Disclaimer: This is transcribed using AI. Expect (funny) errors.
Mindy Peterson: [00:00:00] I’m Mindy Peterson, and this is Enhance Life with Music, where we explore the ways music can make our lives better and spotlight the resources you can use to enhance your life with music. I am really excited about today’s conversation because I know it’s going to clarify for me something that has puzzled me for most of my life, and it’s a question I’ve wanted to ask someone since I first started this podcast six years ago, but I’ve never found the right person to ask. Until recently, I was speaking with a guest on this show about a different topic, and over the course of our conversation, I realized this is the perfect person to ask my question. So here’s the question I’ve been wanting to ask the question that’s been mystifying me, and it says so many times I will listen to a song. I’m probably just enjoying the melody and the overall vibe of the song, but then I start to pay closer attention to the lyrics and realize I have no idea what this person is talking about. The lyrics make absolutely no sense at all, and I’m wondering how on earth did this person come up with the words? Occasionally I’ve read a biography of a musician and then the biography.
Mindy Peterson: [00:01:14] There will be some backstory of certain song lyrics and I think, oh, okay, well, that makes a little bit more sense. But I also feel like really like, should I really need to do investigative journalism to be able to make sense of song lyrics? Enter today’s guest. Mike Errico is the author of the book Music, Lyrics, and Life: A Field Guide for the Advancing Songwriter. He teaches songwriting at universities including Yale, Wesleyan, and NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. He, as I mentioned, was a recent guest on this podcast speaking about his book and the songwriting process. What makes a song a hit and how to get started writing songs. I’ll put a link in the show notes to that conversation, because if you have any interest in the songwriting process, you’ll definitely want to listen to that conversation and check out his book, Starting out, first of all, Mike, welcome back to Enhance Life With Music.
Mike Errico: [00:02:12] Thank you so much for having me again. It’s it’s it’s one thing to be invited once, but to be invited a second time is like it’s even a more difficult hurdle. So I’m. I’m honored.
Mindy Peterson: [00:02:23] Well, in pretty close succession, too. I mean, when we had our conversation last, it was pretty recent and we sort of got going down this bunny trail and I thought, oh, man, this is the guy I need to ask this question, but I do want to dedicate a full episode to this because this has been a big mystery for me. So I’m kind of feeling like Nancy Drew right now. Uh, the Hardy Boys, we’re gonna, you know, kind of solve this mystery a little bit. Starting out, I should probably clarify that this conversation is probably somewhat genre specific to like pop rock music, because when you think about it, opera music is telling a story. Country music, I feel like, is generally telling a story. Sacred music lyrics are typically pretty clear cut and have an obvious purpose or intention. But when you get to pop and rock music, you know there’s certain songs like that that make total sense to me. Like Stevie Wonder, I just called to say I love you, like, totally get it. Totally on board. But then there’s so many pop and rock songs that I just I’m completely mystified. It makes no sense to me at all. Um, a lot of Beatles music, I feel like fits this category. A lot of Elton John songs, and I know he didn’t actually write the lyrics, but I did read Rocketman, and that was one of the biographies that I read that I felt like I got some clarity on certain songs, like Tiny Dancer.
Mindy Peterson: [00:03:49] I think they had an explanation of some of those lyrics and you’ll find this interesting. I watched a Phil Collins documentary. It was really good. It was called Face Value, and he actually says in there about the song In the Air Tonight that he just made up the words spontaneously because he liked the sound of them. He didn’t have any meaning at all in mind. So I heard that and I’m like, okay, there’s some legitimacy to my, uh, my puzzlement here. Um, a more recent, like, more current genre or artist. Owl city has a song called fireflies, which that song doesn’t. The lyrics don’t make any sense to me. I will preface this by saying, I have been told many times that I take things very literally, and I know that’s totally true, but I also feel like surely I’m not the only person who has wondered this. So, Mike, can you help us understand this mystery? Why does this happen? It sort of feels like a waste of lyrical real estate. So I’m wondering if that’s really the case or if there’s something else going on beneath the surface here, help us out.
Mike Errico: [00:04:55] That is very interesting that you put it that way. Um, you know, it’s funny, I have been spending my summer this summer putting together a class specific to lyric, and I have found.
Mindy Peterson: [00:05:10] So this is a new class that you’re going to be teaching?
Mike Errico: [00:05:12] Yes. And it’ll be probably spring of 2026 will be the beginning of it.
Mindy Peterson: [00:05:18] Okay.
Mike Errico: [00:05:19] And I have found that the rabbit trail. Is that what you called it? I like that. Um, has many branches that branch out, and it makes you think that perhaps there’s more than one rabbit around here somewhere.
Mindy Peterson: [00:05:35] Maybe. Maybe there’s a rabbit and a mole. And I think a gopher.
Mike Errico: [00:05:40] There’s a whole lot of digging going on in the garden. And a lot of these. Um, I think the questions that you’re talking about lyrically We have many different ways to approach them, and I’ve been trying to track these things down by like, you know, reading and documentaries like the one you were talking about. Yeah. So here are a couple of ways of like of approaching why lyrics are the way that they are. One is what is the intent of the writer. Right. So like historically back in the day, uh, back in it’s not back in the day. It’s many, many, many weeks before. Back in the day. Uh, we had a society that didn’t read. So the way to put news across was song was literally oral tradition set to music. Right?
Mindy Peterson: [00:06:34] So that would be sort of like history. Teaching history, passing along history and culture. It was.
Mike Errico: [00:06:39] History. Yes, history, culture, religion, mythology and troubadours like in the in the 12th century and such were being paid by royalty to write songs that made them look good, so that they would go into the bars and be like, oh, the guy who you give all your money to is really a great guy. Whatever. And they would sing a song, you know, whatever. And that’s how the news would get out there. But all of these things were news oriented or narrative in some sort of way. Right? So storytelling, as you talked about really is the older of these types of forms. So you have the storytelling type thing which persists, and it persists in lots of different types of genres. But there are other intentions for an artist. And here’s the other rabbit hole is the hole the composer, the composer who doesn’t write lyrics at all, or composers like, I don’t know, like Bach or something like that. And it would just be like, Amen, over and over and over again. Right. And the reason why is because that wasn’t the point. Like the point was, yes, they had to get something across for a church or whatever, but they were not lyrics first people. So they would have an incantation, or they would just pull something from the Bible and the real art, and the love came from melody and from harmony and from pulling emotion in a non non lyrical way. Right. So that would be what someone less generous, not yourself, but someone less generous might say is a waste of real estate. Okay. Amen. Or whatever is not or, you know, Gloria in excelsis Deo or whatever is not a waste of real estate, but what it is, is a repeated mantra that gives them the time to do what they do best, right?
Mindy Peterson: [00:08:35] Sure. Well, in that situation, too, they’re probably just emphasizing that. Amen. So be it. Or, but also using that as a vehicle for utilizing the human instrument, the voice. Yes, without any distraction at all about the specific words.
Mike Errico: [00:08:57] Well, that’s interesting that you put it that way because it’s about the distraction, because really what it’s about is focus. Where do you want things to be, to be focused? Songwriting is like it’s several things coming at you at once. And if all three of them are clamoring for attention, what you get is a mess. You get. You’ll get like a chaotic sort of situation.
Mindy Peterson: [00:09:21] And when you say all three things, what are you talking.
Mike Errico: [00:09:23] Oh, I’m so sorry. Like, you know, melody, harmony, lyric, rhythm, you know, tempo. All these different things are coming at you at once, and I think people will either play to their strengths or they’ll decide what to spotlight. Right? So they’ll spotlight. This is a story song. So what I’m going to do with my arrangement musically is to pare it back so that the words will come up front, or the opposite, you know, or you know your Tchaikovsky and you’re like, you know what? No words. This is a musical scenario because that’s what I do. So moving on, you know, into the 19th 20th century, you begin to get mixes of all sorts of things. You get like the operetta, you get Gilbert and Sullivan, you get all these different types of things which are still telling stories, but then you’re mixing it in America with things like slave songs, minstrelsy, what they called society verse, which is stuff in New York, getting into the Tin Pan Alley era, jazz, Dixieland and stuff like that. So you get mixes of high register kind of words and vernacular.
Mike Errico: [00:10:33] So we don’t think of things like, you know, don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing as like, we don’t think of it as groundbreaking. But a lot of those things actually sort of were because they were they were bringing the vernacular in into the conversation of what songwriting is all about. So again, it’s the the intent starts, uh, starts moving. And I’m sorry, there’s a lot of these are a lot of rabbit holes. But like, I think that that’s one direction it starts going. And the artist’s intent, third of all is, you know, storytelling, spotlighting music and not lyric is the is the second one. And third one was articulated really well by David Bowie, which was the song is not finished when it is presented. Right. So the song is presented as a, uh, unfinished situation that the listener is able to inhabit and finish for themselves, and therefore it becomes something that is intimate, personal, and more real than a story song. Uh, because it’s, it’s actually now has elements of their own lives inside of it.
Mindy Peterson: [00:11:47] So would that be a situation where he’s purposely making the lyrics to be pretty abstract, so that people can sort of apply it to their own specific situation and make it personalized to them?
Mike Errico: [00:11:59] Yes, I think that that’s true. And he used a few techniques to do that. Famously, he used this thing called cut ups, which is like he would tell a story or whatever on a piece of paper and cut the thing up into sentences, put them in a hat and then pull them out sort of at random.
Mindy Peterson: [00:12:17] Okay, that’s.
Mike Errico: [00:12:17] Sort.
Mindy Peterson: [00:12:17] Of like that magnetic game. It’s like poetry, fridge poetry or something like that.
Mike Errico: [00:12:23] Exactly what? We have it on our dishwasher. We don’t have it on the refrigerator. But yes, exactly that. That is a that’s an example of cut ups. Later on he got a he put a computer program or he got someone to create a program Room that would serve him these random cut up words that he would input.
Mindy Peterson: [00:12:41] This is pre AI now.
Mike Errico: [00:12:43] Now it’s definitely definitely definitely pre AI. And I’m going back to the thing where you said it was a waste of real estate because it’s not a waste of real estate. But you certainly could waste real estate if you wanted to. Right.
Mindy Peterson: [00:12:58] So what’s the difference between wasting it and not wasting it? If neither if both situations are nonsensical, how do you decide which one is a waste and which one is?
Mike Errico: [00:13:09] I think it’s intent. And like when I sit there as a, uh, as a teacher, I’ll listen to stuff and I’ll be like, what are you talking about? And they’re like, what do you think I’m talking about? And I’m like, you know what? I think you’re trying to pull one over on me.
Mindy Peterson: [00:13:23] I’m not.
Mike Errico: [00:13:24] I’m not 100% sure that your intent is honest. Um, I can’t prove that. Of course. And and maybe it’s me who’s to, like, sort of blockheaded to sort of figure it to be open enough to some sort of interpretation or whatever. But I always watch that because I’m always skeptical of that kind of it’s not an excuse. I guess it’s more of an explanation of why a song is not telling a story, like back in the day. I also bring it back, and you can tell I’m like in the middle of researching this. But like, I started thinking about art, like visual art from like the early 20th century where it’s like romantic and figurative and all this kind of thing, then all of a sudden becomes impressionist, and then it becomes abstract and Dada and abstract expressionist, and then it’s like pow! Like, you know, the white canvas, the garbage on the floor.
Mindy Peterson: [00:14:27] That’s the banana that was duct taped.
Mike Errico: [00:14:28] The banana.
Mindy Peterson: [00:14:29] Duct.
Mike Errico: [00:14:29] Taped to the thing is such a fantastic. Yes. And you’re like, wow, it’s a banana. And like other people, like, you know what? It’s a freaking banana.
Mindy Peterson: [00:14:38] Like, what if listeners have no idea what we’re talking about? Google it because it’s a real thing. And it was, you know, one thing that one thought that’s coming into mind as we’re talking about this too, is it sounds like from what you how you describe the history leading up to more 19th, 20th century music historically has been more functional, whether it’s a lullaby or passing on oral tradition and history, things like that, and even chants like monks chanting or Gregorian chant, you know, there there was some function there and some purpose there compared to this nonsensical lyrics that we’re talking about, which may have intent, may or may not have intent. But one thing that I’m thinking of is Maslow’s hierarchy of need. Yeah, way back when people were much lower on that hierarchy. Like they were looking for survival. They were looking for food, shelter. And I would say in more recent generations, we probably most of us who are listening to the music we’re talking about are probably in a position where we have a lot of those basic needs met, and we’re able to focus a little bit more on self enlightenment and, well, what do I feel about this? And I’m processing my history and my trauma of how my parents didn’t give me peanut butter and jelly when I wanted it. They gave me, you know. So I wonder if that plays into it a little bit.
Mike Errico: [00:16:06] You had to bring it back to the kids.
Mindy Peterson: [00:16:08] Um.
Mike Errico: [00:16:10] Yeah. No, you’re you’re absolutely right. And I should say that part of the survival back then also had to do with society and social bonds and social networking, which meant, well, religious things or mythology or social connection. Sure. And all of the social connection Action was sort of adorned with the songs that met those particular times of year, or the solstice or the, you know, birth of Christ or the birth of whatever, you know, like all that, that kind of thing.
Mindy Peterson: [00:16:44] That’s an interesting point, because here now in the US, for sure, we’re so independence minded and individualistic. It’s more about me and what what makes me unique and what makes me individual, and less about what makes me a part of this community.
Mike Errico: [00:17:02] Yeah. And yet there are definitely patriotic red lines that are laid out. There continue to be, uh, guidelines for these, for these types of things. And it’s also the abstractions also open up types of meaning that we can’t get to with actual language. I feel like language has There’s an end point to what language can get to, and then even poetry gets you a little further, I think, down the road. But if you ask a poet, sure, like, what would I want? You know, it is to aspire to the wordlessness and the emotion of music. Sure. So if you’re not weighing down the lyric with meaning, then you are opening it up to a possibility that can’t actually be expressed in either medium. Right. So you’re just like out there in the, in the, in the deep water, you know, wherever that kind of place is.
Mindy Peterson: [00:18:17] Um, well, there’s certainly plenty of poetry too, that I read, and I think I have no idea what they just said. Like, that doesn’t make any sense to me. So that’s interesting that you bring that that point up. When we spoke last, one thing that sort of took us down this path was we were kind of heading in the direction of examining the purpose of a song, and we were kind of talking about how sometimes music lyrics are purposely abstract because it’s part of the therapeutic process. And we talked about the organization, creative Arts, and how they work with Nashville singer songwriters and veterans who have experienced trauma. And the the two groups work together to come up with a song for each veteran that expresses whatever it is that they want to express, and usually they don’t want to go into graphic detail about the specifics of what they experience. They want to keep it more abstract because it’s just so painful to go into specifics. And so keeping it abstract allows them to go as deep or shallow as they’re able to in that moment. And it also is a way, at whatever level they they can, they want to go into it with the lyrics. It’s a way for them to share their experience with their loved ones, without again having to go into the graphic details of exactly what they experienced. So in a situation like that, the lyrics are purposefully abstract, like, um, Richard Caspar, who I interviewed for that Creative Arts episode, gave the experience of the lyrics that a veteran wrote about I lost my mind by the side of the highway and is in his specific situation. He literally had gone over an explosive device and experienced a brain injury, traumatic brain injury, and had no short term memory left. So he literally felt like he lost his mind on the side of the highway. But somebody else could listen to that song and apply it to their own unique situation. And I.
Mike Errico: [00:20:27] Pulled. Yeah, I pulled over at the at the Dunkin Donuts and started crying. Would be I lost my mind on the side of the highway. Sure, sure, I would be able to. I would be able to enter that lyric in my own particular way. Yes, right. If it were hyper. It’s funny. If it’s too specific, it kind of kills it in a, in a way, because it, it, um, chokes it of its possibilities. Right. When you’re overly, you know, it’s almost like it’s a different art. It’s like the art of, um, not journalism, but like nonfiction. Like, for some reason, my cousin, I have a I have a cousin, Joe, who is obsessed with the song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Mindy Peterson: [00:21:12] Oh, okay.
Mike Errico: [00:21:13] If you’re familiar with that. Yeah.
Mindy Peterson: [00:21:15] I grew up in Michigan and I now live in Minnesota, so it’s like Lake Superior country, right?
Mike Errico: [00:21:21] I figured, and it’s kind of a meme a little bit on, uh, on socials, but it goes through like the weather patterns and where they could have gone to 13 miles away. They could have made it. It is a very detailed situation about the wreck of this, of this boat in the Great Lakes. And he’s he’s very into it. And I think he’s very into the mournful telling of that story and the specificity of it, but it’s the telling of it that I think breaks his heart, you know, because the way that the artist Gordon Lightfoot puts it across gives it color that the language can’t, you know, so you can think of like epic, like some of the ancient epic poems were sung and you can only imagine sort of. What else? What did we lose? Right. It’s like finding something that’s been buried for years. And the colors are gone. And you get, like, a sense of its shape, but you don’t get, like, the resonance that might have occurred as a result of it. Mhm. There’s a third and I think it’s a really important part sort of. Well I don’t know what number we’re on but like uh there’s another part that’s important also is the fact that like and maybe this is a modern thing. Music doesn’t have these um, isn’t constrained by these, uh, applications. Sometimes people just want to dance, for crying out loud. Right. I don’t need a story about a wreck of a boat while dancing at the club or something like that, right? So, like. Yeah, those things, those things are not going to go. They’re not gonna. They collide. They’re they’re not. That’s not a great. Uh, the word is prosody, which is like the marriage of the music and lyric is not a good use. So by having things that don’t entirely make sense, your mind is let at ease. And it’s sort of like it’s told to take a break and let your rear end take over. Right.
Mindy Peterson: [00:23:25] So it could be more versatile if there’s not a real specificity to the lyrics.
Mike Errico: [00:23:31] Right. And the best way I’ve heard of this expressed is through David Byrne. He referred to it as emergent storytelling, which I thought was really interesting. You know, he would start with a rhythm or a track or whatever. It is, a band that they’re working or whatever, and he will start just saying nonsense. Right. Not words, not any. Maybe they’re words. Maybe they’re not words. Maybe they’re sounds. And if they’re sounds that are coming out of your mouth, they’re most likely vowels. And then what he will do is search for words that might work with the emergent vowel that has shown up. And then perhaps a story will arrive that he did not know he was going to tell. So yes, some of his stuff makes absolutely no sense. But it wasn’t intended in the beginning. It’s not a failure. It’s actually a completely new thing. That’s that maybe is arriving and maybe arriving from a purer place, from a non-analytical kind of place.
Mindy Peterson: [00:24:44] Well, I thought it was really interesting. Just six months ish ago, there was an article I read in the New York Times that was basically expressing the exact opposite of what I started this episode, this conversation saying, and it was a titled. The article was titled Pop Musicians Please spare Me the Backstories, and the author says that the power of a lasting song is that it breaks free of its origins. And he, he or she, I don’t remember was like done with the celebrity narratives. Sure. Well, like when you get so specific like that. Yeah, we make the connection. But he says. But enigma dispelled. And so I thought, hmm, okay, well, that’s a different way to look at it.
Mike Errico: [00:25:29] That’s, you know, and yet all the pressure on the writers is to go on social media and not only give you the backstory, but give you the recording technique and give you the guitar fingerings and give you the that’s that perhaps is what he’s or whoever this is, is railing against. Because what happens is you get no mystery. I think that the mystery of writers and artists is really part of the whole thing, and it’s something that social media has really sort of chipped away at. And I think a lot of people, a lot of people miss it. A lot of people miss the idea of like, well, did did Robert Johnson really go to the crossroads and make a deal with the devil, you know. Can you imagine, like Robert Johnson? Like getting on Tik Tok. Like I’d like to talk about the rumor that’s going around, about me going to the crossroads and dying, the deal with the devil that did not actually happen. Or, you know, and just like having the whole thing just killed like that is something that happens, I think, regularly now in the interest of content right over the song.
Mindy Peterson: [00:26:39] So if we look at some of the different purposes that composers of lyrics songwriters may have for writing some of these abstract lyrics, some may call them nonsensical, um, one one purpose may be to make the song more versatile and expand the possibilities of the song. It applies to different people in different contexts and different ways. It it kind of gives people a problem to solve, and they really think about interpreting it and deciphering what this composer meant and where this came from. So that could be one purpose.
Mike Errico: [00:27:19] Gives it another level, you know.
Mindy Peterson: [00:27:21] Another purpose, like the Phil Collins situation where, um, to give a little bit more context to that in the air tonight, he did say he just made the words up spontaneously because he liked the sound of them. He didn’t have any meaning at all in mind. He was also in the midst of a big breakup from his wife at the time. So it was just like this anger and despair and frustration that was just coming out in whatever songs he was throwing together. So that played a part into it, too. But he does say that he didn’t have any meaning in mind. And actually, I think I saw one of John Lennon’s songs, too. He said he intentionally wrote the lyrics to be really bizarre, in part to sort of make fun of the fans who are constantly looking for these deep meanings in his lyrics.
Mike Errico: [00:28:11] I am the walrus.
Mindy Peterson: [00:28:12] Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense because that’s another song that makes no sense at all.
Mike Errico: [00:28:18] Right, I Am the Walrus was made, and it’s very funny that those two songs that you’re talking about are the ones, because the Beatles were tired of everyone reading into everything. And if you watch Get Back the, uh, the documentary.
Mindy Peterson: [00:28:33] Do that I haven’t yet.
Mike Errico: [00:28:34] Well, it’s a masterclass in dispelling lyrics a little bit, because Paul McCartney is just sitting there playing the piano and flipping through a magazine, and he’s finding words. He’s just like, oh, that’s good. Oh that’s good.
Mindy Peterson: [00:28:48] Interesting.
Mike Errico: [00:28:49] Another example, like for the benefit of Mr. Kite, which is on, uh, on Sergeant Pepper’s, there’s literally a poster. And they went through this poster and that’s where the lyrics came from. But I am the Walrus was them saying like, we’re tired of you guys reading into everything. We’re going to purposefully throw something at the wall and throw you off. So there’s a.
Mindy Peterson: [00:29:12] Purpose. Mission accomplished.
Mike Errico: [00:29:15] Totally in the air tonight. The same thing. And yet I have heard stories that tie all of I Am the Walrus together. What he’s really talking about, blah blah blah blah. And I’ve heard a story about In the Air Tonight which, like, you know, urban legend or whatever, like, oh, he saw some guy drowning and somebody else wouldn’t help him, but Phil doesn’t know how to swim or something, right? So he’s like, so Phil’s like, sitting there like on the, on the shore going like I remember, I remember don’t worry like and like a whole story is made up of it. And of course, he’s sitting there like, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Sure. Um, right. So people will create connections where there are no connections. That’s like. That’s the nature of conspiracy theory, right? Sure. Um, and songs sort of work on the same level as conspiracy theory when they’re left abstract enough, and it’s actually just where our brains go and we enjoy it. And we not only that, we think we’re the first person to find it also. So it’s a personal triumph of some sort that like, I know the walrus, you know, whatever, you know.
Mindy Peterson: [00:30:32] Sure.
Mike Errico: [00:30:33] So that’s that’s a possibility of where, uh, of how these different songs get used.
Mindy Peterson: [00:30:38] When we talked about the, the purpose of sort of personal therapy, whether you’re a veteran or you’ve had trauma in some other way, maybe you’ve gone through a breakup, whatever it is, you know, you may want to keep words purposefully abstract for for some therapeutic reason. Any other purposes that you want to mention that we haven’t talked about yet that people may have for keeping those lyrics abstract?
Mike Errico: [00:31:03] They’re all, I mean, these are all like the offshoots of the rabbit holes, rabbit trails, whatever. Uh, is that if you there’s keeping things sort of abstract for your own personal, uh, benefit or, you know, for your own protection, as you say. But then there’s also a lot of times, uh, code. Right. So the people who know know what you’re talking.
Mindy Peterson: [00:31:28] About, if.
Mike Errico: [00:31:29] It’s if you know, you know. Absolutely. So there’s a lot of code that goes on, you know, jazz or, you know, slang from any sort of any walk of life. People will be able to talk to each other in a public way that other people are not going to, um, really get. So we get messages, we get messages sent back and forth. Interesting. In that way, or even just the way you’re saying things to me, like accents are code as well. So like, I’ll have a songwriter come into class and just write a really good song, you know, and it’s it’s really strong and it’s strong enough that I’m like, you know, if you put a fiddle and a pedal steel guitar on it and somebody who sang, that’s a great country song and this is somebody who’s like, straight up from, you know, New York City or something like that. But if you change the code a little bit, the lyric is working and you can speak to the people who listen to that.
Mindy Peterson: [00:32:29] Mhm. Yeah.
Mike Errico: [00:32:30] You know, so again there’s, there’s lyric and then there’s the way the lyric is, is being is being presented and all of it is very codified. And you can play with that if you wanted to. There’s one that we, that we haven’t gotten around to. Well, we sort of have. But I just want to put another point on it, which is like there are lots of songs that don’t want to make sense, don’t mean to make sense, and you’re happy that they don’t make sense because there’s no test at the end of this, right? So, like, you can make an argument for Abracadabra by Lady Gaga being like, you know, there’s a lot there’s, you know, death or love tonight. There’s lots of, like, signifiers to one way or another. But the title setting and the chorus is Abracadabra, mama, mama, whatever. And she’s like doing. And she does that in, in so many of her songs, and it’s just Enaruna and Gaga, you know, she always puts the word Gaga in there. She, like, fits it in somewhere, like a little name check for herself. And they don’t mean anything, but they mean plenty, right? At the same, at the same time. And we don’t have to deal with it in a particularly intellectual kind of way. We can just go to the club and dance to it and repeat it and join in with it.
Mindy Peterson: [00:33:50] That makes sense. And that’s sort of like a contrast to more like a Bob Dylan song, where his lyrics do tend to be very intense, and they do require some interpretation at times, but there. There typically is a serious meaning to them. It’s not just kept. Abstract for the sake of sure things like. Sure.
Mike Errico: [00:34:10] He was also highly influenced by the poets of the time, who were influenced by the modern artists of the time, and there was an abstraction going on. The abstraction of lyric is also a product of its time. And then finally, the number one song this week is Morgan Wallen song. And the lyrics are narrative coded and they’re they’re really unnerving, actually. You know, there’s a lot going on in the song. I may be crazy, but the world is insane. Uh, is sort of what he’s talking about. So it’s a real like a social comment that’s going on. He sleeps with a 44 under his bed. There’s a lot of paranoia that’s sort of going on in it. I can’t stand it that I can’t remember the name of the song. Uh, I’m the problem.
Speaker3: [00:35:05] Oh, I heard that one.
Mindy Peterson: [00:35:06] Yeah. So that includes a lot of these different purposes and intents, all in one song.
Mike Errico: [00:35:13] It really. It really does. And it is a, um. It’s a more narrative telling of the present moment.
Mindy Peterson: [00:35:21] Do you think audiences today expect lyrics to make sense or not make sense? Have we gotten to a point where the vibe and the sound, and how viral a song is is more important than meaning, or people maybe have a preference for attaching their own meaning, I think, to a song.
Mike Errico: [00:35:41] I think lyric in general, I think lyrics are much more narrative now and much more understandable. I think in the in the pop, the female pop world in particular, I would not, I would not date one of them because wow, all the things that come out… are like, wow. I had a relationship and it did not work well. And here’s the whole thing.
Mike Errico: [00:36:06] And you can really follow along. And the kinds of insults that are hurled and stuff like that are very knowable, very understandable. Right?
Mike Errico: [00:36:15] Um, hip hop, things like Kendrick Lamar, I feel like my students are sitting there like, and they love to dive into the double entendres. And who is he talking about here and what’s he referencing there? And and so it’s a game for them.
Mindy Peterson: [00:36:29] Okay.
Mike Errico: [00:36:30] Uh, there are some pop people that that, you know, the stuff doesn’t doesn’t mean anything. And they’re looking for they’re just looking for something else, some, some other type of universality or like you said, like maybe the true intent is theirs and there’s no need to really, like, spell it out because it’s my problem. It’s not your problem. Yeah. Like, take my losing my mind by the side of the road line and apply it to your Dunkin Donuts in your town or, you know, or whatever.
Mindy Peterson: [00:37:01] Yeah, that’s interesting that you say some of your students almost make a game out of interpreting some of those double entendres, because I could see that being an appeal to of the the lyrics that aren’t real clear cut. Is it prompts conversation and debate in a friendly, bantering sort of way, in a way that’s not binary. Like, okay, you’re right or I’m wrong. You know, political conversations can get into that where it’s like there’s only one way. Whereas debating lyrics of a song can be more of a friendly banter like, what’s better, Android or Apple?
Mike Errico: [00:37:38] They also like to one up each other like, oh, that’s the that’s the second sort of telling of this line. But like, if you think about it the other way, he’s referencing some previous work of his from a long time ago and you know, so it’s, um. Yeah, it’s a conversation piece and it’s kind of a video game a little bit. It’s like a or a board game. Anyway, um, I think they get a lot of, uh, they get a lot of joy out of that. And then there’s another part of lyric, of course, which is the rhythm and like the the flow of it as it rolls over time, the ability to do that in a seamless fashion is also incredibly satisfying. Whether or not it makes sense, you know, uh, it might not make sense, it might not make sense to you. It might be code, it might be a lot of different things. But like if it feels good over the timing and over the melody, sometimes that is sufficient.
Mindy Peterson: [00:38:33] Ah.This has been so fun going down these rabbit holes with you. And I will have a much more, uh, level of tolerance and interest the next time I hear a song for sure that has lyrics that I can’t quite decipher or make sense out of just having some of these different purposes and intents in mind as I listen to.
Mike Errico: [00:38:55] I would only keep in mind like a little bit of, uh, be a little skeptical because, like, there are definite charlatans who are just like, I can just I can literally go to my refrigerator and put my refrigerator magnets together and do it and not intend anything, and then tell you that I intended something, you know? Um, and that’s the exact telling that the that your New York Times person does not want to know about. It either works or it doesn’t work.
Mindy Peterson: [00:39:24] Yes. And I’ll put a link in the show notes to that article, too.
Mike Errico: [00:39:27] Yeah, yeah, I need I need to check that out.
Mindy Peterson: [00:39:30] Sure. Well, this has been so fun, Mike. Thank you. Usually, as you know, I ask all my guests to close out our conversation with a musical ending, a coda by sharing a song or story about a moment that music enhanced your life. But since you just did that recently, I thought it might be fun to stick with the theme of our Our conversation and see if you have any personal favorite nonsensical lyric song. Does anything come to your mind that sort of like a favorite? Or maybe just one that immediately comes to your mind?
Mike Errico: [00:40:02] Well, yes. Well, the one that I, I love and I talk about sometimes in class is very upbeat also. I think it’s a good, good way to end. It’s a, it’s a song by a 90s R&B act called Black Box. And the song is called everybody, everybody. I just love that. The chorus just goes everybody, everybody, everybody, everybody. Every. And that’s it.
Mindy Peterson: [00:40:28] Oh.
Mike Errico: [00:40:29] And there’s, it’s everybody, everybody. There’s no verb ever. So I don’t know what everybody does. But somehow everybody knows you know, what are they doing. They’re dancing, you know. And the rest of the song is, is, is giving the verb, you know.
Mindy Peterson: [00:40:44] If you know, you know.
Mike Errico: [00:40:45] If you know, you know.
Transcribed by Sonix.ai