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Comment by ecoffey | Hacker News Reader

I thought I was the only one who didn't pay attention to lyrics.

My friend and I kinda of resemble that dynamic. He loves some of the shittiest songs (imo) because of interesting lyrical content, where as I totally ignore them. If I like them it's because of how they were sung not because of me diving through looking for "meaning".

That's why after all these years Pinback is still one of my favorite bands. Their voices are just another instrument in a lot of their songs, since it sounds like Rob Crow kind of mumbles through them all, and they're usually sitting a layer or two down in the mix.

For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59cQWw9ctOA (not the greatest quality I know). It's the way he sings / shouts "Stop! It's too late! I'm feeling FRUS-trated!" that draws me in.

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I also don't really listen to lyrics, largely because it is hard for me. I think I actually have some sort of perceptual incapacity -- I have to really try to understand them, whereas it seems other people hear them very easily. Even when I try, it's hard. I'm smart in other ways, but in this regard I am comparatively deficient. Anybody else on HN share this 'syndrome'?

For me, music has always been about structure, tone, melody -- I like the Eagles, for example, but when I started hearing the lyrics (it took me a while, and they're pretty easy), I was like, "Man, these guys are cheesy!" In some agreement with this article, I love jazz. Check out my friend Daniel Levin for how far out I like it: http://www.daniel-levin.com (annoying flash site but has samples of his music)

You're definitely not the only one. I really tried to understand the lyrics to the song linked by your parent post, and couldn't make out a word (also stopped listening after a minute because I couldn't get past the repetitive bass line).

Yes, I share that syndrome, though it depends on the artist. I'm convinced the reason that there are so many passionate haters of Coldplay out there is because they're focusing on the lyrics, which are totally vague and, IMO, just written as another component of overall aesthetic.

On the other hand, I can't listen to Bob Dylan or Eminem [1] without hearing the lyrics, because in their case the music is really just there as a scaffolding for the words.

[1] How's that for a juxtaposition?

There's a lot of music having lyrics that seem engineered to be ignorable, making me think that the artist only intended them to be placeholders, either because they wanted the voice to be a freer instrument, or just because the genre format demanded lyrics.

Aside from the obvious case of scat-singing, examples that come quickly to mind are Frank Zappa, Presidents of the USA, and Rob Zombie. I lot of the lyrics on King Crimson's Discipline seem to almost make it explicit that the lyrics themselves are an appendix. (I recall an interview with Zombie: someone asked him what some strange lyric was supposed to mean, and he replied something like "I don't know, it's just the song").

But it would be wrong, I think, to assert that instrumentals or lyrics for the sake of the voice are somehow on a higher plane. I think that being able to produce excellent melody and harmony as well as excellent lyrics, and to integrate them well, is the highest form.

Regarding your last line (which you maybe just meant as an aside), I'm a huge fan of all the artists I mentioned, so I hope I didn't give the impression that I think any of them are on some higher plane than the others. Just that I like them for different reasons.

There have been a few studies over the years that indicate that many or even most people don't listen closely - or rather often, at all - to lyrics in pop songs.

Anecdata-wise, I've had many occasions where I'd surprised people with the lyrics to songs they've long known and enjoyed. They simply didn't know the words beyond the choruses - and sometimes, not even those very accurately.

(Not to claim any great listening ability for myself - I often have to look up the lyrics of songs because I've long been a fan of stuff like REM's older and less lyrically precise albums. :) )

Sting once complained about "Every Breath You Take" being used in weddings; an intelligent woman I know was quite startled to realize what "Roxanne" was about when she heard it in a very different form in Moulin Rouge. If you didn't understand the words, you couldn't tell from the sound of these songs, "He's obsessed and stalking her." or "She's a prostitute."; even though these songs are sung in fairly clear English, most of us don't pay close attention to the words.

I think TFA's author is wildly over-generalizing on how Americans listen to music.

I have to concentrate really hard to listen to lyrics, but I find it easy to hear things like musical quotes and samples (e.g. the first time I heard a piece by Steve Reich, I knew immediately that I had already heard it, because I listened to The Orb years before). I always get a kick out of those moments of musical recognition - probably if I could force myself to pay more attention to lyrics, I would see more depth there too.

"He loves some of the shittiest songs (imo) because of interesting lyrical content, where as I totally ignore them. If I like them it's because of how they were sung not because of me diving through looking for "meaning"."

Yes, this. One of the reasons I love metal is because a great metal vocalist like Dickinson or Dio just plain sounds awesome, no matter what he's going on about.

It wasn't until after I started playing Rock Band with friends that I noticed that a whole lot of lyrics in general are completely inane. (count me in as one of those guys that never listen to the lyrics)

What's so inane about "Ride the tiger / You can see his stripes but you know he's clean"? Pretty deep to me.

Seriously, though, I'm a fan of Blue Oyster Cult's lyrics, which can range from pretty nonsensical (She's as Beautiful as a Foot) to basically the straightforward relation of a story (Then Came the Last Days of May).

Just as an anecdote: Since my English got much more fluent in recent years, I pay much more attention to (English) lyrics now, than I did earlier. Though it's still easier not to pay attention to English lyrics than German ones. I don't know whether or how that has changed my perception of music. I like purely instrumental music, too.

My sister prefers music with voices in them to purely instrumental stuff, even if she can't understand them, e.g. Japanese rock.

http://kahvi.org/ is a nice place to get (mostly) instrumental-only electronic music from the creative commons.

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