Fiction vs Non-fiction music?

A chat with a mate recently led to us pondering the concept of fiction vs non-fiction music.

If music has genres, and books also have genres, then is it possible that there are parrallels between literature and music. And how closely do they work together?
I could imagine there's an argument to say that there's a similar dichotomy in music as literary vs genre fiction, for example - a close parallel to the rockism/popism debate?

And that led us to the question in the title. Is there such a thing as non-fiction music? I think there almost definitely is. And whether you react well to it or not could be down to the type of person you are; just in the same way that some people struggle with reading fiction and prefer biographies and factual books.

I'd say my tastes are much more geared towards "fictional" music.
By that, I mean that I view music as an outlet for escapism. Generally, I want music to transport me to another notional time and space, and that's why I tend to gravitate towards electronic dance and IDM; psychedelic rock; global/world music (where I don't understand the words), bands like Pavement or Talking Heads where the words don't usually tell a "story" so much as just sound fun; epic metal music; dub music etc... Anything that makes me go on holiday from my head - or even better, makes me forget I'm a human being sometimes. This is ultimately how I feel when I listen to Autechre - I don't think of myself at all when I listen to that, or really about the people who make it - it's entirely notional for me.

Then there's "non-fiction" music, which I appreciate, but sometimes struggle to really focus on and come back to. This might include music that's got biographical or self-reflective themes - the empowering lyrics of Little Simz or Self Esteem; "conscious" rap; songs that tell stories (true or not) about love and heartbreak might come under this banner; a lot of John Lennon and Bob Marley's output might count because of its being grounded in themes about the world and one's place in it - in the case of Lennon, he was perhaps one of the first rock stars to sing quite so solipsistically about his personal life.

Is there some water in this little strand of thought? Is "fiction vs non-fiction" an accurate way of putting this?

I have a dance music producer friend who is modestly successful at what he does, who is very interested in the dancefloor as a political and social space. A lot of the more vocal-led productions he puts out tend to focus on the act of dancing, of going out, of letting your hair down etc etc, almost to a didactic degree. I find this fascinating, but also a bit frustrating because while it is an interesting subject, I find it a bit off-putting hearing a dance song with someone singing at you ABOUT dancing

On what side of this dichotomy would you put songs with reasonably straightforward and clear lyrics but which use metaphor and allusion and don’t tell a story per se? Because it seems as if a huge swathe of pop music is like that.

https://i.discogs.com/jcT51ytXZli-y96fOzjgWqYMxcVO1z0f3whRIaOUQAM/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTUwNDQ4/My0xNjUyMzM4OTcw/LTU1OTkuanBlZw.jpeg

I think if this line exists in music appreciation, it is a split between "attempted authenticity" and "rejecting authenticity" in the many ways that term is defined.

Then there's "non-fiction" music, which I appreciate, but sometimes struggle to really focus on and come back to. This might include music that's got biographical or self-reflective themes - the empowering lyrics of Little Simz or Self Esteem; "conscious" rap; songs that tell stories (true or not) about love and heartbreak might come under this banner; a lot of John Lennon and Bob Marley's output might count because of its being grounded in themes about the world and one's place in it - in the case of Lennon, he was perhaps one of the first rock stars to sing quite so solipsistically about his personal life.

I wouldn't put most of the things you describe in the "non-fiction" category. I would mostly use that phrase to describe songs where the lyrics are "I'm rich and you're jealous/I'm in the club and everyone's looking at me," or "songs about being a pop star" like that new Charli XCX/Lorde thing, or the Kendrick Lamar and Drake songs. All of which I find to be a huge turnoff, as a listener.

What I do like, though, is stuff that plays with that — that pretends to be true but clearly is not. My favorite example is Rick Ross, who is obviously not running a global cocaine cartel, any more than Cannibal Corpse are running around butchering people. But Ross's whole thing is "I am a massive international drug smuggler, let me tell you about it at length," and I love it.

A lot of non-fiction rap is about shopping for expensive items like in a Patricia Marx piece.

Just a guess: if I looked at my thousand favorite songs, they'd more or less split down the middle. For every "El Watusi" (fiction), a "Trouble Every Day" (non-fiction).

(If you count "biographical or self-reflective themes" as non-fiction, wouldn't that make the great preponderance of pop music non-fiction? Also very difficult as to where to draw the line...I'd reflexively count "Dead Skunk" as fiction, but maybe Loudon Wainwright really did see a dead skunk in the middle of the road before writing that.)

Fiction jazz vs non-fiction jazz

"songs about being a pop star" like that new Charli XCX/Lorde thing

this isn't what that song is about, like at all.

i personally don't think it's valuable to map literary genres onto music other than like as a thought exercise, though i do think that music's relationship to reality is a very interesting topic. i think that pop music is having a "real is better" moment where people are responding to pop artists showing real struggle in their lyrics - sza, charli xcx, chappell roan, etc. as an aside, i was realizing this morning that my beloved exile on main st. by the rolling stones is very much about the real life struggles of being insanely famous.

skimmed replies so far, will go back + read proper but wanted to say right now: i think about this a lot, especially with regards to an artist performing under several aliases. take archy marshall, for example: which one is the "non-fiction" alias, living in that realm and which is the comic book world?

to give an idea for how much thought i've put into different muances of this topic, i think of the music i've composed and recorded as musical fan fiction.

Fiction jazz vs non-fiction jazz

― Jordan s/t (Jordan), Tuesday, July 9, 2024 11:32 AM

sun ra group vs miles davis group

What was the thing recently where some ageing DJ guy said he wouldn't play Taylor Swift until she stopped singing about her ex boyfriends?

I totally get that he's a curmudgeonly miser who's totally missed the point of this artist, but I kiiiiind of empathise a bit with the view that, as map says, the majority of current pop is grounded in the here and now, the real world, lived experiences etc, whether that's Olivia Rodrigo's style of dear-diarising, Self Esteem singing about self-empowerment, other pop stars telling true or embellished versions of their life.

It's all very terrestrial, and I can't think of much in the pop music realm right now that attempts to get metaphysical or psychedelic (not in a drug way, more in an escapist off-world way); whereas I think there have been times where stuff like this was viable

big bad voodoo daddy are historical fiction

Sun Ra is the first thing I thought of for 'fiction jazz', but then what are you doing by playing a standard if not putting yourself in the mind of a character and expressing the feeling of that song?

Free improv, idk that's like asking if abstract art is fiction or non-fiction.

jackson pollock v 'starry night'

sun ra "atlantis" (the song) v miles davis "bitches brew" (the song)

i've thought about this A LOT ya'll

cheers to dog latin for the proper topic!

Fiction

Iron Maiden- Murders in the Rue Morgue

Non-Fiction

Iron Maiden- Alexander the Great

Yeah I referenced Iron Maiden in all my college history papers

brimstead i first learned about the watts riots from frank zappa! not saying that's a primary source for such things, but... also, definitely a relevant document/commentary from the time.

. . . . . . . . .
i've thought about this so much in so many different contexts that i consider three imaginary boys the origin story for disintegration. or, to put it into a different analogy:

three imaginary boys : disintegration :: joker : the dark knight

I have talked and typed about this topic a lot. Briefly: I have found in my own writing that pretences toward writing of "truthful events" tend to, in execution, be frustrating to listen to. As representations of "things that actually happened", the inaccuracies are too glaring. These inaccuracies are the result of a irresistible pull of a clever stanza, or finding a good rhythm or rhyme, it's impossible to write "truthfully", when one's goal is to recount events that "actually happened".

In contrast, writing "fiction"-- that is, fictional songs with fictional characters in fictional settings where fictional events transpire-- oftentimes end up being a more accurate method of biography. Even when the characters are composites of different people, and the events are composites of different occasions, I always find myself thinking "that's exactly what happened", years later, when listening back/reading back

beneath the underdog is the closest thing i have to a proper bible in that regard.

the retelling of factory records via 24 hour party people also looms very large in my periphery. in terms of the f v nf thing: new order v joy division.

I hear you, Austin, but Iron Maiden weren’t around 1500 years ago, so it’s not really nonfiction, it’s historical fiction, like big bad voodoo daddy.

Yeah, I think if you're writing a song about a battle that happened a thousand years ago, even if it's historically accurate or whatever, that's far enough removed to count as "fiction" or "fictive".

I've thought about this for a long time, ever since I pulled my back at work about 15 years ago and had to be taken home in a taxi playing "Born To Be Wild" through London traffic.

The irony of that situation, this ode to free spirited motorcycling across a defunct Route 66 in America compared to the exquisite pain I was feeling every time the car lurched to a halt was palpable.

And then it made me realise how much some music is supposed to let you escape. No matter who you are or where you are, 'Born To Be Wild' is a song that's designed to transport you to a very specific time and place. It is, to me therefore, a fictional piece.

But compare that to, say, Kanye's "Blood On the Leaves" or the Beatles "Ballad Of John & Yoko", I guess they're transporting you, but they're transporting you into the point of view of the singer-songwriter. It's about as non-fiction as it gets.

Something I'm not sure about are about relationships. I feel like I want to say they belong to the non-fiction world even though they're telling a story. Maybe it's because this is based on real life and the human experience. It's grounded in reality, kind of like a soap opera. A song about love or about a break-up might take you somewhere emotionally, but does it take you out of reality?

What about something like 'Dancing Queen'. You could be a big burly lorry driver from Hull, but when that song's on, the lyrics are clear: YOU are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only 17. That's pretty out-there... I'd put that in fiction.

What about disco songs that are literally about dancing and discos? Non-fiction. It's music that is about itself, that is, unless it's instructing you to dance in a way that makes you become "Superman".

I think a lot of instrumental music is fiction. Without lyrics, you're not anchored to reality and you're left to interpret the sounds your own way. Might be some exceptions of course.

Maybe fiction/non-fiction isn't the right term at all? Maybe on-world and off-world are better?

*songs about relationships

Yeah. many years ago I was talking to a friend years ago about Pierre Schaeffer in terms derived from the art critic Clement Greenberg, as a sound that doesn't stand for anything other than what it is and refers only to itself. He was telling me there's this book called "In The Blink of an Ear" that connects Schaeffer and Greenberg along similar lines. I still haven't read it but anyone who is interested in these sorts of questions should def read the intro to You Nakai's book on David Tudor, where he explains how for Tudor, the instrument is the score.

I guess I feel like "representational" and "non-representational" are maybe more useful terms than "fiction" and "non-fiction" for talking about music. There's this survey on the internet that catalogs the different ways that music can be representational, which is a fun read. It's a lot of things like that ilx thread for songs that sound like a train speeding up and slowing down, stuff like that. I don't really remember if it touches on the thing of constructing meaning out of musical quotations and references, which is I guess where music functions the most like a language for me.

I don;t know, I guess I think of parallels between music and literature mainly as a question of how clearly music is able to communicate 'meaning' and how musicians are able to exercise a kind of meaning control. I guess the failures and ambiguities are more appealing to me than the clarity.

But it's also true that one of the ways music can function like literature is to create an immersive environment that pulls you out of your own reality.

"I'm rich and you're jealous/I'm in the club and everyone's looking at me," or "songs about being a pop star"

but "songs about being in a rock band" are *a million* times worse

in terms of the f v nf thing: new order v joy division

But Joy Division's lyrics are almost all elusive in a factual sense, no matter how much emotional reality they reveal - and the very banality of New Order's words could be described as "more real", because less fanciful and more grounded in the everyday.

transporting you into the point of view of the singer-songwriter. It's about as non-fiction as it gets.

Why conflate autobiography with non-fiction? Surely the most direct "non-fiction music" would be about exposing the means of production, like early Scritti Politti or the Mekons; or literal reportage of events like early Phil Ochs or other protest singers.

You could be a big burly lorry driver from Hull but when that song's on, the lyrics are clear: YOU are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only 17

But a girl born in 1959 who spent most of 1976 on the dance floor might then (and still might) regard the song as absolute reportage of the circumstances of her life - so is it non-fiction to her and fiction to your truck driver?

The most direct non-fiction music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peahfxDx8m8

I went to a lecture once by a Daoist astrologer where was talking about how one of the very unreliable ways that history is passed down has been through bards. To say nothing of metaphysical workshops! But he was saying, it used to be that if you wanted to know about where you're from, you would go to the pub and listen to the bard and afterwards you would say "now I know what it means to be from Finland". Is this something a lot of songs are doing, pretty much? Enshrining your own ideas about yourself, or your people?

One thing I think a lot about is parallels between ritual, theater and music - how music functions as a vehicle for transformation. Like rappers who big themselves up, make themselves a little bit tougher than they really are, and step into that role and become that for real!