8/7/2018 9:41:17 AM
Ambiguous Lyrics

8/7/2018 9:41:17 AM

Ambiguous Lyrics
3 questions for songwriters



1) Do people ever think you're writing about them when you're not?

2) Do you sometimes write lyrics that listeners interpret in different ways?

3) Which well known song lyrics are notably ambiguous?


The reason I ask is because I just wrote a song about my physical pain (pulled tendon) but a listener would think it was about emotional pain I'm sure.

8/7/2018 11:07:27 AM

It is more fun writing about someone and their not realising it! I adopt a persona when I write. I lapse into a character that thinks and speaks differently to me.

8/7/2018 12:50:22 PM ---- Updated 8/7/2018 1:02:10 PM

1) It doesn't matter if they think you're writing about them or not.

2) If listeners interpret your lyrics in different ways - then you're doing something right. Ambiguity is the gateway to the imagination. Bob Dylan rarely tells the public what his songs are actually about because it's more intriguing to let them make up their own meanings to the songs. Of course, some songs (like love songs) have fairly obvious messages but most are zen puzzles to be to be debated and analyzed into the wee hours of the morning.

3) Most Dylan songs have ambiguous lyrics. Here is one of them ~

"Visions Of Johanna"

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet
We sit here stranded, though we're all doing our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, tempting you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind.

In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman's bluff with the key chain
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the D-train
We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it's him or them that's really insane
Louise she's all right she's just near
She's delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna's not here
The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place.

Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall
Oh, how can I explain ?
It's so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna they kept me up past the dawn.

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower frieze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeeze
I can't find my knees."
Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel.

The peddler now speaks to the countess who's pretending to care for him
Saying, "Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him."
But like Louise always says
"Ya can't look at much, can ya man."

As she, herself prepares for him
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes everything's been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain.

©Bob Dylan

8/7/2018 4:33:50 PM

I've been in various circumstances where I've fallen for female artists and we've written numerous songs about each other, it's a strange situation when that happens, it's hard when you're saying something deep and they know it's about them.

8/8/2018 11:40:32 AM

alrighty, Scott (all "write he" or all "writey")... in his "ambiguous" fashion of "ambiguity"

has now said, "it's hard" and "something's deep" in reference to a male "falling for" a female. Touche!

8/8/2018 1:25:08 PM ---- Updated 8/8/2018 1:26:10 PM

Francesca - I'm rather like you in 'playing characters' I wonder where it comes from sometimes - I can be anything from a baby to a prostitute - an old man to a drug addict - stupid or smart - nervous and sensitive or tarty and loud. It's such fun in this business.

Richard - Dylan is such a talented poet and the beauty of poetry is its ambiguity, hidden meanings, crazy ramblings etc - other writers have tried but it's hard to make poetry singable sometimes.

Scott - You're such an old romantic! I don't have to 'fall for' anyone to write love songs about them or with them... and I don't have to hate anyone to make up mean or teasing stories about them (but it helps) It's only a song after all, not my personal diary!

Psyches Muse aka Mortify :) I'm not sure where you're going with that one :)

8/8/2018 2:01:29 PM

I once had somebody tell me how much they liked one of my songs and how well they could relate to the lyrics. Then, they continued to tell me about HOW they related, and I realized that they completely misinterpreted the lyric. That, what I had intended to be ironic, they took at face value.
I told them this. And they they looked horribly embarrassed and I felt terribly stupid and mean for correcting them.
It was a hard way to learn that the only true meaning that a lyric has is whatever the listener gets from it, not from what the writer put into it.

8/8/2018 2:03:55 PM

My example, above, I was not talking about this song. (I will not tell you which song I was talking about because I don't want to accidentally do the same thing again.) But, I think that this song has some pretty ambiguous lyrics:

"HERE"

All my roads are paved in good intentions
Good intentions pave the road to hell
Hell on Earth, just isn't what it could be
Could be I don't know where I belong

I'M RIGHT HERE
BECAUSE HERE IS WHERE I'M WANTED
I'M RIGHT HERE
BECAUSE HERE IS WHERE I WANT TO

Stay

With me and forget all your troubles
Trouble is you're staying here with me
Me, myself, I don't know what I'm after
After this I guess I'll come right back

TO RIGHT HERE
BECAUSE HERE IS WHERE I'M NEEDED
I'M RIGHT HERE
BECAUSE HERE IS WHERE I GET TO

play

I'M RIGHT HERE
BECAUSE HERE IS WHERE I'M NEEDED
I'M RIGHT HERE
BECAUSE HERE IS WHERE I GET IT

All

My roads are paved in good intentions
Good intentions pave the road to Hell...

8/8/2018 6:11:54 PM

I just started working with a new lyricist. The guy is brilliant with words. Two new songs finished, another one started, and tons more on the way.

8/8/2018 9:29:11 PM ---- Updated 8/8/2018 9:33:24 PM

Hi Todd, nice one there. A bit like the theme, "Highway to Hell," by AC/DC

Larree, good luck on the collabros...

Come Together (the Beatles, John L.)

Here come old flat top
He come groovin' up slowly
He got joo joo eyeballs
He one holy roller
He got hair down to his knee
Got to be a joker
He just do what he please


He wear no shoeshine
He got toe jam football
He got monkey finger
He shoot Coca-Cola
He say I know you, you know me
One thing I can tell you is
You got to be free
Come together, right now
Over me

He bad production
He got walrus gumboot
He got Ono sideboard
He one spinal cracker
He got feet down below his knee
Hold you in his armchair
You can feel his disease
Come together, right now
Over me

He roller coaster
He got early warning
He got muddy water
He one Mojo filter
He say one and one and one is three
Got to be good looking
'Cause he's so hard to see

Come together right now
Over me
Come together, yeah
Come together, yeah
Come together, yeah

8/8/2018 11:47:22 PM

"Bertha"
Words by Robert Hunter; music by Jerry Garcia

I had a hard run
Running from your window
I was all night running, running, running
I wonder if you care?
I had a run-in
Run around and run down
Run around a corner
Run smack into a tree
I had to move
Really had to move
That's why if you please
I am on my bended knees
Bertha don't you come around here anymore
Dressed myself in green
I went down to the sea
Try to see what's going down
Maybe read between the lines
Had a feeling I was falling, falling, falling
Turned around to see
Heard a voice calling, calling, calling
You was comin after me
Back to me
I had to move
Really had to move
That's why if you please
I am on my bended knees
Bertha don't you come around here anymore
Ran into a rainstorm
Ducked into a bar door
It was all night pouring, pouring rain
But not a drop on me
Test me, test me
Why don't you arrest me?
Throw me in the jail house
Until the sun goes down
Till it go down
I had to move
Really had to move
That's why if you please
I am on my bended knees
Bertha don't you come around here anymore

(This song is about a fan named Bertha. No. Not that kind of fan. An electric fan. In the Grateful Dead office. Whenever it was activated it walked across the floor all by itself!)

8/8/2018 11:49:21 PM

Thanks Steve!

8/9/2018 3:26:26 AM

"I Believe In You!"

...Oh! Thanks! Thank You! So VERY Much! THANKS!!!

ugh... no.

what I said was...

"I Be Leavin' You!"

BYE!!!

8/9/2018 4:33:42 AM

She hears a knock on the apartment door but she isn't dressed so she shouts

"Coming"

He hears

"Come in"

So he does!

8/11/2018 8:53:58 AM

So now... "He"

...ugh,... "comes" in...

and all-the-while... "She"

...ugh... was sayin'... "coming".

... ugh... Hmm.

ok...

"Got it!"

Pretty good! haha!

I'd bet that's what "he" said about that situation huh, "pretty good"?

Wait a second! Dang it! That's what "SHE" was saying about that situation!

Well, I mean... kinda... or "sorta"...

You know what I mean I am sure(or what "YOU" meant)...

Aghhh! Dang It!!!

Oh well!

"Good Stuff" anyway!

"I" liked it.

; )

8/12/2018 12:53:04 PM

Can anyone explain this one?

"I lick my brain in silence
Rather squeeze my head instead
Midget man provoking violence
Listen not to what I said"
Mutilated lips
Give a kiss
On the wrist
Of the wormlike tips
Of tentacles expanding
In my mind. I'm fine
Accepting only fresh brine
You can get another drop of this
Yeah, you wish"

"Mutilated lips" by Ween

8/12/2018 2:00:35 PM

Easy one to explain, listener. That song is all about high school. It's about the moment you realize you've been dosed in the middle of a math test after lunch.

8/12/2018 4:41:02 PM

haha I used to have a girlfriend who considered herself the #1 Ween fan in the world

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