Music and Lyrics

A melody is like seeing someone for the first time… But then, as you get to know the person, that’s the lyrics. Their story. Who they are underneath. It’s the combination of the two that makes it magical.

–Music and Lyrics

If pressed, in the great debate of music vs. lyrics, I might say I fall on the lyrics side… by a hair. And only because words are maybe a bit easier for me to analyse and understand. Really, though, my opinion on the matter is like a set of balance scales that never falls still.

I love lyrics, but I also love to hum things like, for example, the opening of the “Surprise” Symphony’s second movement, and other perfectly written, wordless melodies from various pieces of Classical music I learned as a child.¹ I am known to (with some difficulty, I’m NOT good at it) whistle Jingle Bells all year. Obviously I’m not doing that for the lyrics. I am drawn to unusual chord changes, interesting pitch sequences, and fascinating rhythms.²

Then there are the lyrics that make me cry, the lyrics that reassure me, the lyrics that express the very state my soul is in. I really do love words, and sometimes they can just knock me over. Sometimes it’s poems that do it, or even passages from novels, and not songs at all. Terry Pratchett is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a great example of on author whose words affect me deeply.

So, when I’m choosing songs to sing in the car or the shower, I may pick songs based on musical factors. This one has a beautiful melody, that one is just super catchy so it’s stuck in my head. It helps to know at least some of the lyrics, but it doesn’t particularly matter what they say.

When I’m choosing songs to work on to develop my skills, I definitely pick songs based on musical factors. These use high belting, this one has low notes I need to work on, those would be great for developing my head voice. Again, lyrics are not that important, except when I’m deciding what words I do or do not want to sing.³

When I’m choosing songs to perform, it matters how they sit in my range, whether I can do what the song asks of me, whether it’s pleasant to listen to. So yes, I pick them based on musical factors. And all of that’s fair, I think that music has an important role to play in, well, music.

But when I’m choosing songs to perform, I also want to feel like I could have written the song myself. And that means picking songs that I relate to, because my own songs, the ones I love best, the ones that I return to, like the ones that seemed important to include on the EP, well, they’re the ones that say something true.

Lyrics are important to me. I write lyrics-first most of the time. That means most of my melodies draw heavily on the rhythms and stresses of the words for their inspiration. It also means a lot of song ideas sit unfinished because the lyrics aren’t quite right yet.

So although I’m looking for songs that I will sound good singing, I look with at least equal intensity for lyrics that are meaningful to me when I’m choosing songs for a show. I want to be able to tell my audience why I chose to sing that song over all the ridiculous number of other songs there are to choose from, and I want to give a performance that comes from a place of honesty.⁴ Because while “I just love Sara Bareilles” is a totally valid reason to learn one of her songs, I don’t believe it moves people the way actually connecting to a song can.

I firmly believe that I can deliver a more memorable performance because the lyrics resonate with me than I can because a song has an impressive high note. Maybe people would remember the high note, maybe not. But I think they’ll remember if I really care about what I’m singing.

In conclusion, as I said at the beginning, if pressed, I might say I’m a lyrics person, but I’m not sure it would be entirely true when I said it. I’m definitely a word person. But harmony is also in my bones. A beat can move me all on its own. And you know, to be honest, I’ve never been that big a fan of a division between music and lyrics either.⁵ It’s like the idea that singers aren’t musicians. So maybe what I am is a music person after all, but my music includes the lyrics. After all, the voice is an instrument.

—

¹ And this would be the time to take a moment to appreciate my grandparents for all the Classical Kids tapes I got back then. I still occasionally track down places to listen to them online.

² 🎵Got a little rhythm, a rhythm, a rhythm… 

³ In my practice-only version of Alice Merton’s “No Roots,” for example, I sing that I travel like witchers in the night. I like it better that way.

⁴ Not talking about theatre here, which comes from its own special kind of place of honesty. This is about singing as myself.

⁵ Possibly the reason that the last shot of the movie Music and Lyrics before the credits makes so much sense to me.