How important are lyrics in prog?

MisterProg2112 wrote: micky wrote: ^ good opinion.. and the right one...  it's all about the music and delivery...  most of the sh*t that makes up prog lyrics is silly and complete rubbish anyway.. .Rush anyone?    I can see where you're coming from, but Rush's lyrics are not all that bad. I mean sure, there are quite a few that are ridiculous (ie: "I Think I'm Going Bald", "Tom Sawyer", "Working Man", "The Trees ") But, still there are quite a few of their lyrics that really stand out like "Limelight" portraying living life on a stage, "2112", tells a great story, "A Farwell to Kings" is about corruption of our leaders, "Cygnus X-1" tells another great story as well. Just an opinion.

What's wrong with Tom Sawyer?

Toaster Mantis wrote: ... lots of people think of sci-fi and fantasy as "not real literature", and because lots of prog rock (not all of it, of course, but more than in ordinary rock) has SF/F lyrics, they dismiss it out of hand prematurely.

If what these people mean is that scifi/fantasy isn't literary, they're mostly right. Apart from a few literary works, which get filed in the 'literature' and not the 'scifi/fantasy' shelves, the genre exists primarily as entertainment, not art. Nothing to be ashamed of: I'd rather move someone than impress them.

That's why I laugh at the 'prog-snobs' (of whom there are, happily, only a few here) who argue that they are more intelligent than other music lovers because they like prog rock. The lyrics to most prog rock aren't exactly literary: we don't have an equivalent to Dylan or even Bruce Cockburn. And some of the fantasy/scifi stuff is appalling (RHAPSODY, for example). Lyrics in prog-rock are best when they are enigmatic, allowing the listener to use them as part of the soundscape.

In most cases, they are not very important to me.  There are some important exceptions, though.

Here's my take on lyrics:

- Really bad delivery regardless of lyrics: I won't listen
- Really bad lyrics regardless of delivery: I won't listen unless the lyrics are unintelligible
- Mediocre lyrics, mediocre delivery: I probably won't listen
- Good lyrics, mediocre delivery: I'll listen to it if I can actually understand the lyrics
- Mediocre lyrics, good delivery: I'll listen to it
- Good lyrics and delivery: probably one of my favorite bands

Lyrics are moderately important to me, because I enjoy thinking about the music I hear not just from a musical perspective, but I still enjoy things like the Liquid Tension Experiment albums or extended KC instrumental songs.  I think it comes from my affinity for also enjoying writing lyrics/poetry/literature myself.  It's strange, because my major is kind of the polar opposite (computer science), but I'm kind of full of paradoxes -- for example, I needed a rest from what I was doing, so I turned on Catch 33 to relax, and it's working   Speaking of Meshuggah, I actually like their lyrics.  You can find a lot of truth in observing the workings of chaos.

I digress... So anyhow, it's no surprise that Tool, Rush (they DO have good lyrics -- I don't know what you guys are talking about), early Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, and Pain of Salvation are among my favorite bands, but then you have some power metal cheese like Symphony X, Kamelot (4th Legacy is pretty hilariously cheesy, but still tolerable), and Sonata Arctica.  I suppose Opeth's lyrics have never been their strong point either, but they're not bad.

(I think it sticks out quite heavily that I'm more of a prog metal fan than older prog)

I'm not all that fussed on what is going on with the lyrics in prog. It is all about the delivery of the complete package.

Another thing about prog lyrics that I like a lot is that they often tackle subjects that pop music won't, or I feel they do a much better job of it. Also, prog rarely has a love song, which I find to be a usually boring cliche of most pop music.

Lyrics are something you discover on the internet 30 years after listening to an album and getting them wrong - and go "Ahhhh - so that's what he was saying.." 

Harry Hood wrote: It depends on the artist really. In the early days, prog lyricists could be seperated into threee catgories. there were the storytellers (Peter Gabriel, Neil Peart), who combined mythology and literature with their own ideas to convey some sort of moral or message, then you had lyricists like Roger Waters and Peter Hamill, who wrote lyrics that were very introspective and personal. In these cases the the lyrics were oftten written before the music, as the message was just as important or sometimes even more important than the music. Then you had the third category, artists like Gentle Giant, who generally wrote the lyrics after the melody, and more often than not chose words that were the easiest to rhyme and/or sing. If you're doing a four part vocal polyrythm, you don't want to be singing words that slip off the tounge awkwardly, which is why we have lyrics like "all man in each man/she can see she can". I think modern prog has some of the best lyrics, because they more often than not combine elements of all three styles. On the Spock's Beard "Making Of" documentaries, when Neal Morse is writing lyrics, he usually has a general idea of what the songs about, but when he has a few ideas for what line should come next, he'll sometimes pick the lyrics that make sense, or he'll drop those in favor of something that's easier to sing.

you are definitely wrong on Gentle Giant, as examples like "Knots" or "Black Cat" show. those lyrics were clearly written before the music

I'm into poetry  my idea of a good prog band must value the lyrical aspects as much as the music, if the lyrics are flawed it will affect my over all view of things. 

I'm going to try to streamlne this debate a bit and pose the question - Do lyrics accompany music, or does music accompany lyrics?