Song lyrics

[ukmtk]

It wasn't just you it really is the lyrics.

Song lyrics getting simpler, more repetitive, angry and self-obsessed – study

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/29/song-lyrics-getting-simpler-more-repetitive-angry-and-self-obsessed-study

[UncleEbenezer]

Didn't they reach a peak of inanity back in the fabled 1960s? She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Methinks the Grauniad has been filling space with material from the long and pointless tail of academia's publish-or-perish machine.

[bungeejumper]

Only the sixties?

Mairzy doats and dozy doats, 1943. A wop bop-a-loo-bop, a lop bam boom, 1955. A-Huggin’ And A-Chalkin’, 1946. I think we're going to have to try a bit harder than that?

Agree about rap getting more aggressive, though.

BJ

[Urbandreamer]

Let's not forget the immortal
"Two pint's of larger and a packet of crisps ...........please".

Two pints of lager and a packet of crisps, please
Two pints of lager and a packet of crisps, please
Listen, I'm getting impatient, John!

[DrFfybes]

Only the sixties?

Mairzy doats and dozy doats, 1943.
BJ

Eh, I always thought that was
"Mares eat oars and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy".

That's what my mum sang to me anyway, so just a mumbled iteration of a biological generalisation.

I'm going to have to google it now.

[bungeejumper]

Eh, I always thought that was
"Mares eat oars and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy".

That's what my mum sang to me anyway, so just a mumbled iteration of a biological generalisation.

Correct in every way, except for the bit about eating oars.

BJ

[Mike4]

Nick Cave's "Into My Arms" starts with "I don't believe in an interventionist God. But I know, darling, that you do".

One of the more thoughtful 'pop' song lyrics out there, so perhaps its not all banality...

[GoSeigen]

Nick Cave's "Into My Arms" starts with "I don't believe in an interventionist God. But I know, darling, that you do".

One of the more thoughtful 'pop' song lyrics out there, so perhaps its not all banality...

Much as I approve of the musical taste, Into My Arms was released more than 25 years ago so would tend to support the article's thesis surely?


GS

[clissold345]

Didn't they reach a peak of inanity back in the fabled 1960s? She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.
...

There's inanity in every decade? Here's some enjoyable inanity from 1972:

"... Distant cousins, there's a limited supply
And we're down to the dozens, and this is why
Don't let anything get in between us
Big eyed beans from Venus
Big eyed beans from Venus ..."

[kiloran]

It wasn't just you it really is the lyrics.

Song lyrics getting simpler, more repetitive, angry and self-obsessed – study

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/29/song-lyrics-getting-simpler-more-repetitive-angry-and-self-obsessed-study

Angry and violent (and mysoginistic) lyrics have been common in the Blues for 100 years or more.

For example, Robert Johnson's 32-20 blues

'F I send for my baby, and she don't come
'F I send for my baby, man, and she don't come
All the doctors in Hot Springs sure can't help her none
And if she gets unruly, thinks she don't wan' do
And if she gets unruly and thinks she don't wan' do
Take my .32-20, now, and cut her half in two
She got a .38 special but I believe it's most too light
She got a .38 special but I believe it's most too light
I got a .32-20, got to make the caps alright
If I send for my baby, man, and she don't come
If I send for my baby, man, and she don't come
All the doctors in Hot Springs sure can't help her none
I'm gonna shoot my pistol, gonna shoot my gatling gun
I'm gonna shoot my pistol, gotta shoot my gatling gun
You made me love you, now your man have come

or Mississippi John Hurt's "Got The Blues, Can't Be Satisfied":

Took my gun and broke the barrel down
Took my gun, broke the barrel down
Put my baby six feet under the ground

I cut that joker, so long deep and wide
Cut that joker, so long deep and wide
You got the blues and still ain't satisfied

And many more...

--kiloran

[DrFfybes]

Eh, I always thought that was
"Mares eat oars and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy".

That's what my mum sang to me anyway, so just a mumbled iteration of a biological generalisation.

Correct in every way, except for the bit about eating oars.

BJ

Bad typing - I meant "ears".

[UncleEbenezer]

Angry and violent (and mysoginistic) lyrics have been common in the Blues for 100 years or more.

Extreme violent texts go back a lot further than that. Look at most of Handel's oratorios, for instance.

Or in a particularly British context, the relatively tame but still tribal

Lord grant that Marshal Wade,
May by thy mighty aid,
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush,
God Save the King.

[Mike4]

And of course, "Hey Joe" covered famously by Hendrix. This was the first song with lyrics that found highly distasteful.

Hey, Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand?
Hey, Joe, I said, where you going with that gun in your hand?

I'm going down to shoot my old lady
You know, I caught her messing around with another man
I'm going down to shoot my old lady
You know, I caught her messing around with another man

And so it goes on in the same vein.

[UncleEbenezer]

This was the first song with lyrics that found highly distasteful.

Parse error.

It was several centuries too late to be the first song with highly distasteful lyrics.

[bungeejumper]

It was several centuries too late to be the first song with highly distasteful lyrics.

That would be putting it mildly. I'm quite sure that the Crusaders sang some pretty ripe songs about exactly what they were going to do to the Saracens if God played along and did his bit. And that the Romans did similarly with the Gauls and the Huns. And as for those naughty old Phoenicians and Assyrians.....

BJ

[GrahamPlatt]

https://youtu.be/SIxOl1EraXA?si=p111X6_xQJh7ydzz

“Qu’un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons”

1792

[UncleEbenezer]

It was several centuries too late to be the first song with highly distasteful lyrics.

That would be putting it mildly. I'm quite sure that the Crusaders sang some pretty ripe songs about exactly what they were going to do to the Saracens if God played along and did his bit.

BJ

Just look at the psalms ...

Blessed is he that taketh the children of the heathen, and casts them upon the stone.

But that's just a bit of biblical backing for genocide. Not endlessly repetitive lyrics, like most classical settings of the latin mass, requiem, etc. To combine the extreme violence with endless repetition of lyrics, you could look to works like Handel's Dixit Dominus.

And that the Romans did similarly with the Gauls and the Huns.

I expect we'd have to replace some of the expletives with an Asterix or two. Erm ...