does music need lyrics to make sense to be good?

justjoshingu

listening to fake plastic trees and realized, there are parts that dont make a no sense. but i love this song. i still think its better than half the stuff out there. (looking at you spears)

least it wasnt karma police.

BeerBaron

They may not make sense to you, but I am sure they meant something when Yorke was writing them...

That song makes a lot of sense to me. Just one big metaphor ...

justam

I think the meaning of that song is actually pretty clear.

It's about people who are spending a lot of energy on the superficial appearance of their lives and it's taking a lot of effort to do so because there's something else underneath. The singer of the song wants to break through the facade, but it's tiring him out too.

So, it's about the emotional cost of having two selves. The part you show and the part that's real underneath.

FinsburyParkCarrots

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QqQ1QNNk2Us

Get_Right

no

Look for a while at the china cat sunflower,
Proud walking jingle in the midnight sun.
Copperdome bodhi drip a silver kimono,
Like a crazy quilt stargown through a dream night wind.

Crazy cat peekin through a lace bandanna,
Like a one-eyed cheshire, like a diamond-eye jack.
A leaf of all colors plays a golden-string fiddle,
To a double-e waterfall over my back.

Comic book colors on a violin river cryin leonardo,
Words from out a silk trombone.
I rang a silent bell, beneath a shower of pearls,
In the eagle-winged palace of the queen chinee.

decides2dream

considering music doesn't even need lyrics to be good, great even...i don't see why nonsensical lyrics would necessarily be a detriment. who knows, it could be for the better...merely another 'instrumen' playing, and not distracting you with what they sing, but simply how they sing it. there have been quite a few songs that i have loved with some weak lyrics, or nonsensical.....and it in no way lessened my love for it. do great lyrics that make sense add more to a great song? sure. but i don't think it's a necessity for a song to be good.


so sure....no.

BinFrog

There are tons of great songs with nonsensical lyrics:

The Beatles - I Am The Walrus, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, Across The Universe

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit, Scentless Apprentice

Phish - Reba, Foam, Cavern

Pink Floyd - Astronomy Domine, Echoes

lots of Beastie Boys' rhymes

and on and on.

decides2dream

to be fair...i think it's best to refer to such as seemingly nonsensical. b/c as someone else already pointed out, and rightly so, just b/c you or i may not make 'sense' of them...doent mean the lyrics don't hold sense or meaning to the writer.....and lots of poetry, music, can be difficult for the listener to decifer, and possibly purposefully so.

Heineken Helen

BinFrog wrote:

There are tons of great songs with nonsensical lyrics:

The Beatles - I Am The Walrus, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, Across The Universe

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit, Scentless Apprentice

Phish - Reba, Foam, Cavern

Pink Floyd - Astronomy Domine, Echoes

lots of Beastie Boys' rhymes

and on and on.

EVERYTHING by Sigur Ros... and not many people can say they don't make great music :oops:

BinFrog

And lest we not forget the original version of Yellow Ledbetter

soulsinging

justjoshingu wrote:

listening to fake plastic trees and realized, there are parts that dont make a no sense. but i love this song. i still think its better than half the stuff out there. (looking at you spears)

least it wasnt karma police.

Not at all. I'm much more of a music guy than lyrics guy generally. On Nirvana's dvd, Kurt says that his lyrics are often impressionistic. They're not meant to be clear and explicit the way Bruce Springsteen tells stories. Nothing wrong with that. It's why I've always thought that it's kind of funny how people hate on Bush for nonsensical lyrics. Sure, a lot of them are ridiculously silly, but Nirvana, if you compared them side by side, isn't really a whole lot better.

PJGARDEN

Strangest Tribe has always been one of my favorite PJ songs and I still don't really understand it. I acutally like songs that I don't get right off the bat or that never make sense to me. No matter how many times you listen to it, there is still a mystic about it.

Arcticangel

Bon Iver - For Emma...Forever Ago

Most nonsensical lyrics ever...and one of the best albums I've ever heard.
So no, lyrics don't need to make sense. In some ways, it's more fun because you can read your own thoughts and experiences into them.

JonnyPistachio

RHCP too...
I love the random crap that Keidis comes up with. He admits a lot of it is just for the rhyme.

chiquimonkey

neil finn makes some gorgeous music, and yet some of his songs' lyrics are rather cryptic. the funny thing though is you can *feel* the point he's trying to make, even if the words don't necessarily make sense. so the communication isn't so much in the words themselves but the images and feelings they conjure up. good stuff

megatron

Heineken Helen wrote:

BinFrog wrote:

There are tons of great songs with nonsensical lyrics:

The Beatles - I Am The Walrus, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, Across The Universe

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit, Scentless Apprentice

Phish - Reba, Foam, Cavern

Pink Floyd - Astronomy Domine, Echoes

lots of Beastie Boys' rhymes

and on and on.

EVERYTHING by Sigur Ros... and not many people can say they don't make great music :oops:

a lot more from nirvana too.
cobain said he always hated people trying to find his meaning when he admits he just threw a lot of random lyrics together that sounded good together...mainly from seperate poems or notes

libragirl

not necessarily.

pretext

Andrew Bird is one of my favorite artists, and often he makes up words. His explanation of the relationship between his words and music is pretty interesting:
http://measureformeasure.blogs.nytimes. ... will-tell/

Stu42

i think the bigger question is do corny lyrics become a detriment to a song? Musically the greatest song in the world can be ruined by some embarassingly bad lyrics. Personally I think nonsensical lyrics can be a plus a lot of times

LONGRD

JonnyPistachio wrote:

RHCP too...
I love the random crap that Keidis comes up with. He admits a lot of it is just for the rhyme.

Same with Soul Coughing. It's like freestyle poetry with a blend of rap.

DewieCox

Doesn't have to. Alotta great songs don't have words at all. I would imagine there even more that were just made up on the spot or consist of a scratch vocal that made the final cut.