Frank Kogan

I think you've helped me finally figured out why I don't put that much importance on lyrics. An example: I will always love singing along to 'Heard It On The Grapevine' despite never having been in a similar situation. The lyrics are memorable and tell a great story, but I like the song because of the menacing arrangement and Marvin's brilliant vocal line (the Gladys Knight version doesn't do it for me at all). He could be singing about Kraft cheese slices for all I care.

Unless lyrics are witty (best done by rappers - Eminem, Dizzee, Princess Superstar), nonsensical/surreal (Fergie, TashBed, Bextor) or unbelievably catchy ("ella-ella-ella-eh-eh-eh", "Muteeeya-don't-panic-panic"), the song will have to be pretty boring musically before I give the lyrics any attention.

I say all this because your article is focusing on Ashlee's words - maybe hers, maybe her writing team's - and reading all this meaning into it. You may be right and Ashlee could be a brilliant poet, but I find it very difficult to believe that there's anything more to most pop lyrics than whether they rhyme or scan well. I mean, I used to write bad ~~poetry~~ 'song lyrics' as a teenager just like everyone else! I couldn't believe anyone would want to hear about my trivial problems so always binned them. And (at the moment) I can't believe Ashlee has anything to say that I want to hear, either. I'm willing to be proved wrong but she's got an uphill struggle to convert me and my lyric-ignoring tastes.

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I am willing to be seduced by lyrics, because sometimes they crystallise a feeling (one I have, or have had, or could imagine having) so absolutely perfectly. That thrill of emotional recognition is a perennial pop pleasure for me, just as much so now I'm less angstful myself (thank goodness).

Something I probably resist doing - and I think Frank is brave to try - is unpicking the compact emotion-moments and trying to work out what they say and how. Taking lyrical moments out of a song-context and examining them runs the risk of making them seem like aphorisms - it's a hit and miss process; the "broken in me" lyric, as explained by FK, does seem impressive, ditto the T-Shirt lyric, but some of the others come across as more banal.

So I'm interested in how the sound and voice and delivery backs up or pulls against the words Ashless is using.

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Ashless?? Erm.

"The T-Shirt" lyric being that one

skyecaptain quotes a lot, I don't think it's actually in Frank's piece.

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koganbot

I used to write bad ~~poetry~~ 'song lyrics' as a teenager just like everyone else! I couldn't believe anyone would want to hear about my trivial problems so always binned them.

Seems like a crucial passage. But, you know, you do write about your problems occasionally and about your ideas and your triumphs and joys all the time. It's on your livejournal. You don't write your life down to the extent that

poptasticuk and

piratemoggy do, but that's not the point. Putting words to music is a basic way of communicating, has been for milliennia, and the restrictions of line and rhyme, and the addition of vocal timbre and rhythms, have a way of intensifying everything so that the ordinary can jump out at you as extraordinary. E.g., I think the following is actually quite profound, an entire ethic, when you hear it, in the context of a dance, or a life: "Let the music play/He won't get away/This groove he can't ignore/Just keep the groove and then/He'll come back to you again/Let the music play/He wont get away/This groove he can't ignore/He won't leave you anymore." But bare on the page they're rather "eh." And I don't particularly agree with the message anyway. (Why shouldn't you push a river? Why wait on the groove? Why trust it?) But the music adds persuasion. But the words add persuasion to the music, too. And why would you shut your ear to the persuasiveness of the words? Is there some kind of rebellion here (against your problems, that probably aren't so trivial to live through, or about some capital-M Meaning that your problems don't stack up well against, or some capital-Q quality and some capital-I Importance that good music dances circles around and that bad music lays on you like a dead fish)?

I think I'd have my work cut out for me to explain how "Let The Music Play" works as greatness. I'd have to give it a whole context for it to shine forth, and that's probably beyond my ability. Ashlee's easier because she's always pushing back against rivers and fighting against her inner grooves, which is easier for me to write down. Her struggles are fairly ordinary because life is ordinary, for the most part, and she's not writing down holocausts or epic battles. And it's "ella-ella" and "la-la" and the quick eloquence or the coming together of meter and rhyme that give life - ordinary life in song, that is - its flavor. And sometimes you're also - while, I'm also - getting flavor and a sense of mattering from the the analytical abstraction with which Ashlee lays out her issues. (As well I should, as someone who likes laying out issues with analytical abstraction.)

Often a song has won me before I even know what the lyrics are, and one of my absolute favorites ever is Paradisimo's "Bailando," which is in a language I don't understand. And when I heard them in English in Angelina's cover version I immediately forgot them. But often, when I do get to the lyrics, and the lyrics matter to me, they can then shape a whole bunch of emotions about the song, and even reshape the sound for me. Kelly Clarkson's "Because Of You" was soft and sad until I really paid attention to the words, and from thereafter the song was very loud, was wailing in my ears.

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koganbot

Er, misquoted "Let The Music Play," so he keeps not ignoring the groove, over and over. It really goes:

Let the music play
He won't get away
Just keep the groove and then
He'll come back to you again
Let the music play
He won't get away
This groove he can't ignore
He won't leave you anymore

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> But, you know, you do write about your problems occasionally and about your ideas and your triumphs and joys all the time.

Ah but the difference there is that although I usually write with an audience in mind (hence less focus on my problems and more on squeezing humour out of the yoghurt stone), I'm not writing to music. If I could write music as easily as I could write sentences about it (and dammit, I'd love to - wouldn't we all?) then I wouldn't bother with words.

>I'd have my work cut out for me to explain how "Let The Music Play" works as greatness.

Hearing that song for the first time on an electro compilation, it stood out because I picked up on that "burr-bing, burr-dip-bing" noise - the lyrics didn't grab me at all. I just don't think I'm wired to pick up on them. Another example is Kylie's 'Come Into My World'. I obviously know Kylie as an artist very well, and had heard the single half a dozen times when it was out (6?) years ago. But a few months ago I saw the video on telly and gave it my full attention for the first time. By the end I had started crying because it the song was so gorgeous. I had no idea what she was singing in the 'I need your love, like night needs morning' bit but the melody was all euphoric and soaring and felt like she was going to burst (I'm welling up now just thinking about it). The lyrics are perfect but on their own they'd never make me sob like a big old soppy wuss. And even when they are coupled with a great song and a great personality like Kylie singing them, all they do is stop the song from being spoiled (like if inspection of the lyrics happened to reveal Ms Minogue was singing about eg killing babies with spikes).

> But often, when I do get to the lyrics, and the lyrics matter to me, they can then shape a whole bunch of emotions about the song, and even reshape the sound for me.

The problem is, is that this doesn't usually affect me in a positive way. Popstars telling me what they've written their songs about spoils what *I* think the song should be about. Let's take Nelly Furtado's 'Promiscuous Girl' as an example: I couldn't tell you exactly what Nelly and Tim are yabbering to each other about, but I know from the tone and interplay of their voices that they're both trying their best to be cool and indifferent & as such are spiting themselves out of a potentially good relationship, oh the ironing etc. That's my idea of it - if it turned out from the lyrics that say, Nelly was being cool but Tim was being all whining and pleading for Nelly to go out with him, it would change the angle and remove the tension from the song. I'm fairly sure this isn't the case here, but it really annoys me when you learn the true nature of the song and can't go back to why you first liked it so much, or you get a lovely song about "oooh I love him" and turns out to be a clumsy metaphor for God or drugs or something. I feel cheated! I want to indulge my imagination! And most importantly, I don't like having my assumptions proved wrong. :-) I've just realise how closed-minded and unadventurous that sounds, but where response-to-music is concerned, it's such a personal thing anyway that I guess I'll keep listening the way I like it.

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koganbot

It also bothers me that they don't carry forward most of my italics ("it is her," "sounds like it was written by a 6-year-old," "whipcracks and kife slashes, bearing down on the words: 'living in the shadow of someone else's dream'"), but this is a battle I've given up fighting.

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NO MAGAZINE (or more unforgivably ONLINE ZINE) ever does this! Why does nobody ever do this? Do they WANT us to use caps?!

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Luckily, as we know, no songs are about drukqs.

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koganbot

Nelly F. is an interesting case in that the few times I've paid close attention to her lyrics she's come across as a pretentious idiot. And on the stuff I like of hers ("Say It Right" and "All Good Things") this doesn't matter as I find a way of ignoring them. Or their badness can even enrich the songs: I've managed to compartmentalize so the burnt ache of the voice can move me and the fact that she's desperately trying to communicate something though ridiculously bad lyrics also moves me (the poor thing) (well, she's crying all the way to the bank) but also there is the sheer joy of my relaying to someone else how terrible the words really are, an exuberance in pointing out the badness. And in doing so I even some value in the lyrics, in that, whatever flaw I find in Nelly F's words, I can't say they're timid.

In History Of Jop I'd have had no problem ticking Joan Osbourne's "One Of Us" despite the bad lyrics if I'd had any ticks left, so bad words aren't necessarily an impediment. Well, on that one the lyrics actually are something of an impediment but aren't debilitating, though I think the words inspired Osbourne to some cutesiness in delivery that I also don't like, but if the song were in another language delivered with the same moments of cutesiness I wouldn't notice them; the words highlight where the singing goes wrong.

It depends who's doing the singing, but postwar show music often doesn't work for me, and this is owing to arrangements that overemphasize the words and the wordplay and the wit or the plot elements so that the music loses its emotional force. I think some dance or even rock versions might help by de-emphasizing the plot points or whatever the singer is telegraphing about the character's psychology and moods, could find a way to let the music sing as music.

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koganbot

Nelly's trying to communicate something THROUGH ridiculously bad lyrics, that is.

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I used to write bad poetry 'song lyrics' as a teenager just like everyone else!

But Ashlee's not writing bad poetry. If you're just listening to catchy choruses, you might think she is: catchy-chorus-wise, there's no discernible difference between Ashlee Simpson or Fefe Dobson or Avril Lavigne. But look what Ashlee can do that Avril can't: I'm always, always, always late / And my hair's a mess, even when it's straight. Two lines, and you've already got a clear character.

Avril's lyrics are...well, to be honest, I can't actually remember any Avril lyrics, hold on. Here we go: I can't stand the way you act, I just can't comprehend / I don't think that you can handle it / I'm way over, over it. It scans fine, it rhymes, it's even catchy--but she's just filling space and it shows. She doesn't finish her thought up in that first line. She doesn't need another "over" in that last one. She doesn't actually say anything--and that's why it's so easy to dismiss her as brainless and bratty and incapable of writing a good song on her own.

Or here's a better comparison:

Stay there, come closer, it's at your own risk / Yeah, you know how it is / Life can be a bitch.

Uh, okay, I guess so. Versus:

Shut up! Come back! No I didn't really mean to say that / I'm mixed up, so what? / Yeah, you want me, so you're messed up too.

These are from Avril's "Runaway" and Ashlee's "Love Me for Me," respectively, which are essentially the same song: The Messy Girl's Guide to Love. Except that Avril is unfocused and indistinct, where Ashlee is clear and meaningful.

Avril meanders from her own bad day (some vague shit about crashing the car and her phone being out of range, which I guess happens if you're in Canada) to her push/pull lyric, to some more vague shit about life being a bitch and how she just wants to scream and lose control and run away.

Ashlee stays focused: this is a song about herself and her guy, and the conflict between wanting him closer and wanting her space, from beginning to end. Her push/pull lyric is the center of the song. And she manages to slip in the best lines of all time: My head is spinning but my heart is in the right place / Sometimes it has to have itself a little earthquake. And the other best lines of all time: Here I am, perfect as I'm ever gonna be / Stick around, I'm not the kind of girl you wanna leave. And more best lines of all time: It's been three days / You come around here like you know me / Your stuff, my place / Next thing you know, you'll be using my toothpaste. See how much life is contained within those three lines? These people, this place, the essential conflict. Those are the opening lines, by the way--she doesn't waste time, or words.

And that's the thing. Ashlee's writing pretty fucking good poetry: detailed, evocative, every word earning its place, with a voice that's strong and distinct. Avril's writing bad poetry, because Avril operates under your assumption: pop lyrics don't have to do anything other than rhyme or scan well.

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it really annoys me when you learn the true nature of the song and can't go back to why you first liked it so much

Wait, why can't you listen to the lyrics and the delivery/music at the same time?

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koganbot

Well, he did italicize the magazine and album titles; it may well be that he just didn't notice the others.

I'm more miffed about the subhead, actually, since it makes a context of the piece "This guy says Ashlee Simpson is better than the Beatles," which has nothing to do with what I want anyone to get out of the piece, and it's not what I'm saying anyway. But I bet the subhead will attract readers, so I won't bitch about it. It's not as if I don't understand.

Btw, I think early Beatles lyrics, before Lennon quite figured out he needed to EXPRESS himself, are some of the best - and most expressive - lyrics ever, by anyone. But again, explaining why I think so might be a task. To convey the impact of "She's the one who puts you down when friends are there you feel a fool" and "You talkin' that way, they laugh in my face" I'd have to spend thousands of words telling my story, just as in high school I wrote reams about my junior high school days in a Dylan term paper so that the teacher would understand "Subterranean Homesick Blues."

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More likely their web person just copy/pastes the text from Word into the HTML, without bothering to tag whatever was italicized in the Word document, and the person proofing doesn't know about your intended italics.

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jeff-worrell.livejournal.com

All fair points, but sometimes one humdinger of a line trumps a whole lyric comprised of thoughtful, "fucking good poetry", so...

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Oh, well then.

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koganbot

Thank you Nia!

You know, I'd really like to see you in print, I mean in magazines that pay money and with readerships in the hundreds or thousands. You're funny, you're smart, you've got a strong personality, and you have ideas. (Of course, Kat and Tom should be in print too, but people are telling them that all the time.) Anyway, would you email me at edcasual at earthlink dot net? Not that I'll be in position to do much for you (New Times taking over Voice Inc. pretty much has stomped out my influence), but I'd like to ask permission to quote various things you've written, and to use your last name, which I don't even know, etc.

(I don't know Kat's last name either. I'm assuming that it's not Stevens.)

I will say on Avril's behalf that she can be moving at times. "Unwanted" has a piercing sadness, and the words work for being so simple. And I love "Mobile" too, and she struggles with the metaphor (she's saying that she's an Alexander Calder type mobile, that she's spinning around), which is somehow appropriate.

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It is Stevens!!

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koganbot

Believe it or not, it might well be Scott, the editor-in-chief himself, who reads through it once, codes in italics, adds a paragraph break here or there and a few stylistic things like hyphens, or changes "nine" to "9" or vice versa, and usually misses my typos, and usually doesn't change a word. But he's (if it is he) preparing it for the print version, so maybe there's someone else who has to recode italics for the online, but then you'd think that that person would miss them all, rather than getting album titles but missing emphases. LVW is way understaffed (so it seems to me), and Scott also edits another magazine owned by the same people, so I try not to give him too much grief. (Or the online staff, which is this nice guy named Adrian.)

They did change one word I'd rather they hadn't: I'd written "an intricate story is told complete," and they changed to the adverb form "completely," but I think my way is better, "complete" really modifying "story," not "told."

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I guess the music, melody and voice is more important to me than what the voice is saying. Perhaps I've been listening to too much dance music...

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Yep. katstevens@livejournal.com if you ever need to email me, Frank!

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koganbot

Right, it doesn't have to be fucking good poetry to be a good song, but it sure helps to have those lyric chops if you want to pack a young woman and a living world into a few lines of verse (esp. given that the poet(s) in question actually produce some humdingers themselves: "You can throw me like a lineman/I like it better when it hurts" sure grabs the attention, as does "What's she got that I don't have" as a song opener, and "On a Monday I am waiting, Tuesday I am fading, and by Wednesday I can't sleep," which isn't just good fast exposition, it throws you right into its mood), though the purpose of my piece wasn't to point out how the poetry worked but to show the mind that was at work even where the poetry faltered, and how this young woman with her normal troubled past and her normal troubled and joyous romances gave voice to what felt at stake in that life and those loves.

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