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.
Line Order Part 2, or One of the Innumerable Reasons Why Billy Joel is Awesome
Previously, High School Musical demonstrated more than adequately how not to arrange lyrical lines for maximum effect, but it would be unfair not to give an example of how to do this well. First, I feel that I must preemptively apologize for my love of all things Billy Joel. While for a large part this obsession is sentimental, I maintain that Mr. Joel is one of the best pop lyricists of all time. If you are not a fan, by all means don’t stay silent. Just be aware that this is an issue on which I will not be swayed.
The example I wish to draw from Joel’s oeuvre is the song “Christie Lee” from the album An Innocent Man:
Sound Lyrics, or Ga-Ga Ooh-La-La
While further pondering the points of overlap between poetry and lyrics, I realized that in my previous post I had failed to cover an important idea: sound lyrics.
A Division of Forms, or Poetry is Poetry and Lyrics are Lyrics and Never The Twain Shall Meet
You would be justified in regarding statement contained within the secondary title above with a certain degree of skepticism. After all, poetry and lyrics do bear some striking superficial similarities. Both are often rhymed. Both are often rhythmic. Both can achieve an elegance virtually unmatched in prose.
Line Order Part 1, or One of The Innumerable Reasons Why "High School Musical" is Terrible
We’ve all been there; you’ve thought of a brilliant little line that works perfectly with your rhythmic scheme. The only problem is that the final word of the line has almost no perfect rhymes. As we must take perfect rhymes as a ground rule (I will talk more about this in the future), damage control is now the main priority. Say you manage to put together a workable but by no means particularly good line out of one of the two or three rhymes for your problem word. You now have two lyrical lines, one of them getting along swimmingly, the other still floating but otherwise dead in the water (like an overextended metaphor). This is what I mean by damage control: we must find a way to reduce emphasis on the lame line.
Concept, or My What A Guy That Gaston
I’ve heard all too many musical numbers that were very obviously written for no better reason than that someone must have said, “we’d better put a musical number here.” If ever you find yourself doing this, stop immediately and think long and hard about concept, which I assert is the single most important element in a good song lyric.
I will illustrate the importance of concept through a pair of examples from animated musicals.
Nonsense Lyrics, or How To Deny a California Girl
When I warn people to avoid writing lyrics that don’t make sense, most brush it off. We tend to assume that our internal sense of what does and does not make sense will hold steady through thick and through thin. But the rigors of perfect rhyming, correct emphasis placement, and syllable counting can play tricks on our common sense.
While it may seem unfair to place such an easy target in my cross hairs, I will use the example of Katy Perry’s “California Girls” (I omit the idiotic alternate spelling “gurls” deliberately).
Pet Peeves: A Girl in the World with a Life of Strife
Few lyrical tendencies irritate me quite so much as the persistent but ultimately fruitless attempt to pretend that “girl” rhymes with “world.” It doesn’t. “Girl” rhymes with “curl,” “pearl,” “whirl,” and “hurl,” plus a handful of others. If none of those suit your purposes, then you might want to give consideration to not ending a line with a word as dull and exhausted as “girl.”
Introduction
These days, it seems as if half of the world and his housepet is a self-declared “singer-songwriter,” a term which has lost whatever dubious meaning to which it might once have laid claim. Go to any party in Greenwich Village and you can be sure that at least a solid third of those in attendance will identify themselves as singer-songwriters. Of these, no more than 3 percent or so will be the real McCoy. Why, you ask? Well, most will be intermittent guitar players who use the title in hopes of getting laid. A slightly smaller portion will be pretentious or over-earnest musical aspirants with delusions of grandeur so vast that not even a Magellan could hope to circumnavigate or, indeed, circumvent them. The remaining portion will be singer-songwriters who are at least musically competent. This portion has surely swelled within the last few decades as it has become easier and easier to master at least the basics of music theory and instrumental technique through the resources made available by the so-called Information Revolution.
Consequently, it is not the music that concerns me. True, most pop music is generic in form, but it conveys a sense that it is aware of how bland it is, and that at least implies musical competence. What concerns me is the lack of care and attention given to lyrics. Lyrics can be just as finicky as music, and yet there is a distressing lack of sense and good taste among the masses when it comes to setting words to music. Everyone knows what is highbrow and what is lowbrow in music, who the masters were and which musicians were merely mediocre pretenders, but almost no such general knowledge can be found in the arena of lyrics. In a day and age in which Lady Gaga can be deemed a good lyricist, the time has come for a lyrical enlightenment. To that end I humbly submit my own contribution in hopes that the next generation of songwriters might use their rhymes with reason.
The Discerning Lyricist 