Donnadogsoth Posted November 2, 2016 Share Posted November 2, 2016 My entire life I've been surrounded by songs with lyrics that are either (a) cryptic, (b) drowned by instrumentation, or © both. Was this the norm throughout history? Did bards and other singers from earlier times spool out cryptic verbiage obscured by wailing instrumentation? Or is this a uniquely modern Western phenomenon? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AccuTron Posted November 2, 2016 Share Posted November 2, 2016 I think Marzy Doats started us down the slippery path.... More seriously...I wonder if it has to do with modern tech that can send a voice to thousands, get the star worship going, and the worshippers don't much care if they can make out the words. I have trouble imagining anyone succeeding at all in a pre tech time, if they couldn't be understood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValueOfBrevity Posted November 2, 2016 Share Posted November 2, 2016 My entire life I've been surrounded by songs with lyrics that are either (a) cryptic, (b) drowned by instrumentation, or © both. Was this the norm throughout history? Did bards and other singers from earlier times spool out cryptic verbiage obscured by wailing instrumentation? Or is this a uniquely modern Western phenomenon? Lyrics are often ambiguous in order to appeal to universal themes. In other words, they reach a wider audience if they are cryptic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shirgall Posted November 3, 2016 Share Posted November 3, 2016 This tradition goes back to Greensleeves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KJeeMusic Posted May 26, 2017 Share Posted May 26, 2017 Bowie famously used the 'cut up' technique where he'd cut words from text and rearange them to create new text [lyrics]. (Which explains: " Ziggy really sang, screwed-up eyes and screwed-down hairdo Like some cat from Japan, he could lick 'em by smiling He could leave 'em to hang He came on so loaded man, well-hung and snow white tan." and of course: "falls w***ing to the floor" But this started in the 1920s with Dadaism. According to Wiki: "the Dada movement consisted of artists who rejected the logic, reason, and aestheticism of modern capitalist society, instead expressing nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois protest in their works." ...So, pretty much the original and irrational SJW movement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ofd Posted June 2, 2017 Share Posted June 2, 2017 It started right away with philosophy. Right from the start, many had to be face persecution so they wrote in metaphors or in an unintelligible way. Their students and anyone intersted in thinking then got the esoteric meaning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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