What's more important? Lyrics or music? (Poll)

Funny I always was a big fan of Brad Paisley's records because of the lyrics.

 

That’s actually the rare example to me of a song whose lyrics are so bad they affect its overall quality. But as always with Brian in this era, musically excellent.

 

To each their own. I mean, almost all country lyrics make me feel a little dumber after hearing them, but his are next level ridiculous to me. I mean, “Ticks,” really? It’s too bad, because dude can shred.

 

The lyric IS the song.

If you have two songs with the same melody but different lyrics then they are DIFFERENT songs. See Neil Young’s Dance Dance Dance & Love Is A Rose or Bruce Springsteen’s Come On & Factory.

If you have one lyric sung to two different melodies then they are the SAME song. See many examples by Bruce Springsteen.

 

Music. It depends on how one sings the lyrics more than how it is written. I love the voice of Elvis, he can get away with lyrics that sung by someone else would have made me cringe.

 

I think he's the modern master of the country novelty song, which is a genre I've always loved.

 

The older I get the more Music I listen to, sometimes I feel that lyrics get in the way.

 

I'll add too that the lyrics ARE the music. The rhythm shape of the lyrics, the kind of pace of them.... half a line of long slow syllables followed by half a line of short, fact, choppy ones .... the vowel and consonant shapes and sound, the music is in the words just as sure as it is in the pitches and durations of the notes of the melody.

 

No.

The vocal melody is what the lyrics hang their hat on, but some songs are 100% identifiable from a few seconds of an instrumental riff, before any lyrics are sung.

The exact same words set to different melodies are different songs. Different words with the same melody, like Great Speckled Bird/It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels, are different songs as well.

Springsteen has *many* examples of the same lyric sung with different melodies?

 

I think of Dance Dance Dance and Love is a Rose as being the same song. They have different lyrics, sure, but if you heard an instrumental version with another instrument playing the melody you’d still know what it was. The melody is the song IMO no matter what the lyrics are.

 

Only from a personal perspective, the music matters more. As far as the lyrics, it usually only matters more when a story is being told through the song. Otherwise, the vocal melody might matter and the sound of the voice.

 

I used to wonder if you wrote a certain lyric would you unlock the natural melody that went with it. Some songs I’ve heard that share a few words they’re almost sung in the same way. So yes I do believe what you’re saying.

 

He doesn’t release them but yes he does. He operates on a whole other level. Dylan I believe has a few examples of that as well.

 

I can't count how many songs I love with terrible lyrics but I can count on maybe both hands the number of songs I love with great lyrics but terrible music.

 

Lyrics tend to make you interpret the song a particular way

There's some really creative lyrics though that allow all kinds of interpretations: "I Am The Walrus", "Abacab", "Aguas De Março (Waters Of March)", "F.E.A.R."

 

As long as there's also vocal melody. Music can exist without percussion instruments but not without MELODY.

 

Wop bop a loo bop a lop bom bom!
Tutti frutti, oh rootie

 

Most country songs sound like novelty songs to me.

 

Not to me anyway, and I really don't care for what's being said by most of the lyrics to my favourite Country music.

 

This is the long answer.
The thing which is most important is how the two work together. BUT, if pushed, I'd say music. Only because it's the music that's serves as the vehicle that give the lyrics a reason to exist in the first place.
There are exceptions to just about anything, though. There are many lyricists who are so good, that the music needs to be exceptional to be worthy of the words. That often seems especially true of many of the songs from the great American songbook, with lyricists like Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin and Cole Porter.
But, someone like Bob Dylan with songs like "Masters of War" or "The Lonsesome Feath of Hattie Carroll" and so many others of his, the music seems secondary to the lyrical content. Secondary enough, especially early on and in keeping with the folk tradition, borrowing a melody was more like a wheelbarrow used to get the message out there.
But, more often than not, at least for me, it's how well both the words and music fit together. Is it a solid marriage or just a one night stand?

 

Sincerely, I still haven't looked up the lyrics to "Ode To Joy"... in spite of having been listening to it since I was a child. I wonder now how great of a lyrics I've missed out over all this life....

 

My proof for voting 'music':

 

Depends on the song and artist.

 

That's not true at all. Some of the oldest, longest lasting musical tradition in the history of music and humankind involve just the opposite -- percussion without melody.

For example, Yoruban drum music:



I don't know where this idea comes from that music doesn't exist without melody, but it's a definition of music that has NEVER reflected the music that people actually make.

 

^Please take your time and look up on an appropriate dictionary the meaning of melody. I'm done here.