‘I wouldn’t write a song called Second Referendum Now, even though I think there should be one’ … Neil Tennant. Photograph: Wolfgang Tillmans.
[Neil Tennant is one half of The Pet Shop Boys, a long-running pop music duo (unknown to me) whose other half is Chris Lowe. At age 64, Tennant comes across In The Guardian interview as articulate, witty, and thoughtful in his comments on writing lyrics, the music scene, and the AIDS epidemic.]
“I remember as a boy hearing Strawberry Fields Forever and also reading John Lennon’s explanation that he wanted it to be like a conversation, and that had a very powerful impact on me,” he says. “And I remember reading an interview with Frank Sinatra where he said you should phrase lyrics like a conversation. I’ve always tried to do that. Someone who you might not think of as the world’s best lyricist is Madonna, but she always gets the emphasis on the right syllable.”
(Alex Needham, “Sometimes I think: ‘Where’s the art, the poetry in all of this?’,” The Guardian, 10-21-18)
Understanding Lyrics
Jakob Dylan, from his Facebook page.
My sister told me I had to listen to “One Headlight” by Jakob Dylan and The Wallflowers. A friend had introduced her to the song. “Before you hear it,” she said, “I just want to say, you’re going to find that the drums are crisp.” She gave plosive emphasis to the ‘p.’
I listened to the song and liked it: a steady, upbeat tempo (crisp), pleasing melody and chorus, a thrilling chord change or modulation midway — however you say it musically — all things I respond to readily as an unschooled listener. The son’s voice reminded me of the father’s. I nodded approvingly when the song finished, thinking of adding it to my pop playlist.
Only then did I reflect that I hadn’t understood a word of the lyrics of this wildly successful song. “Did you understand any of the words?” I asked my sister. “I think I picked up ‘Cinderella,’” she said. That was all, and she had listened to “One Headlight” several times.
I ponder with fascination what seems to be an evolution in pop (and folk) music away from understandable lyrics to ones that are not (for me at least). I can understand the Beatles’s lyrics; can’t understand Robert Plant’s. I can understand Paul Simon’s lyrics; Elton John’s not so much. It’s maddeningly difficult for me to follow what Sarah Jarosz is saying — her words get trapped somewhere in her nasal recesses, falling shy of her tongue, palate and lips; Suzanne Vega is clearer. Listen to “The Wanderer” sung by Dion in the dark ages, then by Status Quo later.
Frankly, the lyrics of a great percentage of pop music simply get past me. One working theory of mine is that instrumentation or accompaniment — call it what you will — simply overwhelms the vocals. It’s largely a matter of volume. The singing is backgrounded, inverting an earlier relationship. Also, singing legibly use to involve a certain exaggerated articulation, unnatural in conversation, whereas many modern artists sing the same as they talk, and sense gets swamped. Idle thoughts.
(c) 2018 JMN.