The Mood is Wrong, the Song is Right

When I was a teenage indie snob I remember trying to find deep & meaningful stuff in Elastica songs where there clearly was none (other than ‘sex woo’ or ‘drunk argh’, neither of which I had experienced at the time) with the sole aim of impressing my mates who were into SRS METAL. I definitely made up a significant amount of bollocks about Elastica’s complicated songwriting techniques.

But yeah, my whole ignoring-lyrics thing leaves me wide open to the sort of misinterpretation you describe – too many examples to mention here!

(Good first article btw!)

I hate it when artists say “the song means whatever you want it to mean.” Bullshit. Of COURSE there’s a certain meaning, they’re probably just ashamed of its utter lameness.

Re 4: In very loose terms, that’s the difference between what I was taught in the sixth form (some bloke – using closel textual analysis or a bit of crude biography or psychoanalysis or Marxism – tells you that the indisputable meaning of a Shakespeare play is x) and what I was taught at university (while the person who wrote this thing had some meaning in mind – which may have been shaped by external forces rather than their inner artistic processes – but how you use the song/book/film is rather up to you). God knows what they’re teaching these days. I lean towards the latter with the caveat that writers still have the right not to have their work plain appropriated by a political or other cause they don’t agree with.

Also, this open-interpretation approach hasn’t stopped me from being occasionally mortified when I realise after twenty years that what I thought was a really sweet song is obviously meant to be about S&M, or whatever.

As far as I am concerned, each listener can form their own interpretation of any song, whether that interpretation is “right” or “wrong”.

The only one who can say clearly what was meant is the writer, but even that doesn’t disqualify listeners from extracting their own meanings. (Paradoxically, I do think writers have the right to deny meaning – especially when their work is hijacked for purposes/causes alien to that writer)

Journalists, bloggers, and other so-called writers (including some who post on here) are especially guilty of attributing meaning, mysticism, genius, irony, understanding, allegory or depth where none was intended. Many of these refuse to accept anything outside their own interpretations, and this is clearly wrong (sometimes even after the writer has denounced their theories).

I am reminded of English teachers attaching endless meanings to pieces of literature; meanings which were often mutually exclusive, or at least condradictory; meanings which were anachronistic; and meanings which were just plain wrong. It doesn’t actually matter whether these meaning were intended, if they do it for you, and if you can back them up if required, then they are valid.

I am often a little surprised about the general “anti-lyrics” stance of many on FT, words are amazingly important to me in a song. Nevertheless I am quite happy with everyone having their own interpretation of said lyrics, with a couple of caveats.

I am happy to say that the songwriter has a priviliged interpretation, much like parents have more effect on how their children grow up. Say the songwriting is analagous to giving birth, the DNA of the song (its key, it tempo, its lyrics) are set at that point. What happens to the song afterwards may be out of the control of the songwriter, BUT they will still have the priviliged position to influence how the song is interpreted by virtue of how they can licence it, play it and talk about it.

I am also not going to accept the “anything goes grab-bag” of interpretation. “Ticket To Ride” may have a variety of interpretations, but somewhere along the line those interpretation will have to make a good fist of
a) why she has a ticket to ride
b) why my baby don’t care
or
c) why the lyrics are being ignored to make your interpretation. Pirate Moggy does exactly that in her appreciation of Flamboyant above, and I feel it is necessary. Just because there may not be an objectively right interpretation of a song, does not mean taht some interpretations aren’t worth more, and are more justifies than others (and some, as per what Frank says above above misapprpriation of Independence Day, can be said to be wrong). Its this battle where a lot of the fun in writing about music comes from.

shorter the above: words don’t automatically trump the music, meaningwise

ambiguity that’s a TRAP isn’t really ambiguity either — but i think there’s a reverse-slipknot (©g.marcus) thing going on, where the people seizing on the idea (in the wrong sense) are actually being seduced into the embrace of the wider social fact of ambiguity

(viz that the idea of “independence day”, say, means more than you think it does: it is richer and more contradictory — so the sngwriter is saying that such-and-such a concept has force and value precisely because it’s polyamorous of meaning) (with all the heart-ache and confusion that polyamory can lead to)

but “saying lots of things, some contradictory” isn’t the same thing as “saying anything” (of course “saying whatever you like” strips out the potency of the contradiction; as i say, i think this is just an evasion, for whatever reason, and never a declaration of actual semantic principle)

In that final case Martin, to what extent could we say that Barnett Newman saying the paintings are about the holocaust are part of the art itself (albeit via an attempt to mediate between viewer and art – especially in the world of abstract art).

Equally people don’t generally argue about the meaning of “She Loves You”, as there is absolutely no ambiguity there at all.

Well, so many of those songs you might have, as schoolboys, put smutty associations to, only to find that you might have been right all along.

e.g. “Please please me” being a request for Oral Sex, boy stating that as he does this for her, she should return the favour…

PLSC – appreciate the nod – it wasn’t meant to be a criticism, possibly more to do with my own feeble-mindedness than anything else!

i’m all for listeners reappropriating the songs for their own ends and to suit their own circumstances, that is what gives songs more life after all, except when they misappropriate it in such a bloody stupid way that all it proves is that they haven’t bothered listening to more than a line of the lyrics and therefore can’t be all that attached to it (unless they’re aware of this à la piratemoggy with ‘flamboyant’ and can make a decent fist of an explanation).

people misappropriating songs like ‘perfect day’, which is so vague that it totally fails at owning its own meaning, doesn’t bother me – there’s nothing in it which would suggest that it’s about smack or whatever & it would work equally well as a sweet love song. people misappropriating that REM song whose title i forget as a declaration of true love does bother me because it is bloody stupid.

of course there’s always the whole thing of “is the singer lying to him/herself” – is kelly clarkson really as liberated as she says she is on ‘since u been gone’, or is she just trying to convince herself that she is? (i think she’s telling the truth but i remember lots of people at the time arguing that she wasn’t) – but even then you’ve got to accept the basic premise of the situation and can’t just pretend it’s about meeting someone for the first time.

i like it when totally different interpretations actually work w/the original lyrics. i remember after she won those gold medals, kelly holmes was interviewed about her preparations & inspirations, and she said she’d go out to the track every morning to train and listen to alicia keys’ ‘if i ain’t got you’, and for her the “you” of the song became the gold medals – obviously this is not what alicia keys was singing about but the thing is, the lyrics totally work in kelly’s context! from the people who live for fortune and fame to the line about the physical things defining you to the diamond rings (cuz what kelly wanted were OLYMPIC rings).

i think that’s another, often overlooked form of songwriting genius – people like ne-yo can capture the specificity of a situation accurately, but alicia keys does the opposite – she goes for vague, widescreen imagery knowing that this will make her songs more universal…