Music and Lyrics

"A melody is like seeing someone for the first time. The physical attraction. But then, as you get to know the person, that's the lyrics. Their story. Who they are underneath. It's the combination of the two that makes it magical." - Sophie (Drew Barrymore) in 'Music and Lyrics'

I recently had a friendly argument with somebody over a much talked about topic – the appreciation of music. We were driving, and all that was playing was instrumental pieces. Now don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate melody. I really do. It takes an immense amount of talent to play like that, and an even more immense talent to convey and portray a particular sentiment purely via music. But it’s not something I can appreciate for very long. After a while, I need lyrics that I can sing along to. Lyrics, which will directly say to me, in so many words, that THIS is what the singer is talking about. THIS is the pain and suffering or joy and contentment. But then my friend presented an excellent point, that the lyrics of today’s songs don’t MEAN anything. They don’t talk about ANYTHING, leave alone pain and suffering or joy and contentment. Sometimes, the lyrics are just mere sounds, like “diddy bom bom diddy”.

But even then, I stand by my opinion of needing lyrics to sing along to. Because Sophie was right, there is only SO much you can do with JUST the melody. As exciting as it is, after a while it starts getting boring and monotonous. And you cannot have lyrics without the excitement of a melody, because otherwise they are just words. It has to be a combination of the two that makes it MUSIC, and as we know, music is ALWAYS magical!