"5/4" is a just a singer with a guitar, live-recorded in open air, and yet it sounds incredibly rich and full. Part of that is Bulat's strong vocals. She's got that same subtle ability as Shearwater's Jonathan Meiburg to smoothly transition between multiple vocal tones, which she uses here to turn an airy folk-song verse into a piledriving chorus and get a lot of musical power out of the contrast.
After a few more listens, though, what really impresses is the guitar harmonies. That driving chorus riff is rhythmically strong and immediately memorable, and it would probably be easy as a songwriter to double down, strum the hell out of a few simple chords, and call it a fist-pumping song well done. But Bulat opens up entirely new layers by including some unexpected minor-key high notes in her guitar chords throughout, adding a twinge of sadness that pushes against the extroverted rhythmic power of the riff. The result is a single guitar that supports a range of emotional tones, and a song that sounds just as rich and full as what many bands get out of a roomful of instruments.
This video has the added virtue of catching a wonderfully concise depiction of someone becoming a new Bulat fan. Keep an eye on the guy in the green sweater after he first walks into the terrace at about 1:35. He's passing through, stops, clearly thinks he needs to keep going around 2:00, but can't help but get sucked in until the end of the song. Who knew how fun it would be to watch a convert in real time?
I can name plenty of examples where great lyrics make for great music, well beyond the two I highlighted in the last post. Even so, it should go without saying that music doesn't need lyrical value to be great, given how much of the classical and jazz canons have no lyrics at all. And I'd go further and say that there can be great songs with lyrics that are adequate, even forgettable and mediocre, because they're cases where the vocals are serving a primarily musical purpose. In the terms I've laid out in the last post, the vocals on those songs, and whatever they may be saying, are used as an "instrument" of melody and rhythm more than as a means to deliver a narrative. They're words for music, rather than music for words.
Most of what we think of as classic pop music fits this description; even the best of its kind is commonly accompanied by pretty standard-issue sentiments of love or (less frequently) freedom or regret or late nights out partying. But those lyrics often work just fine for capturing what the music itself is doing most of the work to communicate. The Shazam's "Some Other Time," for example, is a pretty straightforward, unremarkable lyrical narrative of lost love, filled with the most obvious relevant clichés: it wasn't meant to be except maybe in a dream; the singer wouldn't change a thing; the lover's name is now just another word. Those clichés, though, are supporting a pretty terrific pop melody that uses minor-key chord changes to more effectively strike the same tone of wistfulness and regret. If the lyrics were awkward enough to distract from the music, a la Train, they'd be a problem. But in this case, they're forgettable lyrics that still fit the song well, because they're consistent with, and supportive of, emotions the music more memorably evokes.
The point may come though even more sharply with musicians who openly acknowledge that they make up lyrics to fit their music. Carl Newman of the New Pornographers, for example, has been far from shy in saying that "the song is more important than the lyrics" for him and that lyrics have to "suit the song" regardless of whether it makes sense or even "ruins the narrative." And that attitude is clear in a song like "Sing Me Spanish Techno," which is utter lyrical nonsense from the title on down. But Newman makes a great song out of it because he has a fine sense of how to make his words suit the music.
For one thing, the words are still coherent enough in terms of subject-verb agreement, sentence structure and the like. More important, close listening demonstrates that his word selection carefully supports the musical grammar of the song. The verse grounds its melody in sharp rhythmic accents- grounded in the drums and hard strums on the acoustic guitar, but further enhanced by lyrics with lots of consonance. "Picking the glass off the ground" is meaningless as language, but it puts hard consonants right on the musical accents. By contrast, when the song transitions into a more legato vocal melody at about 1:30, the lyrics start relying more on words like "hills" and "refused," with softer consonants and vowel sounds that sound better extended to whole notes than, say, the hard "a" of "glass." All the nonsense words, in short, are quite effective as musical decisions.
Sigur Ros takes the approach of musical language to its logical conclusion. Jonsi claims he's singing in a made-up language called "Hopelandic," but it's even only a language in the loosest sense; the band's own website has also acknowledged that it's no more than "a form of gibberish vocals that fit to the music." That fit, on a song like "Svefn-G-Englar," follows many of the same fundamental principles as Newman's- long, open vocal sounds to support the legato lines of most of the song, with more consonance and harsher vowel sounds when the song briefly transitions to a more dissonant harmonic structure shortly after 6:00. It's the purest example possible of using the voice as instrument, with no narrative content- or even linguistic meaning- whatsoever.
So, after about a dozen paragraphs of rambling on, I can finally get back to where I started: foreign-language lyrics. (Still here, Allison? Anyone else who managed to stick around, you should go read her blog when you're done here.) Since I'm monolingual beyond some basic Spanglish, there aren't any foreign lyrics that can hold linguistic meaning for me. But they can work just fine as they result in vocals that work well as an instrument. I judge them the same way I would any other instrument: whether it works as a harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic contribution to the arrangement.
Often enough, foreign-language songs pass that test just fine. Nothing in the "Gangnam Style" vocals, for example, seems distracting or out of place in terms of consonance or vowel sounds. But given that other languages are bound to have different cadences, different sounds, different norms of articulation, they probably ARE more vulnerable to failing to meet the expectations for "natural" lyrical sounds I've learned as an English speaker. From the first moment of the Spanish song below, I can't get past a lyrical line that sounds, to me, both cluttered and awkwardly articulated, with lots of pleghmy consonants and hard vowels. For all I know, they're trying to articulate something narratively here that I'd find meaningful if I could interpret it. Or I could well be more acclimated to their vocal sounds if I were a Spanish speaker. In either case, I don't think I'm fit to judge the quality of this music, since it may be best measured against criteria that are outside the realm of my experience. All I can say is that, for that same reason, it's not for me.
If I asked you to name a great vocalist, my guess is that you'd first think of a strong vocalist, the Whitney Houstons or Jeff Buckleys whose vocal power sounds like it could level buildings. But I've noticed that a number of my posts have led to the same conclusion that effective vocals involve finding a fit between singer and song, which for some music could work just as well with a nasal honk or with subtle understatement as it could with a traditionally "great" vocalist.
Now, I'm certainly not going to say Whitney Houston or Jeff Buckley weren't great singers- they were. What I would argue is that there's also a second type of great singer who can combine vocal skill and the musical sensitivity to find a fit with multiple different types of musical backings, and "Lost Boys" is perfectly constructed as Jonathan Meiburg's case for inclusion. The song is basically two very distinct takes on one melody- a light, airy version focused on strings and bells, followed by a harsher, strummed, drum-heavy recapitulation. Meiburg's vocals shift significantly to support both, with a rich, vibrato-laden falsetto that shifts to powerful, unadorned belting. It's instantly obvious Meiburg is a technically gifted singer; on the second verse, for example, he has the sort of elemental power in his delivery that hits you in the solar plexus. But even more to his credit is his ability to shift his voice easily to make it the best instrument in very different musical settings.
On another note, the developing theme in the songs of the week so far- you know, all two of them- is the effective use of crisp, loud drums underneath arrangements that are otherwise melodically rich and ornate, even pretty. I like pretty songs quite a lot for a bearded, emotionally reserved midwesterner, but the biggest challenge even the best of them face is fusing the melody with enough energy and momentum to keep it from sounding insubstantial. The drums here and in "Mute" are prominent and powerful enough to provide that drive, while keeping to simple beats that provide support to the melodies without overcoming it. Done right, it's a marvelously effective approach.
I got a request from a friendly reader for my take on songs with non-English lyrics. Gladly! But since I'm me, and this is the blog that it is, I'm going to start by trying to figure out my general theories on lyrical value, then pivot back to explain how non-English lyrics fit in. (Allison, you know me well enough to know you weren't about to get a direct answer.)
As I've started doing research for the blog, I've discovered that while most academic musicologists, (like my pal Leonard Meyer) focus on classical music, there's actually a fair number writing about popular music. One of them, Richard Middleton, has proposed that there are three different uses of lyrics within the context of a whole song:
1. "Story," which emphasizes narrative and tends to be performed in a manner close to the speaking voice;
2. "Affect," which emphasizes the expressive nature of the words and "tends to merge with melody;"
3. "Gesture," which emphasizes "words as sound" and effectively uses the voice as "an instrument."
This framework makes a lot of sense. The sources I've read seem to agree with my biggest initial reservation, which is that "story" is not a common usage compared to the other two. There are certainly examples out there (country story-songs, rap that emphasizes the words rather than the rhythm of the delivery, that Shawn Mullins song from back in the '90s), enough to merit their place in a general model, but they're not common enough in my musical experience to need much more discussion. I'll just post that Shawn Mullins song and leave it at that.
Middleton's other two categories, though, capture a useful distinction. The way I'd put it is that most songs with lyrics can be great in one of two ways: either the music can support strong, memorable lyrics ("affect"), or the sound and tone of the lyrics can support strong, memorable music ("gesture"). In short, a great song can either offer music for great words, or words for great music.
Underlying that statement is an assumption that the music and the lyrics both need to meet some minimal level of quality for a song to be successful. A great musical arrangement still isn't going to work that well as a song if it's accompanied with, say, lyrics as distractingly lazy as Train's. Nor will great lyrics work without an adequate- and appropriate- musical backing; sensitive love-song lyrics are going to lose some of their impact backed with death-metal music, and any example of good lyrics are going to lose some of their weight and enjoyment if I still don't want to listen to the musical backing.
Put another way, great songs have both great music and good lyrics- the distinction is that in many songs, one plays the lead role and one plays support. I have no way to quantify this, but I feel safe in saying that, more often than not, music is in the lead role; melodies run through my head more often than do lyrics that resonate on their own terms. (This probably also has something to do with the fact that talented musicians are invariably going to make music, while talented writers may well go into poetry or short stories or whatever instead of becoming lyricists.)
That said, there are songs where the lyrics carry the primary weight of quality for me. Within the confines of a standard-length pop song, that's typically not a matter of a complete thought- it's usually a matter of using just a few words to communicate something vivid. The lyrics of The Mountain Goats' "Broom People" are a total of 101 words, but line by line, it uses its economy to capture a gut-punch portrait of an abusive household, both visual (the "white carpet thick with pet hair") and experiential (a sighed reference to "well-meaning teachers"), and with clearly personal details like the abuser's old car in the garage. (John Darnielle has been upfront about saying that the whole album addresses his life with an abusive stepfather.) It's a bit like a great establishing shot in a movie, communicating worlds in brief images.
Iron and Wine's "Dead Man's Will" achieves much the same, in its slightly different, eponymous form. It's a very structured approach of finding four expressions of "buried" love, all well-drawn in a few words, and all the more powerful for being driven home as the narrator repeated chorus beg for his "love to reach you all."
Both of these are, even on paper, great writing. But part of what makes them stick as great LYRICS is because the musical accompaniment provides such effective support. It's not just that the music meets our basic expectations for the tone of the song- relatively slow tempos, sweeping high notes- though that obviously helps. Both lyrics stand out so powerfully because there are a range of subtle musical cues that support, reinforce, even expand upon their tones and connotations.
In both cases above, much of that subtle success is in the way the music introduces a note of hopefulness and grace into devastating subject matter. Dead Man's Will is, on first listen, appropriately funereal, with the slow tempo of a funeral march and a choral arrangement that evokes a hymn. Upon further listening, though, that choral arrangement contains even deeper resonance. The musical arrangement drops out on the final chorus at 2:20, an effective decision to make stark the lonely cry of the narrator. But it's followed by a wordless chorus that swells the harmonies we've already heard before, and it's easy to start imagining that the father, mother, brother, lover, are now the ones singing. In purely musical terms, it's a nice way to open up the strong melody for a final spin. But it's also a way to suggest that his love has reached them all.
Broom People seems like a bit of an odder case at first, with dramatic piano chords and a thrumming cello line that seem too energetic, too anthemic for a story of a child writing down "good reasons to freeze to death." Until Darnielle pivots at the end of the verse to talk about the arms of another (a girlfriend, most likely) that turn him into a "babbling brook." On paper, the structural choice to dwell on what's at home is effective for dramatizing the draw of his escape, yet the pivot lands with even more force by resolving the tension between music and lyric.
It remains true that for me the impact of both songs is lyrical, the near-physical impact of invoking an abused child's "friends who don't have a clue" or hearing the posthumous regret of a man too "scared and stupid" to find love. But they're great as songs because the music is pumping the lyrics full of life. It can work the other way, too, and I'll take up that topic in the next post.
The posts here have gotten rather uniformly long and theoretical and detailed. To balance things out a little, I'm also going to start doing weekly short posts focusing on a single song. First up: Youth Lagoon's new single "Mute," from their just-released and enjoyably titled album, "Wondrous Bughouse."
Two things will probably be clear to you by about two minutes in (I just verified by testing on my wife): 1) the song pretty easily meets my criteria (and anyone else's) for sounding "unique" and different and 2) not necessarily in a good way, since it's mostly due to the screechy, harsh feedback that takes over at 1:05 and recedes in and out for the rest of the song.
I've emphasized before that adding "unique" elements isn't good enough if they don't seem to fit in the musical mix. It sure sounds at first like the feedback doesn't here, given how dissonant it sounds over what's otherwise a highly melodic song. But after several listens, I've come to think that it is the good kind of unique; there's an identifiable, and very interesting, musical idea behind the feedback.
The point comes through best during the guitar solo that starts at 2:57. Taken note for note, the solo itself is anthemic enough to plausibly be one some mulleted '80s rock guitarist could be playing at the front of the stage with one foot perched on an amplifier. And there's a certain set of connotations that comes along with that image- of a high-volume, beat-heavy hard rock arrangement smoothly sculpted to emphasize power, perhaps presented with ripped jeans and stage fireworks- that the feedback acts to twist and subvert. It's taking something associated with familiar notions of masculinity and (musical) force and turning it into something melancholy and crumbling in a way I haven't quite heard before.
My wife suggests that using more traditional (and harmonic) chimes or bells would make the whole thing sound better. She's right, but under a different conception of what the song should be. That would make for something that sounds more like a familiar chamber pop anthem (a la Coldplay, perhaps), and it could probably serve as a well-written example of the form. Hell, that's even a form I like. But for an intensive listener like me who's trying to avoid the saturation principle, I find it even more rewarding to see someone attempt a largely new musical idea- and succeed.
To this point, I've identified my definition of craftsmanship in terms of music having unique characteristics, or maximizing musical nuance (aka Birdy's Law), or enjoying the unexpected. All of which combine to support my longstanding tendency to like songs with multiple layers and complex arrangements.
It's tempting to suggest that there's a basic principle of probability at work: the more that's going on in a song, the more likely there's something that appeals to me through nuance or surprise. To the extent that's true, though, there's also a risk: it may increase the probability that I come across something that I think doesn't work. Particularly since precise, complex arrangements aren't exactly easy musical accomplishments to achieve at all, much less make effective.
Fanfarlo reflects both the pleasures of craft and the difficulty of finding that complex alchemy that makes it work. Their debut album, Reservoir, consistently hit my sweet spot for arranged, nuanced pop. In "Ghosts" alone, there are a half-dozen pieces of craft that stand out as quite effective on their own terms, and even more so taken together.
1. The ability to integrate, and smoothly move between, a wide range of different instrumental tones and timbres, from the thumping bass at the beginning to the airy vocals at :46 to a mix of horns, piano, and strings for the bulk of the song.
2. Their ability, once those various layers are introduced, to combine them in varying ways to d.rive numerous dynamic shifts through out the song- the build on the bridge, after 2:30, is the most prominent example.
3. The drummer's effective use of his whole kit to support the instrumental tones of the song, relying on crisp hi-hat to support the thumping base, than switching to cymbals to support the lighter horn harmonies on the chorus.
4. The winding horn hook on the chorus, which hits a gratifying resolving chord at 2:01, but toys with expectations by spinning off into different variations on the melody line rather than overusing that resolution.
5. The singer's (and trumpeter's, a few times) effective use of controlled vibrato on his high notes, especially valuable for minimizing any vocal strain that could conflict with the bright, smooth instrumental tones.
6. The use of handclaps to reinforce the snare beat (first starting at 1:26)- subtle enough I didn't recognize them on the first listen, but very effective in strengthening the beat while avoiding any sharp rhythmic that could conflict with the smooth tones.
I could do the same for most of the other songs on the album. And 2011's follow-up, Rooms Filled With Light, demonstrated that they certainly hadn't lost that skill set; "Dig" does a similarly fine job of arranging multiple tones, and while also evolving their sound by focusing more on keyboards and synthesizers than the organic tones of Reservoir.
However, many of the other songs on Rooms Filled with Light make other arrangement choices that are significantly less successful. "Tunguska," for example, makes its slow tempo sound plodding through heavy drumming that stays almost unfailingly on plain, quarter note beats, and a zither with a strum so heavy it takes nearly a full beat to register. There's just as many different layers and tones as the songs above, but the plodding takes much of the energy out of the interplay, and the use of a low organ that fills the space between other layers also dampens that spark.
The band also tries to push the boundaries of its sound by including some overt dissonance. There's nothing inherently wrong with dissonance, but the band doesn't integrate it well enough into the full arrangement to make it work. The verses of "Tightrope" start the song off with the same kind of bouncing bass and loping rhythm that worked so well for "Ghosts," but the chorus loses much of its momentum through dissonant and monotone vocals that coexist awkwardly with the clean harmonic work underneath. And the friction sounds even more off-putting during the bridge at 3:10; while "Ghosts" worked within its harmonic structure to develop a rich, impactful build on "Ghosts," the band instead chooses to use aharmonic horns that sound more an intrusion.
The album's first single, "Shiny Things," is perhaps an even clearer example of the same issue. The band uses a dissonant guitar bend as, in effect, its primary chorus hook (starting at 1:34 the first time out), but does nothing in the rest of the arrangement to make the sound feel like a natural fit. They might have been able to achieve that integration by introducing a few dissonant tones somewhere in the verses that would establish the dissonance as part of the harmonic structure of the full song, or by using the first occurrence of the dissonance to influence the arrangement thereafter. Instead, the bend occurs just on the two choruses, and again sounds more like an intrusion.
The typical critical terminology in a case like this is to say that the second album is a "decline" or a "disappointment" after the strengths of the first, but that doesn't feel right. Fanfarlo is still trying to do right by my values; they're very clearly working to find an effective balance between maintaining an effective core sound and trying to find the variations and new ideas that make it fresh. To these ears, they just misfired a few times in trying to do so, and that doesn't make them any less of a respectable and able band. It seems a lot more fair to point out what this misfires, do so in as constructive a fashion as possible, and express a sincere hope that they can find their way back to the right alchemy the next time out.
