When I first started writing, I heard cleverness was a good thing. But I mostly heard it from other songwriters, who were at the same level I was. Slowly, I started noticing that cleverness calls attention to itself. I look back on some of the lines I wrote on my first albums and I'm a little embarrassed by the cleverness. It definitely calls attention to its own "smartness" and takes the listener out of the experience, much the same way that a less than subtle acting performance will break the verisimilitude of the film or play. When I watch Robert Redford, again, in "The Way We Were," I appreciate the subtlety of his underplaying. The line between powerful performance and histrionics is a thin one, walked delicately by the great actors like Olivier, Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep and others. But sometimes, when I look back at old movies, or even at new ones, I notice the acting, and that bothers me. I want to forget the acting. The same goes for songs. I want to forget the writing and just have the experience when I hear a song. Cleverness for cleverness's sake doesn't add meaning. It distracts.
The melody on which a lyric rides can help it to be subtle. In fact, melodies have been saving lyrics for generations (usually when the artist is the writer; otherwise the lyric might keep it from getting cut altogether). Imagine if Seal's "Kiss From A Rose" had a melody that wasn't dark, haunting, medieval and highly unusual. People would listen and go, "Say what?" Seal, himself, was honest enough to admit in an interview he has no idea what his lyrics mean, so with a less charismatic melody, he might be left hanging out to dry with those words. Melody can save the day somewhat for a clever lyric, as well. When Joan Osborne gets to "'cept for the pope maybe in Rome," it's at the end of a serious song with a strong, serious melody. It's not a "comic" melody. That would be a disaster. "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe"--another old play/movie--was deadly serious, but I laughed harder than at any comedy. If the context is real, everything works better. So if you're going to throw cleverness in a song, it had better be serious, ironic, sardonic or something with an edge. Otherwise you have slapstick.
Shakespeare's non-comic characters even punned, but he cloaked it in seriousness and irony. For instance, Shakespeare has a dying character say, "I am a grave man," and he has Hamlet says "I am too much in the sun," punning on "son," when he addresses his murderous step-father. This is meaning laid between the lines. If no one gets it on first reading or hearing, fine. It's not pie-in-the-face. It's the square root thereof. Subtlety is pastel colors, not bright neon.
It's very tempting for a naturally witty person to be clever when s/he writes. But the kiss of death for a witty line, in conversation, is to hear "ba dum bomp" afterwards. You know you blew it when that happens. And it can happen in a lyric. Listen to country radio for a while. See what happens when a song comes on you've heard before that ends each chorus with a punch line. If it doesn't have an underlying seriousness or bite--if it's just clever--I bet you change the station. "I've heard that." Like a joke you've heard before. But if there's irony in it that comes from a real life emotion, then you'll hear it again and again, because the punch line delivers a feeling.
A few years ago, the amazingly acerbic and brilliant Marie Cain was reviewed as being like X (a famous singer/songwriter) but more subtle in her satirical songs. Ms. X read the review and screamed across an entire room, "SUBTLE??!! I'M SUBTLE!!!" The anonymous singer is actually one of my favorites, and a great artist in her own right, but subtlety is not her strongest point. Marie Cain is the master of that. If you've heard her, you've probably noticed she's a walking lesson in how many layers of meaning you can get in one satirical song. "Friendly Fire," a lyric she wrote for Steve Schalchlin (who wrote the melody) for his show, "The Last Session," is staggeringly witty. And against the black backdrop of the subject matter, it shines like the gem it is. In the song, she parallels troops being killed by friendly fire to the toxic effect of medicine that's supposed to be protecting the body by fighting the disease.
When you've seen the sharp edge of a master's blade, it's hard to appreciate the blunt attempts at cleverness in any art form. It's the difference between a Maya Angelou poem and a Hallmark card. As Nik Venet put it recently in his Workshop, "Cleverness is a clown in disguise." And I suspect he was not referring to Picasso's "Pierrot."
© 1996 Harriet Schock
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