I love both of them and I sing the singles that I know whenever I hear them but-- Hammer my bones on the anvil of daylight? Get the cool shoe shine? What does it all really mean? Is there a name for this lyrical nonsense style? Can I squeeze in one more question mark in this paragraph?
songmeanings.net is pretty good for this kind of stuff. If someone screws up the lyrics, they can be hard to fix however.
I don’t know if those help, but I will hazard that Beck is being taunted by the souls of alien ghosts when he writes his lyrics.
Before or after they come out the volcano?
Ha, I love Beck’s Lyrics…
Sexx Lawsis one of my favorites (actually that entire Midnight Vultures album is PURE win).
And Nicotine and Gravyis another of my all time favs…
*I’ll feed you fruit that don’t exist
I’ll leave graffiti where you’ve never been kissed
I’ll do your laundry, massage your soul
I’ll turn you over to the highway patrol
I think we’re going crazy, her left eye is lazy
She looks so Israeli, nicotine and gravy*
I have a theory about this one. The first Gorillaz album was recorded in Jamaica. I bet you that’s something they just heard in the street and liked, and decided to incorporate into the album. I also wondered if the kid on the album is the kid they heard saying it, too.
They both seem like examples of modern impressionist music… the lyrics are meaningless, except inasmuch as they contribute to the “feel” of the music.
Couldn’t speak to Gorillaz but I always described Beck as ‘sound poetry’. How the words sound and flow is more important than the meaning.
Here is the short version:
Beck would like to get with you.
Only you.
And your sister.
He thinks her name is Debra.
I’d agree for both Beck and Gorillaz. With the feel of the whole song hanging on a semi-coherent chorus.
And Soul Coughing–lyrics as extra percussion.
Word-salad lyrics, or lyrics written for their *vox humana *properties, as opposed to semantic, literal meaning.
My personal bias favors more old-fashioned, “meaningful” lyrics, but the word-salad-eers probably find it easier to come up with something more original and less hackneyed. There’s certain well-worn words that tend to be worked to death in song lyrics, and the more absurdist or freewheeling your writing, the less-likely you’ll fall into repeating the same old shopworn cliches and vocabulary.
It may well be easier to maintain some semblance of proper scansion (rhyming, syllable counts, and accented syllables) when you’re more liberated from semantics. In lyrics that try to tell a story, the rhymes are often weak.
But I usually find it impossible to remember nonsense lyrics, even in songs I otherwise love.