We have just finished a two-year project of Saunterering though The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter (Robert Kimball, editor; Da Capo Press, 1992), reading every word. Along the way we got a good sense of how song lyrics are poems, and how, like poems, most people would have to work to memorize them. But hitch lyrics to music, and memorizing them is spontaneous.
For instance, the first couple of times you heard Johnny Mercer’s lyrics to “That Old Black Magic” you knew them forever. Words live in the shallows of the mind, music in the depths. And that is close to what Theodor Adorno said:
For a brief biography of Theodor Adorno, click here. For images of and relating to Theodor Adorno, click here. For a brief biography of Daniel Albright, click here.
For instance, the first couple of times you heard Johnny Mercer’s lyrics to “That Old Black Magic” you knew them forever. Words live in the shallows of the mind, music in the depths. And that is close to what Theodor Adorno said:
Music is speechlike. . . . But music is not speech. Its speechlikeness points the way into the interior, but also into the vague.
(Quoted from page 3 of Music Speaks: On the Language of Opera, Dance, and Song, by Daniel Albright. University of Rochester Press, 2009.)For a brief biography of Theodor Adorno, click here. For images of and relating to Theodor Adorno, click here. For a brief biography of Daniel Albright, click here.
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