In Egos and Icons, Downie says that it’s not about the lyrics per se, but about the ‘sense of mood’ that takes you somewhere. But should our minds be taken off to who knows where by the mood that a song generates? Is any respect paid to listeners of songs by a songwriter’s caprice and negligence? Shouldn’t a song have an aim? Shouldn’t a musician care about where he is taking the minds of his listeners? I know that it is not in fashion to teach anything through songs anymore; and I know that songs are not sermons; but a songwriter should take an apostle’s advice regarding oral communications. “Now brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, except I shall speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by doctrine?” (1 Corinthians 14.6.) What we say, write, or sing should have something indisputable to be gathered from it; to this end, there must be a discernible message in the communication. Any song comprised of intelligible tidings cannot be ‘different things to different people.’ If a pop song takes the listener to somewhere usefully thoughtful by its mood alone, it would have to do that by accident. Is it considerate to not care where your listeners’ thoughts end up, or why they end up where they end up? Too many songwriters are like our free verse poets. They work really hard to fashion something that means nothing, or something that could mean anything to anybody; then they submit the thing as a work of art. In the documentary, Downie calls himself a ‘rebel without a clue.’ He says it in jest. But that’s the truth.
I don’t know a lot about Bob Seger. But his Fire Inside is a fine example of lyrics meaning something and giving us something to meditate on. The song can make you take a hard look at the bar scene and its ruinous impact, feel the shame of it, and spur you on to consider a better way to spend your nights. It can do some good. Of course, in order to receive the good, you might have to listen to the song with attention, and then meditate on its message, which few listeners do. The point is that when the song is subjected to analysis, it informs and holds together. It is subtle but not obtuse, mournful but not maudlin, colorful but clean; it has no irksome repetition; and, most importantly, it imparts a helpful, even moral, message. This minor digression is to the purpose of providing an answer to anyone who might object to this criticism of Downie on the ground that the critic must be one of these extreme Christians who has nothing positive to say about any song that is not an ancient hymn. “Well you’ve been to the clubs and the discotheques/Where they deal one another from the bottom of the deck/Of promises.” Now that’s a great lyric. Seger wracked his brain on that song, he says—‘work, work, work.’ He toiled over it because he had a message in mind that he wanted to do justice to.
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