(The following is adapted from an essay I wrote on the subject of the development of collaborative coherency (and songwriting in general) throughout the twentieth century. Naturally, this will be far from comprehensive, but I hope that it will serve to illustrate some of the concepts that I believe lie at the heart of lyric-writing.)
Often overlooked in the rush to praise instrumental music and poetry is the humble art form of songwriting. An institution probably as old as language itself, the practice of coordinating music and lyrics took great leaps and bounds in the 20th century, but in a manner rather different than those of its independent constituent parts. This is because of the inherently elaborate nature of the song. For many artists the relationship between music and lyrics is symbiotic, one of interplay rather than dominance of one over the other. Thus, not only should the rhythms of the music and the rhythms of speech in the lyrics match up, but the emphases in the music (be they of pitch, volume, duration, or what have you) should ideally correspond to similar points in the music. This form of coordination will be referred to from here on out as “collaborative coherency,” and understanding this concept and its development is essential to understanding the development of songwriting as a whole through the 20th Century; from the acceptable but inconsistent collaborative coherency of opera sprang a vast and disparate range of approaches, from Schoenberg’s rejection of collaborative coherency to Weill and Brecht’s refinement of it to a fascinating reconciliation of the two.
Read more
Pet Peeves: Syllable Fillers
When writing lyrics, you are forever bound rhythmically by the music, and therefore syllabically by the rhythms of that music. This is a heavy burden for any lyricist, but you must fervently resist the impulse to arbitrarily insert extra words into a sentence in order to fill your syllable quota. Too often have I seen the phrase “it’s only just a [noun]” inveigle its way into song lyrics. Let’s leave aside the fact that “only just,” with both words serving as adverbs, is not a phrase in the English language; far more relevant is the fact that it so clearly screams out what it is: a lazy way to inject extra syllables into a line with too few.
The Necessity of Rhyming, or What Does It Get Ya?
Today I thought I might give a brief argument as to why perfect rhyming is essential in lyrics. Let’s think about musical dissonance for a moment; modern music is fully aware of dissonance, but is also smart enough to use it sparingly. The fully atonal composers saw dissonance as a style, rather than what it actually is: an effect. And any musical effect must be used intelligently and therefore intermittently if it is to maintain its efficacy over time. Thus, dissonance must be saved until the moment at which it will be most effective. At that point, it may be used with abandon.
The Tony Awards 2011: A Thought or Two
Last night’s Tonys were first-rate, if a tad predictable. Chris Rock, presenting the award for Best Musical, expressed what everyone in the room was thinking when he read out the inevitable winner, The Book of Mormon, in a sarcastic parody of shock. Everyone got it.
Case Study: "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath
This song, I think, needs no introduction. If you haven’t heard it before, hear it now. If you have, hear it again.
Clever vs. Telling Lyrics, or The Gap Between Noel Coward and Spring Awakening
I posit that lyrics (that is to say, good lyrics) tend to fall somewhere between two polar ends: clever and telling. Clever lyrics can be found in their purest form in the work of lyricists like Noel Coward and W.S. Gilbert. No plumbing of emotional depths is even attempted in such lyrics, for they are dazzling feats of wordplay that tend to be sung either by the lyricist himself (as in Coward’s case) or by characters acting as a surrogate for the lyricist (as in much of Gilbert’s work). Simply put, the lyricist becomes the star.
Collaborative Coherency, or I’m Kinda Busy
To begin with, I had better define collaborative coherency. It is simply the term I use to describe the extent to which lyrics must coordinate themselves with the music they have been paired with. It is an essential but too-often overlooked concept.
The Discerning Lyricist 