Colin McEnroe Show: Writing The Best Song Lyrics Ever
What do we mean when we say a song has good lyrics?
Published: Jun 03, 2010
Slideshow
Steve Metcalf
Photo:Chion Wolf
Flickr Creative Commons, martinhoward
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Colin McEnroe Show: Writing The Best Song Lyrics Ever
There are two schools of thought on the evolution of the American pop song lyric. One of them is that real craft belonged to the writers of the American song book -- to Ira Gershwin, to Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein and Cole Porter and John Mercer and ... well you get the drift.
And that what came later was sloppier. Rhymes were no longer precise and scansion no longer mattered and songwriting became self-indulgent.
The other school of thought says that early 20th century songwriting, embodied by the tunesmiths of Tin Pan Alley, was vapid and repetitious. Not until Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell and Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield did songwriters begin to grapple with anything more substantial than the dizziness of love or a case of the blues.
Both schools of thought are wrong. And right.
You can join the conversation. What makes a great song great? Leave your comments below, e-mail colin@wnpr.org or Tweet us @wnprcolin.
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There's something about lyric writing that is mysterious in terms of what people will retain.
-Steve Metcalf
Comments
Thunder Road
Per our conversation the other day, I present the perfect American rock song (although I've never been a huge fan of the "learned how to make the guitar talk" section. The Cowboy Junkies, in a brilliant version, left that out):
The screen door slams
Mary's dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch
As the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey that's me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again
Don't run back inside
darling you know just what I'm here for
So you're scared and you're thinking
That maybe we ain't that young anymore
Show a little faith, there's magic in the night
You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright
Oh and that's alright with me
You can hide 'neath your covers
And study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers
Throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain
For a savior to rise from these streets
Well now I'm no hero
That's understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl
Is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey what else can we do now
Except roll down the window
And let the wind blow back your hair
Well the night's busting open
These two lanes will take us anywhere
We got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels
Climb in back
Heaven's waiting on down the tracks
Oh oh come take my hand
Riding out tonight to case the promised land
Oh oh Thunder Road, oh Thunder Road
oh Thunder Road
Lying out there like a killer in the sun
Hey I know it's late we can make it if we run
Oh Thunder Road, sit tight take hold
Thunder Road
Well I got this guitar
And I learned how to make it talk
And my car's out back
If you're ready to take that long walk
From your front porch to my front seat
The door's open but the ride it ain't free
And I know you're lonely
For words that I ain't spoken
But tonight we'll be free
All the promises'll be broken
There were ghosts in the eyes
Of all the boys you sent away
They haunt this dusty beach road
In the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets
They scream your name at night in the street
Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet
And in the lonely cool before dawn
You hear their engines roaring on
But when you get to the porch they're gone
On the wind, so Mary climb in
It's a town full of losers
And I'm pulling out of here to win.
E-mail from Karl
Given that people often go to shows they know the songs for now, it may be lost on us that decades and decades ago people may not have heard theater lyrics until the song was performed live. The job of the lyric was to be cogitated right out of the box. The audience was not expected to bring a rhyming dictionary or encyclopedia in order to get the songs.
Some of our most clever pop songwriters, such as Elvis Costello and Andy Partridge, have vocabularies which would need to be cut down considerably to achieve this. On the other hand, I love "Sweeney Todd" and it sometimes bypasses people that, for all the storytelling which takes place in the lyric (as opposed to spoken word) and the labyrinth details of the plot, the words are by and large perfectly simple.
Karl in Bloomfield
PS Anyone notice that the pop single "One Night In Bangkok", from the theater cult classic "Chess", refers to Somerset Maugham?. Somerset Maugham, in a devilish internal throwaway line about prosititutes stationed in a hotel?
E-mail from Paul
I was wondering when you'd mention Jimmy Webb on today's show.
Outstanding show. Thank you. As a former singer/ actor I performed a number of songs and shows by the folks you mentioned.
I LOVE the anecdote about Dick Rodgers slipping the note with the first line of "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" into Oscar's pocket.
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