Music is so much more than sound waves at various frequencies. It is an art form, an expression of feelings.
Some musicians/ composers/ music groups use a single instrument, an orchestra, a rock band, a synthesizer or other musical equipment
to express their feelings and impressions. Often they also include text to support the music.
Sometimes these lyrics are trivial, or just plain stupid. This is the case with most commercial pop music. All too often, love songs are
just chains of old clichés. Good music groups (in the case of this site good Rock bands) add something special to their lyrics, taking
them out of the ordinary and creating real literature.
Understanding the full meaning of a song, getting the most out of it is even more satisfactory than just listening to it. You can't be into a song
unless you really know what it is about.
I will try to explain some lyrics of groups and songs I really like and understand. The explanation exists in three parts:
- Getting every little detail right, knowing the exact meaning(s) of every word used in the song.
- After the details, the general idea: getting the whole picture. This is often controversial, and several opinions can exist next to each other.
- Looking for the beauty of the text as a text: style forms such as alliterantions, parallellism etc., use of rhyme, ...
My favourite Rock group is Pink Floyd. Their lyrics go from excitingly psychedelic (and therefor quite uncomprehensible) to extremely layered and complicated.
Second on my list is Marillion. Fraser Marshall and Matthew Anderson already have a great (official) site on Marillion lyrics and their explanation, so I won't enter in competition with them.
Other groups that might pop up here in the future include: The Alan Parsons Project, Yes, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Enigma, Deep Purple, ...
I also like Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis and Tangerine Dream, but since their lyrics are extremely rare or non-existent, the chance of seeing them discussed here is very small.
