Chris 1 and Chris 2: Data is nice, but what's the context? The Beatles started in an entirely singles-sales industry, so people needed to know the title of the song to ask for at the record store. Top 40 radio ruled a monoculture in which everyone listened to the same songs, and radio DJs announced and then back-announced the name and title of each song. The 1970s audience fragmented, and the knock on disco was that some songs consisted of nothing but the title, repeated. ("Boogie Oogie Oogie" to "Stayin' Alive" and "Fly Robin Fly.") I don't know if Chris G. has spotted a trend, or is just jammin' on numbers. Since streaming, the Billboard charts are almost useless, since artists load up on tracks declared "singles" and monopolize charts that only a contortionist could comprehend. But writing is about telling stories, searching for meaning. The data don't move me, daddy-o!
You’re partially hitting on what drew me to Chris’s idea in that where the title lands in a song seems to be connected to the evolution of song structure, technology, and the industry at large
Thanks Chris D R. I do not want to be an ungracious scold, and I have great appreciation for what you do. What I did want to mention is a major reason why I retired in May 2024 from St. John's U, where I taught pop music criticism and writing classes each semester for 12 years. Some students no longer know the names of the songs, or the album (if any) that it's from: Their connections are through their phones, and their relationship to music is totally functional: for working out, running, studying, making out. It's all background to them. Streaming music is a public utility, like water from a faucet or electricity lighting up a bulb. They lack meaningful connection to analyze why a song is important to them. Perhaps this is my way of acknowledging there is a reason that Chris is on to something: it doesn't matter where the title is in a song as long as it is on a playlist the listener accesses. And noting how often the Beatles began their songs with the title just emphasizes how smart they were in their time.
Don’t worry. Didn’t take it that way. Always appreciate your perspective. And I think you are onto something. Streaming can make music feel like a very passive experience.
As usual, good article. Hey, sometimes they don’t even mention the title of the song at all, as with Pearl Jam’s “elderly woman sitting behind the counter in a small town.“
I’m reasonably sure the record companies tried to get artists to get their title upfront and out there pretty quick so listener would have something to latch onto. Now that record companies aren’t calling the shots anymore with the same amount of leveraging power, artists are doing whatever they want, and in my opinion, sometimes to their own detriment. Really, wouldn’t you want your listener to know what the name of your song was? So they could find it, tell their friends? Why would you work against yourself?
The big record companies certainly have and had a lot to be criticized for, and I could make quite a speech about that. That said, they knew how to market, and they encouraged their artists to follow basic craft. Think about it: if you were a journalist writing an article for a newspaper, you would start with a headline, then an introduction, then a main body of facts, then a conclusion. Would it make sense to start with your conclusion, or your main body of facts and end with the headline? there’s a reason kids right there book reports this way all the way up to major newspapers or Chris’s article we all read.
When we use that as an analogy to compare to the craft of song writing, the title identifies the subject, announces it in a matter of a few words. The chorus (or refrain) is an extension of the subject, represents the primary theme of the song, what it’s about. (Think of Yellowstone Sabrina among 9 trillion others.) Typically the verses tell the story in chapters. As one professor used to tell me, “the chorus is a string which holds together all the pearls.” (verses)
Is all this the morphing of the craft of songwriting, the songwriting process, or is it the deterioration of it? Or perhaps both? I suspect.. both. Personally, I prefer craft.
Now there are some who would argue that craft is limiting, the 12 measures of a blues, the 16 measures of a ballad or 99% of the country songs you listen to. Haiku is a structure. Limericks are a structure. I don’t think those structures limit your creative potential, they simply offer a form that is recognizable and familiar to the listener or reader. What you PAINT upon the canvas is important, not the canvas itself and certainly not the size of it. (Think the Mona Lisa.)
Rather than ever looking at craft as a preordained conglomeration of constructs that limit, I see them as challenges. And boy they sure do help separate the wheat from the chaff. Yeah, most blues tunes are 12 measures and 3 chords. That said, you really get to see what somebody’s got pretty immediately because the form itself is so simplistically basic.
Sorry to go off on a few related tangents, but I think they all connect. Don’t even start me on bridges!
Fly My to the Moon are not the first words to the song. Listen to the versions by Eydie Gorme (which might be the first, it was several years before Sinatra's) and Nat King Cole. There is a very long verse before Fly Me to the Moon, starting with "Poets often use many words to say a simple thing," and goes on for several lines before it gets to Fly Me to the Moon. And why no mention of the writers -Howard/Bart ?
(I'm a casual researcher and I HAVE thought about analyzing song lyrics over time.)
Your data is highly processed. Is there a big database of lyrics that you drew it from?
Just as a teaser: my phone has a microSD card of nearly all music. "Roomful of Blues" has a song called "Hey Now." Neil Young has a song "My, My, Hey, Hey."
I had thought of trying to analyze songs into "why are these lyrics so bad?" Some blues lyrics like "Another Mule Kicking in Your Stall" or "It Hurts Me Too" do have a punch that "Hey Now" does not.
Chris 1 and Chris 2: Data is nice, but what's the context? The Beatles started in an entirely singles-sales industry, so people needed to know the title of the song to ask for at the record store. Top 40 radio ruled a monoculture in which everyone listened to the same songs, and radio DJs announced and then back-announced the name and title of each song. The 1970s audience fragmented, and the knock on disco was that some songs consisted of nothing but the title, repeated. ("Boogie Oogie Oogie" to "Stayin' Alive" and "Fly Robin Fly.") I don't know if Chris G. has spotted a trend, or is just jammin' on numbers. Since streaming, the Billboard charts are almost useless, since artists load up on tracks declared "singles" and monopolize charts that only a contortionist could comprehend. But writing is about telling stories, searching for meaning. The data don't move me, daddy-o!
You’re partially hitting on what drew me to Chris’s idea in that where the title lands in a song seems to be connected to the evolution of song structure, technology, and the industry at large
Thanks Chris D R. I do not want to be an ungracious scold, and I have great appreciation for what you do. What I did want to mention is a major reason why I retired in May 2024 from St. John's U, where I taught pop music criticism and writing classes each semester for 12 years. Some students no longer know the names of the songs, or the album (if any) that it's from: Their connections are through their phones, and their relationship to music is totally functional: for working out, running, studying, making out. It's all background to them. Streaming music is a public utility, like water from a faucet or electricity lighting up a bulb. They lack meaningful connection to analyze why a song is important to them. Perhaps this is my way of acknowledging there is a reason that Chris is on to something: it doesn't matter where the title is in a song as long as it is on a playlist the listener accesses. And noting how often the Beatles began their songs with the title just emphasizes how smart they were in their time.
Don’t worry. Didn’t take it that way. Always appreciate your perspective. And I think you are onto something. Streaming can make music feel like a very passive experience.
As usual, good article. Hey, sometimes they don’t even mention the title of the song at all, as with Pearl Jam’s “elderly woman sitting behind the counter in a small town.“
I’m reasonably sure the record companies tried to get artists to get their title upfront and out there pretty quick so listener would have something to latch onto. Now that record companies aren’t calling the shots anymore with the same amount of leveraging power, artists are doing whatever they want, and in my opinion, sometimes to their own detriment. Really, wouldn’t you want your listener to know what the name of your song was? So they could find it, tell their friends? Why would you work against yourself?
The big record companies certainly have and had a lot to be criticized for, and I could make quite a speech about that. That said, they knew how to market, and they encouraged their artists to follow basic craft. Think about it: if you were a journalist writing an article for a newspaper, you would start with a headline, then an introduction, then a main body of facts, then a conclusion. Would it make sense to start with your conclusion, or your main body of facts and end with the headline? there’s a reason kids right there book reports this way all the way up to major newspapers or Chris’s article we all read.
When we use that as an analogy to compare to the craft of song writing, the title identifies the subject, announces it in a matter of a few words. The chorus (or refrain) is an extension of the subject, represents the primary theme of the song, what it’s about. (Think of Yellowstone Sabrina among 9 trillion others.) Typically the verses tell the story in chapters. As one professor used to tell me, “the chorus is a string which holds together all the pearls.” (verses)
Is all this the morphing of the craft of songwriting, the songwriting process, or is it the deterioration of it? Or perhaps both? I suspect.. both. Personally, I prefer craft.
Now there are some who would argue that craft is limiting, the 12 measures of a blues, the 16 measures of a ballad or 99% of the country songs you listen to. Haiku is a structure. Limericks are a structure. I don’t think those structures limit your creative potential, they simply offer a form that is recognizable and familiar to the listener or reader. What you PAINT upon the canvas is important, not the canvas itself and certainly not the size of it. (Think the Mona Lisa.)
Rather than ever looking at craft as a preordained conglomeration of constructs that limit, I see them as challenges. And boy they sure do help separate the wheat from the chaff. Yeah, most blues tunes are 12 measures and 3 chords. That said, you really get to see what somebody’s got pretty immediately because the form itself is so simplistically basic.
Sorry to go off on a few related tangents, but I think they all connect. Don’t even start me on bridges!
For business purposes is it more important that the title be early in the song, or that it be repeated (preferably in the chorus)?
I’m sure people would argue for both
Fly My to the Moon are not the first words to the song. Listen to the versions by Eydie Gorme (which might be the first, it was several years before Sinatra's) and Nat King Cole. There is a very long verse before Fly Me to the Moon, starting with "Poets often use many words to say a simple thing," and goes on for several lines before it gets to Fly Me to the Moon. And why no mention of the writers -Howard/Bart ?
(I'm a casual researcher and I HAVE thought about analyzing song lyrics over time.)
Your data is highly processed. Is there a big database of lyrics that you drew it from?
Just as a teaser: my phone has a microSD card of nearly all music. "Roomful of Blues" has a song called "Hey Now." Neil Young has a song "My, My, Hey, Hey."
I had thought of trying to analyze songs into "why are these lyrics so bad?" Some blues lyrics like "Another Mule Kicking in Your Stall" or "It Hurts Me Too" do have a punch that "Hey Now" does not.
I have a few databases of lyrics. If you email me at cdallariva at gmail. I can send them to you
on its way (VirgilHilts at protonmail)