DT in the studio again!

[bosk1]

Well bosk1, when we talk about a difference in quality, what we mean abstractly is: compare lyrics of The Answer Lies Within, Forsaken, Wither, Bulid Me Up, Break Me Down and A Rite of Passage to Lines in the Sand, Voices, Surrounded, Misunderstood and Innocence Faded.

I get it that you might prefer one set of songs over the other.  But I don't really see a difference in quality.  I just don't.

There's a huge difference in quality. For starters, one set of lyrics is brimming with allegory and unconventional metaphor, making them more lyrical. The later set are much more sparse on poetic device, which is why people who really like lyrics don't like em as much.

Okay, that's fine.  But "brimming with allegory and unconventional metaphor" is not necessarily an indicator of quality, no matter how much you or some others may personally subjectively prefer lyrics that fall into that category.  (not to mention the fact that I'm sure many of us could point out a lot of songs out there that are similarly brimming with allegory and unconventional metephore that suck out loud)

In the end it's just my opinion, it's not like I am the lyrics police

Well, that's cool.  But that's different than making a more objective statement about "quality." 

[Jaffa]

That's why I asked how you measure quality, bosk.  I mean, this isn't a big thing, and I don't really care, but when you say lyrical quality is somewhat objective, it makes me wonder how you're measuring it. 

[eosforum]

Sometimes one describes objectivity as a common view on an issue. And when it comes to my last example (wither/misunderstood) I think it's a common view of which one has better crafted, thoughtfull lyrics. A common view being the sum of most opinions of course. Like it's a common view (some would say objective) that Death Magnetic is not as good as the Black Album. That sort of thing...

[bosk1]

That's why I asked how you measure quality, bosk.   

For the most part, I don't. 

[dparrott]

When is album sequencing done in relation to mixing?  I would think you would need a finished product to hear how the songs sound one after the other.  Sequencing is important to me, SFAM track listing was great musically: some fast songs, a slow song, more fast songs, a slow song, etc.

[Full Speed]

Since they wrote the opening instramental track after everything else, my guess would be it's some kind of overture for the album so they sorted out the sequencing before writting that.

[bosk1]

Possible, but not necessarily.  And since it isn't a concept album, I actually don't think it is an overture.

[BlobVanDam]

I don't think it will be anything that complex musically. I'm thinking it will be a one minute thing that's a fairly low key lead in to the opening track.

[TheLordOfTheStrings]

I think the quality of the lyrics to Baby by Justin Bieber sucks.

[Lucien]

I think the quality of the lyrics to Baby by Justin Bieber sucks.

Lol.

I think quality should be measured by how much thought is put into the lyrics.

[Orbert]

No.  One could put lots of thought into it, and still end up with lousy lyrics.

[425]

I think quality should be measured by how much thought is put into the lyrics.

This doesn't work either. Some people have a great deal of writing talent and can write something that is very good with minimal thought while some people just can't write and could spend weeks working on lyrics that turn out worse than Dave Mustaine's version of Jump In the Fire.

[TheLordOfTheStrings]

I somewhat agree. That's the reason I love DT and prog so much. Because they take writing songs to another level, with the length and the musicianship, concepts. It's trying to make art verses just writing a song. So I do somewhat agree that there is quality to lyric writing. Most of the time it takes a lot of thought to properly articulate your feelings with words. And if you're lazy and are just trying to write a hit or whatever, you're not necessarily gonna take the time and make the effort to writing something that really expresses your feeling on the subject. I write lyrics for my band, and sometimes it can be hard because I want them to be perfect, and I want them to be written in such a way that anyone can relate them to a situation they've been in, even though they're really about a specific situation that I was in. That takes effort. Like I said, the quality of the lyrics to Baby sucks, because to me, there is no quality. Someone just wrote the word 'baby' seventeen times on a piece of paper and said that was a song.

[TheLordOfTheStrings]

I don't think the quality of any of DT's lyrics are bad (with the exception of "don't cross the crooked step"), because even though they might not all 'speak' to ME the way that some songs do, you can really tell that they ARE saying something and they weren't just thrown together.

[ariich]

I think the quality of the lyrics to Baby by Justin Bieber sucks.

Lol.

I think quality should be measured by how much thought is put into the lyrics.

I don't. At all.

As far as I'm concerned, "quality" as it pertains to the arts is subjective, so for any individual higher quality output will be something either that meets the criteria that are important to you, or for those of us who don't bother with particular criteria then simply how much it speaks to you, and how much you enjoy it.

[hefdaddy42]

Well bosk1, when we talk about a difference in quality, what we mean abstractly is: compare lyrics of The Answer Lies Within, Forsaken, Wither, Bulid Me Up, Break Me Down and A Rite of Passage to Lines in the Sand, Voices, Surrounded, Misunderstood and Innocence Faded.

I get it that you might prefer one set of songs over the other.  But I don't really see a difference in quality.  I just don't.

Boy, I do.

[Perpetual Change]

Okay, that's fine.  But "brimming with allegory and unconventional metaphor" is not necessarily an indicator of quality, no matter how much you or some others may personally subjectively prefer lyrics that fall into that category.  (not to mention the fact that I'm sure many of us could point out a lot of songs out there that are similarly brimming with allegory and unconventional metephore that suck out loud)

I'm not saying that it's an indicator of quality, really. I'm saying that it's an indicator of qualities, i.e., poetic qualities, and when it comes to those, JP's more recent lyrics have few. And, unfortunately, it's hard to have "quality" lyrics without any of those "qualities".

It's a fair comment that metaphors and allegories can suck. But I'd certainly appreciate the attempt, for what it's worth. I've always thought some of JP's lyrics were maybe too obfuscating in the early parts of his career, and I never really liked "Under a Glass Moon" much, but JP's lyrics could definitely benefit from a bit more of the courage he demonstrated earlier in his career.

Beneath the summer sky
Under glass moonlight
The night awaits the lamb's arrival
Liquid shadows crawl
Silver teardrops fall
The bride subsides to her survival

Sure, it might appear to be a little pretentious, and some of it could be definitely be reworked or rephrased (it's NOT perfect), but at least it's memorable, it sticks with me and begs me to interpret. Listening to those lines sung or just reading them on a page alone makes me ponderous, and inspires me to think. This is, on average, true about most Dream Theater lyrics on Dream Theater's first 5 or 6 records, and is on average not true for DT's last 4 or 5 records, which is a real shame coming from the a band that so often emphasizes topics surrounding thought, dreams, illusion, the mind, and so on.

[ibosmiley]

Is it really an issue of quality or an issue of preference over style in terms of this lyrics debate?  I mean, good lyrics don't have to be Chaucer set to music.  It's possible to be straightforward and still be good.  Beyond this Life is a pretty straightforward song... a newspaper clipping being read off essentially... and I'd say that's a good song.  I don't think lyrics need to be all mysterious and poetic to be good.  They don't necessarily have to wax metaphorically to be good either.  I think this is a debate that's too rooted in subjectivity.  If you like a song's lyrics, you like them.  If you don't like a songs lyrics, you don't like them.  I don't think it's necessarily an indication of good or poor quality though.

[Perpetual Change]

Of course, it's all subjective.

I'm just saying that in general, lyrics that contain allegory, metaphor, imagery, and other sorts of poetic qualities are better than those that lack those qualities.

People used to really get into great discussions about what older DT songs meant.

[Freko]

I also like the lyrics from I&W/Awake alot more than the newer stuff! Voices are one of the best in my book. I´m a sucker for the fantasy, metaphor stuff.
But I also like alot of Mark Knopflers lyrics and he´s a more "easy" kind of writer.

Then you’ll find me in Madame Geneva’s
keeping the demons at bay
There’s nothing like gin for drowning them in
but they’ll always be back on a hanging day

brilliant stuff

[hefdaddy42]

There can be good and bad metaphorical/poetic lyrics, and there can also be good and bad more straightforward lyrics.  For me, JP's lyrics started off pretty shakey on WDADU (which can of course be forgiven), were getting there on I&W, peaked with Awake, stayed at a high level on FII, and then started to digress in a downward spiral, regardless of which style he was using.

I am glad to say that I thought his offerings on ADTOE were definitely a step back in the right direction.

[PetFish]

Bad Quality Lyric Examples:

Even though I know
I don't wanna know
Yeah I guess I know
I just hate how it sounds

- - -

You build me up, you break me down
My heart, it pounds Yeah, you got me
With my hands up You got me now
You got that sound Yeah, you got me

[Mindflux]

You build me up, you break me down
My heart, it pounds Yeah, you got me
With my hands up You got me now
You got that sound Yeah, you got me

ZOMG BMUBMD on ATDOE IS A TOTAL JACK MOVE BY DT.

[mellotron_scratch]

I think the quality of the lyrics to Baby by Justin Bieber sucks.

Lol.

I think quality should be measured by how much thought is put into the lyrics.

I don't. At all.

As far as I'm concerned, "quality" as it pertains to the arts is subjective, so for any individual higher quality output will be something either that meets the criteria that are important to you, or for those of us who don't bother with particular criteria then simply how much it speaks to you, and how much you enjoy it.

This.

[Aythesryche]

I think the quality of the lyrics to Baby by Justin Bieber sucks.

Lol.

I think quality should be measured by how much thought is put into the lyrics.

I don't. At all.

As far as I'm concerned, "quality" as it pertains to the arts is subjective, so for any individual higher quality output will be something either that meets the criteria that are important to you, or for those of us who don't bother with particular criteria then simply how much it speaks to you, and how much you enjoy it.

Yep. Absolutely, man.

[425]

The bride subsides to her sturvival

FTFY 

Seriously, though, I can definitely see where you are coming from, and I think Images is, as a whole, DT's lyrical peak. However, I also wouldn't say that they are bad these days. Something like A Rite of Passage certainly isn't as poetic or evocative as Under a Glass Moon, but it does communicate some kind of meaning with a lot of tasty imagery.

The seven stars
The rising sun
A perfect world
Where new life has begun
A rite of passage

Yeah, it's no Voices, but it sounds lovely and certainly is evocative of the symbols and goals of the freemasons, which is exactly what it is supposed to be.

I would definitely love to see John P write some lyrics like he did in the early 90s. However, I don't really see that happening, and I don't see any glaring problems with his currently lyrical output. I think also we'll only get four or five songs by him this time around (as opposed to seven on ADTOE) due to the presence of instrumentals and the likelihood of Myung writing one song and LaBrie writing one or two, which should allow JP to focus on quality over quantity.

[Lucien]

There is no real measure of quality, then.

Is there a measure of intelligence? Of course, high intelligence can still write terrible lyrics, and sometimes vice versa.

Ehh, the world's all foggy.

[TheGreatPretender]

For the record though, I think the lyrics to Forsaken are pretty great. It's a fantasy song, so it doesn't need to have some metaphor. And it still tells the story in a very poetic way. If you don't like vampires, that's your problem, but the wording of the lyrics is very beautiful.

[Yeah, it's no Voices, but it sounds lovely

Totally agreed. Personally, my problem with AROP isn't in the lyrics, but rather in the execution, thanks in no small part to MP doing his little shout outs in the background.

[425]

For the record though, I think the lyrics to Forsaken are pretty great. It's a fantasy song, so it doesn't need to have some metaphor. And it still tells the story in a very poetic way. If you don't like vampires, that's your problem, but the wording of the lyrics is very beautiful.

I LOVE Forsaken's lyrics. It never out-and-out mentions vampires while still communicating the story in a clear and beautiful way. The best part?

Out of an ivory mist
I felt a stinging kiss
And saw a crimson stain
On her lips

Just the way John communicates this plot element is so well-done. And if you do like vampires, that imagery is kinda hot. 

Totally agreed. Personally, my problem with AROP isn't in the lyrics, but rather in the execution, thanks in no small part to MP doing his little shout outs in the background.

That is one of the songs where Mike went a little overboard on the backing vocals, but I still think James' vocal melodies are well executed. I actually think the chorus is quite catchy, particularly the line "A rite of passage."

[Perpetual Change]

I actually really like Forsaken, lyrically and musically. Unfortunately, I just think the delivery fails, despite the songs potential. I'm sure the run 'n' gun recording style didn't help James nail the delivery much.

[dparrott]

That's one reason I like SC so much, some songs are more fiction/fantasy than personal.  A nice change.

[Super Dude]

That's precisely the problem.







IMHO.

[Mosh]

Yea. Lyrically I prefer songs like Repentance and Constant Motion (yes seriously!). The fantasy stuff doesn't do much for me in general. Despite still not being as strong as before, Black Clouds and ADTOE were both steps in the right direction, lyrically.

[TheGreatPretender]

That's one reason I like SC so much, some songs are more fiction/fantasy than personal.  A nice change.

Right out of the pages of classic metal, with bands like Iron Maiden, and Dio. 
Frankly, I think DT needs more stuff like that. Maybe not EVERY song, but I think content wise, they should have at least one "The Killing Hand" or "Dark Eternal Night" song per album. I guess Bridges In The Sky was close enough. Unless there's some literal, current event meaning behind it that I didn't get.
Point is, I'm hoping we'll see at least one song with fantasy lyrics this time around. But hopefully more like 3. Or all of them! 

[bosk1]

That's one reason I like SC so much, some songs are more fiction/fantasy than personal.  A nice change.

Well, sort of.  I mean, if you go song by song:

Forsaken:  fantasy
TDEN:  fantasy
TMOLS:  fantasy, but a pretty original story that is somewhat interesting

But then you have:
CM:  personal (Portnoy's mind)
Repentence:  personal (Portnoy's former addiction, and coping with guilt and making amends)
POW:  political

And then you have ITPOE, which, again is purely fantasy on the surface, but really is metaphorical for a more personal/universal topic, so it fits the fantasy lyrics mold, but is also intensely personal and metaphorical, so it doesn't really squarely fit the "fantasy lyrics" mold either.