Should you take a look at a lyric from a typical pop music, you’re not normally taking a look at one thing that’s deep or complicated. Normally that’s by design: the objective of most pop songs is to create feelings inside the listener, and it’s laborious to create feelings when the phrases and their contextual meanings are intricate or convoluted. Phrases that usually seem in informal dialog are the most typical ones to make use of in music lyrics.
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However there are exceptions. There are songs which have been chart toppers the place the which means of the lyric is elusive. Generally it’s a case that the lyrics, line by line, are making excellent sense, however what’s truly being talked about is much less 
apparent while you put all of it collectively, as in the lyric to Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” (1971):
There’s a woman who’s positive all that glitters is goldAnd he or she’s shopping for a stairway to Heaven
When she will get there she is aware of, if the shops are all closedWith a phrase she will get what she got here for
Ooh, ooh, and he or she’s shopping for a stairway to Heaven
Or Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill” (1977):
To maintain in silence I resigned
My associates would assume I used to be a nut
Turning water into wine
Open doorways would quickly be shut
So I went from day after day
Although my life was in a rut
‘Til I considered what I’ll say
Which connection I ought to lower
Generally, as in the case of a number of John Lennon songs, the lyric may be purposely summary, merely to throw a wrench into the brains of listeners susceptible to over-analysis, as in “Come Collectively”:
He put on no shoe shineHe received toe jam soccerHe received monkey fingerHe shoot Coca-ColaHe say I do know you, you realize meOne factor I can inform you is you bought to be free
In a bizarre form of approach, the songs the place the which means is just not instantly obvious can usually nonetheless work, and might even, together with the melodies, chords and efficiency model, create an emotional response in the minds of the listeners.
How can a complicated lyric try this, if the general which means isn’t apparent?
The Energy of a Single Line
Should you take a music that appears lyrically dense, however then merely go line by line, your mind turns into extra more likely to create significance to the strains that, on their very own, appear fairly clear. So in “Come Collectively”, when Lennon sings “One factor I can inform you is you bought to be free“, we discover ourselves nodding vigorously and agreeing.
And not solely agreeing, however valuing the which means of that line all the extra, just because we perceive it: it’s a second of highly effective readability in an in any other case jumbled up assortment of phrases and contours.
I really like complicated lyrics — the ones the place I can inform there’s one thing there that I’m not seeing instantly, however I know it’s there. It makes me wish to return and hear once more, and hopefully to finally give you a principle of what the songwriter had in thoughts.
And I could also be unsuitable after I lastly determine the which means, however for me, the indisputable fact that I might be unsuitable doesn’t essentially diminish my curiosity in the music. And most good songwriters settle for that totally different folks will derive totally different which means from lyrics, and so they’re normally nice with that.
So this isn’t a plea from me to encourage you to write down complicated lyrics that, taken collectively, type nothing greater than rubbish, with a few strains that make sense. I’m suggesting although that if you happen to like writing lyrics that are complicated, notice that your viewers will begin to deal with single strains if the total lyric is past them.
When you’ve written a lyric the place you notice that the fuller extra complete which means could also be elusive, learn again by means of your lyric and see what you assume listeners would possibly select to deal with as single strains. Do these strains have the potential to create feelings in your listeners. I discover myself questioning if “Come Collectively”, with out these moments of readability (even simply that easy line, “Come collectively”) would have succeeded?
Written by Gary Ewer. Comply with Gary on Twitter.
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