Module Three Lesson Two: The Singer's Lens: Decoding the Power of Lyrics

Go Deeper:

In Chapter Three of The Jazz Singers Handbook, you’ll find a section on The Story of the Text. In it, Michelle Weir talks about ways to uncover the meaning in the text you’re singing.

One way to uncover meaning is to take a look at the individual lines of a song you're singing. Each line to fall into different categories. I’ve taken the list of categories that Weir's put together, and used familiar Beatles tunes to illustrate them:

Informational: 
There are places I’ll remember
All my life though some have changed
(From “In My Life.”)

Declarative:
Baby, you can drive my car.
(From “Drive My Car.”)

Inquisitive:
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

(From “Eleanor Rigby.”)

Descriptive:
Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes

Poetic:
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
(Blackbird)

Metaphorical:
I look at the world, and I notice it’s turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake, we must surely be learning
Still, my guitar gently weeps
(While My Guitar Gently Weeps)

Playful:
Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra
La-la how their life goes on
(Penny Lane)

Commentary:
He’s a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody
(Nowhere Man)

Take the song you’ve just written out by hand and look at each line. See which of these categories they fall into.

It’s All About the Song
For a singer, it’s all about the song. Music creates emotion, but when you...

The Anatomy of a Song
...add lyrics to the mix, and you’ve got one powerful means of communication.

Lyrics and Their Meaning 
What do you listen to first - the music or the lyrics?

When it comes to songs, people tend to fall into two camps — music people and lyric people. Lyrics are the last thing I listen to when I hear a song. The music always hits me first. When John and I were writing songs together in our Nu Shooz days, the lyrics were an afterthought — candied sprinkles to dress up the funk.

But since then, lyrics have become much more than an afterthought. I still don’t hear them first, but once they creep into my consciousness, they take over.

When a lyric resonates, it becomes the catalyst for a deeper connection to the music, refining its meaning and giving context to the emotional underpinnings of the song.

One of my students said, “The music is why you’re attracted to someone, but the lyrics are what make you fall in love.” I love that thought. Yes, you can fall in love with music. But add lyrics to the mix, and you’re married to a song forever.

Or not.

When I was in college, I had a Sara Vaughn/Count Basie record that I loved. There was a song on it that was really fun to sing, and I sang it over and over. Years later, I pulled it out and couldn’t sing it anymore because I couldn’t relate to the lyrics. It goes like this:

Mean to Me

You’re mean to me
Why must you be mean to me?
Gee, honey, it seems to me
You love to see me cryin’
I don’t know why
I stay home
each night when you say you’ll phone
You don’t, and I’m left alone.
Sing the blues and sighin’.

You treat me coldly each day in the year
You always scold me
Whenever somebody is near, dear
It must be great fun to be mean to me
You shouldn’t, for can’t you see
What you mean to me

I suddenly saw these lyrics in a new light. I couldn’t be that woman who stays at home waiting for a call from a man that doesn’t value her and is abusive.

If I was singing this song in a musical, it would be a different story (literally) because I’d be playing a character.
 
I could choose to play that character in my mind when singing the song at a gig. But I probably wouldn’t because the audience wouldn’t know the context in which the song was being sung.

Sometimes the song is chosen for you. Like when you’re hired to sing at an event like a wedding or a funeral where the song’s meaning is special to someone else. In those situations, you might have to work a little harder at finding ways to connect with the lyrics. Not an easy task, but doable when you’re creative.
 
What Kind of Story is it?

Now that you’ve fallen in love with the music in a song and feel connected to the lyrics, it’s time to dive deeper into the song’s story.

Getting Inside the Lyrics

My friend, jazz singer and songwriter Karla Harris, talked to me about the process she goes through when learning a cover song:

“If I’m drawn to it, then I’m going to write the words down with my hand on paper. I’m going to take pen to paper. Sometimes I write the lyrics down as if I’m writing a letter or a little narrative, a short story, so I can get the feel of what the song’s really saying.”

There’s something magical that happens when you put pen to paper. It’s different than writing on a keyboard. Writing by hand combines kinesthetic, auditory, and visual sensations. You feel the pen moving across the page. Hear the scratch of the tip of the pen on paper. And see the words as you write them.

Try taking one of the songs you’re experimenting with in this module and write it out by hand.
 
Then, read the lyrics out loud like you’re reading a story to someone. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Do you hear them differently? How have they changed for you?

The Sound of the Words

Something else to keep in mind when choosing songs or writing them is the sound of the words when they’re sung. A lyric might sound exquisite when spoken aloud as prose, but the words need to be singable when they’re in a song.

There’s a song by Rupert Holmes that goes like this:

Him him him, what’s she gonna do about him?
She’s gonna have to live without him,
It’s him, or it’s me, me me,
No one gets to get it for free
It’s me, or it’s him.

Bright vowels mixed with singable consonants like Mmmm. This song made it to the top of the charts, but it’s a great example of words that don’t sound that great sung. Eeee. Me.


Are you going to sing the song at a gig where you won’t have a chance to rehearse with the musicians, like when you’re sitting in at a jam session?

Try to pick a tune that isn’t completely unknown so everyone has a better chance of feeling comfortable with it. If you sing a song in its original key, that can be helpful too. Some players aren’t very good at transposing keys on the spot. If the song is in its original key, they’ll feel more comfortable and will better accompany you.

We’ll talk more about working with other musicians in the next module.

The most important takeaway from this lesson is this:

Pick Songs That You Have An Emotional Connection To

So, when you’re deciding whether a song belongs in your repertoire, take a close look at the lyrics. Ask yourself if you feel a connection to them that’s strong enough to warrant all the work that’s ahead.

You may have this tune in your repertoire for years, so choose something that you can grow with.

That said, songs are a little like clothes — it’s hard to predict which ones will be a good fit and have staying power, so don’t worry too much about it. If you’re attracted to a song — go ahead and try it on.



In this lesson, we’ve taken a look at lyrics and their meaning.
In the next lesson, you’ll learn how to make a song your own.