lyrics subforum

[Wjames]

Wjames—they don’t need the music to work. They need the beats. Let’s crit

I disagree, off the top of my head, a good example is my favourite Beach Boys song:



At about 1:30, the simple lyric "I wanna cry" - if I read that to a beat I don't think it would make me feel a thing.

Combined with the melody, it becomes something so beautiful to me. The lyric adds to the melody and turns the next minute of instrumental/vocal "ahhing" into a magnificent crying - the words and the music together synthesizing in something special. When I listen to it, I feel like I'm crying, but it's happy as well. The music would be lovely on it's own, but is made stronger by the lyric - the lyric is nothing without the music in this case.

If I were to read that lyric to a beat and critique it, there's a good chance I would say "I wanna cry" is uninteresting and could easily be improved, when that is the farthest thing from the truth in my subjective opinion.

I think the same way about the lyrics before that as well, the way the words and melody interact elevates them both - but the interaction between the words and music is so clear with "I wanna cry" and what follows.