I usually don’t care about lyrics, although there are a couple songs that I like soley because of the lyrics, but these are lyrics based songs anyways. Sometimes, though, I really can’t stand what the artist is saying, but those instances are rare.
For the most part though, I appreciate music as music, and the lyrics are very much secondary. Although like norinew I really enjoy singing, understanding the lyrics aren’t necessary for me. I sing along with my non-english music, although I’m likely botching the pronunciation. But there’s often times when I’ll be listening to something I’ve heard literally a hundred times before, and for once actually listen to the lyrics and gain a new appreciation for the song. Or a new hatred, depending on what the words actually are.
Lyrics that are trite?
Unintelligible?
Cheesy?
Nonsensical?
A bit lame?
Bring them on!
Lyrics that express sentiments that tick me off?
No.
A lot of times it’s an interesting lyric that first draws my attention to a song, so I guess if I have to choose one or the other, I’m a lyrics person.
SPOOFE: Woo-hoo! I’m not the only one who still lists Andrew W.K in my favourite artists!
Yeah, the music and tune come first for me, I don’t tend to grok the lyrics until the third or fourth listen, and I’ve usually decided if I like it or not by then anyway.
But lyrics I really identify with or that are particularly clever (example: ‘Alleluia’ by Dar Williams) can raise a song from being a good song to one of my all-time favourite songs.
Wow, everyone’s replies are even more interesting than I thought they’d be! Thanks!
That’s pretty much my thinking, too. Well, except the “unintelligible” bit, but there are a few songs I like even though I don’t understand the words. I just like 'em less than I think I would if I could understand the words.
And it’s not just lyrics that tick me off, it’s lyrics that express a religious, political, moral, etc. viewpoint that I don’t agree with. For example, I love Bruce Cockburn’s song See How I Miss You, but I cannot get into Call it Democracy because I don’t agree with the politics in that second song – even though I like his general style.
Oh I agree with you. They’re not bad at all–as a matter of fact, I was just having this conversation with my husband. Non-sensical but very evocative and interesting. I used it as an example for myself because it is a departure from what I usually listen to and enjoy. I typically like songs that are meaningful and interesting but straight-forward–not “what the hell did he just say? Those words don’t go together like that…”
Of course then I heard Wilco and I saw a light. Perhaps I am Trying to Break Your Heart wasn’t the best song to illustrate that without more explanation.
I think I pretty much do enjoy the song, even if I don’t care for/know what they’re saying…
Hrm. It really depends. Maybe if the tune isn’t strong enough to carry the lyrics, I can be turned off by the whole thing.
You see, I listen to a lot (a lot, a lot, a lot) of Japanese pop music. And though I don’t always understand what they are saying at first, I make an effort to learn what they are saying so that I can sing along - I like a song less if I cannot singalong to it! But I give all songs a fair chance, and so language is not a problem - if I don’t know it, I’ll attempt to learn it.
Now, granted, J-Pop will give you cavities even without the lyrics. Maybe for me, that’s the set-up: I know the lyrics are going to be dipped in honey and sugar coated, so I’m prepared for some really out-there stuff. I can tolerate intense cuteness levels in Japanese music (it’s not all like that, just the stuff I listen to). However, when it happens in English, I am disturbed by it. For example, I would never, ever sing aloud an English song which loudly and happily proclaimed: “TIP TAP love is always like candy; tasty, like fruit.”
However, I will loudly and happily bounce along to: “TIP TAP Koi wa itsudatte CANDY! FURU-TSU no you ni TASTY!” Even though I know what they’re saying. :o
Hubby also loves this song… (I’m validated! Yay! ) Some songs, if I can put my personal “adultness” aside and allow myself to find them cute or silly or fun as they were meant to be taken can turn out to be incredibly catchy little tunes. (You know, my husband once played a song from my J-Pop playlist to my BIL, and BIL’s eyes popped out of his head and I’m certain I saw part of his brain disintegrate in front of my eyes - or he was purposely burning that part of his mind away so as not to remember the sugary sweetness coming from the speakers. His one comment: “I can’t believe I’m hearing this - this is not real, dude!” Then fled. He runs pretty fast, my BIL.)
By the way, “Louie Louie,” “Horse with No Name,” Huey Lewis’s “The Power of Love,” & R.E.M.'s “The One I Love” are all classics, or at least songs I really like. So am I a music person, not a lyrics person?
Well, I like the lyrics to “The Power of Love” & “Horse with No Name.” Maybe I just understand them differently than other people. (“And things,” must be a regionalism or something. It makes perfect sense to me, in the sense of, “& lots of other stuff.”)
And I like trippy lyrics. Kate Bush, Midnight Oil, the Church. I honestly have enough trouble with the accent that I don’t know what the Oils’ Peter Garrett is saying some of the time (apparently a problem common for Midnight Oil fans). And the Church’s Steve Kilbey? Really wild nonsense lyrics. It’s psychedelia, okay?
But lyrics I find offensive will make a song unlistenable to me. There was this one song I just always hated as a teenager 'cos I saw it as prey-on-groupie stuff, which my friends thought I was just reading into it.
I hate 99.9% of hip-hop because it doesn’t seem remotely up to snuff musically & a lot of it isn’t even well-composed lyrically.
And it may help you to know that I detest early Leonard Cohen, because it’s just poetry with guitar noodling in the background, & it all sounds the same.
Funny thing, I heard an interview w/ Mr. Mellencamp a few years back, and he said he couldn’t stand having to play that song. He’d outgrown it. But it was a hit, a crowd pleaser, so he kept playing it anyway. (And doing a good job of it, judging by the reaction of friends who saw his shows during that period.)
On the other hand, JCM can do a killer job w/ lyrics when he wants to. “Cherry Bomb”, “Check It Out”, and “Ain’t Even Done with the Night” come to mind.
You got your hands in my back pockets, and Sam Cook’s singing on the radio.
Reminds me a lot of the opening of Bruce’s “Thunder Road” – sets the scene perfectly with only a few salient details… lets your mind fill in the rest.
There is a good life right across this green field. And every generation stares at it from afar.
Now there’s a very simple (practically cliche) line that I really love, even though I hate the tune – sortof the OP in reverse.
Blah or poorly constructed lyrics will make me enjoy a song less than I would if it had great lyrics. But I’m still going to like the song even if it is kind of dumb or boring, or trite or overdone or in a language I don’t understand (see the Jim Steinman/MeatLoaf section in my CD collection).
That happens. Not everyone is Ira Gershwin or Cole Porter.
But lyrics that offend me (subject matter I don’t like, point of view I don’t like, etc.) it doesn’t matter how catchy the tune or how well performed. I will not like the song.
Does anyone else out there actually enjoy some offensive lyrics?
I’m thinking, for example, of Fear’s “Strangulation” or GBH’s “City Baby Attacked by Rats”. (The former I would never attempt to perform, even though I think it’s a gloriously over-the-top punk tour de force.)
Your typical Broadway show tune, however, make me want to puke. And I’m a patriotic person, but Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” is so sappy it makes me gag.
Of course. Read my earlier post. A good bulk of the existence of rap owes itself to enjoyment of offensive lyrics. I get quite a kick out of “Smack My Bitch Up” by Prodigy (and no I don’t want to hear about how it really just means, “Doing something really well,” or “Enjoying something a lot”).
Actually, I quite like Lou Christie’s Lightning Strikes, a song that has been much maligned in this thread. Sure, the guy’s being a dick, but he’s being an honest dick, you know? I love the ballsiness of it. And I like singing along, as though I’m singing it to a guy. Makes me smile to myself every time.
I have heard rap that’s so completely different from regular rap, that I’m not even sure it’s called rap, it’s so much better. Never gets air time, of course.
I’m thinking of Michael Franti a.k.a. Spearhead (“Hole in the Bucket,” “Red Beans and Rice,” et. al.); Jalal (“Children of the Future,” “Resurrection City,” et. al.); and older stuff like Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” and the Last Poets.
They’re like a completely different species from normal rap, lyrically and musically.
To relate this back to the OP, I don’t enjoy most rap, due to music and lyrical content.
Oh, that’s fair. My enjoyment of rap is right up there with my enjoyment of the WWE. I know that I’m intellectually slumming it. I know that it is not a higher art form (or potentially really any type of art form). I just enjoy the pure stupid debased material on some level. I actually find it hilarious, like watching a bad soap opera. I understand that sounds a bit pseudo-intellectual “Gwynevere and I adore kitch art, it’s so bad it’s good, ahahahahahah,” but I’m a pig, what can I say.
Wow. What a stunning dismissal of the most important and dynamic musical development of the last thirty years. I mean, I don’t listen to that much rap myself, but the genre is hardly homogenous. Though listening to mainstream rap, I could see where you’d get that impression. And it’s not all “stupid debased material,” either, SlyFrog. No more so that rock is. And I daresay—once again, as mostly a rock listener—that mainstream rap is more lyrically playful and inventive than mainstream rock.
But for the purposes of this thread, I’m talking about the stupid debased material with offensive lyrics that I still enjoy to some degree.
Of course, on the side, I do disgaree with the standard, “You’re painting with too broad a brush,” answer as well. What most people listen to is the mainstream. What I listen to is the mainstream. Almost any argument can be dismissed by saying, “Yeah, there’s this one group in New York that does rap that actually is intelligent.” That’s great, I’ll admit that if I want to go scurry to some independent record store and look for some rap that 99 out of 100 people won’t have heard of, there could be some non-stupid debased material in it.
Why, I can sample right here some mainstream crunk-rap:
"3,6,9 standing real fine move it to you sing it to me one mo time
Get low, Get low 6x
To the window, to the wall, (to dat wall)
To the sweat drip down my balls (MY BALLS)
To all these bitches crawl (crawl)
To all skit skit motherfucker (motherfucker!) all skit skit got dam (Got dam)
To all skit skit motherfucker (motherfucker!) all skit skit got dam (Got dam)
Shortie crunk so fresh so clean can she fuck that
Question been harassing me in the mind this bitch is fine
I done came to the club about 50th 11 times now can I play with yo pantyline
club owner said I need to calm down security guard go to sweating
Me now nigga drunk then a motherfucker threaten me now"
Very playful. Incredibly creative. Hold on, let me find some more, oh wait, why bother.
As it happens, I’ve been exposed to a wide variety of rap, from stuff that gets radio play to crude demos and bootlegs of local groups to imports etc. etc. Not because I like it, but because some of my friends and associates do.
One guy in particular continually sent all kinds of stuff my way, being confident that he’d eventually find something I liked.
He never did, and after about 3 years of this, I stopped accepting his offers.
And it’s not the lyrics. Heck, I cut my teeth on punk from the Stooges and Ramones, outlaw country from Johnny Paycheck and DA Coe, death rock by Alice Cooper, junkie rock by Lou Reed etc. It’s the music. I’d much rather listen to the Sex Pistols mangle their instruments than hear perfectly performed rap or hip-hop. Dunno why, but it’s so.
If I ever hear a rap song that moves me at all, or that I don’t want to immediately turn off, I’ll change my mind.
What really burns my cheese is that rap has infected a lot of what would probably otherwise have been really good rock bands. Oh well. What can you do?
) Some songs, if I can put my personal “adultness” aside and allow myself to find them cute or silly or fun as they were meant to be taken can turn out to be incredibly catchy little tunes. (You know, my husband once played a song from my J-Pop playlist to my BIL, and BIL’s eyes popped out of his head and I’m certain I saw part of his brain disintegrate in front of my eyes - or he was purposely burning that part of his mind away so as not to remember the sugary sweetness coming from the speakers. His one comment: “I can’t believe I’m hearing this - this is not real, dude!” Then fled. He runs pretty fast, my BIL.)