There was a point while watching the DVD included in Korn’s Greatest Hits during the song "Got the Life" where Jonathan Davis’ lyrics are actually much clearer in concert than they are in the studio version and that got me thinking about the classic old parent’s argument against their kids’ music of "you can’t even understand the words!"
Give me a f’ing break… really… first of all, let’s get the obvious argument out of the way: many of these parents grew up liking Bob Dylan. Now, I’m as much of a Dylan fan as anyone, honestly, but let’s face it – he sings and it sounds like he’s in the middle of a stroke or an orgasm, possibly both.
Secondly, how many people who make this brilliant comment about it being important to understand the words actually could tell you the lyrics to their favorite song anyway!?!? As someone who likes to talk about music a lot, I end up talking about it with a lot of people more often than usual, and my experience has shown that while people identify with certain songs, they really couldn’t tell you the words to them. Hum a few bars, perhaps take a good guess. Hell, there’s an entire web site dedicated to misunderstood lyrics.
It doesn’t piss me off that they don’t have the words to their favorite song memorized – it just bothers me that they will discount one generation’s music because of something that obviously doesn’t matter that much anyway. I love reading lyrics and knowing what they actually say, but I’m the exception to the rule. So parents of the world – come up with something better, will ‘ya?
And if you ever catch me saying that to my kids sometime, please remind me that I own the Greatest hits of Motorhead. Then slap me in the head and tell me to shut the hell up.
Thank you.