{"id":22859,"date":"2015-12-07T23:10:28","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T04:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=22859"},"modified":"2015-12-07T23:10:28","modified_gmt":"2015-12-08T04:10:28","slug":"every-word-you-say-matching-words-and-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/every-word-you-say-matching-words-and-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Every Word You Say: Matching Words and Music"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OMOGaugKpzs\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>For some time, I\u2019ve been thinking about starting a thread about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/prosody\" target=\"_blank\">prosody<\/a> and the relationship of words to music. Ironically, I\u2019ve never been sure I had a substantial premise to spur a conversation and I\u2019m not sure what I want to say.<\/p>\n<p>Recently I was in a conversation about the Police song, \u201cEvery Breath You Take,\u201d about how the song was misinterpreted as being romantic, when really the lyric is basically about stalking. I can see how giving the lyrics less than half of your attention might lead to misinterpretation\u2014but this is heavily aided by the lyrical nature of the music itself. Perhaps Sting abetted misinterpretation by mismatching the sentiment of the lyric to the lilting music he wrote. As little credence I give to Puff Daddy\u2019s rap appropriation of the song, perhaps his changing of the lyric to \u201cI\u2019ll be missing you\u201d is actually a better match.<\/p>\n<p>Contrast this against another misunderstood song, REM\u2019s \u201cThe One I Love,\u201d where the music really matches the anger of the lyric and the misinterpretation come from a narrow view of noting that the singer loves someone (and the listener\u2019s projection of this onto themselves) and disregarding everything else. Here, I pin the guilt upon those listeners.<\/p>\n<p>But for my favorite example of a prosody mismatch, here\u2019s a special nugget, which I heard on a CD handed out at the Philly Music Conference, circa 1994. This song sounded dated to me back then, the product of some suburban local band still into Scandal and Pat Benatar. To me, the combination of this (trying-to-be) strident and tense music and the serious subject matter of the lyric, leads to a tragicomedy of a chorus, where the feeling of the music undermines the lyric. Bear with this song by <strong>Keiran Kacy<\/strong> for 1\u00a0minute:<\/p>\n<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-22859-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.noahsimon.com\/keirankacy.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.noahsimon.com\/keirankacy.mp3\">http:\/\/www.noahsimon.com\/keirankacy.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>Oops! So painful, on several fronts.<\/p>\n<p>Then there are songs where the feel of the music leads to an obvious musical direction (or v\/v). XTC\u2019s \u201cHere Comes President Kill Again\u201d seems to fit this model. Here, I think the songwriter walks a high-wire of having to match the music to the lyric, otherwise, they run the risk of the type of comical mismatch in Keiran Kacy\u2019s song.<!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/I5JYV1LvVYQ\" width=\"420\" height=\"236\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But I want your thoughts about songs in the middle ground: songs where the music and lyrics reinforce each other in a less obvious way than the XTC song. Perhaps the lyric is full of imagery, open to interpretation, and the music doesn\u2019t lead to an obvious lyrical direction, but when they are put together there is a powerful result. Also, are there songs that you feel fail in this regard, where the music leads to misinterpretation of the lyric or the lyric would be better suited to a different musical feel? If you were to choose the best and worst pairings of lyrics and music, which songs would top your list?<\/p>\n<nav class=\"page-links\"><strong>Pages:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/every-word-you-say-matching-words-and-music\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">1<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/every-word-you-say-matching-words-and-music\/2\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">2<\/span><\/a><\/nav>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For some time, I\u2019ve been thinking about starting a thread about prosody and the relationship of words to music. Ironically, I\u2019ve never been sure I had a substantial premise to spur a conversation and I\u2019m not sure what I want to say. Recently I was in a conversation about the Police song, \u201cEvery Breath You <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/every-word-you-say-matching-words-and-music\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[204],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22859"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}