Posted on 05/19/2015 8:46:45 PM PDT by PROCON
Have you ever been driving along, listening to the latest hit song on a Top 20 radio station, and thought, “Man, these lyrics are really dumb?”
Well, you’re not alone.
According to a new study conducted by data wiz Andrew Powell-Morse, the lyrics for the last decade’s No. 1 hit songs average a third-grade reading level. Powell-Morse analyzed 225 songs that had spent three or more weeks atop the Billboard charts in four different genres (R&B/Hip-Hop, Country, Pop, and Rock) and found that a second-grader with slightly higher-than-average reading comprehension skills would have no problem grasping the lyrics.
While the study’s findings seem obvious to anyone who has flipped on a radio in the last few years, there are a number of surprising points in the data.
According to the study, country music is the “smartest” genre lyrically, with an average grade-level of 3.3. Pop and rock tie at 2.9, while today’s hip-hop could be fairly well-understood by a second-grader in the latter half of the school year.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Some critics of the early work of the Beatles complained that their lyrics were too simplistic. John Lennon's response was to write "Help," making sure to include "appreciate," "self-assured," and "independence" just to prove they could sing multi-syllable words.
Roses are red
Violets are purple
Sugar is sweet
So’s maple surple
Incredible talent that with a better control of his voces would be alive today.
Nah, no one would want to hear that.
And what reading level is that? Fourth grade? And in Stairway to Heaven, that's three lyric lines. Pretty simple writing.
I think the writer has a pointless point. The thoughts evoked in a song might be, or seem to be profound to the listener, but that has nothing to do with the reading level of the words and sentences.
I think 21twelve and I are mostly in agreement with his Rush lyrics as an example in post #14,
And there is a school of thought that the greatest writing uses the fewest and simplest words to express what the writer wishes to express. And song lyric writing does have to be pretty short and simple to fit into a tune anyone would want to listen to, especially in a song that makes it to #1.
So, songwriters might be some of our greatest writers, reading level be damned. A Pointless point.
I think the lyrics of many popular songs are somewhere between incomprehensible and vague. Lots of words that, along with the tune, convey some mood or set of feelings for the listener. But so many songs have no really clear meaning.
I guess Bob Dylan was the master of such songwriting. On some old Dylan album cover, the liner notes said that Dylan always leaves a space for the listeners to supply their own interpretation and meaning, and that that was the greatest songwriting.
And sometimes lyrics mean that the line below rhymes with the line above, and not much more. Some people have spent a lot of time trying to decipher the meaning of some famous songs, songs that probably don't really have a clear meaning.
Most lyrics are simple, and the meaning might be somewhere between simple and incomprehensible, but the general reading level is and probably has to be at grade school level.
“I am the egg man, they are the egg men, I am the walrus! goo-goo-ka-chew” LOL
I would say Rocky Raccoon is on at least a 7th grade level.
Now somewhere in the black mountain hills of Dakota
There lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon
And one day his woman ran off with another guy
He hit young Rocky in the eye
Rocky didn’t like that he said I’m gonna get that boy
So one day he walked into town
Booked himself a room in the local saloon
Rocky Raccoon checked into his room
Only to find Gideon’s bible
Rocky had come equipped with a gun
To shoot off the legs of his rival
His rival it seems had broken his dreams
By stealing the girl of his fancy
Her name was Magill and she called herself Lil
But everyone knew her as Nancy
Now she and her man, who called himself Dan
Were in the next room at the hoedown
Rocky burst in and grinning a grin
He said, Danny boy this is a showdown
But Daniel was hot he drew first and shot
And Rocky collapsed in the corner
Now the doctor came in stinking of gin
And proceeded to lie on the table
He said, Rocky you met your match
And Rocky said, Doc it’s only a scratch
And I’ll be better, I’ll be better Doc as soon as I am able
And now Rocky Raccoon he fell back in his room
Only to find Gideon’s bible
Gideon checked out and he left it no doubt
To help with good Rocky’s revival
Read more: Beatles - Rocky Raccoon Lyrics | MetroLyrics
Since high school graduates read at an average 4th grade level, this is just good marketing.
The problem is no one is listening on vinyl anymore so we can’t play these things backwards and see what Justin Beiber is really trying to say. Something like “I LOVE SATAN! I LOVE SATAN!”
There was a good interview with Geddy Lee (singer, bassist of Rush) about the whole song-writing thing. Peart (drummer) comes up with all of the lyrics. Lee and Lifeson have all sorts of tunes and riffs they have been working on. Then Lee tries to put them together.
He says often he can only pick a few things out of the lyrics that will work with the music. And he needs to be comfortable with the ideas expressed if he is singing them - he has to feel the words too in order for it to come out right. Once in a great while the lyrics and the music just click.
Lee said something to the effect of “I leave most of Neil’s words on the cutting room floor. But I know that he is just glad to have written them, regardless if anyone else hears them.”
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