Quote:
Originally Posted by Rainard Jalen
While you are right that the meaningful/semantic content of lyrics has nothing to do with music whatsoever, the vocal delivery and the actual phonetic sound, rhythm/prosody/meter of the words themselves most certainly are, and indeed are no less part of the music than the instruments. With Okkervil River and Dylan etc, the mere sound of the words is crucial to the emotional power of the songs.
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I actually take that back: there could also be interplay between the meaning of the lyrics and the music itself. The mood, melodies, intervals etc could be designed as if to convey something in the meaning and feeling of the lyrical content.
In that case, lyrics have everything to do with the music, from their meaning to their prosody, rhythm and rhyme. With that in mind, attention to lyrics can be crucial to understanding the ideas behind the instrumentation and so forth. This is definitely true of Okkervil River. The music is much more powerful when understood in light of the lyrics.