how well do you know yr fav bands' lyrics

I'm pretty bad, even with my favorite artists / songs I've heard 1,000 times.

Depends who it is. Neil Young, very well. Wussy, reasonably well half the time. I don't know if there's anyone I ever really liked where the lyrics were a complete mystery...R.E.M. for the first two or three albums, then they became clearer.

way too much of my brain space is taken up with lyrics, although i cannot promise their accuracy

For all of my favorites, I can recite the lyrics (though sometimes have to think a moment or hum to myself to get the verses in the right order). My parents used to chide me: "How come you know all the lyrics to this album but you can't remember your multiplication tables?" I don't consciously commit them to memory, though; I just like singing along and so would pick them up through repetition.

"I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes…"

Had to vote impeach Trump. I'd have a little sympathy, but he's too stupid to be the devil.

I have had several moments where I thought I knew a lyric for the last 20 years and...nope

Esp the Mr Belvedere theme

i am awful and i don't care

even artists that are all about the lyrics, i have trouble remembering them. in a way it's a very nice treat to have terrible memory because i can be newly astounded by the same lines, year after year

wheres those tax returns

A mix of all of these. There are a handful of songs with lyrics that I know very well and can recite from memory - mostly from my childhood/teenage years when I would actually bother to look at the lyrics sheets.

Others, I maybe can remember just the choruses or certain lines that stick in my head. Usually, I'll remember what the words are only when they're actually playing.

And then there are songs that I've heard hundreds of times but still couldn't tell you what the words were. like 90 pct of later Radiohead. also all my favourites in another language (nothing like mangling Korean while singing along to k-pop).

Every syllable of the music I listened to til I was 20, and only a few snatches (usually getting it wrong) thereafter.

Ich verstehe nicht.

Instrumentalmusik ist besser als Vokalmusik.

I'm terrible with lyrics. I could hum every melody, guitar line and bassline, but wouldn't have a clue what the words were.

And lyrics have never really factored into my appreciation of music. tracks I love have terrible lyrics, and plenty of very evocative poetry has been sung over the most boring music. The melodies, harmonies and the feel are much more important for me. (imho ymmv etc)

Likewise. Aka why I almost never listen to French chansons. Words are exhausting.

You don't have to like them to remember them, ime.

I can at least fake my way through a phonetic approximation of my favorite songs. In many cases, that is also the most I can do.

See for instance my current dn. I think that's right, but who can say.

it usually takes me at least a dozen listens before i start noticing the non-chorus lyrics, and even in the songs i ostensibly know all the words to, my mind makes a substitution here and there.

When I was a kid, I used to just lay around listening to albums and reading the cassette lyric inserts. Nothing could make me happier than to have vast swaths of lyrics memorized. I've forgotten a lot of lyrics since then and learning new ones is tougher or sometimes something I don't bother with at all. I could probably sing along haltingly to some of my favorite songs if they were playing, but if you just asked me to sing or recite them I'd be fucked. Or like, if I managed to get it 100% right, it would be a triumph like beating a difficult video game level or something.

Voted "words here and there". I'm pretty bad at remembering lyrics but I pick up on enough stuff to bluff my way through a bit. Though even with songs I know really well I'll often mix up verses or choose the wrong variation of a lyric at the wrong time.

I do know a couple of people who seem to have a supernatural ability to learn lyrics even from the first listen, it scares me.

"what lyrics?" option missing

Feels like my intense love of Cocteau Twins and my answer to this question are related, somehow.

i can reel out a ton of smashing pumpkins, radiohead, and rem lyrics from memory mostly bc of intense, focused listening during teenhood when you're just a palimpsest waiting for new words to write on yourself. i also have many of the songs i sing at karaoke memorized

almost all other music it's a "know a few of the words but couldn't sing it straight through"

i'm also, to bring up an old ilm hobbyhorse, not much of a "lyrics person" unless the lyrics are unbelievably good

yeah me too

Could recite complete lyrics of hundreds of songs if prompted. Would like to allocate that brain space to something else.

i have trouble reciting full fiona apple album titles

I used to be a "lyrics don't matter" kinda guy but imo now everything that's in a piece of music is part of a piece of music and I don't feel like dismissing one aspect is a fully productive way of listening. Which isn't just about semantic content but, I think everything in there is equally worthy of attention

it's not that lyrics don't matter to me, it's just usually the last thing i notice

I'm one of those people who sing along at live shows, especially while I'm dancing (but quietly, so I don't annoy surrounding patrons.)

But impeach Trump' is my answer.

everything that's in a piece of music is part of a piece of music and I don't feel like dismissing one aspect is a fully productive way of listening

hm so maybe i should elaborate on my position which is that: i agree with this! but i'm v forgiving of... lyrics that aren't great if the rest of the music is doing a lot of good work. also sometimes bad lyrics are interesting and funny and as much of a trademark of a band as any other part of their sound cf. new order, duran duran etc.

I'm deeply invested in song lyrics; it's one of the great joys of my life. I'm still kind of dumbstruck when I have friends who say things like they're into Dylan for the tunes. Like that too but holy hellfire what you're missing out on (not invested in/not bothered about?) is so astronomically vast it staggers me.

everything that's in a piece of music is part of a piece of music and I don't feel like dismissing one aspect is a fully productive way of listening. Which isn't just about semantic content but, I think everything in there is equally worthy of attention

― See me in mi heels an' tinge (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, March 5, 2019 1:20 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm, music is the only medium where it is considered routine and virtuous to just ignore an entire, integral part of the work. it's like people bragging that to truly appreciate film you have to ignore the script, or to truly appreciate comics you have to ignore the dialogue. (I honestly think at least part of this comes from people internalizing "don't write about lyrics because it might cause copyright problems" and that getting telephoning-gamed into "don't write about lyrics otherwise you're a bad critic.")

so unsurprisingly I voted the first option; the reason my favorite artists are my favorite artists is in large part because of their lyrics, and there are lots of songs that I would love except there aren't any lyrics available online or in liner notes, they aren't quite audible, and so I can't internalize the song in the way it otherwise might be

Most of my favourite bands' lyrics are abstract to the point of meaninglessness, or in a language I don't understand, or are just incomprehensible screaming. So to answer the question: uh, not very well.

I've never really felt the need to relate with or understand what I'm listening to.

Or rarely felt I should say, there are probably exceptions

I think writing lyrics that are easily intelligible when sung over music is an art in itself. It's not necessarily the first thing I notice, but sometimes it jumps out at me when I listen to a songwriter who has mastered that aspect of the craft, particularly if I come to them after I've been spending a lot of time on a band like Titus Andronicus (who have consistently stylish & clever lyrics, but often fall short of the "intelligibility" gold standard, e.g. by using a nonstandard pronunciation of a word to shoehorn it into the rhyme scheme/metre).

It's like the old Robert Frost quote about how writing poetry without adhering to metre is like playing tennis without a net. I don't subscribe to the aesthetic snobbery some people read into that quote — both are equally valid, but they're two different games, and they demand different forms of appreciation. Which is to say: I don't listen to music with the mindset of a line judge, looking to cut the song off after a double fault; but I do find it genuinely thrilling to hear an artist place their serve perfectly every time.

otm, music is the only medium where it is considered routine and virtuous to just ignore an entire, integral part of the work. it's like people bragging that to truly appreciate film you have to ignore the script, or to truly appreciate comics you have to ignore the dialogue.

nearly every Alex Toth comic ever gets enormously worse if you look at the dialogue. Hard Boiled goes from being one of the most prescient satires of the 90s to kind of a waste of time if you read the dialogue. Andy Konky Kru doesn't get any better if you write words onto your copies. Moebius translations don't add much compared to reading them in a second language that you don't understand. Comix 2000 etc etc.

(there have only ever been about five writers-who-don't-cartoon in comics worth giving any reading time to. very few film-makers are doing the cinematography and editing as well as writing and performing the dialogue.)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I went to see Morbid Angel last night - I hadn't given their latest record much attention, and then I read the lyrics to 'piles of little arms' & was like, "How'd I sleep on this" - opening song and totally slayed.

i'm v forgiving of... lyrics that aren't great if the rest of the music is doing a lot of good work. also sometimes bad lyrics are interesting and funny

totally, and i don't think lyrics are necessarily best responded to in some kind of lit crit mode. it's interesting how some listeners who otherwise are against musical chops as somehow emotionally inauthentic can get all F.R. Leavis about lyrics. there are a ton of ways of engaging with what's being sung, including in languages that you're not fluent in, but i can't *not hear* the words, and tbh it's rare that something is so jarring that it kills the song for me. admittedly i don't think i'm much of a fan of music where the apparent idea is to foreground the lyrics but there's always exceptions. is Joni like that? i personally don't think so but loving her music without loving her lyrics would be a weird idea to me.

also lol hangover grammar please ignore my shonky lyrics this morning

It definitely varies wildly from band to band for me - funnily enough the three Brad listed are great examples of bands I really love where my knowledge of the lyrics is really sketchy (though in R.E.M.'s case I think Lifes Rich Pageant would be the exception) but say Steely Dan I know pretty much everything from the original run of albums off by heart.

I wouldn't say lyrics don't matter but there's definitely stuff I love in spite of weak lyrics or where I just haven't paid much attention to them (or in the case of Cocteau Twins and MBV, worked them out).

depends on the band. slapp happy's lyrics are burned into my brain, but i never quite have been able to figure out what damo suzuki is singing most of the time.

IMO the biggest stumbling block against consistently approaching lyrics as a mindful and intentional and integral part of their attendant song is that the bulk of lyricists don't approach lyrics in that way.

I treat this differently case by case, artist by artist. There are acts I consider more "lyrically driven" than others, and there are entire genres or subgenres (shoegaze for example) where they're basically incidental. Additionally, there can be pleasure in enjoying the delivery of a vocalist without understanding what they're saying, which is true for me not just for non-English vocalists but even some particularly slang-heavy grime where I just have no fucking idea what they're on about.

That said, I totally understand what katherine means about internalizing songs/music because of the lyrics (had a powerful moment of that w/ a Self Esteem song on the commute this morning), but for me that's more of a specific mode of enjoyment rather than the whole ballgame.

IMO the biggest stumbling block against consistently approaching lyrics as a mindful and intentional and integral part of their attendant song is that the bulk of lyricists don't approach lyrics in that way.

― Gary Ornmigh, Heywood's son (Old Lunch), Wednesday, March 6, 2019 9:57 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

depends wildly on genre -- this makes no sense for rappers or singer-songwriters

it's like people bragging that to truly appreciate film you have to ignore the script

i pretty much argue this in all of my celebrations of alita: battle angel

i will say that some lyrics do tend to break my trance lol, i.e. anytime a rapper mentions having a jewish lawyer

Thought about starting a "Would it matter to you if Liz Fraser's lyrics were cut-ups of Goebbels speeches?" thread today

― Mike Skeavee (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, March 6, 2019 4:10 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes, if only because that would be a... very strong choice even if it weren't just for aesthetics

(or, to take a non-godwin example, I find "Possession" hard to listen to because I know they're more or less directly from a stalker's letter, which is not really something I can immerse myself in for long)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I actually think it's the opposite -- there's a "real music critics write about the MUSIC, not those stupid words nobody cares about" undercurrent that has bothered me for years. as if the lyrics are some lesser, unworthy thing to care about

My POV (long-established and expressed on ILM with annoying-even-to-me frequency) is that real music critics write about the music, while shitty music critics write about the lyrics (and/or the artist's persona, romantic life, social media presence, etc.) because they don't know enough about music or how it's made (in the playing-an-instrument sense or the making-an-album-in-a-studio sense) to engage with it meaningfully. But as we all know, me most of all, I am old and cranky and hate young people and fun.

As far as lyrics w/r/t my own listening habits, I'm kinda somewhere between Sund4r and kornrulez6969 - I still remember the words to a lot of songs I liked a lot when I was a teenager, but almost nothing I heard after, say, age 21. And these days, I spend the vast majority of my time listening to instrumental music (being required to review 15-20 jazz albums a month will have that effect) or music with unintelligible lyrics (yay, broooootal death metal!), on purpose. When a lyric jumps out at me, it's usually because it sucks and offends me as both a listener and a writer.

My POV (long-established and expressed on ILM with annoying-even-to-me frequency) is that real music critics write about the music, while shitty music critics write about the lyrics (and/or the artist's persona, romantic life, social media presence, etc.) because they don't know enough about music or how it's made (in the playing-an-instrument sense or the making-an-album-in-a-studio sense) to engage with it meaningfully. But as we all know, me most of all, I am old and cranky and hate young people and fun.

sorry, I'm not going to engage with this post, real people look at the pixels on the screen instead of that stupid shallow shit called "words"

also I hate to break it to you but music has included lyrics for centuries, if not longer

I enjoy lyrics but the art of memorization is tough for me...even with a million listens.

naturlich

also I hate to break it to you but music has included lyrics for centuries, if not longer

― theorizing your yells (katherine), Wednesday, March 6, 2019 8:52 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don’t mean to be a pedant but it’s most certainly the other way round. the word begat song etc cf. homer and the more palatable portions of “the spirit of romance”

to give two random examples but there you are

I will admit that I couldn't actually tell you the narrative of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, despite having listened to it many times over years.

― All along there is the sound of feedback (Sund4r)

i think it's got a trans-inflected narrative

arma virumque cano etc

xp

my brain is a sponge for lyrics, usually only need to hear a song once or twice to be able to mostly sing along (tunelessly)

my brother & sister are the same. we would sing along to literally anything on the radio as kids & it drove mum absolutely mental

:D

funny, I was just thinking of this today as I was listening to the-dream’s love/hate, one of my favorite records that I’ve heard probably hundreds of times, and realized I didn’t know lots of the lyrics to most of the songs

My POV (long-established and expressed on ILM with annoying-even-to-me frequency) is that real music critics write about the music, while shitty music critics write about the lyrics (and/or the artist's persona, romantic life, social media presence, etc.) because they don't know enough about music or how it's made (in the playing-an-instrument sense or the making-an-album-in-a-studio sense) to engage with it meaningfully. But as we all know, me most of all, I am old and cranky and hate young people and fun.

Some genres/artists foreground lyrics, others don't. Given your preference for instrumental/unintelligibly sung music (which I share), it makes sense that you should espouse this stance. Personally, I reserve my ire for critics who only ever talk about lyrics and sociopolitical/biographical context. It may be a bit of a hobgoblin, though – I mean, how often does this actually happen? (I don't really keep up with music criticism, so I've little evidence to buttress this intuition.)

don’t mean to be a pedant but it’s most certainly the other way round. the word begat song etc cf. homer and the more palatable portions of “the spirit of romance”

― budo jeru, Wednesday, March 6, 2019 10:27 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes, hence why I said "for centuries" and not "for millennia"

Personally, I reserve my ire for critics who only ever talk about lyrics and sociopolitical/biographical context. It may be a bit of a hobgoblin, though – I mean, how often does this actually happen? (I don't really keep up with music criticism, so I've little evidence to buttress this intuition.)

it happens far more in people's imaginations than it does in real life, and also tends to be a dog-whistle one of two things: 1) people confusing "talking about the music" with "praising the artist unconditionally" (this is how stans almost always mean it; the exhausting thing is it has no relation to the amount writers discuss the music, to the point you can often go through objectionable passages with a highlighter highlighting it, and end up with a graf that's 3/4 yellow), or 2) people talking about "politics" instead of "the music." (before I get yelled at I said "tends to be," not "is always")

and for what it's worth, personally, I dislike it when critics spend endless verbiage -- usually not particularly unique verbiage -- on the instrumentals then give lyrics a cursory mention, if any, or a misinterpretation (common offenders: songs being over-interpreted to be more confident than they actually are, i.e. every breakup song being called a "kiss-off"; songs about bad or traumatic sex being interpreted as "sexy"; as above, very specific and considered lyrics being interpreted as airy-fairy confessional abstractions; lyrics that indeed are about politics being summarized book-jacket style or caricatured as strawmen). it all comes off as "sure, you make pretty sounds, but I don't give a fuck what you have to say"

I think one thing about this argument is that most music writers are really really bad at the musicology side, to the point where they couldn't identify a time signature if it bit them, or know minimalism from baroque. It would definitely be nice to see music journalists who actually know something about music pop up sometimes, but I don't know how much it actually matters in the grand scheme of things. It'd just be nice sometimes.

I dislike it when critics spend endless verbiage -- usually not particularly unique verbiage -- on the instrumentals then give lyrics a cursory mention, if any, or a misinterpretation

I don't see that many writers giving more time to the instrumentation of a song than the lyrics, but I do agree that there's a fuck of a lot of poor interpretation out there.

Also, for the record, my shitness with lyric recall has nothing to do with the importance I place on lyrics and everything to do with my terrible brain.

I think one thing about this argument is that most music writers are really really bad at the musicology side, to the point where they couldn't identify a time signature if it bit them, or know minimalism from baroque.

as someone who does have a musical background, unless you're a classical music critic this isn't frequently going to be the most interesting or illuminating way to approach a record. certainly doesn't hurt to know, but for a lot of popular music this ends up being either essentially trivia, or pointless to write about. it's also often not how the musicians themselves approached the record -- more artists than you'd think don't have a formal musical theory background, or at least don't think in those terms when writing music.

pretty sounds = part of what they're saying imo

also like who are we talking about when we say "most music writers" or that there are writers out there bragging about how they don't give a shit baout lyrics

bc this conversation is weird to me

well, for one, there is this:

My POV (long-established and expressed on ILM with annoying-even-to-me frequency) is that real music critics write about the music, while shitty music critics write about the lyrics (and/or the artist's persona, romantic life, social media presence, etc.) because they don't know enough about music or how it's made (in the playing-an-instrument sense or the making-an-album-in-a-studio sense) to engage with it meaningfully. But as we all know, me most of all, I am old and cranky and hate young people and fun.

but aside from this I read statements or posts or tweets along these lines about once a month q

yeah he writes about jazz and avant garde of course he thinks that

then the post should have specified "shitty jazz and avant garde critics"

(it would still be wrong, but)

unless you're a classical music critic this isn't frequently going to be the most interesting or illuminating way to approach a record.

Oh yeah, that's why I was like "I dunno how much it matters" - but I would find it interesting to hear about the theory side sometimes, because it's so neglected in popular discourse. Also, sometimes lack of knowledge leads to really stupid/shitty mistakes (I can't think of examples right now but something like calling a track "flamenco" just because it's Spanish, y'know).

yeah that sort of thing is troublesome definitely

anyway, I also feel like this is drifting a bit -- my stance isn't "only the lyrics matter" but "music and lyrics both matter"

My POV (long-established and expressed on ILM with annoying-even-to-me frequency) is that real music critics write about the music, while shitty music critics write about the lyrics

coming from someone who often writes embarrassingly incorrect and poorly researched things about "the music" this is hilarious! ... like, just because an album is called "Twelve Tone Tales" doesn't mean it has anything to do with serialism

I don't know the album you're alluding to, but it sounds like whoever picked that title is parodying serialism, even if there's nothing dodecaphonic about the music itself.

Alexander Schlippenbach Trio, of which said poster wrote a review that many fans and knowledgeable listeners roasted him over

it was a jazz record. It was akin to starting a review of the album "Michael Jackson Rapes Kids" by grindcore band Abortion Gourmandtrosity with:

This album and title track have none of the pop hooks and smooth funk found in classic Michael Jackson songs ...

based on a cursory youtube search, Abortion Gourmandtrosity also lack the tight dance moves Jackson employed to captivate audiences worldwide

Abortion Gourmandtrosity jumped the shark the infamous "Fetus Frosted Flakes" picture disc

and in the opinion of this writer, it was deplorable that the packaging only contained a record, and not, in fact, sugary breakfast cereal or a plastic toy

while the cover shows a cartoon tiger wearing a 12" strap-on and wielding a chainsaw, none of the songs are about tigers

On the other hand, Impaled Northern Moonforest's 'Awaiting the Blasphemous Abomination of the Necroyeti While Sailing on the Northernmost Fjord of Xzfqiiizmtsath' is exactly what it says it is.

it was a jazz record. It was akin to starting a review of the album "Michael Jackson Rapes Kids" by grindcore band Abortion Gourmandtrosity with:

This album and title track have none of the pop hooks and smooth funk found in classic Michael Jackson songs ...

― sarahell, Thursday, March 7, 2019 12:22 PM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this seems more like a "writer parachuting in unfamiliar with the band" issue than a "writer focused on the lyrics" issue

I'm just impressed that someone still remembers shit I wrote in 2006. I sure as hell don't. I feel like I should send you flowers or an Edible Arrangement or something.

wait this was an actual example, never mind, apologies

Yeah; in fact, I've found the review in question, preserved on a dead blog of mine:

ALEXANDER VON SCHLIPPENBACH
Twelve Tone Tales Volume One
Twelve Tone Tales Volume Two
Intakt
A confession: I don't understand twelve-tone theory. I looked it up on Wikipedia once, but by the time I got to the retrograde inversion, I was already yawning. And while this may well mark me as barely one step above a bug-eating ape, I don't care. Neither should any prospective listener allow self-doubt to keep them from exploring this pair of solo piano CDs. They sound great whether you approach after years of brow-furrowing study, or hear them after being raised to adulthood alone, in an unlit basement with absolutely no instruction in rudimentary human social skills, let alone the niceties of improvised and 20th century classical musics.

Schlippenbach sticks to keys and pedals throughout; no string-plucking or foreign objects to throw off anybody less than fully versed in avant garde pianistics. Occasional high-speed workouts like "LOK 03," which closes Volume One, are balanced by the title track and its three variations - each is as graceful and beautiful an exercise in balance as a cat crossing a ladder between two skyscrapers. The standards that close the set offer a 20 minute comedown from the occasionally stark heights scaled during the previous 90-100 minutes. They also serve as reminders that Schlippenbach can swing pretty hard when he wants to.

Wish I hadn't used the word "balance" twice in the same sentence, but hey, the editor let it pass...

i stand by my hypothetical grindcore "Michael Jackson Rapes Kids" example -- tbh I had forgotten many of the details of the shitty first paragraph, mainly remember the roasting

(or, to take a non-godwin example, I find "Possession" hard to listen to because I know they're more or less directly from a stalker's letter, which is not really something I can immerse myself in for long)

? The Elvis song is him being a shit to a girlfriend; I guess Eldritch could have acquired such a stalker off the back of a couple of indie EPs, obsessiveness is built into gothdom.

Sarah McLachlan iirc

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/possession-52295/

ah, never heard her

The stalker sued her for the unauthorized use of his private letters, but the lawsuit was dropped after he committed suicide.

kinda lol, mostly yeesh