Song of the Moment: My Father's Son

[Birds in Hell]

I don't think the general public spends much time thinking about Eddie Vedder's lyric-writing abilities.

[Heathen]

palm, meet face

[Kevin Davis]

one can't have a real connection to a song without lyrics.

But, you can't truly connect with the writer or truly understand their emotion. Lyrics provide the opportunity for that to occur.

Now, be consistent here. Having a connection to the song and having a connection to the writer are two different things. I would contend that oftentimes "truly understanding" where a writer is coming from actually impedes forming an emotional connection with a song on your own terms, as frequently the "true meanings" of songs are far different than what we make of them in our hearts and minds. If you're arguing that you can't form some imagined bosom-buddy type cosmic bond with an actual musician unless he or she spells out for you exactly how their music was intended to make you feel, then fine, but I'd question why anyone would require that as a listener.

From reading this thread I think I probably care about lyrics more than most people on this board, but Digster said it best. There's no hard and fast rule for what's going to ultimately make or break any given song.

[IlluminEddie]

I don't think the general public spends much time thinking about Eddie Vedder's lyric-writing abilities.

Agreed. I think there's a certain sect of music fans that find value in lyrical poetry used within songs, however. That's all.

Clearly, there's not a lot of that here. Which explains a lot, actually. Like the general disdain for a great lyrical song like The End.

[harmless]

The End hardly stands among PJ's great lyrical songs. It's good, not great. And actually, not many people here dislike it.

[IlluminEddie]

one can't have a real connection to a song without lyrics.

But, you can't truly connect with the writer or truly understand their emotion. Lyrics provide the opportunity for that to occur.

Now, be consistent here. Having a connection to the song and having a connection to the writer are two different things. I would contend that oftentimes "truly understanding" where a writer is coming from actually impedes forming an emotional connection with a song on your own terms, as frequently the "true meanings" of songs are far different than what we make of them in our hearts and minds. If you're arguing that you can't form some imagined bosom-buddy type cosmic bond with an actual musician unless he or she spells out for you exactly how their music was intended to make you feel, then fine, but I'd question why anyone would require that as a listener.

From reading this thread I think I probably care about lyrics more than most people on this board, but Digster said it best. There's no hard and fast rule for what's going to ultimately make or break any given song.

Right. This is why I made the correction to that point earlier after harmless pointed it out. Basically, lyrics provide a portal between the writer's emotions and the listeners. That doesn't mean they are always communicated perfectly, sometimes the listener's emotional response is completely different from what the writer intended. The point is there's a flow.

[IlluminEddie]

The End hardly stands among PJ's great lyrical songs. It's good, not great. And actually, not many people here dislike it.

I disagree. I think it's one of the best lyrics he's ever written.

[harmless]

Fine. It's subjective man.

[warehouse]

who cares about the lyrics on 'the end', his delivery is incredible

see how this works?

[stip]

one can't have a real connection to a song without lyrics.

But, you can't truly connect with the writer or truly understand their emotion. Lyrics provide the opportunity for that to occur.

Now, be consistent here. Having a connection to the song and having a connection to the writer are two different things. I would contend that oftentimes "truly understanding" where a writer is coming from actually impedes forming an emotional connection with a song on your own terms, as frequently the "true meanings" of songs are far different than what we make of them in our hearts and minds. If you're arguing that you can't form some imagined bosom-buddy type cosmic bond with an actual musician unless he or she spells out for you exactly how their music was intended to make you feel, then fine, but I'd question why anyone would require that as a listener.

From reading this thread I think I probably care about lyrics more than most people on this board, but Digster said it best. There's no hard and fast rule for what's going to ultimately make or break any given song.

Not until we assemble it!

[EJ]

Fine. It's subjective man.

Just shake on it already, guys.

Spoiler: show

[IlluminEddie]

who cares about the lyrics on 'the end', his delivery is incredible

see how this works?

Yes. Good point. I get what you're saying. I guess for me, it's just disappointing. Think of it from my perspective, I listen to a song and the lyrics are very important 'to me'. To me, they provide a story and that's what I seek in music. Sure, I like to tap my foot to a good beat and 100% want music and melody to be paired perfectly with the vocals delivering the lyrics. But, overall, when I was a kid and bought PJ album I would immediately read the lyrics while listening, because they helped me understand the music I was listening to. That experience was what I looked forward to most with the a new album.

It is subjective, I guess.

[McParadigm]

I'm going to nerd this up, and I apologize, but it happens to cross paths with some of my education-based cognition work and I find it interesting.

ERP markers for structural violations within music and language are almost indistinguishably similar. This has helped lead to the development of the theory that similar cognitive processes are involved in processing both music and language. Many of the areas of the brain that respond most intensely to music are also areas that respond in social communication settings, and are the areas that are communicative in nature rather than the ones that are receptive....in other words, we don't simply intake music; we interact with it. In a very literal sense, our brains converse with it. This may be why music can so easily affect us emotionally, why it can have a focusing effect on learners, why it has a recuperative effect on people with chronic pain, and why people shopping in an area where music is piped in tend to linger longer and subsequently buy more items: we get a very similar reward from listening to music that we do from conversing with a close personal friend. When we listen to music, on some level and among many other reactions, we feel as though we are somehow being social.

As an aside, I believe this can help explain everything from why people might "bond" with a particular artist over a lengthy time of positive exposure to why the introduction of mass exposure pop music led to such an explosion in groupie culture.

Other studies of how music and lyrics interact within the listener have shown that completely different emotional centers are stimulated by a "sad" piece of music if melancholic lyrics are included with it than if the piece is presented without lyrics, or with more positive phrasings being sung, and that people tend to judge music in very similar ways to how they judge people...including associating various intelligence markers with different pieces. Most interestingly, when we listen to a piece of music that is instrumental in nature, the language centers of our brains light up...and when asked to write random words on a piece of paper while listening to the same piece of music on multiple occasions, the same piece of music will tend to draw up the same or extremely similar words from the same person...which will be completely different words than other instrumental pieces bring up, and which will subsequently not show up with any remarkable frequency if no music is playing. This continues to happen even when descriptive words are disallowed or not included.

So, to summarize, our brains naturally associate music and language. It's unavoidable. It just happens. Hell, we even store the lyrics to a song in a different way than we do other textual or auditory language...they aren't placed separate from the music, in our memories. And, the words to a song affect our response even when we think that they aren't. If no lyrics exist, our brain will draw connections to words or phrases as a way of processing the emotion of the piece....much the same way it often uses remembered facial expressions when listening to recognized songs.

But outside of that basic reality, music enjoyment will always come down to the reality that people have different preferences and different priorities. It's perfectly reasonable for a person to place other things above lyrics, in terms of importance....and it's perfectly reasonable for a person to place lyrics as the most important thing, as well.

[BurtReynolds]

I don't even like lyrics.

[Heathen]

I'm going to nerd this up, and I apologize, but it happens to cross paths with some of my education-based cognition work and I find it interesting.

ERP markers for structural violations within music and language are almost indistinguishably similar. This has helped lead to the development of the theory that similar cognitive processes are involved in processing both music and language. Many of the areas of the brain that respond most intensely to music are also areas that respond in social communication settings, and are the areas that are communicative in nature rather than the ones that are receptive....in other words, we don't simply intake music; we interact with it. In a very literal sense, our brains converse with it. This may be why music can so easily affect us emotionally, why it can have a focusing effect on learners, why it has a recuperative effect on people with chronic pain, and why people shopping in an area where music is piped in tend to linger longer and subsequently buy more items: we get a very similar reward from listening to music that we do from conversing with a close personal friend. When we listen to music, on some level and among many other reactions, we feel as though we are somehow being social.

As an aside, I believe this can help explain everything from why people might "bond" with a particular artist over a lengthy time of positive exposure to why the introduction of mass exposure pop music led to such an explosion in groupie culture.

Other studies of how music and lyrics interact within the listener have shown that completely different emotional centers are stimulated by a "sad" piece of music if melancholic lyrics are included with it than if the piece is presented without lyrics, or with more positive phrasings being sung, and that people tend to judge music in very similar ways to how they judge people...including associating various intelligence markers with different pieces. Most interestingly, when we listen to a piece of music that is instrumental in nature, the language centers of our brains light up...and when asked to write random words on a piece of paper while listening to the same piece of music on multiple occasions, the same piece of music will tend to draw up the same or extremely similar words from the same person...which will be completely different words than other instrumental pieces bring up, and which will subsequently not show up with any remarkable frequency if no music is playing. This continues to happen even when descriptive words are disallowed or not included.

So, to summarize, our brains naturally associate music and language. It's unavoidable. It just happens. Hell, we even store the lyrics to a song in a different way than we do other textual or auditory language...they aren't placed separate from the music, in our memories. And, the words to a song affect our response even when we think that they aren't. If no lyrics exist, our brain will draw connections to words or phrases as a way of processing the emotion of the piece....much the same way it often uses remembered facial expressions when listening to recognized songs.

But outside of that basic reality, music enjoyment will always come down to the reality that people have different preferences and different priorities. It's perfectly reasonable for a person to place other things above lyrics, in terms of importance....and it's perfectly reasonable for a person to place lyrics as the most important thing, as well.

Could you record yourself singing that? Thank you.

[McParadigm]

I don't even like lyrics.

You've been putting in some really subpar RiMming lately, friend.

[BurtReynolds]

I don't even like lyrics.

You've been putting in some really subpar RiMming lately, friend.

My fucking head hurts.

[McParadigm]

Those would make pretty good opening lyrics, I guess.

[Jorge]

The End hardly stands among PJ's great lyrical songs. It's good, not great. And actually, not many people here dislike it.

MY UNKNOWN FUTURE'S EAR



And yet, it's one of my favorite songs Ed's ever written

[harmless]

The End hardly stands among PJ's great lyrical songs. It's good, not great. And actually, not many people here dislike it.

MY UNKNOWN FUTURE'S EAR



And yet, it's one of my favorite songs Ed's ever written