Word painting / “meta music”

I was thinking about the phenomenon that Jersey Al describes in this post: The meta lyrics thread

As enochroot helpfully pointed out, Wikipedia calls it word painting, and has a good description of what I’m thinking of:

the musical technique of composing music that reflects the literal meaning of a song's lyrics or story elements

Feel like this was a regular move on the early Hold Steady records. It’s been a long time since I listened to them but I can hear him singing about being back in a bar band and the band breaking into a more bar cover band sound.

The Fiery Furnaces did it a lot – incorporating a trilling keyboard riff to accompany lyrics about a cell phone; etc. One I love is where the music “counts” to seven in "Cabaret of the Seven Devils.”

prefab sprout’s discography is full of word painting, angelic harp on “one of the broken,” paddy’s southern accent/elvis impression on “jordan: the comeback,” the samba breakdown in “carnival 2000,” revving engines in “cars and girls,” etc

FWIW, this is the song that brought the topic to mind last week (I mentioned it on the Cassandra Jenkins thread) - I think what happens around 2:38 is just lovely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4GbcmMoIDo

One banal example: Paul Simon "Cars are Cars" - "drive 'em on the left / drive 'em on the right" are hard-panned appropriately

better example: Charli XCX "Lucky", "you got no reception / you're breaking up" sputters like a call dropping out

Many examples of train rhythms, trains speeding up and down, or chords that sound like train whistles eg. Subway Train by NY Dolls.

good thread, I obviously think in these terms a lot. I'll try to think up more examples to add.

In "Head Over Heels" by The Go-Go's the last line of the chorus is "Looks like the whole world's out of sync" which is sung with a pause before "sync" making it "out of sync" with the rest of the chorus.

I hate to pollute the thread with the dumbest possible example - but a moment that many of us have heard a zillion times is when the background rockin' in "I'll Be There for You (Theme From 'Friends')" shifts into "second gear" on the lyric It's like you're always stuck in second gear.

(downshifts, more precisely)

The song "One Note Samba" has several of these, wherein the singer refers to the note or notes they're singing in that moment

There’s the line in Listening Wind off Remain in Light where the guy is waiting for the wind in a quiet place and there is a rush of noise like the wind suddenly arriving.

bassline! put a donk on it

There's a bit in Leather Seat by Falcon (Ex-Circle) when he sings "I know the engine is the key to my dreams" and there's a guitar chord that sounds like an engine revving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiCkAYp9PBg

Also I hate to be the one to bring it up but how has Hallelujah not been mentioned. "Well it goes like this" etc.

In The Fall's "Jawbone and the Air Rifle" he says "air rifle lets out a misplaced shot" and the drummer does a quick snare/crash hit.

prefab sprout’s discography is full of word painting

I probably mentioned this on the other thread, but Taylor Swift's Blank Space has an actual blank space after she sings the title.

A weird counter-example: in Strange Overtones, David Byrne sings

Your song still needs a chorus
I know you'll figure it out
The rising of the verses
A change of key will let you out

Also I hate to be the one to bring it up but how has Hallelujah not been mentioned. "Well it goes like this" etc.

that's the lyrics describing the music though, not vice versa.

Speaking of blanks, Richard Hell's band leaves gaps in "Blank Generation" where all the blanks go

In "I Bought A Flat Guitar Tutor", 10cc change the chords of the song according to the homonyms of the lyrics (A flat, D 9th, C, B sus, etc.):

I bought a flat
Diminished responsibility
You're de ninth person to see
To be suspended in a seventh
Major catastrophe

The song "One Note Samba" has several of these, wherein the singer refers to the note or notes they're singing in that moment

― Josefa, Tuesday, March 2, 2021 10:26 PM (yesterday)

Not the Jobim song I was thinking of, but "Desafinado" (Br.Por. for "off-key") has a couple moments in the first verse:

Se você disser que eu desafino amor
Saiba que isso em mim provoca imensa dor
Só privilegiados têm ouvido igual ao seu
Eu possuo apenas o que Deus me deu
Se você insiste em classificar
Meu comportamento de anti-musical
Eu mesmo mentindo devo argumentar
Que isto é bossa-nova, que isto é muito natural
O que você não sabe nem sequer pressente
É que os desafinados também têm um coração

...where the bolded words (translated to "off-key", "against the grain" or "crooked") are sung in relative uh... "out-of-keyness" with the song, employing the style of bossa nova which merged classic pop with afro-brazilian samba style.

I'm sure Bill Callahan uses this technique - though the actual songs escape me at the moment. Maybe ones involving trains/planes?

Hard to top that 10cc example, but here are a few others:

Soul Coughing - "Circles" has that circular melody in the chorus ("walk around in circles walk around in circles walk around in")

At the end of "Man in the Mirror", there's a big key change when he sings "make that change". I'm sure there's a whole thread's worth of songs where the lyrics cue a modulation.

In "Despacito" when he sings the title at the beginning of the chorus, the melody slows down and the beat drops out.

A subtler (but really effective) example that I noticed recently is from "WAP": when she says "park you big mack truck..." her voice gets all boomy like, well, a big mack truck

"Everyone loves ascending fourths"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA3IJOodbWc