What is the dealy-o with lyrics these days?

What is the dealy-o with lyrics these days?

In today's "rock" scene (and many times in this very forum area), lyrics have become so mind-numbingly obvious and one-dimensional. OK, so you're angry about something bad happening, your best friend betrayed you, society is on your back, you're always looking for love in all the wrong places, etc. Do you really need to write a song directly about that?

Whatever happened to lyrics that were more subtle, inspired by bad/good experiences, but not describing them in painstaking detail? Whatever happened to lyrics that didn't have every line written in the first-person? Did we all stop listening to/learning from Bob Dylan at the same time?

In short, can someone please post up some interesting lyrics to soothe our inner savage beasts, not stir them to cathartic rampages (to borrow a thought from aiwass)?

Well lets see some of your lyrics. I don't post any of my material on the internet because some people are looking for them and I don't want them to see them. How can someone help it when they are effected by something so much that they write a bunch of detail on it. I mostly like because the meaning of the song is simple and clear, but it also sounds good.

I like songs that are personal and can be related too. 9 times out of 10, if you've been through it, someone else has too.

What I don't like, is writing about fake bad things happening to you.

I'm trapped in the cage, I have so much rage, I can't see because of the pain, I think it might rain. Coming from the middle-class, "harcore" kids who grew up in OC, writing about how they have all this angst, when they haven't had anything "real" happen to them. I call bullsh!t.

Stuff like that is stupid. When it's real and full of emotion, you can relate and the song just kind of touches you.

[i]
In short, can someone please post up some interesting lyrics to soothe our inner savage beasts, not stir them to cathartic rampages (to borrow a thought from aiwass)? [/B]

THATS HOW I FEEL ABOUT RAP!...okay bring on the onslaught...

Originally posted by metalisbest
Well lets see some of your lyrics. I don't post any of my material on the internet because some people are looking for them and I don't want them to see them.

I don't understand why discussion of other people's work always ends up with someone demanding to see/hear another person's work. Why would my skill at creating lyrics affect my ability to have an opinion on/judge other people's work?

Do you like cars? Do you dislike some cars? Well, let's see the latest you've built, or else sit yerself back down. See, I'm sure you have plenty of opinions/judgements in areas where you have no skill. What about classical music, houses, sweaters, shoes, etc.?

Don't you understand, though, what I mean about lyrics being too brutally obvious? I mean, shouldn't something be left to the listener's interpretation? How can a listener interpret "Everyone hates me/Society dislikes me/Even my friends only endure me/I had a girl once, but she now hates me, too"?

More people can relate to, say, U2's lyrics than Everclear's, simply because all Everclear does is sing about how his father left him when he was a kid, but U2 deals with so many different issues in one song (e.g. One). Or, perhaps Bono doesn't deal with many different issues in one song, but if you take a dozen people and one U2 song, you'll get at least 12 opinions on the song's meaning to each person.

If anything I find people(nu metal,pop,pop punk e.c.t.)dont go into any details...they use cliche events/situations and words to describe those cliche events/situations.

I read on the forum a few months back "I dont like songs about fantasy" or somthing to that effect by someone.I like Immortal's songs because they really take you away to there world and have written lyrics that are completley fictional,yet relative to yourself and desires.Sure some people dont like a song describing a shadow horse master that seeks to unite the moon with the earth after eons of cosmic cataclysm or somthing so unreal like that,but it strikes me much more deep then any song about a lost girlfriend,broken home,drunk father,being a loser,being angry,school sucking,people being fu...well you get the idea.

later! \m/

Yea I understand what you mean, I was just in a bad mood when I replied to that.

Originally posted by aiwass
[BIt annoys me when the older generation says things like "Clapton is God" or proclaim Santana a genius and a virtuoso just because he happened to play some blues licks over a Latin backing. Sure, musical innovation is nice, but when the guy only plays the same lame pull-off triplets over and over, only to disguise his lack of actual dexterity on the instrument, and then pulls out a bottleneck to make random (sorry, that's "BOLD and EXPERIMENTAL") jet plane noises by sliding it up and down the strings, I'm not exactly left gaping in awe, nor am I spellbound by the cathartic impact that his musical vision has made on me.[/B]

I guess that was what I was referring to. Maybe I invented it myself... darn it, why did I give you credit - I could have claimed that expression for myself!

The Squirming Coil of sunset
I keep within my reach
Tried yesterday to get away
and hitchhiked to the beach

I saw Satan on the beach
trying to catch a ray
He wasn't quite the speed of light
and the squirming coil
it got away....

The muscles flex the mother's ring
She fastens children to her king
and sends him down the crooked street
When he returns, the birth's complete

Jimmy holds the Tannis root
The forest's tasty nectar shoot
The sun tips off the monarch's suit
from sequined sash to shiny boot

"I'd like to lick the coil some day
Like Icarus, who had to pay
with melting wax and feathers brown
He tasted it on his way down"

Stun the puppy!
Burn the whale!
Bark a scruff and go to jail!
Forge the coin and lick the stamp!
Little Jimmy's off to camp

-----------------
Thats what i am talking about lyricly, PHISH RULE

I don't listen to Phish, but if those are their lyrics I'm gonna start. Those are phenomenal.

Those sound like serious stoner lyrics...

I'm talking about:
"Johnny's in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I'm on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in the trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he's got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It's somethin' you did
God knows when
But you're doin' it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin' for a new friend
The man in the coon-skin cap
In the big pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten..."

Those lyrics are WHACK, but I do like some Phish.

It's all about the dead, baby!

Phish is okay. they are more entertainment event performers than most bands, and that takes away from alot of their music (Mike and Trey will be jumping on trampolines, getting all the attention, although they are only playing mediocre, while Page is ripping a fine piano solo, and getting none. Most of the stage antics are Mike and Trey).

Page is one fine piano player, i really like him. I don't like Gordon or Fishman, but Trey is okay.

[u]1400th Post![/u]

~Incidents

Hey man, lyrics arnt gone man, the problem is the man and his war macheine MTV are weak against meaningful lyrics. and since 99% of people are slaves to the MTV media circus, and survive off of the mush fed to them by their coprate gods, they have followed suit. With their power chords and crappy feel sorry for me im a loser lyrics, the are killing rock n roll for the survivors of Censorship and Intellect. My advice is, listen to the old stuff. but if oyu are hell bent on good lyrics these days check out
Bright Eyes,Connar Oberst is like The Doors (thats right, all of them) of underground indie folk. Anyway, keep sticking it to the man, and remeber, be excellent to each other, and party on dude!

'Bogus'

Later! \m/

I don't often pay attention to lyrics. Listening to a tune, it's the music that gets to me and that I analyse. Which is why, perhaps, I rarely listen to todays mainstream music because it's so blatantly untechnical. (Rather, I don't know why any non-musical people listen to it either. Lyrics like "She ******* hates me. Na na na na." Or "Help me, I was an abused kid." And it's all like that, irrelevant.) Anything on the radio unless it's classic rock is a violation of my rights.

For the record, I tried my hand at the literary side of music up until a few years ago. I realized that I had nothing really intelligent to say, only emotions to portray. There's no point in trying write catchy or deep lyrics just for the sake of having catchy or deep lyrics. Screw it, not my job.

It makes me feel important when I say what everybody else just said, but in my own words.