I don’t hear them. The vocals serve as another instrument devoid of the lexical properties of language. Emotion, eminent, lexicon, lacking. Others' lyric-aware listening, perhaps innate, doesn’t cease to amaze me. Neither does my abstracted method cease to impart upon others occasional bewilderment.
I’ve never belonged to any musical tradition one can call own. From there it takes roots. Exposed to the Western from the earliest Soviet recollections: foreign lyrics, mostly incomprehensible. Don’t derive cultural significance. Don’t relate. Merely adapt to the melodic palate. Listen as an art form. Jazz, Fusion, British rock, Alternative, Industrial, Electronic, Classical. Much instrumental emphasis. The remainder, words lacking significance. Phrases indifferent to semantics.
Clapton, Hendrix, Morrison, Plant, Daltrey. R.E.M, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, The Cure, Metallica, David Bowie. Words. Surges. Elephant talk.
Unless, that is, I undertake a conscious resolve towards lyric interpretation. Unless I listen with that intent, the words may as well spout from a foreign tongue.
Almost. I do attach some meaning to familiarity. Keener to hear that to which I might relate. But it’s secondary.
A lifetime of re-listening to many of the common classic rock tunes, sure, some refrains, fragments, signature phrases stuck: but insufficient to derive greater poetry from the composition. Fragmentary. Ephemeral. Should the lyrics not serve another instrumental function, should I desire to hear the words in unison, must apply an alternative form of cognition.
Can I even recall the lyrics to a single tune? Some quatrain? A mere fragment?
Striking. Some tunes sell silly emotional diatribes and amorous cogitations. Or take a typical Beatles tune. Could I care for the Paperback Writer seeking a steady job? But the others … the King Crimsons, the Yeses, the Pink Floyds, the Doors, dude, some of those strophes make for elaborate bard compositions! Heavy poetry.
Or the culturally interwoven protests of Johnny Cash, Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie Smith, Cole Porter: the invariant holds, the words, supplementary. Cultural significance, artistic value presupposed, no effort to seek the intrinsic, should that not be the homework assignment. Prefer to experience in my own bizarre way.
The Cabaret, the Chanson, the Criolla, the Cantina folk tunes, a territory of lyrical awareness left uncharted. Much poetry there is. But I’ve chosen to appreciate both separately. Separately I appreciate both.
Questions, comments? Connect.