Words - again!

One of the ways that I supplement my income and try to stay out of the classroom is playing at weddings.  One of the requirements of a wedding band is that they learn the happy couple's choice of song for the first dance. Over the years I have seen some strange choices. I could never understand the couple who chose Patsy Cline's "Crazy", for example, and, on another occasion, watched with some amusement as elderly parents attempted to join the happy couple on the floor dancing to "This Is How You Remind Me" by Nickelback.

No such problems on this occasion. The couple chose a song called "I'm Yours" by a singer called Jason Mraz. On first listen I thought he had a pleasant voice and the song, though unoriginal, was quite romantic in intent and would work as a first dance.  However, once you start learning a song, you look at it more closely and flaws start to emerge.  It wasn't just  that the structure is messy - this is almost a given these days with commercial pop singles - they are usually hacked about to make them the right length and to include the hook(s) as often as possible.  It wasn't the pointless and inappropriate addition of scat singing.  No, you've guessed it, what really annoyed me was the lyric.  Two examples should suffice:

"Scooch on over here
And I will nibble your ear..."

Embarrassingly twee and lacking any real romance or affection, this is a real stinker of a couplet for anyone to sing with any conviction. I wouldn't recommend saying it to your girlfriend either - she'll probably tell you to go and scooch yourself! Worse is to come, though:

"Listen to the music of the moment people dance and sing
We're just one big family
And it's our godforsaken right to be loved loved loved loved loved..."

Obviously the writer meant "god-given right" and presumably didn't realise what "godforsaken" actually meant.  But what bothers me is that he didn't bother to find out, thus making a complete nonsense of what he meant to say - unless he really meant that the right to be loved (five times) is one that God would turn his back on.  This is all part of what enrages me about the commercial attitude to song lyrics, which seems to be that they are not worth bothering about. The writer reached out for a cliche and found godforsaken and didn't care what it meant.

This is not new. Looking at some hugely successful pop songs we can find examples of very poor writing.

"I have never had such a feeling - such a feeling of complete and utter love..."  Did the writer not consider for a moment that the phrase "complete and utter" is a cliche which is invariably followed by a pejorative term - complete and utter nonsense, complete and utter chaos, complete and utter revulsion? The comic effect gained by this is completely the opposite of what (one imagines) Chris de Burgh was striving for.

Or consider this example:

"And it seems to me you lived your life like a candle in the wind,
Never knowing who to cling to when the rain set in."

It's probably unnecessary to point out that this is from a hugely successful song but it is also a very poor piece of writing. Leaving aside the obvious observation that candles don't cling to anything,  the point of the song would appear to be that Marilyn lived her life like a candle in the wind - that is the title after all and it's  repeated in every chorus.  If the image means anything it means that the flame (life)  is constantly in danger of being blown out by the wind (misfortune/fame). But the image is never realised - instead he goes on to talk about rain "setting in" and later the candle "burning out" before "the legend ever did". ("Ever", here,  adds nothing to the meaning but has been stuck in there to make the words fit the rhythm.)

Later the writer produces a line which is amazingly difficult to sing:

"All the papers had to say
Was that Marilyn was found in the nude."

Try singing this to the tune and you will see what I mean. What is really amazing is that Elton John is so talented that he manages to make a hugely successful pop song out of this drivel!

So why do I care?  Why not stop girning about stuff I don't like and leave it for those who enjoy it?

The answer is simple. I love pop music, rock music, country music, blues and most forms of contemporary music. There are examples of great lyric writing in all of these genres.  Take a simple - some would say cheesy - pop song like "Hit Me Baby One More Time". It's just teenage angst and lust but there is not a false step anywhere. The register is consistent and the song hits its target perfectly.

"My loneliness is killing me
(And I)
I must confess I still believe
When I'm not with you I lose my mind
Give me a sign
Hit me baby one more time"

Even better, in the same area, is:

Her boyfriend's a dick;
He brings a gun to school
and he'd simply kick
my ass if he knew the truth;
He lives on my block;
and he drives an IROC,
But he doesn't know who I am,
and he doesn't give a damn about me."

I have deliberately chosen examples of pop songs that are not in the singer/songwriter area to show how simple and direct writing can work in pop - but don't  underestimate this writing. The atmosphere is perfectly evoked, not a word is wasted and the rhymes are quirky but right in tune with the spirit of the song. The writer of  "Teenage Dirtbag" should get an award for managing, later in the song, to come up with the line "Man I feel like mould..." and making it work perfectly in the context.

When we go into other areas, the contrast is even more marked. Anything from Joni Mitchell would put the writers of "I'm Yours", "Lady in Red" and "Candle in the Wind" to shame:

"Uranium money
Is booming in the old home town now
It's putting up sleek concrete
Tearing the old landmarks down now
Paving over brave little parks
Ripping off Indian land again
How long how long
Short sighted business men
Ah nothing lasts for long
Nothing lasts for long
Nothing lasts for long"

And even a modest Snow Patrol song uses imagery to much greater effect and avoids cliche:

"You're cinematic, razor sharp.

A welcome arrow through the heart

Under your skin feels like home,

Electric shocks on aching bones"

Note too that the images link - cinema - sharp - arrow - heart - skin  - bones - and say something real about the physical effect of obsessive love.

The difference - the real difference - is not necessarily ability or intelligence. It's caring about the words, their effect, their meaning, their sound, their connotation.  The three lyrics I  attacked earlier all show the unmistakable signs of someone doing a job, hearing the ring of the cash register and not looking at their work with any artistic rigour.

It's all part of the business. I am reminded of a time when I forced myself to watch one of these modern talent shows on TV. It might have been Pop Idol - it had a panel which included Simon Cowell, Pete Waterman and others. It featured a singer from Glasgow called Darius who made something of a habit of appearing on these shows.  Bear in mind that the panel had, as usual, in the course of the programme, been pontificating on everything from Big Band songs to Lennon and McCartney and professing their great love and respect for this, that and the other. Darius had not been doing well in the programme up until then but on this night he appeared with a new image and a different stage presence  (basically he had managed to iron out any originality he might have possessed - always a kiss of death on these shows) and the panel all feigned amazement. Pete Waterman commented that Darius had thrown "a Spaniard in the works" much to the amusement of the others who just saw it as a foolish slip of the tongue. Not one of these "experts" including Waterman himself was aware that it was the title of John Lennon's second book. Their expertise - like that of Mraz, Taupin and De Burgh is in commercialism - not creativity.