“There is no such thing as a hit lyric..."

Or excellent lyrics, I agree there are very few spoken word hits.

 

Yet there are countless hit songs with (arguably) meaningless lyrics.

How many songs with (arguably) great lyrics but lacking in melody were hits?

 

But you can't connect to any of his lyrics? I agree there are many musical reasons for why he's great, but the lyrics are a part of it. For example, Bob Dylan's 115h Dream is hilarious and you're missing out if you don't pay attention to the words. Even just reading the lyric sheet is hilarious. The evocative and somewhat cryptic lyrics to songs such As I Went Out One Morning and the Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest set a mood and definitely add to the pleasure of listening to them. John Wesley Harding is one of my favorite albums for lyrics in general.

 

I don't wanna do this all day, I'll stick with my opinion, you can have yours.

 

I was curious if someone would catch this, so good on you sir!

Incidentally, for someone like Dudgeon to make a claim this bold, after working with Taupin, one of pop music's most renowned lyricists... yes, it gives the claim even more gravity IMO.

 

Nice. But you're the one making the questionable argument that albums aren't part of the discussion.

 

It's pretty clear Dudgeon was talking about songs. Albums don't have "a great lyric" or "[a] melody".

Do exceptions exist? When don't they? They're still exceptions though.

 

I believe it has more to do with the lyrics than the melody. There is a reason that lyrically heavy songs are rarely if ever hits.

 

The thread title and OP was provocative but this remark is probably the best summation of Dudgeon's claim.

 

I do. They start to improve around Rubber Soul. Just one gal's opinion.

 

The producer who is the subject of the thread claims there is no such thing as a hit lyric, only hit melodic hooks. I dispute that with the suggestion that it can be the lyric that is the more memorable reason for the song to become iconic, rather than the melodic content. And I use an example of such an iconic lyric. As have others in this thread. I am not here to pick an argument with you. I am here to point out an obvious instance in which the lyric, not the melody, has anything to do with the reason the song made an impression.

 

(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman certainly has iconic lyrics.

But it wouldn't have become a classic song without an iconic melody.

 

Take songs like 'Like A Rolling Stone' and 'American Pie'.

If the lyrics to those songs were awful, people would probably hate them, because musically they're long and repetitive.

 

Personally, no. I do not think the melody of this particular song, holds a candle to that particular lyrical statement in Carole King's song. That's why I said it.

There are no songs I could think of that could become better-known only by the lyrics. But, I did not say "couldn't", I said "wouldn't". I said one can be more important than the other, a circumstance here where I feel the lyric was indeed more important than the melody, and thus more reason for it becoming memorable, as opposed to the producer's outright dismissal of the possibility of a lyric's significant importance. It is an opinion of mine, which I derived completely from my own lifetime of personal experience, which means your debating me on it, is not required in order for me to have my own opinion, or my right to hold to it.

 

1) I wasn't taking songs like "Like A Rolling Stone" and "American Pie".
2) Where would you see me thinking such lyrics as those were "awful" in the first place. Straw argument, and one which I would not have made myself, no matter how you feel about them.
3) I was countering the observation of an industry pro who couldn't think of an example where a lyric was more significant to its' melodic content in becoming a significant success.
4) So I suggested the one lyric I could easily think of as a ready example, wherein the phrase used was, up until that point in history, never been a commonplace phrase, and one used during a time of social recalibration, and sung by an artist already attracting attention for the sort of female-centric output that was already gaining interest and excitement from its' perspective.

Now, you can easily hum the melody to "These Boots Are Made For Walkin"", "Born A Woman", "Stand By Your Man" or even "Respect", and see how significantly powerful the tonality is, to selling those lyrics. But, in the case of "You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman", while I could recognize the hummed tune without the words, NO, I cannot help think, that melody would have been nearly as successful, had it been sung to the versus of, say, "Gilligan's Island". The lyrical point of the song, IS the point of the song, and that's what made it the hit it was. Which is why I disagree with the statement made by the producer in the OP. I could easily come up with the perfect example which undermines his position.

Here's another one: "Nee Nee Nah Nah Nu Nu Nu". This has the same structure as, for instance, "Tequila": instrumental, tune drops out, the title is spoken. But, you can easily recognize "Tequila" for its' melody, even though the word is not actually "sung". The first song, though...go ahead and sing it to your mom, and see just how forgettable the lyric is, were you to drop out before speaking the title. Chances are better, however, that she might (barely, but, that's the point) recognize the name of the song, if you said the only lyric used in the song itself. And, that would still be enough of an example to prove the producer's statement problematic.

 

Somewhat relevant anecdote...supposedly Oscar Hammerstein's wife was at a party one time, and someone mentioned that Richard Rodgers wrote Some Enchanted Evening. She corrected them, saying, "My husband wrote 'Some Enchanted Evening.' Richard Rodgers wrote 'da-de-da-de-da-da.'"

 

He is right. It doesn't matter what the lyrics are about as long as they are about nothing.

 

"Sugar Sugar"

 

Guess what? The singer of "I'm Down" is much more pissed off than he is sad or down in the dumps. He's following a very long tradition of exorcising his romantic demons via a 12-bar I-IV-V blues progression. A person who is sad/in the doldroms to the point of incapacitation isn't gonna scream — almost joyously — the way Paul does in this one.

Your example does nothing to counter my statement that the greater number of truly sad songs adopt minor keys.

So now it's only the vocal, and the music behind it doesn't have anything to do with the overall impact of the song? When you began this exchange, you asserted, when discussing the Taste of Honey remake of "Sukiyaki": "Same music/melody, but those new lyrics made the song become a bigger hit; proving people buy records for the lyrics, not the music." So I'm a little baffled by exactly what your position is.

Absolutely nothing you've said here has anything to do with what I said (and you ignored) in my previous post about the music of "Sukiyaki," nor does it have anything to do with the foolishness of what you've said about both the original version and the Taste of Honey remake. I notice you haven't cared to take on any of the specifics of my statements, or to further defend your previous nonsense.

And allow me to disabuse you of the notion that knowledge of music theory renders one incapable of feeling the emotions a song conveys. My knowledge of theory is fairly rudimentary, in fact. I know major and minor keys and how simpler chords relate to one another. Once you get past sixths and sevenths and into diminished and augmented chords, that's when my eyes start to glaze over.

I've been listening to and performing music longer than you have. I'd love for you to come up to me and tell me to my face that I don't understand how music conveys emotion because I know a little theory.

 

Thanks for the news flash. If you hadn't told me this, I never would have known.

If the lyrics are "not understood" (either because the listener is too young to grasp them or he/she doesn't know what they mean because they're in a foreign language) — then "the lyrics" are not making people "feel" anything. It's the simple sounds that the singer is emitting that are doing that job, and from the listener's standpoint, those sounds are independent of the meaning of the words. The singer could convey the same emotions by singing an entirely different set of lyrics with the same inflection in his/her voice.

I'm not an opera fan, but I once heard Pavarotti sing an Italian aria on The Tonight Show. I was very moved by the emotion he was conveying in his performance — which he did entirely via a combination of the melody of the number and the feeling he was putting into his singing. Did I have any clue whatsoever as to the meaning of the "lyrics" he was singing? No. For all I knew, he could have been singing "I took my garbage can out to the curb this morning."

Thus, back to my original point. Good lyrics can help put a song across, but in most cases they are secondary to the melody and the chords. And great lyrics in an unsuitable or mediocre musical setting puts the song at a disadvantage when it comes to moving great numbers of people.

"Blowin' in the Wind" had a better melody than most early Dylan songs. Even so, his version would have never been a hit that appealed to the masses. It took the vocal blend of three great voices — Peter, Paul and Mary — along with the harmonies they developed and the unhurried arrangement they gave the song, to put it across.

I'm sure your patronizing tone makes you feel a lot better about yourself by imagining you're somehow superior to others — something I've noticed from our previous encounters appears to be a vital need of yours that you often fulfill with that approach.

When it comes to music, you have no idea of what I am or am not "capable" of. Let me assure you that I don't require any tutelage from you on the subject of "feeling" music.

 

I was agreeing with your post. Sorry if it didn't come across that way.

 

Seems relevant:

"It was an early summer day in 1963. Johnson was listening to the radio.

“Mom! Buy me this record!” she remembers saying. Even though she could not understand the words, she said, it was such a heart-breaking melody."

A great song by any other name . . . | The Japan Times

 

Sorry back, guess I misinterpreted your meaning

 

More people were buying music in 1981. The percentage of the record-buying public that bought the Taste of Honey record was smaller, hence the fact that it charted lower. (This is, of course, ignoring the fact that chart position could be bought, etc.)

 

That just underscores that most people like music with vocals. It says nothing about whether there are "hit lyrics."

It's difficult to imagine that you're not just trolling in a lot of your posts, because I don't see how someone can reason so poorly.