Today, while trying to figure out what I would write my blogpost about, I listened to the album “Hospice” by The Antlers. The entire album tells the story of a hospice worker who falls in love with one of the patients he is taking care of, and goes on to tell the tragedy that was their relationship. The entire album is designed in a way to be emotionally draining, forcing the listener to experience the same hardship that the hospice worker experienced. The saddest lyrics are accompanied with glum melodies that bring the reader into the world presented in the songs. Moments of frustration occur in high-energy portions of songs, while moments of dejection and depression occur during lulls. While this lyric-tune matching is a characteristic of most songs, the expansion of a singular story across an album can be seen as similar to the difference between short stories and novels. The emotional impact is greater felt as a result of the larger time investment. I wonder if the album would be as impactful if it was about many, similar stories of sadness, rejection, abuse and loss rather than one continuous story.
The ability of songs to influence the mood of the listener is well-known. People listen to pump-up songs before working out, mellow songs to calm down, and so on. What is even more interesting is songs whose subject matter differ greatly from their tone. For instance, the song Hey Ya by Outkast sounds like a typical, upbeat song to dance along to. However, the song is actually about the failure of the singer’s current relationship. In fact, Andre 3000 even brings in a metatextual aspect to the song by quietly stating during one part, “Ya’ll don’t wanna hear me, you just wanna dance”. This admittal that even his fans do not care about his life or his troubles, they just want the catchy beat, has always struck me. One other song whose upbeat melody disguises a much darker topic is Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind. The beat never alludes to the fact that the song is about a drug-user trying to get away from his habits, which he no longer sees as a good thing but rather only bring about a “semi-charmed kind of life”. I wonder what the literary equivalent of these songs are? Satire? Love poems that actually criticize their subjects?
I really like how you talked about music and song lyrics here. I am very into songs that have very meaningful lyrics in them. And often, I will look up the lyrics of songs that I really enjoy to try and understand them and what they are truly about. I find that if I relate to the lyrics or I feel empathy, I am more likely to like the song. Just like you said, I too find that many songs that seem upbeat and happy are actually about something quite sad or deep. I had no idea that Hey Ya was about a failed relationship- up until now I just thought it was a very upbeat, happy song. I think artists and song-writers have a lot of power to manipulate and affect listeners, if they pay closer attention to what the song is really about. For example, the song Same Love by Macklemore was a way for him to bring social activism into music, a platform that is widely accessible and lots of people enjoy. Although I fall victim to this sometimes as well, I feel like many people listen to music for the beat and catchy-ness (which isn't a bad thing) and less people really appreciate the meaning of songs.
ReplyDelete