How important are lyrics to you?

Hi,

I like this ... though I can't exactly say that this is my motto ... I can handle Jon as well as I can T. S. Eliot and what seems like a run-on sentence/comment, takes on a different meaning later, or adds to a completely different suggestion and thought.

At one time, NOT EVERYTHING was known and posted, and the likes of academia was able to define what might be good, or bad, and in general we all accepted that since we didn't know any better. Fly on 50 years later, and the Internet brings you everything, and now lyrics are making poetry look bad ... and we don't know, or care to find a difference, or how we really feel about it all, except one thing ... most folks go for their only knowing ... I suppose ... which is their favorite. Now, it is when I sit back and wonder how Ian Anderson stands next to some well-known poets ... I like Ian's lyrics, but I am not sure I ever thought of them as poetry at all. And all of a sudden, Ian is a step down on my mind based on what I have read and learned ... in my years at University, I was still doing a lot of literature, even as a Director in the Theater Department ... I made sure I took all 6 of the classes of theater literature ... even if only for basic knowledge, and for me ... appreciation, because I can see the history of theater in a lot of those books ...

But I think, wonder, if rock's history has gone too fast, and it has not had the time to make a solid statement beyond the obvious sales that define this band or that band as the best or the one with the most ... which is a bad idea that tends to dismantle any thought of discussion of its content.

Lyrics, I suppose, are just as important as the rest of the work ... since we know, sadly enough, that there are some outstanding words that have been ignored and left behind, because we did not care for the band.

I can only hope that this whole thing grows past the fame part of it, so the material can be studied correctly and evaluated, not to suggest that one is better than the other, but to give us a better idea of what the band is really about. In this sense, I do not find Jon Anderson, bad, but I think that he has gotten way too full of himself in order to be more honest and caring about his words, but his comments about fans telling him what things meant, are sad, and sometimes done in really poor taste, even if he is tired of folks doing that to him.

In the end, the "lyrics" are supposed to be a part of the whole thing ... so specifying that they are important or not, is almost the same as suggesting that the rest is not as good, or better ... and at that point this discussion will suffer, and not get anywhere.

Lastly, the different languages often bring about some translations that are just horrendous, and IO can point this to a lot of my own dad's translations of various works, including poetry, when some of these are just insane and out of it in my book , but because they were done by someone with 100 degrees of education, they are supposed to be "valid" translations and then accepted as the "it" ... and I have to tell you that I have even had a stomach ache, for my older sister's translations ... she translated a small play I directed by dad (The Death of the Pope) and I had to change half the stuff so it could be used and said on stage ... it was on the literal side of things, but it was impossible to understand and get anywhere with it! 

I find the same thing similarly in translations from Italian and French and Spanish, and it is one of the main reasons why I do not purchase the translated albums. Some things come out OK, but they are not great ... Peter Hammill did the translation of Felona and Serona if I remember correctly, however, in my ears it did not sing smoothly as the Italian did ... that's not a surprise at all ... and likely one of the reasons why sometimes we don't end up enjoying something or other.

Coming from a literary house ... is extremely different, and difficult. I don't look at "lyrics" as any more important than the rest, and I have been a listener to a lot of opera for many years before this discussion.

The "meanings" are tough ... since the expressions are not universal, and the different languages all over the world have a tendency to interpret things their way, not in a way that we all would "get" and "understand" ... and this is something that the Internet has helped a lot when it comes to "progressive or progrock" music all over the world ... and all of a sudden our discussion is about how we relate to it all ... 

The conventional theory for many years, is that the music illustrated the words, and this could be seen in many operas for a long time, and when radio came along for everyone (after WW2 for sure! But was there in the 1930's), the idea that the music illustrated the words, kinda took a beating and changed. Music became just a song, and a few years later the new scene that helped create the 1960's and eventually gave in to "progressive" from "art rock", was all about NEW EXPRESSIONS with a new emphasis on new ways of showing and presenting the music, which had a lot more classical ideas in it, than what it was to eventually become, which was just another song and no connections to anything but itself.

The hard part, and we learned that in theater and film from the 1960's on, the words and the music were not in sync, the way we thought they should be, and a lot of different scenes, made a point of using that contrast to a very far and away idea or concept for our minds. But, today, the words and the music are NOT, NECESSARILY, in sync with each other and I am not sure why ... since it is possible that there is a disconnect with today's music ... when it comes to music history ... somehow, for me, just "songs" are not as meaningful, with any lyrics ... as a lot of stuff was for a long time.

"Lyrics" are not sacred; thus, they are not any more important than the rest of the piece they are a part of ... but we always studied a lot of poetry way back in school (gaddd ... do they have schools today???) .... and somehow, we were made to believe that Prufrock was more important than Bob Dylan, and Neal Morse ... and now we have a problem ... how do we interpret and look at the more modern poetry in terms of "lyrics" ... are lyrics a poem? Is a poem a bunch of "lyrics" ... 

And things get confusing!

The idea, these days, is to smash the thoughts and designs that have been there for years ... I'm quite OK with that, and sometimes, you get surprised, when what you hear goes everywhere ... and doesn't stop ... and you get up from the couch sweating and wondering ... what is that all about? 

AND, sometimes, you think that the lyrics are the answer ... don't get fooled again! It's just another instrument in the grouping of things.

I have to admit, that while I expected the middle two options to be the least popular, I honestly didn’t expect them to get so few votes in comparison to the other options.

I guess I should reiterate that back in the day, I would have probably gone for the two middle options - not because I didn’t want to hear foreign language lyrics, but simply because they never even came close to crossing my radar.

I’ve always been a voracious reader, devouring works of fiction and non-fiction. As a child, my mum and dad never had to worry about what to get me for birthdays or Christmas. Books, books, and more books. So, of course, it follows that I paid a lot of attention to the lyrics, and loved reading them where they were available in the cassette booklets. I knew all the words to all the songs on all the albums I owned.

I’ve always listened to instrumental music too, though the ratio of instrumental and music with vocals has definitely shifted over the years. These days, virtually all music is “instrumental” to me, as I very rarely pay attention to the lyrics/vocals anymore. The vocals have become just one more instrument in the mix - and this is largely because I started to explore music from other countries, where the lyrics were sung in the native language. Not having any idea of what was being sung, meant that I was listening to the voice as an instrument.

There are times when I’m so struck by the vocals in a song, that I feel the need to find out what is being sung, but this is rare. I know in a way it is doing a bit of a disservice to the lyricist, and could be construed as discourteous and offensive. I don’t mean to be that way, and I fully appreciate how much some lyricists put into their words. I do actually feel guilty at times, when I know that the lyrics are actually important, and I’m making no effort to listen to them.

I like well written lyrics...so I prefer English since I don't speak any other language  but I have a fair selection of non English prog.

I am an avid  reader of various styles of fiction also so words work for me.

Hi,

This was something that was specially stated in the days that Joe Cocker came up. No one liked his voice, but all of a sudden you knew he could hold and command a performance. And later when he juiced up the broadcast of an event, his lyrical side exploded into a massive hit.

There, really, is not such a thing as "bad vocals", although I will consider that the guy that toured with YES on Chris' last tour, was really poor and could only use centuries old stock hand expressions to try and make the words better, when he obviously had really not a very good idea what it was all about. He did not make YES better on that night ... and I would not have used him ever again. That is "bad vocals" for me. I have no issues with different interpretations, but this was like the beginning acting class for someone that never acted before, in the university courses in theater. It was that poor, and you hoped there was better somewhere, but I doubt that it would have been in YES.

One other thing that is difficult for many progressive listeners, is when something is totally theatrical, and we may like DB, but how many of those fans will ever consider listening to BAAL ... not many, and most can not even comment on it, except maybe to say that DB was wasting his time! I sincerely doubt that, and it might have helped him learn how to interpret a lot of his words and music again!

One great example, is the theatrical use of lyrics by Christian Decamps (who also writes them!), and how well defined and staged these are for a lot of their music, and he knows when to accent it and when to downplay it like a great actor would. But we do not think he is good, because he does not sing in English. He uses his very own language to an effect that is more theatrical than it would be a rock singing song ... but this is not something that "progressive" music listeners do not seem to enjoy or appreciate.

The other example is the "copy" of an original. Many other folks have trashed Chappo (Roger Chapman) for his abilities and he can rock and belt them with the best, and then do a Gypsy Moon out of this world! And many disliked PFM's use of Bernardo Lanzetti for a lead singer, in what was, in reality, a very good album, even if we might prefer what he did with Acqua Fragile, which was really good, nice and very enjoyable.

Lastly, comes the way that lyrics were done and used in Amon Duul 2 ... that a lot f folks don't like. Renate goes from soft to bitch in 10 seconds, Lothar goes cynical in 3 seconds, Kris sings his words even if the meaning of them is twisted and no one knows what they mean, and in essence, any thing that goes completely away from the westernized mode and idea of "singing", which was all on par with the dictum that "krautrock" had of not doing anything with western music ideas or designs.

Lyrics are, and might not be, the end all of it, and the sad thing is that we will not like it a lot when we can not understand them at all, which makes it worse, but as "progressive" music listeners, we really need to grow up PAST THE IDEA of likes and dislikes. There is a lot of appreciation for something that is done differently, and we're deciding on not liking many of them because they were done DIFFERENTLY.

^This

 Speaking of lyrics.  Most folks say that they can't make sense of Jon Anderson's lyrics. I equate Anderson personal abstract spiritual iconography to Wassily Kandinsky's.  Anderson's 70s lyrics equate with Kandinsky 1910-1913 period, bookended by Compositions IV through VII.  Whereas Anderson's 80s-90s period equates with Kandinsky's Compositions VII through X.