songs

Post Reply New Topic

Does anyone else have trouble understanding the meanings of songs? Song lyrics are sometimes vague and metaphoric. I wonder if that makes it tough for people with Asperger's to understand.

Most songs lyrics don't mean anything. They're just put together so they rhyme and flow with the music. Or one or two verses mean something and everything else is a filler. Very few artists actually make effort to put meaning into their songs.

I tend to tune out the lyrics to songs and only listen to the beat or melody. I will listen to the words of rap songs though because even though most of them talk about violence, sex, and drugs they are telling the true story of the rapper's life.

I have trouble understanding what they're saying in the first place.

This.
I can only understand the lyrics do a song if I purposefully go onto YouTube or something similar, search for the song name and lyrics, and watch the song playing either with timed lyrics or written lyrics.

Mainstream lyrics are all generic, they all have the same/ similar meaning. Either being in love or the aftermath of a recently ended relationship. A lot of mainstream music, especially pop and pop/ rock use similar chords, for me that's why it all sounds the same and has the same meaning.

I've taken out my keyboard and instantly been able to play several popular pop songs, simply by playing the same chords, or differing the sequence a little bit. Someone who can do this is no musical genius, anyone with the basic music note knowledge can play so many songs often with very little practise just by altering chords.

When you look at music from Pink Floyd, Queen, David Bowie, The Eagles etc, all the musical greats, the lyrics are a lot more complex, I believe that is also why the music is more difficult to follow.

But then you've got country music, often very simple yet the lyrics explain so much. Johnny Cash for example. He's one (was one?) of my favourite musicians because you can really get lost in his stories.

I don't find it difficult understanding the meanings of songs, since everyone seems to take away different meanings in order to relate to them. The original musician might have one reason for the lyrics, but the listener can hear something completely different. Hence why we don't all like the same stuff.

There's a website called song fish or something??? It has the song meanings to a lot of songs. Sometimes the artist leaves the interpretation up to the listeners. Which is cool I guess, but I sometimes I wanna know what the heck a song means!

Strange, I looked up songfish and its weird that I never really paid attention to the words of The Smashing Pumpkin's song 1979 yet Billy Corgan was inspired by the same things that make the song so nostalgic for me.

I think if you listen to a song a lot even without knowing the words by heart they have a very subliminal quality and you might surprise yourself with how close you were to the artist's interpretation. I use to not really pay attention to lyrics, mostly focusing on the beat, music sound, but then I started listening to At the Drive in And Mindless Self Indulgence and the words are part of why I enjoy the music so much. I don't think there's any right or wrong way to listen to music though.

Another big problem with mainstream music is that, not only do they often follow pretty much -exactly- the same chord progression, the artists also have little to no talent at music - autotune is quite prevalent - just listen to them live, it's either lip syncing or they sound terrible because they are terrible. There are many nifty tools available, to make bad musicians sound good - not just autotune to correct pitch, but they can also force notes to hit at the right time, when the original player played them at the wrong time.

Also very rarely do they write their own music. Not that I would ever take pride in writing that garbage (or give respect to someone who did).



Their lyrics are as difficult for me to understand as anything else - they do use more complex and various chord progressions, though, and there is also more soloing, etc. - just more going on in the music itself, which may make it more difficult to follow for some people.



I agree with this definitely - I think the same applies to the music itself, meaning to the non-lyrical content of a song, or to an instrumental song (which I prefer anyway). To me each piece of music tells a different story or paints a different picture, or all sorts of things.

One song, such as "Gymnopedie no.1" by Erik Satie, makes me think of forests with lots of evergreens and mixed other trees (with broad leaves), all green, in bloom, with lots of green little plants like ferns and all that around the bottom of them. If anything, I'd say peaceful. But a lot of other people tell me that it's a sad song when I play it for them.

Edit: here's a link so you can listen to Gymnopedie no.1 if you want: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Xm7s9eGxU

I mainly listen to classical music and science fiction film soundtracks. It's just so easy to get lost in a song that isn't trying to put you in any specific place or frame of mind, besides the most basic of human emotions. You can think what you like, go where you like when you're not following someone else's footsteps (lyrics), you're finding your own way through the song, if that makes sense?

I also feel this way when listening to The Doors for some reason.

When I listen to sci-fi film soundtracks, it seems to "transport" me to a different planet, when I listen to classical music it keeps me here, but everything is different... Everything is beautiful and with some songs, I'm even surrounded by numbers, or just riding numbers around a cloudy atmosphere, hah.
Listening to lyrical songs, you're sort of kept where the musician wants you in order to be emotionally provoked, even though you envisage a different environment to them.

I still get different messages than they send lyrically, when I listen to lyrical songs. Then again many lyrical songs are musically very simple, so there isn't much of a place for it to take you without words.

I also get more than just base emotions from most non-lyrical songs - I get a lot of different things - very specific things - and it's always the same each time I listen to whichever song. I have a hard time explaining the feelings sometimes - but I have problems with that in general.

A lot of Erik Satie's stuff makes me think of forests with clearings and ruins and stuff like that, for instance.

Most the instrumental stuff I listen to, though, is jazz.