Prime Time Live

"Noizescapes" Vol. 1 | Issue 3

Time and time again, my best friend and I come across songs that we feel the other needs to hear before they die and send them to one another. Sometimes we agree the songs are amazing; sometimes we bicker endlessly, call each other close-minded and possibly a few other harsh words before eventually moving on. What I have noticed, is that the songs that we send each other are ones that we have acknowledged to have meaningfully/truthful lyrics and yet that meaning is lost in translation. Although our tastes differ tremendously, we have come to a unified agreement: if you adore the music, the lyrics rarely matter.  

 Looking a large majority of songs, it seems that the lyrics are filled with clichés, meaningless rhymes and displaced imagery, some in an attempt to impersonate purposeful lyrics and others to fill the void between the music. However, a lot of people will claim that lyrics are very important, overruling the music– if that is the case, I believe that a lot of the songs on the top 100 charts would fail to find a place.

Take for example, a personal favorite of mine: Lady Gaga’s "Bad Romance"

I want your horror I want your design

‘Cause you’re a criminal

As long as your mine...

...I want your psycho

Your vertigo stick

Want you in my room

When your baby is sick...

These lines are taken from the song’s verses and aside from “vertigo stick” I have no idea what she is talking about in specific (it isn’t hard to see she wants to get in on). Let’s face it, she is catchy but she is no Oscar Wilde. And that truth is, the words themselves don’t stand much of a chance on paper. It’s the music that brings them to life.  

Being a metal enthusiast, it’ s hard to say that lyrics matter when I can’t even recognize what the singer is saying in the first place. A lot of death and black metal admit they themselves don’t take their lyrics seriously, so why should their fans? When it comes to some music, meaning doesn’t exist or come through.  

Back in the day, lyrics meant a lot more but they were also a way of involving the listener in the music. Vinyl came with booklets that contained lyrics; you would sit around the record player and sing/read along. Now, CD booklets are more often filled with artwork than actual lyrics. You have to go online to search for them and even then they are rarely accurate.  

At the end of the day does it really matter, though? Catchy lyrics versus logically sound ones, vocals versus mixing practices. I am curious to know if we are active or passive listeners. If lyrics add a layer of intimacy even if they don’t make sense? And, if that is the case, could singers just get up on stage and sing in Pig Latin? I hope not but it seems with the way music is going nowadays, the money matters more than the meaning.  

Photo Credit: lowjumpingfrog

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