I'm fascinated at the way music tells stories in nuanced ways through lyrical composition. I always refer to lyrics as accessible poetry, and at times, lyrics have opened my mind and taught me about things I was never aware of before.
But I'm equally fascinated at the stories behind how these songs get made. I love the lore and even mythology surrounding certain iconic songs. It adds so much to my enjoyment of the music, or sometimes it detracts from how much I can truly enjoy the music.
Case in point: The Pixies are one of my favorite bands of all time, and the first song I heard of theirs was
Here Comes Your Man. I enjoyed it a lot, so I decided to listen to the rest of their work, and boy was I surprised to find that most of their music didn't sound like this single. I was curious about this, so a while ago I went to the internet to look up history on the song and found out that it was written when Frank Black was only 14 or 15. It turns out that he was embarrassed by the song because he felt it was too pop and they referred to it as the Tom Petty song. The band didn't love the popularity of the song, so when they were asked to make the video, they did so slightly under protest, blankly miming the performance with open mouths and no expressions on their faces.
This information substantially reduced my enjoyment of the song. While it's still pleasing to the ear, I don't consider it to be a particularly great or noteworthy song by the band.
On the other hand, we have the Talking Heads. Their music has always been much more intellectual than their contemporaries, but when I read more about the motivation for some of these songs, I find it more compelling. I've always enjoyed
No Compassion, but I've read rumors about the fact that it was aimed at an ex-girlfriend of Byrne's. He had dated Andrea Kovacs in college, and the lyrics of
No Compassion are supposedly meant to represent her reaction to a period of depression that Byrne was going through. This makes the song a scathing retribution of what was perceived as an unsympathetic nature of Kovacs by Byrne. Whether it's true or not, it doesn't matter. It gives the song a lot more edge than it would normally have.
Lyrics behind spoiler
Or just in general, the subjects of some of their bigger hits. Whether it's
Once in a Lifetime being inspired by frenetic televangelists, or
(Nothing But) Flowers meant to illustrate the difficulty of adapting to life in a future where modern conveniences are gone following some catastrophic events, there is a lot of intrigue in their musical stories.
So, what are your favorite stories behind songs? Or, how did learning something about the lore and history of a song change the way you enjoyed it? Just one guideline, try to keep away from extremely obscure stuff unless it has a particularly interesting story.