239 posts
 
"I would have made this instrumental
but the words got in the way."
-- Andy Partridge (of XTC)
-- "No Language in our Lungs"
2chnlben
595 posts
 
Music, just music, communicates deeply within one’s soul. Words are however the most relevant, most effective, and the most powerful source of communication. Truly great literature can be as moving as great music. A poorly written or poorly conveyed lyric is like poorly written literature – I’ll take good music any day. The combination of beautiful music and beautiful lyrics can be as moving as the best works of literature and the best composed music combined. When lyrical composition is great, it should convey meaning and feeling as deeply as does music; of course the way in which lyrics are conveyed is as relevant to mood and emotion as – or more so, than words alone (we call this music).
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