Great subject chaps. I’ve been eager to add my tuppence (or dozens) worth!
Originally posted by Birdsong:
My favourite artists over the years have always been wordsmiths of one kind or another…
Marc Almond, Nick Cave, Scott Walker, Morrissey, Kate Bush, Ian Dury etc
…John Foxx is a bit of a quirk lyrically for me, because I don't think he ranks up there with the luminaries mentioned above in quite the same way...
Originally posted by Mr.Ilektrik:
Lisa Gerrard (Dead Can Dance) …it's how the tone & the emotion of the voice fit’s with the feel of music that matters most.
I think there are two poles of lyrics, and singers. There’s singers who use their words and voice to provide a message and a statement, and there’s those others that provide texture and atmosphere. As a listener, I’d have to put myself into the group of people who are drawn to the latter type of artist.
With Lisa Gerrard the ‘message’ of her sound is the pure texture and atmosphere that she produces with her words and voice, Liz Fraser uses a similar approach, and Bjork uses a vocal and word eclecticism. Whereas with someone like Morrissey his distinctive voice conveys the message of his witty and insightful lyrics, but there’s nothing of texture and atmosphere from his words, or his vocal delivery of them.
(And if Martin doesn’t mind I'll continue to take his examples) - I bet we could all argue as to where each of the artists mentioned above should be placed as they are a mixture of singer/songwriters, and singer/experimenters, but all of them are essentially alternative artists, (its not hard to categorise mainstream singer/songwriters - James Blunt or George Michael anyone?). I’d say that Walker, Bush, and Cave have at times provided texture and atmosphere just as much as they have provided message and statement in their words, but I feel that Morrissey and Almond are really about statement and message, (with Almond as a naturally gifted singer choosing to venture into more exotic styles of interpretation for his message).
Originally posted by Birdsong:
What Foxx exemplifies is both elements working in harmony and drawing out the best bits in each other
John is a singer/experimenter, and we all love his voice, with many here happy just to hear him talk (as on The Quiet Man). I'd agree that he's not a 'singer' in that sense of it, but I think his particular words
are his voice, and he knows how to skillfully shape and deliver these.
I also think that the only time he sought to put himself across as a singer/songwriter was with some of the
In Mysterious Ways album, with curious results. His treasure-box of words and sentences is all about a controlled randomness, while singer/songwriters just let it out straight from the body rather than first filter it through a process. John seems to prefer having screens to push his art through, getting up onstage on impulse and just belting out a number is not his style. The outcomes of his process are unique to him, and that is his real strength.
Lyrics create a story, and we all like a good story, and it can be in different forms for each of us. For some it’s the knowledge that they are getting told it straight and can understand or emphasise immediately with the story. For some others its about enjoying tales told with a degree of panache or embellishment. But it can also be just about the outline of a story. Being given a sense of there being a secret tale to discover, and interpreting the story in our own way can be one of the most satisfying thing's that an artist can allow for us to do.
I think about things in visual terms, so someone like David Lynch pops into mind when pondering the interpretation of 'the not immediately obvious', be it pictures or words.
I know, I know, Lynch is all about making films, and this thread is about words, (he did produce and write the lyrics for Julee Cruise’s early albums, and has since done other bits of music}.
Of his films I’ve liked (and I’ve not seen all or indeed enjoyed all to the same degree), when they work they flow like music, and there is an integral lyricism to the drama. Lynch started out as an abstract painter who felt that something was missing, and chanced to add sound to his 2D work. Some of his early experimental films such as
The Alphabet were about the effect of words on us.
Here’s a typical Lynchian scene. A character is about to enter an unfamiliar place where he hopes to meet someone or to learn about something, but just before he is about to go into the room or venue his way is momentarily barred. Some unusual looking maintenance men are blocking the entrance, and they are having some unexplainable and protracted difficulty changing an electric light-bulb. Eventually the main character is able to squeeze awkwardly past the workmen and through the door, as the electric light continues to fizz on and off in the background.
While some people would see that scene as being a bit odd, or others would see it as an embellishment of the drama, some would also see it as straight-forward talking on the part of the story-teller in underlining the uncertain outcome lying ahead. The unwitting main character is either about to become illuminated by finding the knowledge they seek, or is about to be plunged into darkness by the difficulty of what they find beyond the entrance.
Now that is visual language, and before we invented the language of words - (I like Laurie Anderson’s suggestion taken from Burroughs, that language is a virus from outerspace) - we had the music of the noises we made, and the emotional messages carried in those sounds.
Originally posted by Stringy Bob:
There are many bands I have listened to whose lyrics are so obscure and unfathomable that I have no idea what they mean ...but if the music behind them is great then they could be reading the shipping forecast and I'd be happy.
…great lyrics together is always the best combination which is probably why I like Magazine / Howard Devoto
Devoto is the number one poet/lyricist for me out of anyone I've ever had music by, through his tantalising juxtapositions and montages he provides you with a sense of meaning, but without the need to really have one.
Originally posted by Stringy Bob:
John's lyrics... I find certain words and themes repeated many times in different songs...
It's not that I don't like his lyrics, I love them, but sometimes they can be a bit predictable, thematically. And as previously stated, as long as the music behind them is good, the words are, to me, of secondary importance. I often wonder if John feels the same way about his work
With John deliberately working within a constraint sometimes the repetition of themes or words shows that occasionally it might become a crutch for him to lean on. But that constraint is part of the powerful motor driving his ideas forward, and without that engine would we really have the Foxx?
The cut-up palette of Devoto is far more embracing of wider elements when compared to our John’s ‘fixed’ one, but much of this ability to encompass more avenues of thought in his lyrics is due to the fact that humour is very evident in Devoto’s work, whereas humour does not sit well in the areas that John has mapped out.
The lyrical technique used by Devoto, Bowie, John, Eno, and others, allows us to ‘understand’, but without the effort of having to ‘know’. We can take the ball and feel ourselves to be running with it, and when the technique works best we don’t notice that we are running around in a circle created by the artist. All art has boundaries, the painting has its edges, and the film has its beginning and end, as does the song, and the testament of the arts ability to succeed is when our imagination doesn’t notice these boundaries.
