There's A Reason You Can't Make Sense Of Beck's Lyrics
As our favorite Hansen confesses to Rolling Stone: It's because there's no sense to be made. Via NME:
The star admits that many songs ... featured ... lines the star recorded during initial recordings of the songs to fill in blanks, that theoretically should have been replaced later on...Beck says most of the scratch is to be found on Odelay. Now to go back to the '90s and tell ourselves to let it go; no matter how much herb we smoke, there will be no understanding "Devil's Haircut." A few of Becks' confessed nonsenicals:"Most of the vocals on the record were scratch vocals," he said. "We just grew attached to them."
From "Devil's Haircut:
Heads are hanging from the garbage man trees/Mouthwash jukebox gasolineFrom "The New Pollution":
She's got cigarette on each arm/She's got the lily-white cavity crazes/She's got a carburettor tied to the moon/Pink eyes looking to the food of the agesThis is sad news. How long was this practice in place? Was there no getting crazy? Was there ever any Cheez Whiz?
In hindsight, we're not surprised. You probably aren't either. Place your vote for egregious Beck nonsensical (if you can find the right words.). We'll string 'em all together (intercut with some DLR isolated audio) and make ourselves a profound remix. It shall be called "Runnin' With The Non Sequiturs."
Posted at 11:32 AM
Tags: Beck
Oh Odelay...love it. Speaking of which there's an anniversary edition of the album that just came out...come one Stereogum, you're suppose to be on top of things!!
Posted by: EnchantingWizardofRhythm at February 8, 2008 11:47 AM | ReplyScore = 0
"Give the finger to the rock and roll singer
Posted by: Robb at February 8, 2008 11:50 AM | ReplyAs he's dancing upon your paycheck
The sales climb high through the garbage pail sky
Like a giant dildo crushing the sun"
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the funny thing is those are still good lyrics. they might not mean anything, but they're still really interesting as imagery and suggestive of these kind of in-between moods that normal lyrics can't get to. ok, i sound really nerdy, but yeah, i still like them. i guess you know you're talented when your toss offs still rule.
Posted by: matt at February 8, 2008 11:50 AM | ReplyScore = 0
^yeah, it's just where you draw the line. For me, I could never get past Beck's lyrics - I can manage highly abstract lyricism as long as there's some emotive ground behind it. For me, Frank Black's lyrics are a pretty good example of being abstract but still emotive. "got a devil's haircut in my mind" just never really said anything to me, I guess.
Posted by: Cameron at February 8, 2008 11:57 AM | ReplyScore = 0
The only Beck album that makes sense to me lyric wise is Seachange. The rest are just babel.
Posted by: Greg at February 8, 2008 12:03 PM | ReplyScore = 0
"Thursday night, I think I'm pregnant again
Touch my ass if you're qualified"
Why even try and analyze Beck's lyrics? Who cares?
Posted by: west at February 8, 2008 12:07 PM | ReplyScore = 0
Of course the lyrics are great: aleatoric verse = the new ontology.
Posted by: Warchevski at February 8, 2008 12:07 PM | ReplyScore = 0
Only in the 90's could you ramble gibberish, have it sound interesting, and make it a successful album.
Beck is the man. There's no one like him (maybe thats a good thing), and he's reinvented himself over and over again. Most artists from the 90's cant say that.
Posted by: MB at February 8, 2008 12:08 PM | ReplyScore = 0
chain smoke kansas flashdance asspants STILL cracks me up. maybe it is gibberish, but it doesn't keep me from listening to him. Sidenote: Is Beck a tiny guy? He looks it in that pic...
Posted by: missingperson at February 8, 2008 12:27 PM | ReplyScore = 0
Like when I wrote "Devil's Haircut" I was feeling really... really... what's that song about?
Posted by: Tony at February 8, 2008 12:28 PM | ReplyScore = 0
*insert extended Cobain parallel here*
Posted by: tk. at February 8, 2008 12:31 PM | ReplyScore = 0
C'mon, everyone knows he's sending it up for the LRH. I just can't wait 'til someone mashes up that horrible Tom Cruise soliloquy with some Beck.
Oh wait, does implied copyright law cover ideas spoken too soon on the interwebs?
"over the hill a desolate wind/turns shit to gold/and blows my soul crazy"
Posted by: Ci-En Tallogee at February 8, 2008 12:35 PM | ReplyScore = 0
sc_ien_on_sense_o_lo_gy.
Posted by: k at February 8, 2008 12:38 PM | ReplyScore = 0
duh. this is old news
Posted by: k at February 8, 2008 12:43 PM | ReplyScore = 0
Tutti Fruity. Automatic Bazooti. Yeah I'm mixing Business with Leather.
Posted by: Sean Jean at February 8, 2008 12:46 PM | ReplyScore = 0
Odelay is a word. It's in the Becktionary: From Bzooty to Whiskeylone
Posted by: Jay at February 8, 2008 12:51 PM | ReplyScore = 0
I'd never known what those lyrics were, but they're great! There's a reason he kept them on. They're really vivid and fun and bizarre. Lyrics on an album like Odelay are pretty irrelevant anyway, so it's nice that he still did something memorable.
Posted by: Mark at February 8, 2008 12:55 PM | ReplyScore = 0
I always saw beck as a blues man so the lyrics never bothered me in the sense that they needed to be cohesive to convey an thought.
"Wino's throwin frizbees at the sun."
Posted by: dannygutters at February 8, 2008 1:25 PM | ReplyScore = 0
i thought that was, uh, the point
Posted by: anon at February 8, 2008 1:33 PM | ReplyScore = 0
"Rockin' the town like a moldy crouton. Flying through the air with breeze."
Posted by: isaac at February 8, 2008 1:41 PM | ReplyScore = 0
"and my time is a piece of wax fallin' on a termite whos chokin' on the splinters"
Posted by: bailoid at February 8, 2008 2:15 PM | ReplyScore = 0
"and my time is a piece of wax fallin' on a termite whos chokin' on the splinters"
Posted by: bailoid at February 8, 2008 2:15 PM | ReplyScore = 0
All u fools saying "but these are still great lyrics" are retards. Those lyrics sucked then and they sucked now, Beck is a lamer.
Posted by: FRENCHY at February 8, 2008 2:19 PM | ReplyScore = 0
monkey see, monkey die
laminate your face and paste
it up into the sky
cuz it's squalid and it's solid and it's
completely rancid and beautiful
like a forcefield of multiplying meat
cut a hole in the floor to see
just how close to hell we're standin'
time shoots forward in your skull
scattered to the four winds
chucked in a bucket
riding lampost, moldy toast
[ Lyrics found at www.mp3lyrics.org/tgG ]
excitement level: zero
rock the casbah, bring the noise
amplified dishwashers
exploring the boring to the core
people with cordless personalities
runnin' around in new wave
bionic jogging suits
california white boy sound
Posted by: paul at February 8, 2008 2:47 PM | Replyrocket-powered and nailed to the ground
new age, old age
totally lame
straight to the middle of the road
rewind the tape
play the whole thing backwards
with the sound completely turned off
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Sex in the halls/Niagara Falls/Local shopping malls receive Anonymous calls/Hot like a cheetah/Neon mamacita/Eat at tacoria/Pop locking' beats from Korea/Looking like jail bait/Selling lots of real estate/Looking like a hot date/Banging like an 808
Dude, that's just pure genius. Anybody who ever thought there was 'deep meaning' behind Beck's lyrics missed the point completely. It just sounds tasty and invokes colorful and bizarre imagery.
Posted by: wingo at February 8, 2008 2:58 PM | ReplyScore = 0
Well duh. Hasn't this always been known?
Posted by: oh. at February 8, 2008 3:02 PM | ReplyScore = 0
I think there's a strong argument to make that Beck's pre-Odelay releases all feature worthy lyrics. It's far too easy to write all his stuff off as made up nonsense, but the majority of it doesn't sound like it.
Some might be placeholder in origin, although I'd wager most aren't (even all the nonsense rambling on Loser has nuggets of sense). A lot of the lyrics are metaphorical. For example, not a lyric but album title "Stereopathetic Soulmanure" is a great album title. "Stereopathetic" translates as "lo-fi", "soulmanure" is "stuff that nurtures one's soul," which indeed that record does. One could even take it further: "manure" as cast-offs or random items, rejected for whatever reason, or rejected but having/had some nutritional value at some point.
Someone above quoted "Bogusflow" and that has great imagery. Plenty of songs from that era (Soul Suckin Jerk, Fume, Nitemare Hippy Girl, Mexico) have narratives.
And maybe he's just speaking in tongues, chaneling some wild other place when he makes his shit up?
Pity he sucks now. That early 90s stuff can't be beat. The Scientology makes it so hard to get behind the music. And even if one can, I mean, "Timebomb" can't hold a candle to anything on "Sea Change" or before.
And while I'm here, the "Midnite Vultures" lyrics are perfectly suited to that record, just another part of the whole concept (ie 'let's party, Beck style')
Posted by: pavemental at February 8, 2008 3:02 PM | ReplyScore = 0
I been drifting along in the same stale shoes
Posted by: Richie at February 8, 2008 3:49 PM | ReplyLoose ends tying the noose in the back of my mind
If you throught that you were making your way
To where the puzzles and pagans lay
I'll put it together: It's a strange invitation
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midnite vultures has some classic nonsequiters. i love how he mixed music with overtly sexual vibes and completely random and nonsensical lyrics that have no direct connection to the orgy-theme of the album. Nicotine and Gravy sums this all up: I'll feed you fruit that don't exist / I'll leave grafitti where you've never been kissed / Do your laundry, massage your soul / I'll turn you over to the highway patrol.
Brilliant.
Posted by: basement snaxxx at February 8, 2008 4:27 PM | ReplyDid you ever let a cowboy sit on your lap?
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David Byrne would do something similar where he would just make sounds when first recording a song that he thought would sound good, then they would eventually turn into words, not necessarily making sense.
Posted by: Brent at February 8, 2008 4:41 PM | ReplyScore = 0
"I'm writing my will on a three dollar bill, in the evening time" is one of my favorite lines of all time
Posted by: barney at February 8, 2008 5:02 PM | ReplyScore = 0
"Walk 'til you're restless
sleep 'til you're tired
wake up without thinking
you're the one that I desire"
Still one of my favorite lines of his
Posted by: virgil at February 8, 2008 5:22 PM | ReplyScore = 0
beck is the new dylan
Posted by: jdubs at February 8, 2008 5:37 PM | ReplyScore = 0
or maybe the old new dylan...
Posted by: jdubs at February 8, 2008 5:38 PM | ReplyScore = 0
FINALLY! I am so glad he actually admitted this. Now i can enjoy listening to his music without being bothered.
Oh wait. He's still a scientologist isn't he. Damnit.
(also to appease everyone who went around believing Beck's lyrics were deep and now find themselves surfaced in shit creek, it's clearly not all of his songs. Lost Cause is still sad sad sad for example.)
Posted by: Elliot at February 8, 2008 5:47 PM | ReplyScore = 0
Yo soy un disco quebrado, Yo tengo chicle en mi cerebro
Posted by: Brody at February 8, 2008 5:51 PM | ReplyScore = 0
"Going back to houston
Posted by: Jono at February 8, 2008 6:25 PM | ReplyDo the hotdog dance
Going back to houston
To get me some pants"
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This is much ado about nothing. NME chose to interpret Beck's actual quote in Rolling Stone ("Most of the vocals on the record were scratch vocals," Beck says. "We just grew attached to them") as meaning they were nonsense vocals used to fill space. But scratch vocals are often the actual lyrics to a song; it's just not the recording of the lyrics that is meant to be used on the album, because that's recorded after everything else.
Beck didn't say "most of the scratch is to be found on Odelay." That's Stereogum's interpretation of what NME said. Since Beck's lyrics are as hard to figure out on most of his other recordings as they are on Odelay, you'd think he must have done that scratch-vocals trick on all his albums, but that's not what he said.
Posted by: beth at February 8, 2008 6:29 PM | ReplyScore = 0
ummm...Beck saying that his lyrics don't mean anything and saying that they're scratch lyrics doesn't make them meaningless. You shouldn't always trust an artist when they explain their own work. Also, just because a songwriter made up lyrics on the spot without a great deal of planning or intent doesn't mean they can't be meaningful. I find a lot of meaning in Beck's lyrics, though I guess they aren't "deep" and topical and stuff.
Posted by: step55 at February 8, 2008 8:26 PM | ReplyScore = 0
What the hell does him being a scientologist have to do with his music? That is the worst reason to not listen to him.
Posted by: Jace at February 9, 2008 4:19 AM | ReplyScore = 0
Exactly, step55. Trust the art, not the artist. What Beck says about his lyrics is meaningless, and has nothing to do with the thing itself. Has anyone here watched "don't look back?" or graduated from college?
Posted by: Kevintc at February 9, 2008 4:23 AM | ReplyScore = 0
i'm a driver i'm a winner things are going to change i feel it
Posted by: aj at February 10, 2008 12:20 AM | ReplyScore = 0
Hot milk, yeah, tweak my nipple. Champagne and ripple. Shamans go cripple. My sales go triple.
Posted by: Besidethesea at February 10, 2008 5:07 PM | ReplyScore = 0
his lyrics really speak to me!
Yeeha!
Let's go moon some cars
I said let's go moon some cars
Let's go moon some cars, my friend
Let's go moon some cars
Aw man...
Let's go steal some beer
I said let's go steal some beer
Yeah, gotta steal some beer, my friend
Yeah, let's go steal some beer
Let's go set something on fire
I said let's go set something on fire
Yeah, let's go set something on fire, my friend
Yeah, let's go set something on fire
Let's go shoot some pigs
Posted by: beavis at February 10, 2008 8:03 PM | ReplyOh yeah, let's go shoot some pigs
Yeah, let's go shoot some pigs, my friend
Ah let's go shoot some pigs.
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anyone who thought ANY beck lyrics meant anything meaningful should go jump off a cliff. seriously.
Posted by: Rob at February 11, 2008 3:44 AM | ReplyScore = 0
This just in: Beck is wacky!
Posted by: Burt Lancaster at February 11, 2008 7:10 AM | ReplyScore = 0
Scientologist tw@t
Posted by: grifforama at February 11, 2008 4:45 PM | ReplyScore = 0
there's something to be said for art, even when it's unintentional.
Posted by: myrubyrises at February 12, 2008 3:49 AM | ReplyScore = 0
Kevintc. Maybe. Hooray faulty deconstructivism!
Posted by: ck at February 12, 2008 9:58 AM | ReplyScore = 0
Thom Yorke used a similar songwriting technique as David Byrne and (depending on your definition of scratch vocals) Beck when recording Kid A and some songs on Hail to the Thief. Does that mean his lyrics are also nonsensical and terrible?
"Trust the art, not the artist."
Indeed.
Posted by: DS48 at February 13, 2008 12:39 AM | ReplyScore = 0
I love to analyze lyrics, but I quit trying when it came to Beck's. But that's the beauty of his lyrics and his thoughts. It doesn't need to make sense in order to be good. Take Coldplay's "Yellow" for example. I don't really get it, but that song is amazing. Let it explain itself and just accept it for the confusing piece that it is.
Posted by: Hannah at February 15, 2008 2:31 PM | ReplyScore = 0
beck is the man and no one can argue i repeat beck is the man
Posted by: CyAnIdE BrEaThMiNt at February 21, 2008 12:29 AM | ReplyScore = 0