SONGWRITING
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I suffer a unique affliction. It's disconcerting. A tad embarrassing. Especially as I'm a multi-decade reader, book lover and now writer. I'm supposedly a wordsmith, a fella who likes and adores words. And yet… I somehow don't pay attention to or know a song's full lyrics.
Almost never. Literally zero clue.
A songwriter works her ass off, bearing her soul, and I'm humming or da duh duh-ing along, enjoying the melody, the beat, the cadence and general feel, but ninety percent of the time my brain doesn't hear, focus in on or know the words or actual message the song is trying to convey.
I might know a repetitive chorus or one or two catchy phrases, but otherwise I'm just smiling, humming along, oblivious. The songwriter might be saying, Death to all men born in the 1970s! or Joe, you're a piece of crap! or Aren't you glad you're a fascist pig? and I'll just be driving along, bopping my head up and down and saying, "Good song, eh?"
A moment to illustrate my point. Growing up, Billy Joel's "Only the Good Die Young" was all over the radio, a real head-bopper if there ever was one. I'd hum along to ninety percent of it then get to the chorus and sing the words "only the good die young," hit the beats appropriately and then drop right back into humming.
Then one day, somewhere in my mid-40s and hearing the song in the car, (my brain must've been taking a break from pondering the depths of the universe for once), phrases started to filter through.
You got a nice white dress and a party on your confirmation… Hmm, what? When you were counting on your rosary… Did he say rosary? What the hell? You Catholic girls start too late… Oh wait, WAIT, how have I missed this?!?
I don't take offense to Billy Joel's message. I take offense to the fact that I don't hear or pay attention to song lyrics, completely disregarding at least half of a creator's intention!
And I call myself an artist? A writer? A decades-long musical theater actor? Ah, no wonder I suck at understanding and appreciating poetry.
Every Fleetwood Mac song, here's my brain: blah blah blah your gypsy, blah blah blah something about thunder and raining, blah blah blah yesterday's gone blah blah believe in miracles something, something, something…
I don't deliberately think lyrics aren't important — of course they are! — but my brain has never focused on or appreciated what's arguably fifty percent of a song's importance.
I have music-loving friends who know every crushing lyric, every biting and heartrending utterance (Dude, this song is just killing me, it's speaking to me) and then there's me remembering that yeah, I'm supposed to be listening for what the singer's trying to say instead of just swaying to the melody.
What's that all about?
I'm not talking about trying to decipher the lyrics of some headbanger by KISS, Guns N' Roses or Iron Maiden. (We've all had to go running to the liner notes to learn the official lyrics on plenty of songs in life). Elton John, Joni Mitchell or John Legend may be articulating the words superbly. I'm just saying my brain isn't primed to tractor-beam into lyrics like most song-loving humans do. I mean, for most, isn't that the point?
Just yesterday on social media, a video of an amazing dancer came across my feed. He was performing a breathtaking and lyrical dance to a Lady Gaga song, "Always Remember Us This Way" from the movie A Star Is Born. (I had to just look up the title, because of course, I rarely know song titles either — I did at least know it was her).
I was deeply moved by his performance. My head said, "Ah yes, I love this song" (meaning, I love the melody and how the aural sound generally makes me feel). Yes, I got the gist and the emotion of it, but didn't experience the song through the words. Her phrase I want to catch fire has somehow always punched through, but then my brain goes into humming or swaying with the melody. I can hum or buh-buh you every musical flourish, every phrase that builds to a crescendo and feel it, but she may as well be singing I wipe my bum with this piece of paper (beautifully, with feeling!) or be singing in Farsi because I'll barely notice it.
It's so weird. I think fellow writers (and music lovers) Dana DuBois, Stewart Mason or Scott-Ryan Abt must have hands to their chests, "clutching their pearls" in shock and awe. Those of you who adore certain songs, concerts and the particular way a singer conveys such biting emotion through words must be really shaking your heads and thinking, That's the entire reason they wrote the song, Joe — to convey a feeling or situation.
And before you suggest it, no, my brain isn't predisposed to appreciate the melody more because I'm some trained musician. I'm not. I don't play an instrument like the piano, guitar or clarinet. I can't read music. I can follow along and I'm a singer, but I don't sight-read and haven't been schooled on music appreciation. But I do marvel at a brilliant melody or beat.
Seems I'm just weirdly and oddly me. Dare I say there might be some laziness. I could absolutely sit down in a chair with the sole purpose of only listening to a song word by word. (And I since have, as an experiment). It's just weird that it takes that force for me to focus there, when I'm guessing for at least 70 percent of the population they take in a song's words and notes with equal measure. They actually hear a song's entire spark.
As someone who currently sings in a choir, as someone who likes words and as someone who used to try and get musical theater jobs by having to audition and impress using songs, this realization is very disconcerting
No wonder I was pretty unsuccessful at auditioning. I was focusing so much on hitting the notes or conveying "a pretty song" that I basically had words (that'd been memorized) falling out of my mouth. I was like, "Here is my voice, HEAR my voice" instead of like, "Here is something I'm trying to say." Which is a shame.
In my current barbershop-music chorus, yes, I know my notes, I even have all the words down and know them, but hmm, each time I take a breath to sing, each time I prepare to utter a phrase of music, am I thinking about what I'm about to convey to the listener? Rarely. If I'm painfully honest, I'm singing my words on top of well-sung notes. I can recognize they're often well-crafted lyrics, a catchy turn of phrase and they do tumble out of my mouth, but I don't prepare to share the meaning with every breath I take.
I don't expect anyone to cry for my struggle. As afflictions go, I could certainly do much worse. But it hurts a little, realizing all of this now, after all these years of supposedly attempting a career as a performer. I love music and it's on all the time in my home, but it's the melody and beat that gets me the most, along with my well-placed humming dropping in to fill in the verses I don't know.
Even as a voiceover actor, I hear cadence and musicality in commercial scripts, in how they should be narrated. And don't get me wrong, this is a talent — well-written scripts should have a musicality to them. The only problem? I'm standing here, again, realizing I've been an "okay" voice actor who can convey information articulately, but it's mostly been about the technical performance and rarely conveying the message the client wants put across with ease and authenticity.
There are exceptions, though, with the lyrics. I find that if a song is from The Great American Songbook, interpreted by a Capitol Records artist like Nancy Wilson, Steve Lawrence or a young Sinatra or Judy Garland, those lyrics tend to come through to me. They're fully integrated and part of the cleverness of the piece, so the listener almost has to know them. Also, these folks were great at articulation while singing, as opposed to say a Kurt Cobain mid-90s grunge drone or mumble.
Somehow with rock 'n roll or pop songs, from 1960 to today, my brain isn't oriented to take in the song's lyric with equal importance to the groovy beat or the crescendoing flourishes. Depeche Mode may be telling me to "Enjoy the Silence" or Sixpence None the Richer may croon "Kiss Me," and I love both, but I'm da-da-duh-ing my way through the verses.
I don't have answers. I just find it tiring and odd. Something to work on. Any recommendations? Is it just me? A neurodivergent quirk in how I process information?
Or, more depressingly, is it laziness and that attention goes where energy flows and I've never given songwriters their appropriate due reverence and the gift of my full attention?
I'm not ADHD, but somehow it seems an appropriate diagnosis when it comes to this area. I just find it fascinating that someone like me, a writer and reader who's not a trained musician is mainly drawn to the flowing musical stanzas and cool melodies more than the words the artists chose to write. My partner Eddie suggests I sit down and try to read some poetry, and my immediate (and very telling) response is Ugh, do I have to…?
I suppose awareness, as they say, is good. So far in life I've only been skimming the surface, getting maybe the gist and missing out on the nuances, the powerful word choices — the beating heart, emotion and creativity. I shall strive to overcome and improve.
But in the meantime, if you encounter me mush-mouthing my way through a Harry Styles piece or shaking my hips and humming to an offensive-lyric treatise by some radical nogoodnik whose words are about death to gays, gently apprise me of the situation, thanks.
It's an affliction!
©2026 Joe Guay | All Rights Reserved
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