A retort to Cosmo Lee regarding lyrics

"Lyrics matter. I shouldn’t even have to say this."

So begins Cosmo Lee over at Invisible Oranges (the finest name of any Metal site on the net) in a piece regarding lyrics. As clear a premise as you will come across. No qualifiers. Concise. Of course during the article Lee presents many caveats as to why lyrics are both poor and great, and also therefore why one should value lyrics or not. I have no problem with such arguments; they're pretty common, especially in Metal, and can lead to some very interesting and heated debate. The problem is that Lee presents two wholly dismissible points as the central arguments to back up his thesis that lyrics should matter to someone and if they disagree for some reason they are failing to understand or enjoy fully the art presented to them. Lee continues:

"The first is aesthetic completeness. Just like you shouldn’t watch a foreign film without subtitles, you shouldn’t listen to music with words without knowing what they are. Of course, this is crucial for critics – one should not pass judgment on something without perceiving it in its entirety."

Attempting to divine the wholeness of art, in any form, is a tricky business not just in the attempt to glean all the information, but also in the assumption that such information is available and even understandable. One would not just need to have the complete work of art in front of you, but also the artist available and willing to share their desired meaning. This may seem either preposterous or stunningly obvious to others, but both avenues propose incredibly taxing philosophical feats. If you need the artist to explain their work, how much does the work itself even matter? Why not just ask the artist what meaning or point they'd like to convey is? If you do not need the artist to explain the true meaning behind their work you are kidding yourself to believe you can perceive all meaning from that which is presented without explanation. To believe art is not complex and obtuse is both foolish and misses one of its main purposes: that not all things are to be digested intellectually or can succumb to a reductionist system of belief. While there are certainly many cases within any art form of the artist being straight-forward with their work(s), more often than not this intention is left either to the imagination or is conveyed in such a way as to leave the entirety of the intention ambiguous. You may not like that, but any claim to the contrary regarding all art is simply wishful thinking. When one stands in front of an archaic painting at the National Gallery in London where the artist's motives are long since lost, one can still fully enjoy the work presented. Lyrics and music are no different.


Lee:

"If you’re a metal band with a singer, you can’t say that the guy you drag along on tour and put in the center of the stage doesn’t matter. He’s the center of attention – so what comes out of his mouth is important. It’s not enough just to sound good."

It sure is just enough to sound good to many. Why not? As my above point proves, knowing the words does not in any way necessarily impose upon the listener the intention of those words unless you ask and again then I would point out why not just have the lyricist write a book? Can those lyrics mean something to the listener? Absolutely, but it is not necessary and I will come back to this.

Lee Again:

The second way in which lyrics matter is political, strange as that may sound. We live in an age of overload of both information and disinformation. We are told more things than ever, and they mean less than ever. When we watch TV adverts, and some rapid-fire voice machine-guns out a legal disclaimer at the end, we hear the letter but not the spirit of laws that are meant to protect consumers. Every time we see a news story, other stories could have been presented. Omission is an editorial and political act. It happens every second. Interests big and small use omission to keep people from knowing everything – and knowledge is power.

Here Lee makes the fatal flaw of mistaking knowledge for understanding. He presumes knowing what words are used is the same information as why they were used. Again, such reductionist theory strips art of a fuller meaning or at least oppresses it with a formula that while may work for Lee, most certainly is not necessary for others to enjoy their art as much as they desire. Claiming the latter is ignorant takes away the judicial "editorial" quality that the fan or consumer has every right to express as the artist does themselves. (I also find Lee pointing out something a 12 year old should know to be quite insulting to his readers, who he goes on to tacitly suggest are not ignorant people.)

I am not claiming lyrics don't matter, of course they do, to the writer and to many who are fans of any artist. But that is the point: lyrics matter to those they matter to. It is an unmistakable tautology and as such is not one available to such a simple canonical decree as Lee proclaims.

(p.s. I actually really like Lee's writing, and as someone with a fine arts degree in Film, there is one thing here I agree with Lee 100% on: never see a foreign film without subtitles.)