Songs That Haven't Aged So Well

[Jessica Fletcher]

Wow! What an over reaction...

Leatherman. I loved the holy fuck out of that song ever since it was released as a b-side. Last year, when they played it in Denver I got so excited when they first started playing it, but by the time the song was over, I was over the song.

What a transformative experience live Pearl Jam can be.

[stip]

I've listened to You Are a few times since posting that. I really appreciate what they tried to do and I think it works in many, many ways. But that chorus just ruins it for me. It tries to be deep and meaningful, but just comes across as hokey.

As I've said many many times before, who gives a shit about the lyrics when the music is so awesome? I don't listen to music for the lyrics, especially Pearl Jam. It seems awfully shallow and unmusical to dislike a song because the lyrics aren't convincing enough. If lyrics were supposed to be successfully deep and meaningful, everybody would listen to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen and nothing else.

As I've said many times before, lyrics are an integral part of any song, no more than the drums, the guitars, or anything else. Some songs can get by with weak lyrics if other components are firing on all cylinders, but the same is true of every component. A weak vocal performance can be saved by great music, a plodding rythem can be saved by great guitar fireworks, etc.

Nor do lyrics have to be deep and meaningful to be good. They just need to effectively serve the mood and message of the song. Same as any other component.

[LikeLukin]

I've listened to You Are a few times since posting that. I really appreciate what they tried to do and I think it works in many, many ways. But that chorus just ruins it for me. It tries to be deep and meaningful, but just comes across as hokey.

As I've said many many times before, who gives a shit about the lyrics when the music is so awesome? I don't listen to music for the lyrics, especially Pearl Jam. It seems awfully shallow and unmusical to dislike a song because the lyrics aren't convincing enough. If lyrics were supposed to be successfully deep and meaningful, everybody would listen to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen and nothing else.

I'm not as strongly opinionated as this, but I also listen for the music and melody, not the lyrics. To this day I sing along to PJ all the time while driving, but I do not know half of the words, I just know the mumbles and grunts. I actually sang in a couple of off-the-cuff PJ cover sets with an old band years ago where I hardly knew any lyrics but nobody knew the difference because I knew the "sounds"

That being said, if I notice great lyrics in a song then I will like the song more because of it, and if I hear particularly bad ones then I will dislike the song somewhat because of it.

[Kevin Davis]

I have a hard time assigning such hard-and-fast rules to the importance of the specific components of songwriting, e.g. "lyrics only matter if they're brilliant or offensively bad," "if the music is great why not just ignore the lyrics," etc. My experience has always been that each song tends to kind of make its own suggestions as to what it wants the listener to perceive as its "main ingredients," and -- as with everything else -- perception varies. I can sympathize with t2b's view on "You Are" -- the music is wonderful, but "Love is a tower/And you're the key" is absolutely the kind of lyric he describes (cheese possibly mistaken for depth) that's front-and-center of a conspicuously dramatic chorus. On paper, it's Mike McCready writing.

But personally, I love the way that octave jump in the chorus leaps out from the rumbling, grinding baritone of the verse, and don't take the words exclusively at face value -- they serve a musical purpose here, taking the song from brooding images of exploding roads and broken wheels and dots on the sun burning into a brighter, more hopeful place, lyrics and music supporting each other -- in my opinion -- with a great deal of craft and tact.

My answer to this thread would probably just be most of the hits, good songs whose sparks have dimmed over the years.

[McParadigm]

1. This thread will never top it's first post.

2. Ignoring lyrics or waving them off as unimportant is like dismissing one of the most human, and sometimes most touching, aspects of songwriting, and I think you're weird for devaluing it.

3. Immortality is a song that makes me wince, now that I'm older. "Some die just to live." It's like a fortune cookie written by Werner Herzog.

Those lyrics are possibly the closest Ed ever got to his dream of matching up "famous rockstar lament" to "teenager's suicide note," and the results are eye rollingly self-absorbed.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[Norah]

I have a hard time assigning such hard-and-fast rules to the importance of the specific components of songwriting, e.g. "lyrics only matter if they're brilliant or offensively bad," "if the music is great why not just ignore the lyrics," etc. My experience has always been that each song tends to kind of make its own suggestions as to what it wants the listener to perceive as its "main ingredients," and -- as with everything else -- perception varies.

It's almost as if the world is a large and diverse place with all sorts of different people making art that focuses on different things.

[Kevin Davis]

I wouldn't go that far, Pete.

[Norah]

The drought was the very worst.

[PHATJ]

I have a hard time assigning such hard-and-fast rules to the importance of the specific components of songwriting, e.g. "lyrics only matter if they're brilliant or offensively bad," "if the music is great why not just ignore the lyrics," etc. My experience has always been that each song tends to kind of make its own suggestions as to what it wants the listener to perceive as its "main ingredients," and -- as with everything else -- perception varies. I can sympathize with t2b's view on "You Are" -- the music is wonderful, but "Love is a tower/And you're the key" is absolutely the kind of lyric he describes (cheese possibly mistaken for depth) that's front-and-center of a conspicuously dramatic chorus. On paper, it's Mike McCready writing.

But personally, I love the way that octave jump in the chorus leaps out from the rumbling, grinding baritone of the verse, and don't take the words exclusively at face value -- they serve a musical purpose here, taking the song from brooding images of exploding roads and broken wheels and dots on the sun burning into a brighter, more hopeful place, lyrics and music supporting each other -- in my opinion -- with a great deal of craft and tact.

My answer to this thread would probably just be most of the hits, good songs whose sparks have dimmed over the years.

This. All of this.

[Yeddie Yedder]

Elderly. That one used to move me...and now...just feels meh

[Norah]

yeah that's a good one

[pnjguy]

3. Immortality is a song that makes me wince, now that I'm older. "Some die just to live." It's like a fortune cookie written by Werner Herzog.

Those lyrics are possibly the closest Ed ever got to his dream of matching up "famous rockstar lament" to "teenager's suicide note," and the results are eye rollingly self-absorbed.

Aren't the lyrics about Cobain? If so, the lyrics are pretty apropos. I also think the 'rockstar lament' was real. So to me, its a nice snapshot into what was going on at the time. So i have to disagree with you here.

[Yeddie Yedder]

I agree with your disagreement. The tones captured on that song are timeless!

[PHATJ]

Elderly. That one used to move me...and now...just feels meh

That's the first song that came to my mind.

[PHATJ]

Elderly. That one used to move me...and now...just feels meh

That's the first song that came to my mind.

Indifference too.

[darth_vedder]

Elderly. That one used to move me...and now...just feels meh

That's the first song that came to my mind.

Indifference too.

Those two are big reasons why Vs. used to be my favorite to hovering in the middle of the pact now. That, and I never liked Leash. I thought it didn't age well when I first heard it, and actual age hasn't really done it any favors.

[stip]

Indifference is a good call, but I still love elderly woman as much as I ever did?

[Strat]

Im ron burgundy?

[Norah]

I love lamp.