Your opinion: does music need words?

[Ella]

There are a lot of phrases saying that music is something like talk soul-to-soul... And the question is what role play lyrics in song... What is the most important: music or words?

[Music Head]

although I put more priority on words, they are inseperable for the overall experience

[gryphon]

Depends upon the music...................in some songs music is enough ...............in others the words are so important.........

[Ella]

So, [B]Music Head,[/B] you mean that they both are equal...
But, you know sometimes listening to a song I find that words are too rude or smth else, but I like music itself...in other words I want to separate them=)

Yea, gryphon, I agree.. It depends upon) e.g. I can't imagine Bach's symphony with lyrics)))

[Tiggi]

Couldn't put it any better than Griff has above.

Good question, Ella.

[Schmidty797]

I'd have to say I enjoy lyrical content alot. At the same time, I like lyrical content that is just different from anything else.

[Jerome]

Mark Knopfler once said that the guitar would speak the bits you could not say/write down. To underpin a particular phrase etc. On 'Brothers in Arms' the guitar complements the words perfectly. Can't imagine the two apart.

[CRAZY-HORSE]

Mark Knopfler once said that the guitar would speak the bits you could not say/write down. To underpin a particular phrase etc. On 'Brothers in Arms' the guitar complements the words perfectly. Can't imagine the two apart.

on the other side of the coin...his "going home" theme from Local Hero movie displays feeling and emotion without lyrics.

[JTRiff]

There's no opinion involved. Music does not require lyrics. It does need melody, rhythm, harmony.
One could draw the line I suppose. Remove the vox and listen to the track by itself. Yukk!
My opinion is: if the music becomes arbitrary (as it often does ) in order to support the opinions, ideas, political stance, etc. of the artist... then it should be called poetry and put away in a dank basement somewhere and forgotten about for hundreds of years.

[gryphon]

Again I disagree

There are two sides to this debate and I feel both are valid. It just depends how you feel but there are good reasoned arguments to arrive at both points of view.

Could you enlighten us as to why poetry has to be "put away in a dank basement somewhere and forgotten about for hundreds of years."

Do we need to put Bob Dylan's poetry away for 100 years ??