Contentious Theory of the Day: "Bad Singers Make Better Lyricists"

Over on the Guardian website at the moment, there’s a thread asking punters to nominate their favourite lyricists for inclusion in a series of booklets to be given out at some future juncture.

Dylan and Cohen seem to be topping the suggestions thus far.

(As an aside, there is an almost tedious inevitability about this result. It’s not that I’m suggesting it’s wrong, just that it’s been done to death, and if the Grauniad were to put out booklets on great lyricists, it would be lovely if they were a bit more leftfield for once – but then that probably wouldn’t shift more papers, which is the whole reason why they want to do these booklets in the first place...)

Here’s my oh-so contentious theory: less good singers make better lyricists than great singers.

If you can impart feeling through vocal technique – and I don’t mean those who are the vocal equivalent of Steve Vai as evinced by certain diva-types and their technically-difficult, emotionally-bankrupt, chin-wobbling trill-fests – is it more likely that your lyrics will be a bit more mundane?

If you’re less gifted in the technique department, does it spur you to create better words to impart your meaning? To Dylan and Cohen, we could add Waits and Waters, for example. Celebrated for their words, but not necessarily for their vocals, and certainly not for their singing. Could we add Andrew Eldritch and Nick Cave, representing the gothic contingent..? I would say we can. I can’t believe I’ve not mentioned Lou Reed yet! Oh, and Ian Dury.

This is not - obviously not - going to be a hard and fast rule. Not everyone who sings like the aforementioned is going to be a lyrical genius. Being able to sing does not preclude also being lyrical genius (Paul Simon comes immediately to mind), but maybe it makes it more likely.

Of course, none of this contentious theory takes any account of those singers who sing other people’s words, but I would say few bands would pick a non-writing singer who couldn’t.

Maybe the issue is that if you sing like Waits, Dylan and Cohen etc, you’d better have some damn good lyrics to convince people to listen to you.