Arty Ambiguity or Specific Storytelling?
 

Hi everybody,

I'm currently songwriting with a band. The music is going extremely well but when it comes to lyrics we've had some disagreement. The other band member who contributes to the lyrics is adamant that we should write lyrics which just revolve around a general theme, so that they're open to interpretation, whereas I'm equally firm that the lyrics should tell a story (with a beginning, development and conclusion if possible).

His argument is that if you write around a common, everyday theme then everybody will be able to relate to it. My view is that this approach usually produces lyrics which are so boring and directionless that nobody will listen to the lyrics in the first place - at least with a story it gives the listener something to think about, even if its badly written.

Now to the crux of this post - which side do you fall on? Do you think that lyrics should tell a story or should they be vague and open to interpretation? If you write vague lyrics can they end up accidentally saying more than you intended? When a story is told, does everybody find the same meaning in it?

Also, do you prefer simple words in songs or overextended expositions of the wordsmith's thesaurus inspired verbosity?

I promise not to use any of your comments for the purpose of band arguments!

I agree that song lyrics should be like a story because when I write a song I pick a story from my life and put it down on paper in song form.

Very good post.

I am more into the ambiguity of lyrics (as you can probably tell from my contributions to this forum) but story's are also good depending on how the story is told and what it involves. The style should take into account your talents, your bands music, and what message you have to convey


and i like big words but ones that most people know, just don't use everyday.

You tell your band leader I said he's an idiot. You know who else wants "lyrics everyone can relate to"? Every throwaway artist in every genre ever. If you bought a CD on the strength of one song, and you then realized the other songs were complete ****. Go read the lyrics to any non-hit song. You'll see there ambigious. Theres a reason for that, because no one really relates. No one ever says "oh yeah that unnameable person did that terrible thing to me and went off with that other nameless him" god this is jsut like my life.
People can relate to stories if you give them one. Books don't get ambiguous, and the classics sell millions. How many Default CD's compared to Bob Dylan CD's are out there? Give details, no one likes the general gossip, they all want the dirt. Give them it. I can't stress this enough. Ambiguity is horrid horrid ****.

Each approach has it's merits. Each style has produced innumerable hits, often times, with bands having hit with each style. (i.e., The Beatles, with any number of boy/girl songs, the most common message in songwriting history, and also with songs like Eleanor Rigby.)

Why pigeonhole yourself in to one type of songwriting style anyway? Write what you see, how you feel. If it tells a story, fine. If it simply conveys an emotion, just as fine.

There are no rules when it comes to creativity.

And as far as which side of the fence I personally fall on, it's both. Music is what whets one's own personal musical palate. That's the beauty of it. The same as the tongue having several different tastes buds that respond differently to sweet, sour, salty, etc, so do the musical taste buds respond to the many flavors of music.

Try them all.

Its bad in the example you gave but i think that some of my moe ambigious work is pretty good. details can confuse.

Let him write songs how he wants to , write your own songs how you want to.And then let the whole band vote on which ones are the best.

Simple

Examples

This makes valid sense. If your band is a democracy, the best music will be what is played.

Be prepared for lots of arguments. LOL.

Either way, keep writing your own stuff, even if no one ever hears it but you.

I like both, I love hidden metaphors in songs. I do like some songs that tell a story though, but usually the story is related to something else.

While I think Urbans post is logical, the part of me who lieks fights debate and argument makes me want to call you fence riders panseys.

<Fence riding pansy.:wave:

I didn`t say he couldn`t twat the guys in the band if they said no

how do you twat someone?

twat = slang for punch

oh silly me, I thought it was slang for vagina

just make sure that whatever you decide upon, you take the time to write the lyrics well. If a song tells a story badly, it doesnt matter how interesting the story is, it's still a sh*tty song. Same goes for ambiguous lyrics. Maybe go for a comprimise, write songs with hidden metaphors, as Thrice said. that way, you can tell your story, but since people tend to interpret songs differently based on personal experience, people will be able to relate something in their own lives to the song. I can think of a number of songs where the lyrics could refer to a whole number of completely different situations, depending on how you look at it. On a completely separate note, Thrice posted recently, holy sh*t that's a deja vu if i ever saw one.

Well thanks for your comments, keep them coming. At the moment I fully plan to stick to story-based songs. They're a kind of sink for the crap that results from my bizzare imagination and sickening sense of humour. Occasionally the odd meaningful song creeps in, but mostly my mind's filled with too much shallow idiocy. In fact, I'll give you of my frankly stupid writing style now - the song has a pretty melody (which you can't hear right now) and very unpretty lyrics... The plot isn't based on real life experience thanfully!

---

SPOT

I had a dog
A little doggy
He was so fluffy and soggy nosed
He used to crawl beneath my bedclothes in the morning
Without warning

Oh where did my doggy go
I looked so high and I looked so low
I went and checked every corner of the house
I peered under the table but I only found a mouse
I took an ad out in the local paper
It said "Anybody seen my doggy?"
But then a little later
As I was browsing on the internet
That's where I found my long lost pet

(CHORUS)
SPOT, on an MPeg
Doing a funny thing with his hind legs
And a man in a gimp mask
Taking my poor little puppy up the ass

We used to go out for walks
And I well recall how he liked to eat pork
And that his tail would start wagging when there was shagging on the TV
Well I suppose that I should have guessed
By the way he barked each time that I undressed
It wasn't fleas that made his balls begin to itch
All he wanted to be was a dirty little bitch

(CHORUS)
SPOT, where have you gone?
When did you take to filming bestial porn?
My poor old pooch, I am shocked to find
That you enjoy being taken from behind

Oh SPOT you hurt me so, so much
I felt compelled to write this song
Your dirty deeds they broke my heart

They also kind of turned me on

---

So far opinion is split - half the people who have heard the song think its funny, half think its extremely worrying, obviously not sharing my sense of humour. Which half are you?

Meta-fiction and childish words like "doggy" don't sit well with me. Im gunna let someone else have their chance with this before I give my opinion because I am at a loss for words. The opening to this thread I thought we were moving toward greatness.

ya, i dont think the problem is as simple as "should i tell a story or not", storytelling can be done good (johnny cash). but a story about finding beastiality pics of your lost dog as funny as it may be might not be the direction your band is wanting to go.

yeah that might be why they want ambiguity.

You may well be right, but whenever the muse strikes you just have to along with it. Even if its a puerile muse who likes whoopy cushions and flicking bogeys. I'd like to point out that the lyrics I've written weren't for a shouty punk or comedy rap tune. Its actually a country song, with very Johnny Cash-esque backing and acoustic guitar. This doesn't make it any better of course... it just might give you a different perspective...

An please don't get any ridiculous notions about me having been on my way to musical greatness from the nature of my posts! The fact that my spelling and grammar are good doesn't mean that I'm some kind of genius. It just shows that I'm a bit anal.

Here's another one, not such a weird lyrics this time. Would you say it was ambiguous or detailed? I think it gives a pretty clear indication of what its about. That might, however, just be because I wrote it from an image in my head which gives me a reference point from which to listen/read.

There are a few lines in it that I'm still not at all happy with, can you guess which ones they are?

---

SHADOW FIGHTING

Just a glance can send me reeling
Keep your distance, hide your feelings
Guilty words and simple lies told
Its all just the same old, same old

We've been tiptoeing over mines
Maybe we should cross the line
And get drunk on cheap red wine
To make this easy

Looking in your eyes I pretend
That we will just be friends
As gravity draws you to me
I’m fighting with my shadow again

Is this some kind of cynical game?
Twisting friendship and lust around in my reference frame?

The way you smile at me
Like you could be on heat
Makes me think that we
Could take things further

Looking in your eyes I pretend
That we will just be friends
The dishonesty, surely you can see
I’m fighting with my shadow again

---

How about this one? This song and the one before it are band songs, but at the moment I'm really trying to work on the lyrics. Any critiques, no matter how harsh, will be appreciated and I'm not the type to argue back - I'll take it all on board instead and include it in the process if appropriate.

---

THE GIRL ON THE STREET

Arrived in the city
And found a cheap room
Where neon signs light up the gloom

I sit at a window
Looking over the road
The traffic still moving below

The girl handing out flyers
At the corner of the curb
She looks so hot that I can’t find the words

Can’t stop looking at her
The way she moves her mouth
Speaking while she hands that paper out

I could spend days watching her on the street
Hearing her talk in a language that I cannot speak
From where I am there are so many things to be seen
But I prefer looking at her from my balcony

Am I going crazy
Becoming obsessed
With the girl in an orange dress?

Should I speak to her
Before we jet away
What would I try to say?

Across the surface of the world tonight
They’re drawing the curtains and turning off lights
Girl, its happening everywhere
We should just go with the flow

I have spent days watching you on the street
Your skirt-tail creating a haze in this summer of heat
If we don’t take our chances the time here will pass us so fleet
The nights may be short but there’s still time to spend them with

The Spanish nights they start so late
The warmth at midnight serves to create
The atmosphere that brought me here
The Spanish bars, the Spanish beer
The permanent heat of the latin world
The Spanish streets, the Spanish girls

By the way, the penultimate paragraph on the last post ('still time to spend the with...') should have ended with 'me'. So that lyrics would be

'The nights may be short but there's still time to spend them with me'

Hmmm, that's quite a cheesy lyric on its own. Oh dear.

Oh, I'll put one final one up. This is loosely based on the combined themes of the titanic disaster and global warming, from the point of view of an iceberg. A psychotic iceberg, no less.

---

UNDER THE WAVES

Oh, when I was young
I was not afraid of the rays of the sun
But the sky grew smoggy and warm
Now from my wintery home I have been torn

From my iceshelf I have been cast
I may appear small, but under the surface I'm vast
I have great momentum, it comes hand in hand with my mass
So whales do their best to avoid me every time that I float past
My cold, lonely heart it is beating all alone (lone, lone)
Under the waves

In the middle of this ocean I am so alone
And bitter towards you humans who caused me to drift from my home
Industrial global warming caused me to melt
For the weeks that I have been floating this anger is all I have felt

From my ice shelf I have been cast
I may appear small but under the surface I'm vast
Now I am planning to take my revenge at last
I shall find a big passenger ship and float into its path
Then listen to them gurgle as they fall (fall, fall)
Under the waves

The evil of an iceberg
So deadly yet so still
It will come for your family
It doesn't care how many it kills

From my ice shelf I have been cast
I may appear small but under the surface I'm vast
Now I am planning to take my revenge at last
I shall find a big passenger ship and float into its path
Then listen to them gurgle as they fall (fall, fall)
Under the waves

---

Hope you enjoyed it

i think that people should write lyrics based on their own expiriences of what you have done and what has been done to you, and also lyrics should be writen on you emotions

get rid of the first song, never mention it again. the other songs you posted shows me you do have some writing ability, if your set on doing things your way (and theres nothing really wrong with that, majority of frontmen are the same) then lose the members that push against your ideas (band members come and go untill you get the right formula) and get some that will support your visions.

I have to agree because, there many other people who will support you lyrics don't get hung up on those who don't, thats why i have to work with 2 bands because one is iwth my friends and and kit(who is our keyboardist) donsn't like some of the lyrics me and squeak write. so i decided to start another with "Lil Bro" who supports praticals everything i write.

[QUOTE=Fenixpunk]get rid of the first song, never mention it again. the other songs you posted shows me you do have some writing ability, if your set on doing things your way (and theres nothing really wrong with that, majority of frontmen are the same) then lose the members that push against your ideas (band members come and go untill you get the right formula) and get some that will support your visions.[/QUOUTE]
Well, I'm certainly not planning to play the first song in the same set as the others. Thanks for clarifying what probably should have been obvious to me! I'm not set on doing things my way, I think criticism within a band is a good things for me. This is because musically (not lyrically, but musically) all these ideas just seem to spout out from my fingers and mouth non-stop. Although I've got great ability for actually coming up with musical ideas I'm very bad at judging which of them are good and which aren't, so I need musicians around who have better taste, are more critical and can channel my ideas.
However, I would say that your comment is true for a majority of bands, following one person's creative flow might tend to bring more direction and coherence to the music.

Ok heres what I mean by specific. When you write "Doing a funny thing with his hind legs" is too open to interpertation. While I strongly agree with fenix in saying that you should eat the paper this was written on, we can still use it as an example.

A funny thing- what is that, what could it be? Was he doing it, was the guy doing it to him? Is it actually comical, it is funny in the sence of odd? Exactly how mnay diffrent things can dogs do with their back legs.

This is where I have a probalem with unspecivity. Be specific.

Gotcha. Although I would say there's only so much specificity you can squeeze into a 10 syllable line. While it might have somehow been better as a written lyric if I'd said "strapped to a pleasure machine by dark leather bonds, with the stark, unpadded frame pressing against his freshly shaved skin, sending fearful yet excited tremors through his hind legs" there is no way that this would have fitted into the meter of the song. Also more detail probably would have made me feel sick.

I see what you mean though. Being boringly vague is different to using interesting metaphors and arty ambiguous phrases. A lot of the time I'm sure that kind of thing appear in my lyrics without me realising it.

Thanks for the comments so far, if anybody else wants to offer some (or if those who've already posted want to offer more) then fire away.