On lyrics

There are two kinds of people in the world: People who listen to lyrics, and people who can’t believe there are people out there who actually listen to lyrics, ugh, how banal. Can you tell which one I am? Can you tell which one my ex-boyfriend was? (Not Obscure-Bridge-Obsession guy, different guy.)

Some lyrics seem like afterthoughts, or something obligatory you have to hang over the melody to distract from the fact that it’s essentially the same four-chord song that’s been written a thousand times before. I tend to believe that the secret to a good pop song is a catchy chorus you can scream along to; the rest of the lyrics are just something for fans to geek out over, and a space for everyone else to tune out and resume their conversation. (Have you ever really listened to the lyrics of “All You Need is Love”? They’re meaningless, just a frame for the chorus. But also, what a chorus!)

Then, of course, there are the John Darnielles and Josh Ritters. The exception and not the rule — and probably for the best. If all pop songs were nuanced, layered meditations that you needed a solid working knowledge of theology to truly understand, then there’d be no AWOLNATION… and no Mountain Goats, for that matter.

This is why I love world music so much: There are lyrics, but you don’t understand them. Best of all worlds! And if you actually do the legwork of finding a translation of the lyrics (or translating them yourself), you get to learn cool words in a new language — and maybe a little bit about the parent culture, too. Of course, the same is true of lyrics in English, which is why I listen in the first place: If you take a deeper look, there’s often meaning behind the words, and beyond the intent of the person who wrote them.