How the times have changed
When I started writing lyrics for other artists, I think around 2004, I was told once that my lyrics were complex and difficult to sing. I wrote too many words and used too many big words, without flow. It’s one of those comments that has always stuck with me, ‘cos I actually never understood it. I had no problem singing my lyrics at all. Maybe its’s because I knew exactly where to put the emphasis in the words to fit it on the beat and others really had to learn this. Maybe it just wasn’t a natural match, but wasn’t that exactly what you would want? Something to catch the listener’s attention with?
Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of the lyrics change in pop music and I’ve often ran into the same ‘problem’ with songs by others. They would pronounce a word just slightly different than I would expect or play around with pronunciations altogether. One Republic’s “No Vacancy” is a good example of this. I would’ve never come up with that song, because I would never pronounce the word “vacancy” the way they do in the song’s chorus. It doesn’t work any other way.
For me, Katy Perry’s “Chained To The Rhythm” also took some practice to get into. Jumping to lines like “So comfortable we’re living in a bubble bubble / So comfortable we cannot see the trouble trouble” always take some clarity of mind for me not to trip over. It’s due to the “so comfortable” in the beginning of those lines. She also skips rhyming in the chorus, which throws me off as I am missing that flow in the moment. It’s all just a matter of getting used to though.
The speed of running down the lyrics has also changed. I’ve been told many times that I should rap instead of sing. My voice gets much stronger rapping, but I always have to have my wit about me when doing it. I have to think about where to put the intonation and which word is supposed to hit the beat at which time. I have the greatest respect for rappers, especially when they are also able to switch timing within their rap (like in Frank Ocean’s “Biking”).
This style has made it to pop music for a long time now and you can find the best example of it in someone unexpected, like Ed Sheeran. “Galway Girl” and “Shape Of You” both contain rap and hip hop influences in the melody of the vocals and flow of the lyrics. When I first heard “Galway Girl”, I really felt like he was using too many words in the song. It was like a constant stream of lyrics coming at you, but the more I heard it, the less it bothered me. Even lyrics evolve over time and I was just ahead of my time, I guess. Haha.
