why are so many soul lyrics so impossibly predictable, samey and uninspired?

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seriously, i love stevie wonder, marvin gaye, donny hathaway, curtis mayfield, the isleys, parliament etc etc, but it seems that all too often, there are so many soul lyrics that are hopelessly derivative and more than that, they are almost always about love. which isnt a bad thing, its just that half the time its virtually the exact same type of love being sung about which is just like yawwwwwn. is it just that a lot of black artists back then were limited by the labels or is it simply that people didnt wanna take many chances in case they didnt get airplay or was it that soul is just not really a lyrical medium?

― leonhaywood, Thursday, 17 November 2005 12:09 (twenty years ago)

I hate to blow your whole argument out the water, but...

― Confounded (Confounded), Thursday, 17 November 2005 12:15 (twenty years ago)

why are so many ~~soul~~ lyrics so impossibly predictable, samey and uninspired?

― Le Marquis de Salade (noodle vague), Thursday, 17 November 2005 12:15 (twenty years ago)

there's an analog here for every genre on the spectrum, i'm afraid.

― oh ilx my lionheart (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 17 November 2005 12:15 (twenty years ago)

xpost

― oh ilx my lionheart (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 17 November 2005 12:15 (twenty years ago)

i feel like such a doofus whenever someone out-concises me!

― oh ilx my lionheart (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 17 November 2005 12:16 (twenty years ago)

soz jbr ;-)

leon, quote us some good lyrics so we can see what sort of standard you think is acceptable. Cos the point about lyric is that the most obvious sentiment can be transformed by how it's performed.

― Le Marquis de Salade (noodle vague), Thursday, 17 November 2005 12:20 (twenty years ago)

Any good lyrics / bad lyrics debate is already dead in the water because what is good and bad in lyrics is entirely subjective. But I think you could make a good argument that soul music has been a lot less experimental and a lot more conventional with lyrics. Let's say soul music's golden period was the mid-sixties through to the mid-seventies. OK, in that period where is the soul lyrics equivalent of, I dunno, 'I Am The Walrus' or 'Boy Child' or 'Station To Station' or any number of rock songs. Now I'm not necessarily saying any of those songs' lyrics are good, but they've definitely stretched away from the standard formal and thematic concerns of pop music of the fifties and early sixties in a way that soul never did.

― Jacques Buried Her, Thursday, 17 November 2005 12:31 (twenty years ago)

"Abraham, Martin and John", "Dock of the Bay", "Everybody Is a Star" and umpteen others say you're wrong.

― Le Marquis de Salade (noodle vague), Thursday, 17 November 2005 12:35 (twenty years ago)

why has someone posted a jpeg of the candyman single knocking boots?! um, he's a rapper, not a soul artist.

― leonhaywood, Thursday, 17 November 2005 12:37 (twenty years ago)

"Abraham, Martin and John"
more of a pop song really but ok

"Dock of the Bay"
yeah but the you have all the other ultra-rote tossed off lyrics to other otis songs

"Everybody Is a Star"

sly stone was a lyricist par excellence

― leonhaywood, Thursday, 17 November 2005 12:39 (twenty years ago)

So what you're saying leon is that no matter how many counter-examples I post you're going to cling to your hypothesis?

― Le Marquis de Salade (noodle vague), Thursday, 17 November 2005 12:40 (twenty years ago)

um, he's a rapper, not a soul artist.

LEON HAYWOOD VS. CANDYMAN: FITE!!!!!!

― Confounded (Confounded), Thursday, 17 November 2005 12:43 (twenty years ago)

no, im not going to be that annoying. but if you listen to soul artists beyond the 'big' names, youre gonna find a lot of samey factory line lovey dovey stuff. i kinda agree with what jacque buried her said above.

― leonhaywood, Thursday, 17 November 2005 12:44 (twenty years ago)

http://users.erols.com/kaigh/images/stresskit.gif

― Le Marquis de Salade (noodle vague), Thursday, 17 November 2005 12:51 (twenty years ago)

It seems like more established soul artists could take more topical risks: Temptations, Isleys, Marvin Gaye, Sly Stone, etc.

― Confounded (Confounded), Thursday, 17 November 2005 12:55 (twenty years ago)

The lyrics to 'Dock Of The Bay' are without doubt great. But they in no way contradict my argument that soul lyrics were on the whole less experimental and more conventional than rock lyrics of the time. Those lyrics could easily have been written by some blues singer 30 years before.

― Jacques Buried Her, Thursday, 17 November 2005 12:56 (twenty years ago)

dock of the bay is one of otis' best lyrics
i think its a great lyric
on the whole blues lyrics are more interesting than soul lyrics IMHO so not sure what that means that they could have been part of a blues song from decades earlier

― leonhaywood, Thursday, 17 November 2005 13:08 (twenty years ago)

Maybe the people who write lyrics within the soul idiom are working within a certain idiom.. which you don't quite grasp the subtlties of and therefore write off as "samey" ?

― Sonny, Thursday, 17 November 2005 13:44 (twenty years ago)

i am aware of that possibility but then hip hop has a similar make up - everyone talking about how great they are, but finding new ways of doing it, and i have no problem with that as most rappers WERE trying to find new ways of saying it, or at least wittier, cleverer, more interesting ways. with soul i sometimes think the lyrics are a second thought to everything else.

― leonhaywood, Thursday, 17 November 2005 13:48 (twenty years ago)

I mean, there's obviously a lot of ingenuity in, say, a Smokey Robinson lyric, but it isn't necessarily focused on being unpredictable. The performance is the part that matters. The same is true of most genres outside of rock and rap, probably.

convenient xpost

― Sonny, Thursday, 17 November 2005 13:49 (twenty years ago)

Say for a minute the lyrics are a second thought to everything else. Is that the fault of soul lyricists or just a differences in values?

― Sonny, Thursday, 17 November 2005 13:52 (twenty years ago)

When soul isn't about revolution, it's about emotion/love. The delivery is more important than the message. So you don't hear a whole lot of soul songs based on Thomas Pynchon novels.

xpost again

― D.I.Y. U.N.K.L.E. (dave225.3), Thursday, 17 November 2005 13:52 (twenty years ago)

Obviously the poster has not heard Smokey Robinson.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 17 November 2005 13:53 (twenty years ago)

differences in values?
Why do symphonies always have samey lyrics?

― D.I.Y. U.N.K.L.E. (dave225.3), Thursday, 17 November 2005 13:54 (twenty years ago)

That fuckin' Beethoven, what a hack poet.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 17 November 2005 13:55 (twenty years ago)

Ripped of Bach's prose, and you know it.

― D.I.Y. U.N.K.L.E. (dave225.3), Thursday, 17 November 2005 14:02 (twenty years ago)

Obviously the poster has not heard Smokey Robinson.
And never heard what Bob Dylan said about him.

― k/l (Ken L), Thursday, 17 November 2005 14:06 (twenty years ago)

If you stare into a cutout bin and say, "Candyman, Candyman, Candyman," he will appear in his rainbow outfit, smack you with a candy cane and then ruin your vision.

― Andy_K (Andy_K), Thursday, 17 November 2005 14:08 (twenty years ago)

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