A peeve: When lyrics are credited over music/melody, to either like or dislike a song
Either VOLTAIRE or Lord Chesterfield (I used to think it was Dr Samuel JOHNSON) said, "What is too stupid to be *SAID* is *SUNG*"!1
To me, melody is PRIMARY, the whole reason for loveliness. Lyrics are just an excuse for using the voice as a musical instrument. However, once a melody has grabbed me, later on as icing on the cake, I sometimes pay attention to the lyrics, and when they live up to the melody, that's when they might matter.
But very often there have been situations when I play a favored song/melody (say, on a jukebox) and there are people present who comment positively or negatively on the lyrics as though those were my reason for playing the song. Sometimes, to get a message across, usually negatively, to somebody in the room, that *is* my reason. But if I'm playing something it's because I like the melody. Unfortunately, the lyrics sometimes are interpreted irritatingly to me, impugning the contents of the lyrics as coming from me, when all I wanted was the melody.
One time in an after-work happy hour where there were mostly couples, this young subordinate had made it clear she was interested in me. I was close to 50 yrs old and she was in her mid-20s and I had tried to communicate the inappropriateness and impossibility of anything between us. Couples were bouncing up to dance at every song. I was listening to the songs that meant nothing to me, until my then favorite song popped up and I responded -- TO THE MUSIC!1 - by moving and then gave in to the mood - OF THE MUSIC!1 - and asked whether she wanted to dance. She said, "AT LAST!1"
By then it was too late, and I realized that she had taken the invite and the song and whatever the lyrics were, personally. I had *NO* such intention. It wiped out all the previous months of my discouraging her.
Another time, some dudes had been playing heavy metal and one of my songs came up, a lovely thing, and one of them said, "Oh, crap, he likes 'romantic' shit!1"
= new reply since forum marked as read
...lyric sheets. There are countless songs that I like because of the melody that were nearly ruined for me once I read the lyrics. And I would usually HAVE to read the lyrics because I can almost never hear them all clearly.
Have you ever listened to the Cocteau Twins? They are a now-disbanded group from Scotland that does quite lovely and melodic music but with deliberately indecipherable and nonsensical lyrics. Something tells me that you might like them. Their later works are the most melodic. "Treasure", "Blue Bell Knoll" and "Milk and Kisses"
their last CD) seem to be fan favorites.
