Music Philosophy: Lyrics as Graphics

While neither philosophical nor particularly musical, the designer Mico has applied his graphic design prowess to music quotes. Enjoy. “Music Philosophy”

(You can also snag poster versions of your favorite quotes over at Etsy)

Related post: “Music philosophy,” combining music and graphics“

Your First Song

It’s my life.  It’s my pain and my struggle,

The song that I sing to you it’s my everything.

Treat my first like my last, and my last like my first

And my thirst is the same as when I came.

It’s my joy and my tears and the laughter it brings to me

It’s my everything

— Jay-Z, “My First Song” from The Black Album

Always treat your first project like it’s your last, and your last project like it’s your first. This guarantees quality.

Phonemic Lyric

phoneme (from the Greek: φώνημα, phōnēma, “a sound uttered”)

Be careful when changing the lyrics to a near-completed song.

There are two factors that contribute to successful lyric writing: meaning and phoneme. The meaning of a word or phrase is the most obvious factor when writing, but the best songwriters realize the importance of how a word sounds. What a word sounds like—the linguistic timbre—needs to be seen as another aspect of the instrumentation. A word can provide a percussive snap to a phrase, with the clicks and shooshes that propel a song.

Luckily, the balancing of meaning and phoneme (i.e. the proper writing of lyrics) is done best when done instinctively. The sound should seem “right” in the context of a piece of music, and make sense only after the second pass. But it’s when you go back to revise lyrics that you risk losing the instictive sound that caused you to choose words in the first place.

Phoneme, for some artists, are more important than meaning. Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers is a master at using words as instruments in and of themselves:

“What I’ve got you’ve got to get it put it in you
What I’ve got you’ve got to get it put it in you
What I’ve got you’ve got to get it put it in you
Reeling with the feeling don’t stop continue”

“Black bandana, sweet Louisiana
Robbin’ on a bank in the state of Indiana
She’s a runner, rebel and a stunner
Oh her merry way sayin’ baby whatcha gonna”

“Sweetheart is bleeding in the snowcone
So smart she’s leading me to ozone
Music the great communicator
Use two sticks to make it in the nature”

Kiedis is ALL phoneme. But one musician that consistently strikes a nice balance between phoneme and meaning is Paul Simon. Here’s an example from his song “Boy in the Bubble”:

It’s a turn-around jump shot
It’s everybody jump start
It’s, every generation throws a hero up the pop charts,
Medicine is magical and magical is art think of
The Boy in the Bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart, and I believe…

The point is, think long and hard about the sound of a word before you remove it from a song. People hear things before they understand it, and we all know how important first impressions are…

Inspiration Shminspiration: Just Do It.

The Other Side of Hip Hop

The corner,
Where struggle and greed fight,
We write songs about wrong ’cause it’s hard to see right.

– Common, “The Corner”

Too many people have already made up their minds about hip hop, and too many people don’t like it. To be fair, I can see why. Many people only hear hip hop in passing. On the radio, in cars… and much of it is mediocre posturing and dramatic overcompensating. Some is catchy and soulless, some is harsh and empty.

But great hip hop is a thing to behold.

Hip hop is music from the streets, and the best rappers can articulate the grit, the game, and the tug-of-war between hope and helplessness–all occurring on the same block. And not all hip hop is rife with violence and superficiality. It’s urban poetry, the heir apparent to jazz, and some of the lyrics and flow can tap into Shakespearean wordplay and triple meanings. It’s Wordsworth with a beat.

And the beat isn’t a coincidence: Great hip hop has more heart than any top 40 love song. For any skeptics, I’ve compiled a playlist of hip hop for people who hate hip hop. Listen to the lyrics.

The Secret to Soul

Sam Cooke is arguably one of the finest singers in history, but he also wrote many of his own songs. These songs are deceptively simple–like any creative titan, Sam Cooke knew the recipe for brilliance. It is this: Tension. Tension is irresistable.

I’ll explain. One of my favorite songs of his is “Nothing Can Change This Love.” I urge you to listen to it first, so check out my Sam Cooke playlist on Anywhere.fm. Sam’s rich, crackly tenor is what sells it and injects it with a hint of melancholy. And here lies the secret to the song’s appeal. Check out the lyrics:

If I go a million miles away
I’d write a letter each and everyday
’cause honey nothing, nothing, nothing can ever
change this love I have for you.

Make me weak, and you can make me cry
see me coming, and you can pass me by
but I know nothing, nothing, nothing can ever
change this love I have for you

you’re the apple of my eye, you’re cherry pie
and oh, you’re cake and ice cream
you’re sugar and spice, everything nice
you’re the girl of my, my, my, my, dreams

And if you wanted to leave me and roam,
when you got back, I’d just say welcome home
’cause honey nothing, nothing, nothing can ever
change this love I have for you

I know that nothing, nothing, nothing can ever
change this love I have for you. (end)

The song is a love song, and for a long time I thought that’s all it was. But listen closely. There’s that faint sense of melancholy–a tinge of sadness and longing in the way Sam delivers these phrases. I can’t say why this is, but the effect is undeniable.

Then there’s the lyrics: Sam sings of hypothetical situations, but what would bring a man to imagine his love ignoring him as she passed him by? Or leaving him to roam the world without him? One day it hit me: This is a love song about a woman who doesn’t even know the singer. Sam isn’t singing to his beloved, but rather someone he wishes were his beloved–“the girl of [his] dreams.” A woman who ignores him yet whom he loves profoundly.

 It’s a little sad, but Sam carries it off with dignified passion. Here’s the point: All truly great soul songs have some element of sadness, and this tension is where the song’s power comes from. Love and death. Passion and loss. It’s the age old adage of taking the bitter with the sweet–you need contrast in order to make a point. You also need conflicting interpretations in order to tell a compelling story that lasts.

I still puzzle at this song. I try to listen to it as a straightahead love song, and also as an ode from a persistent man whose love has been rebuked time and again. Sam brings this tension to all of his songs, and really, that’s what Soul music is.

The next time you listen to a love song, ask yourself how happy the singer sounds. Falling in love is never one dimensional, and any love song worth a damn isn’t either…

Overlooked Lyrics: Mike Doughty

All of the waves that crash upon the shore,
Fruitlessly shushing the world.
I pledge allegiance to my displacement,
My flag of doubt is unfurled.

— Mike Doughty, “Down On The River By The Sugar Plant” from the album Rockity Roll. You can catch Mike’s blog here.

Also, take a listen to some of my favorite Doughty tracks on my Anywhere.fm playlist.