We all have our pet hates about most things in life, and usually this is irrational and very personal. I can’t stand the taste of olives, can’t remotely understand how anyone could possibly like them. But many people do. So what follows is just one person’s very personal viewpoint. It’s not right or wrong, it’s just an opinion.
The thing I dislike the most ( hate is such a strong word) in lyrics, is the phrase “walk out that door” or anything about “walking out the door”. I acknowledge that there are some well loved songs that include a variation on this, such as Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”, but it just puts my teeth on edge.The problem is I now really dislike the whole song ( sorry, I know it’s a feminist rallying call) and will switch off the radio in the car if the song comes on. This must be the acid test of songs–do you switch off the radio ?
Any reference to “stars above” also annoys, but I will concede that some beautiful songs, songs I really like, have some reference to “stars” in them. Examples are “Have I Told You Lately” by Van Morrison, “Romeo and Juliet” by Dire Straits, and “And I Love Her” by the Beatles. Luckily it hasn’t put me off the songs. One of the problems for lyricists is not much rhymes with “love”, other than “above” or “glove” or the even more desperate “guv”. I do confess that I have used a reference to “stars” myself in a draft version of a song waiting for me to complete the lyrics. I had typed it in before I had realised what was happening–that’s my excuse. The phrase is ” the stars are all aligned”. Do I leave it in ?
Another pet hate is the use of the word”baby” in lyrics. Maybe this is an Americanism as many American songs of the fifties and sixties used this.We never use this word about our loved ones (other than children) in every day life, although I know some people use the word “babe”or “babes”. It seems a horrible Freudian mash up of emotions. My hero John Lennon took it so far, he called Yoko “Mother”. Ugh !
A quick review though shows me that several songs I really like have the word “baby” in them, and “Bye Bye Love” by the Everly Brothers, an old favourite, has both “baby” and “stars above” within it. Also always loved “Don’t You Want Me Baby” by Human League, “Baby Come Back” by the Equals and “Here Comes my Baby” by Cat Stevens (as he was known then).
Which brings me round to the point that lyricism of any sort ( lyrics, poems, prose, oratory) has different rules to that of the spoken conversational word so we should be more forgiving. A famous example is a line in a poem, “Lullaby” by W. H. Auden (Wystan Hugh Auden), written in 1937 about gazing at a sleeping lover:
” Lay your sleeping head, my love, Human on my faithless arm.” It’s very evocative, but how can an arm be faithless ? Doesn’t matter, it works brilliantly.
Another trick used in lyricism is putting adjectives after the noun, called “anastrophe” apparently. So we have “I’m in trouble deep” from “Papa Don’t Preach” by Madonna. This line has always grated with me, as it seems constructed just to rhyme “preach” with “deep”, rather than for the beauty of the phrasing. Phrases where it works in everyday life are “in times past” or “time immemorial”. Researching this subject of word positioning in English, made me realise how big a subject this is, and perhaps worthy of its own post. Suffice it to say at this stage amazingly there are rules governing the order of multiple adjectives describing nouns, with quantity first, followed by value, size, temperature etc etc. Despite speaking English as my mother tongue, I never knew that.
My wife has always disliked one of my favourite songs, “Up the Junction” by Squeeze because of one line ” no more nights nappies smelling” which combines horrible imagery (maybe the point of it) to rhyme with the repeat use of the word”telly”. However, Chris Difford, the gifted lyricist in Squeeze, gained praise and fame due to his use of gritty, realistic, down to earth lyrics. The preceding two lines are “The devil came and took me, from bar to street to bookie” which are so good in my view. In the same song we have “I got a job with Stanley, he said I’d come in handy” which I love, and the song begins with the fantastic “I never thought it would happen, with me and the girl from Clapham”. Incidentally, I thought the lyrics were “nappies smelly” and “barter street to boogie” !! See my previous blog on mishearing lyrics. There are many great tracks by Squeeze, with “Goodbye Girl” a stand out song for me. Perhaps lyrics like these are marmite–love it or hate it.
Told you it was irrational and personal.