I think that words combined with music can have a profound effect on us, and in this series I want to showcase some songs that I really think hit the mark. Taste in music is subjective, of course, but I'll be picking songs that I think have that combination of words and music. Songs that stand apart.
This time I'm looking at Bye Bye Love by The Cars- one of my favorite songs! I just love everything about it- the driving beat, the silly lyrics, everything. Although I'm not sure they're meant to be silly- I imagine they meant something to the songwriter, at least in an abstract sense? Or maybe not. Wedding lyrics to music can be a tricky business, and sometimes you have the music- you just need words. Do they have to make sense? Not always.
I don't know if that's the case here, but regardless- this is such an infectious piece of music. What do you think?
This time I'm looking at Bye Bye Love by The Cars- one of my favorite songs! I just love everything about it- the driving beat, the silly lyrics, everything. Although I'm not sure they're meant to be silly- I imagine they meant something to the songwriter, at least in an abstract sense? Or maybe not. Wedding lyrics to music can be a tricky business, and sometimes you have the music- you just need words. Do they have to make sense? Not always.
I don't know if that's the case here, but regardless- this is such an infectious piece of music. What do you think?
Lyrics
I can't feel this way much longer
Expecting to survive
With all these hidden innuendos
Just waiting to arrive
Just waiting to arrive
It's such a wavy midnight
And you slip into insane
Electric angel rock and roller
I hear what you're playin
It's an orangy sky
Always it's some other guy
It's just a broken lullaby
Bye bye love
Bye bye love
Bye bye love
Bye bye love
Substitution mass confusion
Clouds inside your head
Involving all my energies
Until you visited
With your eyes of porcelain and of blue
They shock me into sense
You think you're so illustrious
You call yourself intense
It's an orangy sky
Always it's some other guy
It's just a broken lullaby
Bye bye love
Bye bye love
Bye bye love
Bye bye love
Substitution mass confusion
Clouds inside your head
Well foggin' all my energies
Until you visited
With your eyes of porcelain and of blue
They shock me into sense
You think you're so illustrious
You call yourself intense
It's an orangy sky
Always it's some other guy
It's just a broken lullaby
Bye bye love
Bye bye love
Bye bye love
Bye bye love
And you slip into insane
Electric angel rock and roller
I hear what you're playin
It's an orangy sky
Always it's some other guy
It's just a broken lullaby
Bye bye love
Bye bye love
Bye bye love
Bye bye love
Substitution mass confusion
Clouds inside your head
Involving all my energies
Until you visited
With your eyes of porcelain and of blue
They shock me into sense
You think you're so illustrious
You call yourself intense
It's an orangy sky
Always it's some other guy
It's just a broken lullaby
Bye bye love
Bye bye love
Bye bye love
Bye bye love
Substitution mass confusion
Clouds inside your head
Well foggin' all my energies
Until you visited
With your eyes of porcelain and of blue
They shock me into sense
You think you're so illustrious
You call yourself intense
It's an orangy sky
Always it's some other guy
It's just a broken lullaby
Bye bye love
Bye bye love
Bye bye love
Bye bye love
I've never really thought about how difficult it must be to get the music and lyrics to go together to get just the right combo and vibe. But I notice when I'm making book playlists or listening to them that sometimes a song will have the perfect feel, but the lyrics don't fit, or vice versa. These lyrics strike me as the kind that probably do have meaning to the songwriter, but they're so specific and clouded in metaphor and references that probably no one else would know the meaning. Or maybe they're just nonsense, who knows?!
ReplyDeleteRight! I think songwriting is HARD lol. Getting the right combo, like u said. I'm always fascinated when songwriters say a song just came to them, or how songwriters and other members of a band do the music and lyrics separately, and then have to fuse them together!
DeleteAnd I think you may be right :)
Sometimes just reading the lyrics of songs hit you really hard, and then you can't get it out of your head...which is now this song for me lol.
ReplyDeleteSame here. The lyrics are SO distinctive that they stay in my head!
DeleteMan this song takes me back. I actually thinks it works better since it doesn't make a lot of sense :) At least in this case.
ReplyDeleteI agree- love this song!
DeleteThis is one of those sounds I’ve heard for years but never paid much attention to the lyrics. I can’t say I understand much of the imagery, but I do like the song! :)
ReplyDeleteRight? The lyrics are SO out there you almost don't notice them??
DeleteYea, the music can either enhance or interfere with the message... but regardless it is very catchy.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely- and I agree, this one is catchy I think right from the get-go.
DeleteThis is such a great song. I love The Cars!
ReplyDeleteI've always loved The Cars. Their lyrics are always so wild and usually their vids are too. As soon as I started listening to this one, I was immediately reminded of their crazy video for You Might Think.
ReplyDeleteThe best part of these posts Greg is that you make me discover songs that I have never heard before!
ReplyDeleteI feel like music in general is impossible to create and I am in awe of anyone who can do so successfully. I have never, and assume will never, understand it. Also I definitely have heard this song before but definitely never listened to the lyrics at all! It seems so upbeat but the lyrics seem... decidedly not.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard this song before! A song that I think also hits the mark of awesome lyrics and instrumental is The Night We Met By Lord Huron :)
ReplyDeleteI am going to admit, when I saw the title, I was singing the Everly Brothers. I was unfamiliar with The Car's Bye Bye Love. It has such a classic new wave sound to it.
ReplyDelete