How do you tell whether lyrics mean anything or not?

[MackTuesday]

It's all in the subject heading. You see some lyrics, it almost looks like it means something specific, but you can't quite make it out. Then either the writer comes along and gives the meaning, and you see the truth of it, or they say it didn't mean anything. Is there any way to predict?

[Guenon]

The writer can also lie about the meaning (or the lack thereof) , and any given text might contain meanings the writer didn't intend to include, annnd meanings can change when the context and the surrounding society and the uses of the text change, and so on. The writer isn't necessarily the best authority on what a text means, and the meaning can be a moving target, even for the author. (Of course, what you are asking is, how can someone tell whether the lyrics are intentionally crafted by the author to mean something specific, at the time of writing. No way to be sure , but if it's coherent enough, it's quite probable it intentionally means something in that sense, hehe.)

[harryupbabble]

Lyrics is what they mean to me. So, when I hear Jimi Hendrix sing "Let us not talk falsely now. The owl is getting laid.", that's what it means to me, and I giggle.
And when I hear Bob Dylan sing "Let us not talk falsely now. The hour is getting late.", it means I am hearing him clearly and he didn't mumble. And I also giggle.

Besides, some lyrics can't be misinterpreted? Like "Twenty twenty twenty four hours to go. I wanna be sedated." 64 hours could be an eternity to a punk rocker. And if the lyrics are too deep, they just go over my head. But maybe later I'm like "Eureka, I think I get it now." And maybe even laterer, I'm like "Umm, no, that Eureka moment was just you being affected by the fumes in the loo because the loo fan was semi-broken and it wasn't turned on."

I hope no one misinterprets my post. Anyways I have to go now. I am off to the loo. And I am not going to turn on the loo fan either, because loo fans are hard to stimulate. Hahahaha. Gawd, I got the giggles today, more so than usual. But anyways... okay bye.

[experimental.crow]

i don't like mondays ...

[vurt]

if theyre made up words, id guess no meaning.

[BertKoor]

Answer to the title: I usually don't.

In 95% of the cases lyrics pass my brain unprocessed.
All attention goes to the music instead.

[deastman]

The question asks something impossible, really. “Is there any way to predict if lyrics mean something?”

Yes. No. Maybe. It depends.

I will say that some of my lyrics have started by not being about anything specific, but by the time they were finished, the meaning had emerged organically. Would that meaning be obvious to an arbitrary third party? Who know!

I’m also reminded of a Pet Shop Boys song, “I’m with stupid”, which at first seemed like a t-shirt slogan. Then I read that it was actually a critique of Tony Blair being a lap dog for George Bush, and my opinion of the whole song changed in an instant.

[mumpcake]

If it means something to you, it means something. If not, google it.

[tehlord]

Answer to the title: I usually don't.

In 95% of the cases lyrics pass my brain unprocessed.
All attention goes to the music instead.

Same here, except that it's 100% of the time.

My favourite songs of all time, I can barely sing along to the lyrics, if they actual song isn't playing I can't recall them at all.

[MackTuesday]

I'm getting from the answers here that either you can't know for certain, or it isn't important.

Then how do you know the difference between good lyrics and bad lyrics? More specifically, what it is about "bad" lyrics that can universally turn people off?

[Zexila]

They don't 95% of the time, it's mostly BS, even "serious" and "deep" ones.

[jacqueslacouth]

Ask an English teacher, they always find some stupid meaning in everything they force their students to read.

[harryupbabble]

I think that most lyricists cannot express themselves properly by way of music only. I just presume that whatever lyrics the lyricist wrote... is meaningful to them and so all songs have meanings? Anthems are meaningless without lyrics? You just have to know who the lyricist was to conclude that they wrote at least a few meaningful lyrics. They tend to be dead serious most times. Examples are John Lennon, Bob Marley, Joe Strummer, Bob Dylan, Sinead O'Connor, etc. They get known for writing heavy lyrics.

People say music is universally understood but maybe that's false. Sure, maybe most humans will recognize, for one example, angry music when they hear it but without the lyrics they won't know the specifics of the anger?

Also, I presume, most lyricist want the meaning of their lyrics to be simple and easy to understand? What's the point of complaining if no one knows what you are complaining about? Not many lyricists use the Klingon language nor the pussy language? If you hear your cat meowing abnormally loud, you might not understand a series of meows to mean "I can't pee properly, it hurts."

For a similar example, without lyrics, how can Ray Davies express himself properly in this song?


And how about this protest singer/lyricist? He made sure he didn't mumble?

[jancivil]

If a lyric really works with the music it's supposed to help I might remember some of it; along with the music.

I'm interested mostly in instrumental music. I don't remember too many whole lyrics... if any. If it became important to I could, but it hasn't. I can remember my own the same way. The scansion of it, etc; if I've developed the music. It doesn't have to be a melody; it's fully formed in my head in a sort of praxis. But then again, I have 'said' the thing repeatedly. I could draw a blank for part of this at times, though.

The things people will post where songwriters seem to want the thing to work as _literature_ I don't care about really at all. It's doing too much, it strikes me as a bit fatuous. It turns me off, actually, I won't pursue the music in certain cases. Brevity is the soul of wit.

[Dunbar]

It's all in the subject heading. You see some lyrics, it almost looks like it means something specific, but you can't quite make it out. Then either the writer comes along and gives the meaning, and you see the truth of it, or they say it didn't mean anything. Is there any way to predict?

The author died long ago...