The New Old Song

For most of my life, I have lived under the assumption that I understood what songs meant. I have been very wrong. I understand the words, literally. I know how keys work to play on our moods, and how song structure can impact the effect of a song. But I have not understood much of the music I listen to. The actual underlying emotion that the songwriter captured and the layers of feeling a song can evoke are something I now know I will never completely understand.

The reason for this is very simple. The vast majority of songs you or I will ever hear were written to address a particular emotion that most listeners have never actually experienced. Therefore we have no real way to understand, and also do not realize we do not understand the song. We don’t know what we don’t know. As a counterpoint, movies and television can sidestep this issue by showing us what is going on, and by nature of the medium, there is much more exposition and narrative to fill in the context of a particular scene. Music does the opposite.

Songs are the scene with no intro or epilogue. A good songwriter can bring up excruciating pain with a few syllables, or use a phrase to evoke tremendous joy. But the listener needs a reference point. And as the listener grows in experience, familiar songs suddenly take on new meaning. If the listener does not have that shared experience, the song will sound completely different.

Go listen to “Somebody to Love” by Queen. On the surface it is a song about finding love. It is a short song lyrically, having only 20 or so individual lines. But the beauty of the song is only truly apparent if you have listened to it during at least two very distinct emotional points in your life. First, listen to it when you are happy, or in a relationship. Then listen to the song after you have been dumped. You have had your heart broken, you want that person back, and hate yourself for wanting that, and now you want to get over it. Suddenly it is a much better song, and Freddie’s croon will hammer you heart in a way it never could if you have not experienced that.

“I Will Survive” is a thematic sibling with a slightly more militant take on the same idea. Almost every song by Death Cab For Cutie has to be listened to before the crucial I-need-to-get-over-this stage, or it loses a lot of vicarious heart-tugging power.

The interesting upshot of this is that many songs I have long thought are horrible sound fantastic once I have met the emotional criteria. For some reason country gets better as I age and lose some of my younger self’s swollen ego. I can listen to country songs now and find it very rewarding, whereas I used to think country was the epitome of formulaic songwriting – I identify with the “mundane” topics found in those songs more. This sympathy through shared emotion is a great tool. If you have an open ear, so to speak, you can go back and hear completely different meanings on the radio, in your CD case, or on your computer.

So onward! I know I don't understand most of the songs I listen to, and that makes listening evenm ore exciting!