The Fountains of Wayne. Adam Schlesinger is on the right. Stereogum.com
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger, Updated from our 2013 post. Please read the comments.
Going back in music history to Gregorian chants, Mozart operas, and Frank Sinatra singing with Tommy Dorsey, it was always important for the songs’ lyrics to make sense and to be clearly heard. Sinatra was a fanatic about phrasing and pronunciation of words.
Lyricists always compose songs so that they tell a story (as in Broadway musicals) or express ideas (as in “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught” from South Pacific) or consist of poetry (as in “You are the angel glow that lights the stars” from “All the Things You Are”)
However, since the rock era of recent times, the words, if you can clearly hear them, sometimes are unclear as to their meaning. Which brings me to the late Adam Schlesinger, a successful modern-day songwriter who wrote an editorial in the New York Times (2013) asking whether song lyrics needed to tell a story or even to make any sense at all.
I was fascinated. Adam Schlesinger had won Grammy and Emmy awards along with Tony and Oscar nominations for his song writing.
In the editorial, he said, “Lately I’ve been getting more interested in focusing on the overall sound and texture of song, and worrying less about the logic of the words.”
So, at last, someone who could explain to me why I am so often baffled by modern song lyrics.
What’s the Story NY Times link
THE CLICK FIVE: “Just the Girl” written by Adam Schlesinger
Here is one of Adam Schlesinger’s songs performed by “The Click Five.” It’s a simple story with understandable lyrics. Note that Schlesinger is from New Jersey and was one of the founders of the group “Fountains of Wayne.”
And here is a song I love, but the lyrics are incomprehensible. It is by a group called Beirut. The song is “A Sunday Smile.”
