debate Lyrics versus music in a song

[WarpCanada]

I think I'm a picky listener.  Bono from U2 said about the early days of U2 that they felt they "didn't know how to write good songs, but they knew they wanted to write songs that didn't suck".

I think that gets at something really important to me, as well. 

If the lyrics in a country song talk about a girl and a truck, and skin tight jeans, and going down to the lake, I roll my eyes, and change the dial on the radio station.

If the music feels like every song I've ever heard before ever,  I hit skip on the playlist.

If I know a musician and their work, I give them much more time and attention, once I have built a mental "one way relationship" with them, where I feel I know them, even though really, they don't know me.   I listen attentively to U2's lyrics, and I am a huge U2 fan.  And even though she's a huge pop star and some people do NOT like Taylor Swift, I actually love Taylor Swift and really listen carefully to her songs.  Artists that I feel negatively towards, I avoid studiously.  I won't list the artists that I would tell my friends that I "hate" here, because frankly, who cares.  That's not interesting.

Let's suppose that I'm listening to a song on here, that was home-recorded.  My standards are not particularly HIGH for the recording and production. I would like to hear what's being done, and I actually find sparse and simple wins over complex, especially when those of us on here are not working with professional studio gear, and few if any of us have recording engineering credentials.

Sometimes I think "Genre is Bullshit" and other times, I think Genre is a well meant idea, that not everybody needs to like everything, and so we try to group things that "If you like A then you might like B also", and that's where Genre, in music, comes from.  A doomed (but noble?) effort.   

What Genre is Sufjan Stevens latest album "The Ascension"?  I dunno, but whatever it is, I like it a lot. Other people won't.   If you like thoughtful lyrics,  soft spoken breathy male singer-songwriters, with angsty and poetic souls, you might like Sufjan.  If you like Bruce Cockburn, you might like Sufjan Stevens. If you are mostly into Florida Georgia Line, maybe not.  For the genres I like, the non-lyrics elements (melody, timbre) are extremely important, but lyrics are also extremely important.     I think the "importance of lyrics" may be lower to some listeners who listen to different genres.
"Instrumental music friendly" genres like EDM, and its nerd cousin IDM, obviously, there's no lyrics needed or wanted. Some of what I like to make is perhaps IDM, if that genre is not actually, nonsense. I suspect all genres are impressionistic nonsense, but useful impressionistic nonsense.


And so, "de gustibus non disputandem est".

So I have a picky internal critic, but I choose to shut that critic down sometimes, and just appreciate things for what they are.  So, while I may be harsh towards Radio-friendly 2020 Country, as a genre, I am quite happy to hear a home brew take on that genre on here, and would probably ENJOY it if one was posted on here.

So what I'm saying is there are no absolute criteria that could tell you how *I* will react to any given thing, there's only the question of "Am I predisposed to good will, or predisposed to not give my attention to X". All those rules are probably going to change when the context changes to this web board, where I am basically kindly disposed to EVERYONE on here.  Feel free to write a song and post it on here, in which a girl gets in your Truck, in her tight jeans, and you drive on down to the Lake.  The version of that song I actually want to hear is a version of that where a woman talks to the guy who likes that song, and is getting into that truck anyways, and what she's thinking while she goes down to the lake with Bo, and his brand new 2020 Ford Super Duty.

[WarpCanada]

On the topic of French songs,  I have a very warm spot in my heart for French songs.   So in Canada, not only Quebec, which is the heartland of Francophone Canada,  has francophone culture,  Ontario, especially the north of Ontario, is also very heavily Francophone, traditionally, and there are large Francophone communities in Saskatchewan, which is where my wife's family is from. My wife is of french Canadian background, but I actually speak more French than she does.  My paternal Grandmother had a French surname (Couchard) but did not speak French, but otherwise I have no French background that I know of.  But I have a huge area of my heart dedicated to the love of French songs.

Anyways, one of my favorite French Canadian singers is Jean Leloup (he was born Jean Leclerc, uses "John the Wolf" as his stage name), I will post one of his songs which I absolutely adore.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hePFrCX_fFo

I think I will do a cover of this song, I adore it.

Willie

Les chiens aboient le train passe
C'est la nuit pas loin de minuit
Les étoiles sont magnifiques le ciel est noir de ce noir bleu que l'on voit
Quand on est triste ou bien joyeux
Les chiens aboient
Et Willie le vieux Willie écrit:
À toi, ma bouteille de whisky, je lègue ma tristesse et mes ennuis
À toi, ma bouteille de whisky, je lègue mes fuckin' soucis; j'ai raté ma vie
Ce n'était semble-t-il qu'une question de secondes
Elle tient qu'à un fil notre place dans ce monde
Au détour d'une peine, je me suis égaré
Si loin qu'on se souvienne, ma mémoire est cassée
Mes amours étaient belles, mais tout me les rappelle
Encore le labyrinthe le destin qui m'esquinte
Les chiens aboient le train passe
C'est la nuit pas loin de minuit
Les étoiles sont magnifiques le ciel est noir de ce noir bleu que l'on voit
Quand on est triste ou bien joyeux
...

Best part:   je lègue mes fuckin' soucis.
To save anyone from google translating it,  "I bequeath all my fucking worries...."

[Jean Pierre]

Warren, it's an absolutely beautiful song, and I'm talking about the lyrics.

Canadian Quebec singers have the particularity of articulating the text very well: when a Quebec singer sings I hear and understand all the words ...which is not the case for songs, especially for current French pop/variety songs where I often hear and understand only one word out of three! 

Anyway, in any case I didn't know this singer thanks for the discovery,...and so I listened on YT to his studio version of Willie...and I think I'll make a cover based on it

...a good idea in a video on YT is to scroll through the lyrics...

In your previous post you said

If the lyrics in a country song talk about a girl and a truck, and skin tight jeans, and going down to the lake, I roll my eyes, and change the dial on the radio station.

.....so will you turn the knob or listen to this French song that I covered .. it's about a truck and a (little) girl ?  it's a song of french singer Gerard Manset, whose words are audible, poetic, and meaningful.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEcK4BYDNOg

[Ferryman]

I think I'm a picky listener.  Bono from U2 said about the early days of U2 that they felt they "didn't know how to write good songs, but they knew they wanted to write songs that didn't suck".

As a U2 fan you might know the story of their second album, October. Bono's briefcase containing his lyrics was stolen as they started recording and as a result, much of the lyrics were improvised. Resulting IMO in a pretty rubbish album which was really weak compared to "Boy" which had shown such promise and intensity. So in this case (see what I did there?), I think the lyrics were really important.

BTW, I have a very obscure connection with U2 - you can check it out here: https://songcrafters.org/forum/index.php?topic=9901.msg132209#msg132209

[WarpCanada]

That's a hilarious and great story about October.   That album has one song that I really like (Gloria) and the rest of it I could live without.

The thing is that Gloria is pretty weak, as far as their stuff goes.