{"id":485,"date":"2020-02-11T18:45:22","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T18:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/?p=485"},"modified":"2020-02-14T14:51:22","modified_gmt":"2020-02-14T14:51:22","slug":"lyrics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/news\/lyrics\/","title":{"rendered":"Lyrics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A few mixed-up words on mixed-up words.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"728\" height=\"737\" src=\"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/imgbin-quill-fountain-pen-drawing-writing-feather-quill-illustration-WazTwe8mAj9Vthdf21N3qP1zz.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-486\" srcset=\"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/imgbin-quill-fountain-pen-drawing-writing-feather-quill-illustration-WazTwe8mAj9Vthdf21N3qP1zz.jpg 728w, https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/imgbin-quill-fountain-pen-drawing-writing-feather-quill-illustration-WazTwe8mAj9Vthdf21N3qP1zz-296x300.jpg 296w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I like a good lyric as much as the next person. When a perfect phrase grabs you, it&#8217;s a sublime moment of understanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I also kind of like it when a song is hard to understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a kid, I mainly bought albums on cassette. In those days, it would seem tapes were a cheap afterthought from a record business perspective: they came without their own custom design, and certainly without lyrics printed. So I would spend hours trying to decipher what my favourite singers were singing. Sometimes, when I eventually found out what it was, I liked my own interpretations better.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just as one example, for the longest time I thought that the line in Rush\u2019s \u201cFreewill\u201d\u2014<em>the stars aren\u2019t aligned, or the gods are malign<\/em>\u2014was <em>the stars on the line of the dark summer night<\/em>\u2014a more poetic, if less meaningful per se (and certainly less showy), turn of phrase. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Incidentally, I could say a lot of things about the recently deceased Neil Peart as a lyricist, and his perhaps unfortunate influence on my young writer\u2019s mind, but I\u2019m not sure this is the place, or indeed if that place in fact exists. But I will excerpt this passage from the same song\u2014which incidentally I could <em>never<\/em> understand despite hundreds of listens, and remained a mystery until I looked it up recently\u2014as a fond farewell&#8230;)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><em>Each of us<br>A cell of awareness<br>Imperfect and incomplete<br>Genetic blends<br>With uncertain ends<br>On a fortune hunt<br>That&#8217;s far too fleet&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OnxkfLe4G74\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Mumbling towards ecstasy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Later in life, I would become enraptured with deliberately mumble-mouthed singers. Obvious examples include Michael Stipe with the early REM, Mick Jagger on <em>Exile on Main Street<\/em>, Kurt Cobain whose vocals were slurred enough to be mocked by Weird Al\u2026 I liked the mystery of these unintelligible hooks, plus maybe I found some justification there for my own inability, or unwillingness, to sing clearly (as a child choral singer, I was often pestered to open my mouth wider and enunciate).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the extreme end of incomprehensibility, you&#8217;ve got outright nonsense lyrics\u2014the dadaist poetry of Talking Heads&#8217; &#8220;I Zimbra,&#8221; the famous backwards hook in the chorus of Missy Elliott&#8217;s &#8220;Work It,&#8221; or the work of singers like Cocteau Twins&#8217; Liz Fraser or Duchess Says&#8217; Annie-Claude, who went as far as to make up their own languages&#8230;  to me, these are the purest reflections of the idea that the important thing in a song lyric is how it sounds, not what it &#8220;means.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=507270961\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/transparent=true\/\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I only once had the audacity to try this wordless approach myself in a song, very early on. If I&#8217;d been left to my own devices, most or all of my songs might just have had nonsense lyrics, but clearer heads prevailed&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=1621869322\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/track=1813536209\/transparent=true\/\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Getting around to the point&#8230;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>All of this is just to explain why, for many years, I resisted sharing the WP\u2019s lyrics, even though people have asked about them from time to time. I guess I thought that song lyrics were meant to be heard, not read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In keeping my lyrics obscure I was also deeply affected by David Thomas of Pere Ubu, who once declared in some liner notes that \u201cPrinting lyrics is a Bad Thing.\u201d (What can I say? I\u2019ve always been susceptible to strong personalities, manifestos and decrees.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, times have changed, and now I want you all to bask in the brilliance of my lyricism. So I\u2019ve made all the WP lyrics\u2014from the random surrealism of the early days, to the self-help-influenced posicore pronouncements of the mid-late 2000s, to\u00a0the emotional oversharing of the last decade\u2014public for the people to enjoy. Now, you can saunter on over to the <a href=\"https:\/\/theworldprovider.bandcamp.com\/\">WP Bandcamp page<\/a> and find out what I\u2019m going on about in your favourite song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just be warned&#8230;. it won&#8217;t be as mysterious!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few mixed-up words on mixed-up words. I like a good lyric as much as the next person. When a perfect phrase grabs you, it&#8217;s a sublime moment of understanding. But I also kind of like it when a song is hard to understand. As a kid, I mainly bought albums on cassette. In those &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/news\/lyrics\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Lyrics&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[251,250,150,75],"class_list":["post-485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-duchess-says","tag-lyrics","tag-pere-ubu","tag-rush"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldprovider.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}