I listen to songs by them like By The Way, which lyrics go:
Skin that flick
she’s such a little DJ
to get there quick
by street but not the freeway
*
Wha-?
Or from Can’t Stop:
Can’t stop addicted to the shin dig
Cop top he says I’m gonna win big
Choose not a life of imitation
Distant cousin to the reservation
*
Huh?
So, why do they write such terrible (lyrically) songs, when they can produce beautiful music and great lyrics with a good cohesion as evidenced by songs such as Throw Away Your Television, Californication and Otherside? Are they only able to make a few songs that have good lyrics/music a couple of times on an album? I like them a lot, but the lyrics they write can be quite confusing and stupid.
Maybe Anthony Kiedis wanted you to have a “Huh?” moment with his lyrics. It kind of reminds me of paintings that provoke emotion when viewed, despite a lack of cohesiveness. This could be lyrical abstractionism.
Painting is a visual, one sense medium. It is only one medium, and thus lack of cohesiveness is fine, because it doesn’t affect it’s meaning despite it being disjointed or unrelated. However, say in a multiple medium art such as video making, the vocal and the visual have to match the together to produce a nice effect. It affects the meaning if you cannot hear the video, or vice versa you cannot see the visual.
The same principle can be applied to vocal music. Have you ever heard a song where the beat is great but the vocals are horrible? It takes away from the effect of the good music. While the lyrics don’t ruin the music to me, it takes away enjoyment.
After sitting in my common room I think it could well be that they knew that loads of annoying people would sing along without thinking about the words, thereby allowing them to easily take the piss.
I really alot of their lyrics. Though I don’t like that “shin dig” line either. Their lyrics are cryptic for the most part but so are Steely Dan’s, and their lyrics are probably the best around.
I think it’s cuz Anthony Kiedis isn’t that great a rapper. The lyrics are only really terrible in their funk-rap songs, such as the ones you mentioned. When he slows it down, such as in I Could Have Lied or Under The Bridge his lyrics are quite passable. But his fast freestyling is just a case of him flipping through his rhyming dictionary.
You’re worried about what Kiedis writes/sings/raps when the “most important” rock songwriter of the past 10 - 15 years - according to critics and many fans - is Kurt Cobain, who wrote in what many people consider to be the “most important” song of the past 10 - 15 years “a mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, palomino”?
And yet - I can see why people think the song is important. It broke indie/alternative open, and - more importantly to this thread - although the actual lyrics make limited sense, the emotional expression of frustration, apathy and self-importance of Smell Like Teen Spirit comes through. So, in the tradition of John Lennon - it is okay to write words that may not make sense but capture a mood - I Am the Walrus, anyone? Not to mention R.E.M.'s first two purposefully unintelligible albums…
I think that Kiedis tries to do this - but not in service to teen angst, like Cobain, or alt-rock artfulness, like R.E.M. but in service to a groove. As gex gex (nice to find you in a music thread again, Mr. G) says, Kiedis isn’t that great of a rapper, but he and the rest of the band try to lock into the groove of the song and really deliver. “Give it Away” is a great, funky tune with lyrics that serve the song but are silly at best when read alone. So? Does the song achieve what it is trying to do - namely, funk rock you out? To me, oh yeah.
IMHO - some songs by the Peppers are driven more lyrically - e.g., Under the Bridge. Some are a combo of lyrics and groove - e.g., Other Side, about dealing with heroin addiction - and some are about the groove - the ones mentioned in the OP. They may have snippets of sense in them, but those are fleeting glimpses. Kiedis is trying to rock with the band…