Why It's Time to Turn the Music Off

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34801885

Notes on Simon Frith, "Why do Songs Have Words?"

Frith Words and Music
A. In the usual, simplest case, a song is a conjunction of words and music
B.The experience of the song, especially in performance, is primarily a matter of the rhythmic interaction of the words and music
According to Simon Frith, popular song has been studied as if it consisted primarily of words, with the music somewhere in the indeterminate background
Scholars of content analysis treat the song’s lyric as a message, and the song as a bearer of that content; a love song is “about” love, so all you have to do to discuss it is look at the way it—i.e., the lyric—talks about love
HF Mooney 1954: the themes of pop lyrics reflect the concerns, ideas, and emotions of the audience
No particular mention of what, if anything, the music of the songs “reflects”; and no mention of what the hell the music is doing there at all, for that matter
A song’s popularity equates to agreement with its message in reality or in fantasy (i.e. nostalgic longing for the good old days represented in country lyrics)
[kit 35:] e.g. Dave Harker’s insistence that the marriage mentioned in “Winter Wonderland” “articulates key fantasies.. about the pattern of sexual relations felt to be most appropriate for a particular social order”
once more, no hint of what, if anything, the music is doing in the piece
Frith [pg 36]: “Songs are, in this account, a form of propaganda.”
For some (academic) critics, the cure for overly romantic, idealistically phony emotions is lyrical realism, the direct expression [in words] of the genuine emotions and social realities of the singer (and audience) (“keepin’ it real” is an expression of a related idea); the true aim of (popular) music is “authenticity,” some sort of direct correspondence between the reality of the experience and (reality of) the song
If a singer sings about drug dealing, infidelity, or stamp collecting, the song is “better” if the singer is in fact a drug dealer, philanderer, or stamp collector
Once more:  the entire perspective has buggerall to do with the music
Some entire styles or genres were/are considered “more authentic”: blues, especially rural blues; hip-hop, especially gangsta rap; country, especially pre-Shania
As a rule: the more demonstrably miserable the personal life of the singer, the better the song
[pg 40] “[assessments of].. lyrical realism.. [and banality] assume that songs differ in their effects.. [because] these can be read off good and bad words”
in other words: a good or bad song can be judged as written on the page—without music, without performance, without a singer
[pg 40] some studies suggested that listeners were unaware of the subject matter of pop songs; “changes in lyrical content cannot be explained by reference to consumer ‘moods’.”
[pg 41] Frith: “In songs, words are the sign of a voice. A song is always a performance and song words are always spoken out, heard in someone’s accent.”
In other words, ironically, the notion that the experience of a song is equivalent to the message of its lyric also overlooks the reality of those words, which is that they are sung, in a particular way, by a particular singer.
The words themselves are not the same when sung by a different singer!
[Frith:] to understand popular song lyrics requires studying the “performing conventions” that exist in particular music genres
different genres of music allow or cause their audiences to imagine different kinds of [social/emotional] community
[pg42] “The songwriter’s art.. is.. to cherish words ‘not for their sense alone but for their poise and balance,’ and this is a matter of rhythm too — the rhythm of speech.”
“Pop [love] songs do not ‘reflect’ emotions.. but give people the [romantic] terms in which to articulate and so experience their emotions.”