For years music lovers who followed Elton John’s career wondered about the meaning of the lyrics in the song “Daniel”.\u00a0 They argued back and forth;\u00a0 some thought it was about the Vietnam War, others that it simply had to do with a relationship between two brothers, and another group thought it was about homosexuality.<\/p>\n
I was very intrigued to see an interview with Bernie Taupin, the lyricist behind the song, years later when he was asked “So what is ‘Daniel’ really about?”\u00a0 Bernie’s answer surprised me, and then again, it didn’t.<\/p>\n
He shrugged his shoulders and casually said “I don’t know.”\u00a0 And that was about it.<\/p>\n
This issue came up again recently when I was teaching a Radiohead song called ‘Karma Police’ to one of my guitar students.\u00a0 We sat there afterward and tried to analyze the lyrics.\u00a0 At the risk of copyright infringement, I’m going to show the lyrics here.\u00a0 Let’s just say it’s about the ‘art’, guys!<\/p>\n
Karma police, arrest this man, Karma police, I’ve given all I can, This is what you get, this is what you get Okay.\u00a0 I love this song, but not for the lyrics.\u00a0 I love the chord progression and melody.\u00a0 I hate the radio noise at the end of the song, but that’s for another article!<\/p>\n If you understand the word ‘karma’, in Buddhism it means ‘what goes around, comes around’.\u00a0 That’s an over-simplification as any real Buddhist will tell you, but for our purposes let’s stick to that meaning.\u00a0 So the line ‘This is what you get’ in the chorus, makes sense;\u00a0 this is what you get when you behave that way, etc.\u00a0 Even the title ‘Karma Police’ makes sense to me in this context.<\/p>\n At the end of the song we have a completely different section, an ‘extro’ or ‘outro’ or ‘tag’ depending on what you like to call it.\u00a0 The chord progression changes and they repeat the line ‘And for a minute there, I lost myself’.\u00a0 In Buddhism again, the ‘self’ doesn’t exist, so even this line makes sense within the context of karma.<\/p>\n However, the rest of the lyric seems to have absolutely no connection to anything.\u00a0 What do they mean ‘her Hitler hair-do is making me feel ill and we have crashed her party’?\u00a0 What does that have to do with anything?\u00a0 ‘He talks in maths, he buzzes like a fridge’…what does that mean?<\/p>\n Now I am not a prude or snob, and I already told you that I love the song.\u00a0 But sometimes I think bands and artists take liberties with their lyrics, especially those who write in the rock (alternative, if you will) and pop styles.\u00a0 They assume that people don’t really care about lyrics.\u00a0 I think they are right, to some extent.\u00a0 How many songs have you fallen in love with but had no idea what much of it meant?<\/p>\n So what does this mean?\u00a0 Should we be as flippant with our own lyrics?\u00a0 Those of us who write in these genres tend to have the same attitudes…that the lyrics don’t really matter.\u00a0 I think you should care more about what you are saying in your lyrics, in spite of what Bernie Taupin or anyone else thinks.\u00a0 By all means, when you are first writing, as I’ve said many times, don’t edit yourself or you’ll put out your little creative flame pretty quickly.\u00a0 But when you are at the re-writing stage (and there should ALWAYS be a re-writing stage!), look at what you’re saying.\u00a0 Does it make sense in any way whatsoever?\u00a0 Does it relate to the theme or the title of your song?\u00a0 Is there a thread<\/a> that goes through the whole lyric and pulls it together?<\/p>\n Maybe you don’t care, but you should.<\/p>\n On another note (little pun there!), there’s a famous story about the Beatle’s song ‘Hey Jude’.\u00a0 It was written for John Lennon’s son Julian by Paul McCartney, and one of the lines is ‘the movement you need is on your shoulder’.\u00a0 Paul was agonizing over that line, but when he went to John about it, John said something to the effect “Don’t worry about it, I know what it means.”\u00a0 And so the line was left as is.<\/p>\n It’s true that we need to make our lyrics universal enough so that a listener can have some room for interpretation.\u00a0 But there is a difference, a big one, between ‘universal’ meaning and ‘no’ meaning.\u00a0 Think about it for awhile, and for pete’s sake, don’t get lazy!<\/p>\n IJ<\/em><\/p>\n [update Feb.09\/09…during an interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes last night, Coldplay’s songwriter Chris Martin was asked what the meaning of “Yellow” was…guess what he answered??\u00a0 “I don’t know.”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For years music lovers who followed Elton John’s career wondered about the meaning of the lyrics in the song “Daniel”.\u00a0 They argued back and forth;\u00a0 some thought it was about the Vietnam War, others that it simply had to do with a relationship between two brothers, and another group thought it was about homosexuality. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[19,16,15,22,21,18,318,20,17],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lyrics","tag-beatles","tag-bernie-taupin","tag-elton-john","tag-hey-jude","tag-john-lennon","tag-karma-police","tag-lyrics","tag-paul-mccartney","tag-radiohead"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prwoq-8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nHe talks in maths
\nHe buzzes like a fridge,
\nHe’s like a de-tuned radio
\nKarma police, arrest this girl,
\nHer Hitler hairdo is making me feel ill
\nAnd we have crashed her party<\/em><\/p>\n
\nThis is what you get, this is what you get
\nThis is what you get, when you mess with us<\/em><\/p>\n
\nIt’s not enough
\nI’ve given all I can,
\nBut were still on the payroll
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\nThis is what you get, when you mess with us<\/em><\/p>\n
\nAnd for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself
\nAnd for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself
\nFor a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself<\/em><\/p>\n