Sometimes a song lyric can just make you laugh. You may initially be unaware of why though. Is it a clunky metaphor? Does it not scan/rhyme well? Is it "obvious" to the point of triteness? Or is it just "overly earnest"?
That last one's significant, I feel. There are lyrics one could say were quantifiably shit ('It's not a big motorcycle, just a groovy little motorbike / It's more fun than a barrel of monkeys, that two-wheeled bike' : I don't think I need to tell you why this little gem from the Beach Boys' 'Little Honda' is ... shall we say... lacking?), but their failure largely draws from an inappropriateness of setting or sheer laziness. There are songs which are pretty much taken as scripture as having great lyrics - see photo. Then there are those folk that, well, nobody really gives a shit either way, cos they sound right. though whether the lyrics are judged harshly seems more often than not to depend on a subjective reaction to what the artist represents. No-one really gives Steely Dan flack for having lyrics that sometimes make no goddamn sense and are aloof and self-referential to the point of complete opacity. I don't, certainly, 'cos they sound perfecly fitting in their setting.
'All aboard the Carib cannibal / Off to Barbados just for the ride / Jack with his radar, stalking the dread moray eel / At the wheel with his Eurasian bride'
Now, on the page - and out of their habitat - I have no fucking clue what these lyrics mean. They work, I think, both because they sound pleasingly sibilant rolling from Donald Fagen's sneery vocal scrine, and because of their very vacuousness; the song is called 'Glamour Profession' and thus a lyric sheet of monied, cliquey babble seems entirely apt for the superficiality of its subjects. On the other hand, we have Yes's Jon Anderson, whose lyrics, it seems pretty much taken as read, are "pretentious" and "nonsensical" (hey, check the air-quotes: I must disagree with something!). However, like the Dan (and arguably to a greater extent), he chose the lyrics for those bright, weird, knotty songs because they sounded perfectly apt on an aesthetic level; fitting the melody and mood and being less concerned with prosaic meaning. If it were a three chord "folk" song, where the integrity is decisively shifted to the lyric sheet, then yeah, we could judge them differently. But damnit: in context they work:
'Guessing problems only to deceive the mention / Passing paths that climb halfway into the void / As we cross from side to side, we hear the total mass retain.'
I feel it is a testament to their aptness that such lyrics - while eschewing directness and even traditional grammar (I pity the fool who deceives my mention) - end up as both evocative and memorable. Their very abstraction and percussiveness renders them universal, though you may not be able to draw any direct conclusions. The same could be said of a more obviously "Poetic" source: you read the lyric sheet to Bob's 'Visions of Johanna' of late? The fuck's he talking about? 'The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face'? But it sounds unique and I remember it: it sounds like it means something, and it probably does to a great many people. Its evocative rather than direct, and there ain't nothing wrong with that**.
So far, in a manner of speaking, we (and our citations*) have dodged the issue. What of those lyricists who (gasp) say it straight up? No allusions, no florid abstraction: just 'I love you baby, lets have the sex'. Being direct is far more loaded, and actually controversial, than the "Poetry with a capital P" approach. I refer back to the title of this wafflet. The lyric I am paraphrasing, as you may well know, is from a song by The Feeling. Its about a guy wanting their love interest to call, then feeling sad when they don't. It's called 'Love it When You Call'. But, and here's the killer, 'you never call at all'. I think we're supposed to think this is awful. But... why, exactly? It rhymes, it's catchy and it concisely makes a universal (oh, sorry, "broad") point about relationship (oh, sorry, "romantic clichés"). Aside from the unfashionable and unambitious bent - what is actually the problem here? Its an upbeat, ebullient and surprisingly risky track: it utilises the forgotten arts of syncopation and key-breaching harmony and incorporates knowing nods to the (at the time) dogmatically hated-on "guilty pleasure" camps of 70s and 80s Pop Rock. And, most critically of all, it's completely visceral and unvarnished in its words. The song has balls through its sheer openness, and it chirped me up at a pretty low time.
Maybe its the lack of ambition or, perhaps more accurately, the emotional directness that triggers the "crap lyric" alarm here. In the olden timey days, when you could leave your doors unlocked (though you'd be more likely to get robbed), you could write Happy songs about how much you love your partner, or Sad songs about how much you love your partner (at least without resorting to the Small Book o' Authentic Appalachian Clichés Which Is Okay Because Authentic Even Though My Being A Middle English Student At Oxbridge Means These Twangy Songs About Living In The Mountains And Simple Fishing Folk Make No Fucking Sense And Sound More Disingenuous Than Tom Waits) and not care if they were "silly" or "cliched"... because they felt true. Don't see anyone giving the Beatles shit for this. or Pet Sounds***. In a "post-modern" age, heart on your sleeve idealism or emoting has become a sadly uncomfortable proposition.
There appears to be no clear concensus as to what "good lyrics" are. Everyone seems, however, to know what shit ones are when they rear their head. I would argue that there are, instead, lyrics that are "apt" and those that are not. Are you in love? Does it feel good? You may bust your balls trying to make the situation sound as complex and emotionally ambiguous as possible, but why? Are you embarrassed? Are you scared of being clichéd? I know I am. It takes more courage, I would argue, to say it how you feel it and, what's more, be proud of that expression than to do a Dylan. I feel sad that I judge what comes unfiltered from my brain so much. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to write a spiritually-barren song about Kowloon Walled City because there aren't many songs about that and I faultily suppose that "getting one up" in lyrical obtuseness is what'll make me special, rather than expressing myself.
So come on, guys. You ain't so tough. Come fill my little world right up.****
* Part of me's deathly afraid that if I don't use the Harvard referencing system my research methodology tutor will take my children. Or give me that doubting sidelong look. Which is worse.
** Then, of course, there's the MEANING OVER MUSIC approach: 'If I can't shoot rabbits, then I can't shoot fa-ascists'. Meaningful, maybe, but it sounds painfully contrived and downright "unmusical" to these ears. Don't sabotage the music for clever-pants lyrics, guys: it might actually end up making you sound stupid.
*** Perhaps one of the most forthright lyric sheets there is. And all the more meaningful for it.
**** Urgh. Talk about contrived...
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