Poll: Song Lyrics

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The other night I had a conversation with a cat about artists and song lyrics, and how few hip-hop guys have their lyrics available anymore. This is especially noticeable in this day and age where album packaging isn’t as important anymore.  Artists used to put time into making sure that the lyrics were printed inside the record sleeve or the cd insert, but nowadays that’s hardly the case.  Part of me wonders if this is caused by the popularity of downloading music and artists and labels giving up, or if the downloading is because the people see that the artists and labels gave up and find less value in the packaging?

Either way, I’m not sure.  But what the conversation made me think about was adding my own lyrics to this site, and if that’s something that people want to see or care about it.  My initial response was that as a fan i don’t necessarily go looking for lyrics but I’m always curious to read them, but then I realized that I have actually searched for the lyrics to songs by bands i really like in the past, and if I did it then  maybe it could be a cool thing to add to this site.

So let me know whats up.  Depending on the responses I might try to make it happen:

Are song lyrics something you would like to see on the site?

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Thanks for your input!

 


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  • suavehouse

    I'll be honest- I don't remember the percentage of people who put out their lyrics to be all that high. Maybe 10%. I always had mixed feelings about good writers putting out lyrics sheets anyways- debate with your friends about what was actually being said (I can't even tell you how much my friends and I riffed on the chorus to “electric relaxation”), hear it one way and get a new interpretation of the meaning from the lyrics- I think it always fell into the category of not explaining your art. Even though I thought it was interesting (and think paying the people you sample off a hit record is respectful), I didn't like when people had to start crediting the sample artist because it took away the game of finding that shit on your own. Same thing with lyrics sheets- it was a step closer to explaining your art to someone else. My classic example is the great first album from REM (not hip hop, but proves the point)- you can't tell me the complete lyrics from any track on “murmur” because it's completely indecipherable. Michael Stipe literally murmurs his way through the album but it's beautiful and you get so much more out of it than if you had the actual lyrics sheet in front of you. You get your own meaning- isn't that what this art is supposed to be about?

  • printmatic

    thanks for the comment. you actually hit the nail on the head as to exactly why i've never done it before. i think there's something really fresh about people listening to the same song but each person getting something different out of it. to me i think some songs and writing styles definitely lend themselves to a written format, and some writers as well, but I'm not sure that it's for everybody. I've had a similar experience with Radiohead, and trying to understand some of their lyrics, then just as quickly as i wanted to know them i didn't think it was necessary because i had already kind of defined what it meant to me, without knowing exactly what was said.

    At any rate, well said! I completely agree with you

  • Spencer

    This is the beginning of an interesting conversation, so I think I'll jump in:

    I always thought artists not publishing their lyrics was a symptom of their not being very good writers. To me, it's like a poet performing a poem, but then refusing to print it on paper. For a musician in the age of the internet to not print them him- or herself–it's like saying: “let the seventeen-year-old at lyriczassassinz.net define what's being said.” Artists care about the accurate transmission of ideas, don't they? (I noticed CAGE corrected Spin magazine for printing the lyrics to “Agent Orange” as “Plus, I be disturbed” when he's really ” … happy disturbed.”)

    A record should be a complete aesthetic front: from the music, to the album artwork, to the lyrics. If one of those is marginalized, doesn't it feel like something is missing/lacking? To see printed lyrics as explanatory of the Art and not as an extension of the work of Art itself seems to overlook the power that poetry's form has. Words on the page don't define a song's meaning, they're merely an accurate transcription that, if well-written, can enhance the ambiguity of the song. What the lyrics objectively ARE is superficial; it's connotation that matters, and that can't be hindered by a booklet.

    Anyway, that's me getting way too deep about lyrics.

  • printmatic

    thanks for the reply. so many good points. this quote right here sticks out to me the most “A record should be a complete aesthetic front: from the music, to the album artwork, to the lyrics. If one of those is marginalized, doesn't it feel like something is missing/lacking?”

    i agree completely. while i understand that cost is probably the number one reason more artists and labels dont aggressively try to extend their music well into packaging, it's definitely needed because w/o all the pieces it can feel incomplete. admittedly, I'm from the era of vinyl record sleeves and cd packaging, so the entire process of listening to a record while looking at the artwork is still real to me, although maybe not to everybody. It helps me understand what the artist was trying to achieve…Not that everybody that does music views their art that way, but for those that do it's definitely needed….

  • suavehouse

    A couple of things- first, 95% of the best mc's from what i would consider the golden era (loosely 88-94) never printed lyrics. Nas, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Tribe, anyone from Heiro, Redman, Freestyle Fellowship, etc, etc…no lyrics (at least for albums from that era). So who are we talking about here that has a symptom of not being a good writer by not printing their lyrics? I think the internet age does change things a little but to be honest, if you're getting your definitive lyrics analysis and notes from some shitty website run by new jacks, we're in trouble from the get go. That's like getting mad because coltrane didn't include the transcriptions for his solos on his albums and some guy writes it up in rolling stone or downbeat that coltrane is too abstract and that somehow affects your feeling and understanding of the music on the album.

    Second, Cage would be the guy to write to Spin magazine about his lyrics. I think it doesn't matter. When you look at paintings in an art museum, does it make a difference that the artist doesn't include a little notecard explaining each stroke or what the meaning behind the color-choices is?

    Lastly, I think written poetry and spoken poetry are two different animals which is why hip hop works so well. Classic lines that would look absolutely retarded on paper by themselves come off only when spoken…”lemonade was a popular drink and it still is” for example. I think conflating written poetry which uses the page, line breaks, etc, to develop meaning with spoken word poetry or rhyming/mcing/rapping-whatever, misses part of the essence of what hip hop lyrics are about. I don't think the written and the spoken are equal in hip hop and the listening as the sole form of absorption of the lyrics is part of the essence of it.

    Also, I agree completely about packaging and think it's gone downhill for a while now but then again, so has a lot of shit about hip hop. Like 12″s just being straight up radio, album and instrumental versions off the album instead of having exclusive remixes and b-sides.

  • Spencer

    You are correct, none of them printed lyrics. But if seven MCs/crews constitute 95% of the greatest, that leaves a LOT more who were mediocre at best (and those were the ones I was really talking about). I just think that all the people you named would have presented a much better/more cohesive package if they included lyrics. Take Dare Iz a Darkside for example: from the homage to Maggot Brain cover photo to the red cassette itself (Mr. Noble was on point when crafting this album), wouldn't you want to unfold those liner notes and see a scroll of Redman lyrics instead of some bullshit writing credits and thank yous? Or, just so I can use a pun: if the first four Eric B. & Rakim albums came with printed lyrics, you wouldn't treat those liner notes as the word of the God?

    In regards to the lyrics websites, I apologize for being ambiguous. I meant “let [them] define what's being said” literally (as in: does Hendrix say “Excuse me while I kiss the sky” or ” … kiss this guy?”); I'm skeptical that I'm getting an accurate transcription of the lyrics (since only the artist can be the authority on his or her own words), so I couldn't care less about criticism from any website, whether run by new jacks or vets.

    CAGE didn't write a letter to Spin magazine about it, he posted the article (probably on his MySpace because it was a little while ago), but commented about how the lyrics were incorrect. The point of the anecdote was that he took the time out to correct a line from “Agent Orange” that wasn't even classic, so to some extent lyrical accuracy is important to an MC. I, too, think it does matter since his being “happy disturbed” is juxtaposed with his being “sick with a smirk” (which itself functions on two levels even when written), and to change “happy” to “I be” completely distorts that juxtaposition.

    I think there's a flaw in your logic when saying “written poetry and spoken poetry are two different animals” because I'm almost certain that most (I can't say “all”) of those spoken word pieces were written before they were performed. I'd argue that rhyming/MCing/rapping is initially written poetry and to not treat it as such says to me that you don't care enough about your rhymes. Also, to single out line breaks as a difference between poetry and MCing–that's crazy. I believe the only difference is that in Hip-Hop they're known as “bars.”

    As for the Gangstarr lyrics, I never considered “Lemonade was a popular drink and it still is” to be the classic line; it's only good because of the punchline: “I get more props and stunts than Bruce Willis.” … And, even when written, “props and stunts” maintains its ambiguity. What I'm trying to argue is that, regardless of genre, no one goes out and buys a record to throw away the album and treat the liner notes as a standalone book of poetry. If Guru's lyrics were printed in the liner notes, one would still have to have a knowledge of Hip-Hop slang to “get” them, plus they'd be in a place that ensures (1) you enjoy Hip-Hop music and (2) you like the MC enough to purchase his or her work.

    Finally, I do agree with you (to an extent) about what you call the essence of Hip-Hop. Michael Eric Dyson wrote a book, Born to Use Mics, which is his “reading” of Illmatic. To me, that is crap because the truth in Hip-Hop can only be transmitted directly from the MC to the listener. BUT, if an MC presents an authoritative transcript of his or her lyrics–that through form and font accents the album artwork–I'm all for it.