The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature (5 page)
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Authors: Daniel J. Levitin
BOOK: The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature
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It rained all day. Puddles started to gather and the little sewer drain on every corner started to back up. Water began to gather in street intersections. The city engineers had not had to design for water runoff because it usually doesn’t rain much in this part of the world. It continued to rain for a week. My overactive hippocampus kept offering me more rain songs, floating up from my unconscious: “No Rain” by Blind Melon, “Fire and Rain” by James Taylor (and the haunting cover version by Blood, Sweat & Tears), “I Can’t Stand the Rain” by Tina Turner, “Still Raining, Still Dreaming” by Hendrix, and of course “The Rain Song” by Led Zeppelin, the opening chord a downward arpeggio, itself falling like rain. I congratulated myself on successfully avoiding getting stuck with an earworm from “Here Comes the Rain Again” by Eurythmics or “Walk Between the Raindrops” by Donald Fagen. I fired up the stereo with “Rainy Days and Mondays” (the Carpenters), “Rainin’ ” (Rosanne Cash), “Let It Rain” (Eric Clapton with his group Derek and the Dominos), and two rain songs by one of my favorite groups: “Who’ll Stop the Rain” and “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” (Creedence Clearwater Revival). Two more of my favorite groups finally weighed in from down below in my hippocampus, playing in my head as if a CD player were wired directly to my neurons: “Prayers for Rain” by the Cure, and “Bangkok Rain” by the Cult. So many rain songs! And it kept raining outside.
When I talked to one of my favorite songwriters, Rodney Crowell, about
Six Songs
, he argued that the first songs composed by humans probably dealt with the elements, with weather, sun, moon, rain, and so on, because these would have been so central to early man.
Six Songs
, he argued that the first songs composed by humans probably dealt with the elements, with weather, sun, moon, rain, and so on, because these would have been so central to early man.
Lee and I met the following week and the sun had been out for a couple of days by then. (“Here Comes the Sun,” I thought as I walked across campus to meet him, and this gave way to auditory images of “Sun King” and “I’ll Follow the Sun” [Beatles], “Let the Sunshine In” [The 5th Dimension], “Sunny” [Bobby Hebb], “You Are My Sunshine” [as performed by Ray Charles], “Wake Up Sunshine” [Chicago], “Who Loves the Sun” [The Velvet Underground], “California Sun” [the Ramones and the Dictators], “House of the Rising Sun” [Eric Burdon back when he was with the Animals, one of the first rock songs I ever wanted to play nonstop for a week].) Lee brought Robert Frost’s “The Wind and the Rain” and Walt Whitman’s “Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun” from
Leaves of Grass
. I brought Cole Porter and Joni Mitchell.
Leaves of Grass
. I brought Cole Porter and Joni Mitchell.
Many of my favorite lyrics have internal rhymes. By “internal rhymes,” I’m referring to rhymes and near rhymes that occur anywhere other than the end of a line, like these from Cole Porter:
Oh by Jove and by Jehovah, you have set my heart aflame,
(And to you, you Casanova, my reactions are the same.)
I would sing thee tender verses but the flair, alas, I lack.
(Oh go on, try to versify and I’ll versify back.)
Notice in the first two lines the long o sound that is repeated in Jove, JeHOvah and CasaNOva, and the near rhyme of
heart
and
are
near the end of those two lines. Another thing Porter is famous for is invoking common, everyday expressions in playful ways. We are familiar with the phrase “alas and alack,” which the composer plays with when he writes, in the third line, “alas, I lack.” All this while maintaining the end-of-the-line rhymes we’ve come to expect in contemporary song: aflame/same and lack/back.
heart
and
are
near the end of those two lines. Another thing Porter is famous for is invoking common, everyday expressions in playful ways. We are familiar with the phrase “alas and alack,” which the composer plays with when he writes, in the third line, “alas, I lack.” All this while maintaining the end-of-the-line rhymes we’ve come to expect in contemporary song: aflame/same and lack/back.
Or consider these lines, from “Begin the Beguine,” where the song title itself is a visual and auditory wordplay:
To live it again is past all endeavor,
Except when that tune clutches my heart,
And there we are, swearing to love forever,
And promising never, never to part.
Notice in the third line the internal rhyme in
there
and
swear.
The first and third lines rhyme, as they ought to, ending with
endeavor
and
forever.
But Porter adds an additional rhyme to these in the middle of the fourth line with the repetition of
never.
I sure wish I could write like that! (I’d lure bright fish, I’d swish as I sat, my heart would go pitter pat, if only I could dish out fine lines such as that!)
there
and
swear.
The first and third lines rhyme, as they ought to, ending with
endeavor
and
forever.
But Porter adds an additional rhyme to these in the middle of the fourth line with the repetition of
never.
I sure wish I could write like that! (I’d lure bright fish, I’d swish as I sat, my heart would go pitter pat, if only I could dish out fine lines such as that!)
Of course some people don’t care about this sort of wordplay as much as they do about the content; they may study lyrics intently, looking for wisdom, sage advice, just as many of us did in the sixties. Rock stars were our poets; we felt that they had hard-won life lessons to pass on to the rest of us.
Others learn the lyrics syllable-by-syllable as a means of recalling the music, but don’t pay much attention to the lyrical content itself. I had a girlfriend who was born and raised in Belgium, and we spent many wonderful vacations visiting her family and friends in her hometown Mons (
Bergen
in Flemish), where she went to university at the Faculté de Polytechnique there. Every one of her friends knew the Eagles’ song “Hotel California” syllable-for-syllable, but most of them didn’t speak a word of English. They had no idea what they were saying when they sang “warm smell of co-li-tas/rising up through the air/up ahead in the distance/I saw a shim-mer-ing light.” Not knowing English, they didn’t know where the beginnings and endings of words were. Just as my little sister used to think that “The Star-Spangled Banner” spoke of a particular kind of lamp called a donzerlee light (for “dawn’s early light”), my Belgian friends thought there must be a type of lamp called a “murring light” (from shim-mer-ing light). And what was this thing called a “prizzonerzeer” that all of us are (“we are all just prisoners here . . .”)? They were even more curious to know what the song
meant,
and I had to confess that as much as I loved the song—I had even learned the guitar solo note-for-note to impress fellow musicians—I didn’t have the slightest idea what it was about. The emotional impact of the line “you can check out anytime you like/but you can never leave” was not diminished at all by the fact I didn’t know what Don Henley was trying to say.
Bergen
in Flemish), where she went to university at the Faculté de Polytechnique there. Every one of her friends knew the Eagles’ song “Hotel California” syllable-for-syllable, but most of them didn’t speak a word of English. They had no idea what they were saying when they sang “warm smell of co-li-tas/rising up through the air/up ahead in the distance/I saw a shim-mer-ing light.” Not knowing English, they didn’t know where the beginnings and endings of words were. Just as my little sister used to think that “The Star-Spangled Banner” spoke of a particular kind of lamp called a donzerlee light (for “dawn’s early light”), my Belgian friends thought there must be a type of lamp called a “murring light” (from shim-mer-ing light). And what was this thing called a “prizzonerzeer” that all of us are (“we are all just prisoners here . . .”)? They were even more curious to know what the song
meant,
and I had to confess that as much as I loved the song—I had even learned the guitar solo note-for-note to impress fellow musicians—I didn’t have the slightest idea what it was about. The emotional impact of the line “you can check out anytime you like/but you can never leave” was not diminished at all by the fact I didn’t know what Don Henley was trying to say.
This is the power of the song lyric—the mutually supporting forces that bind rhythm, melody, harmony, timbre, lyrics, and meaning in a song allow some of the elements to fill in for others when there is ambiguity, contradiction, or outright opacity, as is the case with “Hotel California.” That the literal meaning is not apparent in that song—or for that matter, in almost any song by Steely Dan, the kings of cryptic lyrics—doesn’t reduce the power of the song. Each song’s elements add up to an artistic result. The whole invokes meaning but does not constrain it. In fact, this is one of the features that gives songs their power over us: because the meaning is not perfectly defined, each of us as listeners becomes a participant in the ongoing process of understanding the song. The song is personal because we’ve been asked or forced to fill in some of the meaning for ourselves.
Many of us feel a peculiarly intimate relationship with popular songwriters because it is their very voices that we hear in our heads. (And it is for this reason that poetry fans so highly value recordings of a favorite poet reading his or her own works.) Most of us listen to songs we like
hundreds
of times. The voice, nuances, and singer’s phrasing become embedded in our memories in a way we don’t get with poetry that we read to ourselves. We feel we know something about the lives, the thoughts and feelings of our favorite songwriters because we know several or dozens of their songs. And because of the mutually reinforcing constraints of rhythm, melody, and accent structure—combined with a shot of dopamine or other neurochemicals that are known to accompany music listening—our relationship with song becomes vivid and long-lasting, activating more regions of the brain than anything else we know of. The connection to some songs is so long-lasting that patients with Alzheimer’s disease remember songs and song lyrics long after they’ve forgotten everything else.
hundreds
of times. The voice, nuances, and singer’s phrasing become embedded in our memories in a way we don’t get with poetry that we read to ourselves. We feel we know something about the lives, the thoughts and feelings of our favorite songwriters because we know several or dozens of their songs. And because of the mutually reinforcing constraints of rhythm, melody, and accent structure—combined with a shot of dopamine or other neurochemicals that are known to accompany music listening—our relationship with song becomes vivid and long-lasting, activating more regions of the brain than anything else we know of. The connection to some songs is so long-lasting that patients with Alzheimer’s disease remember songs and song lyrics long after they’ve forgotten everything else.
The Beatles ushered in an era of singers writing their own songs. Although Chuck Berry wrote his, and Elvis cowrote a few of his own, it wasn’t until the Beatles and their enormous commercial success—followed by the success and writing of Bob Dylan and the Beach Boys, among others—that fans began to expect musicians to write their own material. The Beatles even cultivated this sort of personal connection to their audience. In their early songs, Paul McCartney says, he and John intentionally—somewhat calculatingly—tried to inject personal pronouns into as many of the early lyrics and song titles as they could. They took seriously the task of forging a relationship with their fans in a very personal way. “She Loves
You,
” “
I
Want to Hold
Your
Hand,” “P.S.
I
Love
You,
” “Love
Me
Do,” “Please Please
Me,
” “From
Me
to
You.
”
You,
” “
I
Want to Hold
Your
Hand,” “P.S.
I
Love
You,
” “Love
Me
Do,” “Please Please
Me,
” “From
Me
to
You.
”
Still, it is important to note that some people ignore the lyrics more or less, and are drawn primarily to rhythm and melody. Although many people are attracted by the storylines of opera, equal numbers report that they don’t even try to follow the plot, enjoying simply the colorful scenery and the beautiful vocal sounds they hear. Even in pop, jazz, hip-hop, and rock, legions of people believe that the lyrics function primarily as an afterthought, something to hang the melody on. “What do lyrics have to do with music?” many demand. “They’re just there so that the singer doesn’t have to go ‘la la la’ with the melody all the time.” And as far as many people are concerned, “la la la” would be just fine.
But for those who love lyrics, for whom “la la la” won’t do, there are many rewards in studying the ways in which the best of them are crafted. While researching this book, Sting and I discussed the relationship between poetry and lyrics. Both of us being Joni Mitchell fans, we discussed her song “Amelia” as an example of a lyric we admire:
I was driving across the burning desert
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails
Across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
It was the strings of my guitar
Oh Amelia, it was just a false alarm.
Note the repetition of the long i sound in
I
and
driving
in the first line; the repetition of the d sound in
driving
and
desert
in that same line; the repetition of the s sound in
spotted
and
six
in the second line. Of course there is also the alliteration in
hexagram
of the
heavens.
The song features a prominent guitar, connecting the music to the lyric. I love that she mentions her six-string guitar in the sixth line of the song, just one subtle element among many that create an internal consistency in this lyric. There is the semantic connection between a
desert
and a
plain,
both flat expanses of terrain, a connection implied by her choice of the homonym
planes
in the second line.
I
and
driving
in the first line; the repetition of the d sound in
driving
and
desert
in that same line; the repetition of the s sound in
spotted
and
six
in the second line. Of course there is also the alliteration in
hexagram
of the
heavens.
The song features a prominent guitar, connecting the music to the lyric. I love that she mentions her six-string guitar in the sixth line of the song, just one subtle element among many that create an internal consistency in this lyric. There is the semantic connection between a
desert
and a
plain,
both flat expanses of terrain, a connection implied by her choice of the homonym
planes
in the second line.
Of course, some of these connections may be only coincidence, things the writer herself did not notice. But these sorts of connections are prevalent in all great poetry, displaying the subtle workings of and intricate connections among imagination, intellect, and the subconscious. Even if a poet wasn’t aware herself of all that could be read into a particular poem, great poems reward this sort of analysis, and lesser poems do not—the deeper you look, the less interesting they seem. And the imagery is palpable—a burning desert, white vapor trails, bleak terrain. The song draws pictures with words. It also has metaphor, the drive across the desert being a Lakoffian metaphor for a relationship.
Many of Sting’s own lyrics have a literary sensibility, coupled with a real ease of expression—the very sensual quality I spoke of earlier. Take his song “Russians” for example:
In Europe and America
There’s a growing feeling of hysteria
Conditioned to respond to all the threats
In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets
Mister Khrushchev said, “We will bury you”
I don’t subscribe to this point of view
It would be such an ignorant thing to do
If the Russians love their children too
How can I save my little boy
From Oppenheimer’s deadly toy
There is no monopoly of common sense
On either side of the political fence
We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too
The lyrics roll right off the tongue, easily. They’re easy to say, and they feel good in the mouth. Repetitions of vowel and consonant sounds—the phonology
—
give the verse forward momentum. The meaning is artfully veiled in metaphors. The last line of the first verse mentions children, the first line of the next verse a “boy,” and then the atom bomb is described in terms of children and boys, “Oppenheimer’s deadly toy.” The poet delights in stringing together familiar phrases that reverberate in our collective memory—“rhetorical speeches,” “we will bury you,” “the political fence,” and so on. The message is cast in terms of a hope that the “monsters” that inhabited each opposing side of the Cold War (for that is how we were raised to see our enemies, as subhuman monsters) will find common ground and hopefully common sense in their love for their children. This echoes General William Westmoreland’s Vietnam War-era pronouncement (made famous in the chilling documentary
Hearts and Minds
) that there was no shame in accidentally killing North Vietnamese children because “the Oriental mind doesn’t put the same high price on life as does the Westerner.”
—
give the verse forward momentum. The meaning is artfully veiled in metaphors. The last line of the first verse mentions children, the first line of the next verse a “boy,” and then the atom bomb is described in terms of children and boys, “Oppenheimer’s deadly toy.” The poet delights in stringing together familiar phrases that reverberate in our collective memory—“rhetorical speeches,” “we will bury you,” “the political fence,” and so on. The message is cast in terms of a hope that the “monsters” that inhabited each opposing side of the Cold War (for that is how we were raised to see our enemies, as subhuman monsters) will find common ground and hopefully common sense in their love for their children. This echoes General William Westmoreland’s Vietnam War-era pronouncement (made famous in the chilling documentary
Hearts and Minds
) that there was no shame in accidentally killing North Vietnamese children because “the Oriental mind doesn’t put the same high price on life as does the Westerner.”
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