What Qualities Make a Great Lyricist?

Generally, I like a certain level of obliqueness in lyrics, as it allows for a more personnal interpretation.

The ability to not be named "Greg Lake". :)

a conversational tone is important to me..the ability to make a line work in a song that would be just as striking and understood if a friend just turned to you and said it. i've never been much for that 'song logic' that most lyricists abide by, all sticky metaphors and vaguaries that would sound like dramatic nonsense outside the context of someone singing it into a microphone.

Keep it abstract. Don't be (too) specific.

1) Lyricist lives a life in which something actually happens or they know someone to whom things happen or the damn song is just older than fuckin' Methusaleh (this explains why all those old blues and country and folk records are usually pretty great).

2) Lyricist is for some baffling reason just absolute fucking brilliant for some period of time (Mark E Smith, Serge Gainsbourg, Ray Davies and uh. . . someone else whose name I forget.)

That's me, damn you, spelt M.E.!

Am I being damned? Is so then I should mention that Momus is brilliant too. Being damned at 5am puts a real damper on my day.

The ability to express something in a unique/different/unexpected way. Also, juxtaposition of phrases/ideas that are clever lyrically (usually involving rhymes), but not predictable:
Example of NOT good lyricism - "Just a smalltown girl, living in a lonely world."
Example of good lyricism - "Well, it's funny 'coz I thought that it could have turned out quite romantic / But it isn't like that, which is fine, 'coz it means I can stand it" - I love this line for two reasons:
-You expect it to go complete the thought about how something romantic was lost - but it turns the other way - that something romantic was averted.
-The rhyme of "Romantic" and "Stand it" - not a tired, predictable rhyme like girl/world.
-Bonus reason: because it sounds conversational, which makes it sound real. (Which is not itself a standalone criterion for a good lyric.)
Real can be a selling point such that no other elements of style are important. (number about refusing to get mugged for two measly dollars:) "On the concrete, an outcast - blinded, mindless from some poison - tears a rip into my jacket. 'What do you got? Get it up or this gun gets let off.' No, I only got two dollars for the show - then I start working my change, wanna go? Bizzare, homemade, into my stomach, under the ribcage - he would shoot it just to prove he could. He could have used a knife, it's less likely to kill. Face to face - understand, he was a man, but not for my two dollars, not on this street." - May not translate as well in writing as it does with music - but to me, it reads as very real and the writer's anger at the situation is communicated.

Good lyrics are like pornography: I know it when I see it.

Throw into the criteria: the ability to use literary devices, verbal sleights of hand that force a hand on you, or allow two different but very definite readings of a lyric.

Take “Yes, that was me with the doves, setting them free near the factory where they build your computer logs…” from ‘Revolution Blues’ by Neil Young. Is he parodying the middle class, scathing conception of the hippy as tokenistic layabout? Or is he attacking the hippy, assuming the persona of the hippy and casting aspersions upon their ilk? Double edged swords.

Or in ‘Vampire Blues’ where he sings “I’m a vampire babe, sucking blood from the earth”, is he having a pop at the oil magnates who drill the black poison from the bowels of the Earth, or is he, in fact, turning the sword in on himself in a kind of lyrical hari-kiri, lambasting himself for being a superstar musician who sells millions of records. Records are made from vinyl, vinyl is made from a fraction of oil, Neil is imputed in the crime. Little devices like that.

Other great lyricists can use a set of recurring symbols to convey their message in the form of the seer-poet troubadour tradition. For example, Nick Drake with his allusions to the floor (the material world, the ground we live on, the plane in which work is down), weather, the seasons, time, inanimate objects (fences, clocks etc) all piling up into one Buddhist manifesto, without lots of the Buddhism.

Also, in a lyricist it is refreshing to have awkward uses of words and phrases, especially on songs where the person is trying to convey a form of emotional or physical discomfort. For instance in Ryan Adams’ ‘Damn Sam I Love a Woman That Rains’ when he sings “when the colour goes out of my eyes, she’s usually too”. Now, he’s just saying that when his girlfriend leaves him he loses the colour in his cheeks blah blah but the awkward phrasing, the ‘she’s usually too’, it reeks of a man smarting from loss, unable to reign in his normal lyrical acuity (“Sit around dream away the place I’m from, try to watch TV an’ pray for decent re-runs”). Phrasing, that’s important.

Also, listing of things which are boldly obvious, you see them everyday, they are omnipresent but they’re just little things so you don’t pay the heed that the good lyricist knows that one should. Listing of small, specific details can crush me very simply and very effectively. For example, in Cannibal Ox’s ‘Iron Galaxy’ when Vast Aire rattles off “battered wives, molested children, roaches on the floor, rats in the ceiling…”. He’s able to highlight the little shadows, augment them, invest them with meaning (new meaning?).

Yeh, I like these things.

http://www.gbv.com/music.html click on lyrics to see what makes a great lyricist

"On the Beach" is lyrically, one of the greatest records ever made. "You're all jus pissing in the wind. You don't know it but you are. And there ain't nothing like a friend who can tell you you're just pissing in the wind."

Is it just me, or are all of powertonevolume's examples really, really bad lyrics? I'm a big Neil Young fan, and I like some of his lyrics, but these are poor; the Ryan Adams is inexcusably terrible.

All of these literary values are all very well, but it's hard to pin down what makes some lyrics work brilliantly in the context of a song but look terrible written down. This is why all the idiotic debates about whether Bob Dylan is a great poet miss the point: he's not a poet at all, he's a great lyricist. Ditto Tom Waits, Jarvis Cocker, Hank Williams, Brian Wilson.

I'm inclined to say, it's just you. I stand by my decisions. The Revolution/Vampire Blues choices aren't specifically the best lyrics in the songs, I meant rather that these whole songs are exquisite. The Ryan lyric is great because I've never heard something so awful in a song before, something which doesn't fit (sure I've heard Morrisey reverse-park 8 syllables into a three syllable space but not something as awkward, which fits in with the prosody of the song). I've got loads of rhyming couplets, and perfectly fashioned lyrics in my collection, Ryan is just providing something different, something truly rough around the edges as oppposed to all those lo-fi indie Four Tracking Troubadours.

I don't agree with you. Neil hasn't written any better lyrics than the words on the Song Sheets to those two songs.

martin IT IS NOT JUST YOU.

Ever feel like you can't say none right around here? Well, I get that feeling every time I read replies to my posts; I'm fed up, I'm of low enough esteem as it is, and I feel about 3 (out of 15) now, so I'm just gonna lurk. I know, givin' up, what a wuss, sorry.

Out of curiosity though, what would you choose from Neil's ouvre Martin?

I love Neil Young's voice, guitar playing and tunes more than his lyrics. The political ones in particular are often extremely clumsy, and the best of his lyrics don't look good written down. "You are like a hurricane / There's calm in your eye / And I'm getting Blown Away / To somewhere safer where the feelings stay / I wanna love you but I get so blown away" wouldn't win any poetry awards, but it's beautiful in the song's context, as is "Once I thought I saw you, 'cross a crowded, hazy bar / Dancing in the light from star to star." Anyway, I wouldn't cite Neil as a great lyricist.

Bobby Bare's another good one, by the way. And the person who wrote Always On My Mind (M. James, from memory - also wrote Suspicious minds). And Carole King - Will You Love Me Tomorrow is a masterpiece of beautiful ambiguity. Some others: TV Smith, Chuck D, Smokey Robinson (Dylan famously called him "The greatest love poet of the 20th Century"), Pete Shelley, KRS-1, Marvin Gaye, Elvis Costello, Curtis Mayfield, Willie Nelson, Jimmy Cliff, Jello Biafra, Shane MacGowan, Dolly Parton, Ian Dury, Kris Kristofferson, Neil Tennant, Ray Davies, Ian Hunter, Wynonie Harris, Joe Tex, Karl Hyde (I might not get many agreeing with that one), Wreckless Eric, Randy Newman, Jonathan Richman, Phil Ochs, Gil Scott-Heron, Eminem and to end on another choice that will be laughed at by many, David Gedge.

Incidentally, I remember the Ivor Novello songwriting awards here in Britain the year Common People came out ('95?). It won the Best Lyrics award and the Best Music award, but wasn't the Best Song, apparently. Can anyone explain why that was?

I think Neil Young is bullshit, generally, but "Sample And Hold" is a great phrase and well-used in the song.

I like the ideas put forward in this thread lots more than the examples used to illustrate them (though don't go away powertonevolume, I honestly like your posts, it's nice to have a rock- centric perspective w/o snotty/messianic 'tude). E.g. Dave225's 'romantic' quote which just looks like the kind of standard so-what dodge punky rockers often make when they come to write love songs. (A great lyricist I think should be able to write a great love song.) I don't think cleverness or obscurity make for 'great' lyrics hardly ever though they can make for good ones, or at least good in- jokes. On the other hand an absolutely banal lyric isn't a good one. But directness and banality aren't the same thing, or aren't the same thing unless you're a bit frightened of directness. Martin's choice of "Always On My Mind" is a good one - very simple lyrics but to inhabit and empathise with them means taking a risk of admitting some bad things about yourself. I'm not saying that good lyrics have to hit on some kind of emotional truth - Frank Black is an almost completely emotionless lyricist who is occasionally very good.

OK now I have to go to France where I'll think more about this stuff.

My favourite love-song lyric is probably God Only Knows. Brian Wilson starts it "I may not always love you", which is an exceptional start for a love song, and another verse is "If you should ever leave me / Though life would still go on, believe me / The world would show nothing to me / So what good would living do me? / God only knows what I'd be without you," which is simple and powerful and beautiful. What more can you ask?

Then how come it sounds so terrible on David Bowie's 'Tonight' album?

There may be a difference between a 'great' lyricist and an original one. I always go for originality over 'greatness'.

Wilson's 'Busy Doin' Nothing' is an original lyric, therefore vastly preferable (for me) to the rather overblown and rhetorical 'God Only Knows'.

I would eliminate from my 'original' category any lyric which is essentially a rewrite of the marriage contract. Relationship / hetero / contractual lyrics always sell well (which is why recording contract and marriage contract so often link up in the cynical songwriter's mind) but add very little to our understanding of real life, including relationships, let alone leading us into a strange and interesting world of imagination.

BAN HETERO LOVESONGS NOW and you will immediately remove 90% of bad lyrics (and 78% of all terrible sax, guitar and production tropes).

The qualities that make a great lyricist are often the same qualities that make a great screenplay or short story writer. 'Busy Doin' Nothing' is a tiny, evocative short story, complete with a map to the narrator's beach house, a little weather report, and some love interest. You can also hear its influence in songs like David Byrne's 'Don't Worry About The Government' and the lazy atmospherics of Sean O'Hagan's High Llamas. The focus on atmosphere, and the use of a scenario, show a clear influence from bossa nova, a style with much more literary ambition than most Anglo-saxon lyricists allow themselves. Speaking for myself, I had to turn to French and German pop music to find anything like the kind of ambition I had for pop songs as micro- scenarios.

Martin: I dunno bout the inclusion of Jello Biafra in your list. His lyrics are extremely clever, but way too snide, smarmy, and just impersonal for me. There are plenty of lyricists that fall roughly under "punk" or "hardcore", that aren't so damn cold. Right now I'm listening to the Dreamkillers, a band whose lyricist (Les Jobson) realises that what he's writing about are real people with real lives and real emotions (even the stupid, selfish and nasty ones). He's also unafraid to write personal tales. Jello doesn't let the mask down for long enough to do that.

PS: Malkmus is a very good lyricist indeed. Neil Young is just simply dreadful.

momus what do you think of: cole porter, irving berlin, elvis costello etc.?

i think eminem is a great writer, tho "lyricist" somehow seems the wrong word to use

In Defence of Neil:

Overall his lyrical canon leaves much to be desired, but if we cherry pick the highlights then we are able to see that they are High, very High indeed, lights. Take for example ‘Broken Arrow’ from Buffalo Springfield Again. In a series of flashcuts, Neil details the effects of Fame: Hollow Be Thy Name, the collapse of the preconceived, idealised Apple Pie ideal of an American Youth, and then turns his scimitar on the Kennedy Wedding. The three different situations (backstage after a sell out concert, upstairs in a semi- in the suburbs a few hours before dinner, the Kennedy wedding) are all used to reflect Hopeless Emptiness. “And when it was over it felt like a dream… they stood at the stage door and begged for a scream…” The artist divorced from the event of playing, the fans braying at the back door wanting a piece of him, the insincerity of it all, eventually he crawls out into a large, expansive, empty black limousine “in the rain”.

“He saw that his brother had sworn on the wall/He hung up his eyelids and ran down the hall/His mother had told him a trip was a fall/And don't mention babies at all.” The kid, cushioned and mollycoddled, escorted through life blinkered so much that when he witnesses a cuss word he hangs up his eyelids and flees for his mother. The lies of the early Seventies middle class mothers ‘protecting’ their kids from the truth compounded by the fact that a few years earlier she was probably a hippy and ‘falling’ all over the place. Shattered illusions.

And all throughout runs the motif of the broken arrow, the empty quiver: Native American symbolism for loss and emptiness. And all in the space of 5/6 minutes, punctuated by the cat calls of the last Beatles concert in San Francisco’s Rose Bowl (?). The effect is overwhelming when taken in. Nothing new being said in the context of now, possibly even in the context of then, but the way its being said is astounding, in my opinion.

This is just one song, he is not a poor lyricist when he puts his mind to it (as on On The Beach) he just an underrated, overlooked (because of his Guitar Wank Proficiency), and under-appreciated one.

we had a thread on morrissey where we talked about how some of his, well, fairly terrible lines are fairly effective for just this reason: i think maybe ny's are sometimes not dissimilar, since one of the things he's always exploring is the shift from innocent non-eloquent hope to older non-eloquent resignation - to get the perception exact, the phrases HAVE to be a bit crap, someone with a powerful never-absent gift for words couldn't hit it without being sort of patronising, any more than someone who can draw well can ever accurately imitate how children draw that can't

(ps i think this is a dimension of rock which is REALLY IMPORTANT and doesn't really get looked at enough — you could call it the ORNETTE AT 12 dimension if you want to big it up conceptually)

pps i really really like neil young, and routinely never listen to the words of songs

What of Jeff Mangum? I usually can't listen to 'In the Aeroplane Over the Sea' without some sort of extreme emotional reaction.

momus what do you think of: cole porter, irving berlin, elvis costello etc.?

Cole Porter. In my early 20s I was rather fascinated with his technique, but now I'm increasingly irritated by his mannerism, his neat little tropes, those triple rhymes, that 1940s conception of 'sophistication' and 'wit' which appealed, in the end, to suburban housewives who wished their husbands could be a little less boorish. It's the songwriting equivalent of the 'well-made play' isn't it, and hence the enemy of actual passion, truth, imagination. And just as the 'well-made play' made people like Jarry and Artaud necessary, so Cole Porter made rock and roll, punk etc necessary. What I do like, though, is hearing early Lou Reed doing his fucked up, drugged up version of Cole Porter in 'I'm Sticking With You' and 'After Hours' and 'New York Conversation'

Irving Berlin. What can you say about a man whose most famous songs are about Christmas and loving America? These are basically 20th century hymns, so dead and square they're irredeemable. Personally I come out of a totally different canon, one that was always marginal and had to use someone else's language, hence Brecht and Weill, Brecht and Eisler, Hollander etc, with their parodies of American pop. Someone like Berlin overcame his outsiderdom by hymning the norm, even to the ludicrous extent of being a Jew celebrating Christmas and a Russian singing 'God Bless America'. He was, in a way, the Norman Rockwell of song. Brecht and Weill would be more like John Heartfield. They took pop culture and cut it up to make new, forbidden combinations. The radicalism of 'The Threepenny Opera', which uses collage techniques you can still see in everyone from Robbie Williams to Cornelius, is still totally relevant to us now (when every writer has to measure his distance from pop culture in terms of resistance and collusion) whereas 'White Christmas' is not.

Elvis Costello. Tries too hard. All those puns! 'And the bells take their toll once again' -- truly terrible songwriting! I went to his house once and he had about eight different rhyming dictionaries. I just never really bought all that 'petulant disgust wound up tight as a firecracker' schtick. Now he seems to have mellowed into the Melvyn Bragg of songwriting. And isn't he the man who thinks McCartney is better than Lennon?

Sondheim is good, though. 'Someone In A Tree' from 'Pacific Overtures'. 'How Could I Leave You', 'Another Hundred People', etc etc. Clever in the best sense. Brel was good. Gainsbourg was good. And there are lots of very interesting writers who never get into these lists: Colin Newman of Wire! Holger Hiller! Billy McKenzie! Laurie Anderson! The Moldy Peaches! Francoise Cactus from Stereo Total! Takako Minekawa! Phiiliip! Peter Blasser of The Gongs! Mike Hanle y!

good call on colin newman, m. and hanle y too, of course. also rarely mentioned: green velvet.

apologies, yes, porter/berlin/costello = a truly rubbish list-qua-list (as meltzer wd say) - but luckily momus twigged what i was actually trying to ask... i like the idea of someone attempting to bridge the porter/rock'n'roll divide, and that is where costello is coming from, but of course being able to state the concept is not the same as delivering the goods... i wish costello wd do more cover versions (i prefer his "my funny valentine" to almost anyone's...)

A couple of small, pedantic corrections: Brian Wilson did not write the words to "God Only Knows"--Tony Asher did. Also, Colin Newman reportedly never wrote that many of Wire's lyrics; most of them are by Bruce Gilbert or Graham Lewis, though Newman's the one who sang them. Agreed, though, that early Wire lyrics are fantastic: incredibly telegraphic and evocative enough that they're easy for a singer to "spin."

One record I always loved the lyrics on is World of Pooh's _The Land of Thirst_: they're very careful not to spell anything out or be overtly clever, but there's incredible emotional brutality just below the surface.

Last weekend, I sang the Fall's "How I Wrote 'Elastic Man'" on the radio with the Hoof & Mouth Sinfonia, and was happy to be reminded again of what an incredible lyricist Mark E. Smith can be--it's a song about the state of mind of somebody with terrible writer's block, which is to say the idea that he has lost his grip on language. ("I'm living a fake/People say 'you are entitled to and great.'")

Also good quality, possibly fits in with Ned vs Lyrics (though I never did get round to reading it), is the ability to manipulate words so that the actual sound (rather than the meaning) is the most important thing. And I'm not talking about those lyrics that look garish when written down, but fit with the prosody/melody/etc of the song (for example those Neil Young 'Like A Hurricane' lyrics written above which sit well in the song but not the page) but rather those lyrics in which the vowels, consonants and syllables conspire to create the perfect sound to fit with the melody/prosody/etc. Best example, I can think of is At The Drive-In, where the lyrics don't lend themselves to any interpretation, however impressionistic, whatsoever, but fit in perfectly with the assonance (or whatever) of the song. For example, "banked on memory mummified circuitry skin graft machinery sputnik sickles found in the seats". Wha' the F' does that mean, but within the song, the sound generated is perfect. So it's not the lyrics that we're listening to but the utterances of the singer.

But the lyricist's ability lies in making these utterances 'fit'.

See Van Morrison vs Astral Weeks for the perfect example of Sound of Words also Loves The Meaning.

Mark E. Smith, natch. The William Blake of indie!

Nick Drake, natch. The William Blake of indie. Enter Stage Left some disparaging remark from Momus. And now, since I said that enter Stage Right some fawning No You're Wrong remark by Momus. Sorry Momus.

"See Van Morrison vs Astral Weeks for the perfect example of Sound of Words also Loves The Meaning."?!
God, I'm turning into Sinkah. ;-)

I wish.

I went to [Costello's] house once and he had about eight different rhyming dictionaries.

Somehow I'm not in the least surprised. "Craft, craft, I must show craft!"

Billy McKenzie!

Oh baby. All the way. And they're finally rereleasing Perhaps/The Glamour Chase! About damn time!

Mike Hanle y!

Icemoths. It's all about the icemoths.

Also good quality, possibly fits in with Ned vs Lyrics (though I never did get round to reading it), is the ability to manipulate words so that the actual sound (rather than the meaning) is the most important thing.

I don't think I ever put it quite like that, but yeah, pretty much.

Finally, someone agrees. Thank you Ned. You probably don't appreciate how much it means. Why do I care so much, I dunno. "Say something good about ILx".

Great lyrics.

Songwriters sometimes need (and don't get) editors just as must as other types of writers - ESP. that Elvis Costello. His dour cover of Sleeper's 'What Do I Do Now?' is wonderful (no really it is), and 'I Want You' from 'Blood and Chocolate' is as stark a declaration of twisted passion as you'll find anywhere. But Jesus! So MANY dud lines, lame puns, simplistic narratives/ideas - absolutely zero quality control.

I like the lyrics on the first Gang of Four alb, knee-jerk Marxism and all... And in the early singer/songwriter stakes, I think EARLY Loudon Wainright is v. underrated.

one more try