Music vs Lyrics

In episode 10 of our podcast 1000 Greatest Misses, Christopher Grey and I discuss music and lyrics, and whether one is more important when falling in love with a composition.  I concluded that with some exceptions, music is most important to me, and that as long as a lyric isn’t overtly lame (“Hey baby let’s go out tonight, Hey baby, I’m feeling alright”) a good melody will carry the tune to the finish line for me.  But a lyric that’s embarrassingly bad will often ruin an otherwise good song.

A few weeks ago, John McWhorter of the New York Times reviewed an upcoming book called Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers and Other Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan, and concluded that the book “is a reminder that one can be massively fulfilled by language one doesn’t fully comprehend.”  I love this summation because it perfectly captures my sentiment for a band like Yes, whose lyrics are complete nonsense to me, but that still manage to be profoundly evocative.

Consider a song most everyone knows: “Roundabout.”  The lyric of the chorus is:

In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky
And they stand there

Nothing crazy there. Kind of poetic, maybe.  But nothing overtly comprehensible.  Now imagine if singer Jon Anderson had instead leaned on rock and roll’s worst lyrical instincts and composed the following over the same melody:

I’ve got to see you, babe
You know you’re all I crave
In the evening

Not exactly what I’m looking for in a song! And surely “Roundabout” wouldn’t be a classic if its lyrics were such garbage. It’s the same reason why a band like The Babys are hard for me to listen to. An otherwise competent song like “Every Time I Think of You” isn’t helped when John Waite sings:

People say a love like ours will surely pass
But I know a love like ours will last and last

Ugh, who farted, right? And the Babys actually outsourced this tune, written by Jack Conrad and Ray Kennedy. You’d think someone could have come up with a better lyric. Terrible.

But then you’ll get words that are kind of lame but are backed up by such a terrific groove, that it hardly matters what’s being said. I think of a song like “New Sensation” by INXS.  I dig this song despite its lyrics:

Live, baby, live
Now that the day is over
I got a new sensation
Mm, perfect moments
That's so impossible to refuse

Somehow, this works for me. I can’t explain it, and I certainly can’t defend it. But I really like the song.

Of course, the best result is the perfect marriage of music and lyrics, an alchemy that’s rarely achieved, but when it happens it can move me to my core, and it’s why I admire artists like Jackson Brown, Randy Newman, Bruce Springsteen, Rickie Lee Jones, Paul Simon, etc. When Jones sings “And I can hear him
In every footstep's passing sigh/He goes crazy these nights/Watching heartbeats go by” or when Springsteen sings “There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away/They haunt this dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets”…well, damn. I’m all in. Tears, every time.

For my own compositions, just as I try to avoid musical clichés, I try to avoid pedestrian lyrics. Occasionally, I hit the mark, combining melody, harmony, groove and words that convey an emotion together that could never be achieved by their separate parts.

The beauty of song.

When Musicians Don't Want You To Like Their Songs

Last week on the podcast 1000 Greatest Misses, my co-host and I praised a song by Mike Viola called “She’s the One” from his very first EP back in 1985. Viola has had an impressive career as a songwriter and producer, but he doesn’t think much of that early release. He caught wind of our episode and wrote a response about his “crappy EP” and how he threw away about fifty copies of it years ago.

And look, I can totally get how he might not be proud of that first effort anymore. 1985 is a long time ago, and he may not even recognize the person he was at the time and probably thinks the songs pale in comparison to what he’s written since. Fair enough. Hell, I’ve done thirteen albums over the past 31 years, and I don’t believe my 1992 album is all that good. I get it.

But I have been approached after a show I’ve performed in and been told how good my keyboard playing was, and even when I don’t agree with that person’s comment – even if I think I kind of flubbed up my performance – my response is always the same: “Thanks for much. I’m glad you enjoyed the show.” It would be foolish and rude of me to say, “This concert was for shit and I played like crap.”

Viola could have just responded, “Wow, that was a long time ago and I hardly remember the song, but I’m glad you dig it,” but he instead basically told us that we were idiots for liking his song. To which I say, “Hey, you’re the one who wrote it. Don’t blame us.”

A similar thing happened to an entire audience back in 2002. Anyone who was in attendance to see Elvis Costello at the Chicago Theatre that year will remember that he was in a surly mood that evening. After a couple of songs, he snarled at the audience and announced, “Anyone who wants to hear ‘Veronica’ can fuck off right now.”

Few artists resort to such buffoonery, but many accidentally achieve the same results in a more subtle way by dismissing a song or an album. Paul McCartney has dismissed the Wings album Back to the Egg (which is silly, because the album rules), Phil Collins has dismissed the Genesis album …And Then There Were Three (also good), and Rush has dismissed the song ”Tai Shan” explicitly, and the album Presto a little less explicitly. And I get it: those may be songs or works that the artists no longer identify with. But they have fans who identify with those works, and when a musicians says – in effect – that a song is crap, it’s a dig at any fan who happens to like it.

I think artists everywhere should be careful about how they approach their past efforts and recognize the love that fans send their way. Look back on missteps not with regret but with mild amusement, and for goodness sakes, when someone praises you for a composition you wrote, just say “thank you” and move on.

A New Rock and Roll Podcast

A little late to the podcast game, but what the hell! My music-obsessed friend and I are starting a podcast called 1000 Greatest Misses, shining a light on 1000 undiscovered, obscure, and underappreciated songs that hit all the marks but failed to chart. On each episode and Christopher Grey and I will feature five power pop, AOR, heavy metal and new wave songs from the seventies and eighties, most of it curated from radio compilation vinyl records that aren’t available on any streaming service.

I met Chris as I began buying records in the 00s after a twenty year hiatus. He and his business partner Pete owned a record store called Platterpuss and they would host warehouse sales from time to time. I dipped my toes back into vinyl, making purchases every six months or so. My, how times have changed! Just yesterday I perused by record purchases in 2022, and…well…my habit has grown exponentially. Don’t tell my wife.

But hey, if anyone has a serious problem with vinyl, it’s my podcast partner Christopher Grey. I’m not going to get into numbers here, but let's just say his basement is currently unavailable for a makeover.

Chris and Pete’s record store is now called Cheap Kiss Records, a regular stop on my record shopping rotation in nearby Villa Park, Illinois (as well as online). After accumulating many radio station compilation records over the years - most of which have that one “gem” of a tune that never got properly recognized - Chris decided that it was high time to share his fruits of his labor with the rock and roll world. I hopped on the bandwagon and here we are, ready to rock the planet with forgotten music.

Our introductory episode is complete (and should be available shortly on your favorite podcast app), and in short order we’ll record our first proper episode. More soon…