ICMP Songwriting Tutors | BBC 6 Music | Musicology | Part 5

ICMP's Songwriting team joined DJ and broadcaster Huw Stephens' new BBC Radio 6 Music show as Musicologists earlier in the year. 

Since January 2024, members of the Songwriting faculty have been interviewed by Huw each week to discuss different aspects of the songwriting process. 

The slot has seen Professor Sophie Daniels, Daniel Green, Head of Academic Development, and Tutor Anjali Perinparaja explore song structures, techniques and analyse contemporary tracks to learn more about how they are written and put together. 

You can check out the first, second, third and fourth blogs - and find out more about their latest insights with Huw below...

Dan Green | Lyrical Dissonance 

Lyrical dissonance is when the mood of the music is in opposition to the lyrical content. So happy music featuring sad lyrics and vice versa. It's been heard in numerous pop songs throughout history. 

Pharrell's 'Happy' is a great example of what isn't lyrical dissonance. So when the lyrics and mood of a track are aligned. 

Pharrell | 'Happy' 

The music of the song conveys the message perfectly. However, here, we'll be talking about songs with contrasting parts when lyrics and music are juxtaposed with each other.

The Smiths | 'Girlfriend in a Coma'

The lyrics are bleak and told from the point of view of a man whose girlfriend is in a coma after a serious incident. However, this is offset by the musical lightness of touch. The band lures you in with the music, then the Morrissey lyrics hit you with their dark humour. 

Paul Simon | 'You Can Call Me Al'

This is another great example of lyrical dissonance with the song about someone going through a midlife crisis and questioning why life is so hard and challenging. However, the music is unquestionably joyous to the point where the listener might not pick up on the sadness of the lyrics. 

Outkast | 'Hey Ya'

This song is about a couple keeping a relationship together, purely because people tell them to stay together despite being unhappy. As with Paul Simon's track, the music is so uplifting you might miss the lyrical meaning.

Lyrical dissonance - what do songwriters get out of this?

For many songwriters, it's hard to write about happy topics as writing about sad topics comes more naturally. However, if the music was also sad/depressing, it would be harder to listen to and you wouldn't be able to engage with the listener for too long. 

ABBA | 'The Day Before You Came'

ABBA were the masters of playing with emotions in their songs. This song has a lyric which isn't sad - detailing a domestic routine before the arrival of the protagonist's lover but offset by sad music. 

The band are masters of lyrical dissonance too. For some, they are incessantly chirpy but there is an undercurrent of sadness/melancholy within their songs as heard in this cover of 'SOS' by Portishead. 

Portishead | 'SOS'

In the ABBA version, the lyrics are sad and about the end of a relationship but with an upbeat musical accompaniment in a major key. The Portishead version reflects the bleakness of the lyrics utilising a minor key. 

There are many brilliant examples of lyrical dissonance in the history of pop. One of my favourites is Generation X's 'Dancing With Myself'. 

It's a bedroom pop banger where you can imagine clutching your pearls on the dancefloor and dancing with tears in your eyes. 

Generation X | 'Dancing with Myself'

Dan Green | Pride

This show celebrates Pride Month, a celebration of people coming together in love and friendship to mark the LGBTQIA+ community. 

The Stonewall riots took place in 1969, a series of demonstrations in NYC and this was symbolically the roots of the gay rights liberation movement. Then in 1972 we had the first Pride march parade in London. 

This was also the year David Bowie became Ziggy Stardust, said he was bisexual and put his arm round Mick Ronson on Top of the Pops and shocked a nation. 

David Bowie | 'Starman'

In Britain, homosexuality was only legalised in England and Wales in 1967, so Bowie putting his arm around a man in the early seventies was a controversial act. 

The same rules surrounding legalising homosexuality did not occur in Scotland until 1980 and in Northern Ireland until 1982. 

The Tom Robinson Band | 'Glad to be Gay'

This song is a celebration of sexuality in the face of unwanted attacks by the authorities and media. For someone releasing this track in 1978 when the social tensions surrounding sexuality were rife - his bravery has to be admired. 

The world would be a lot quieter without gay culture and it has certainly fed popular mainstream culture. The disco movement was incredibly queer coded but the audience didn't really notice. Donna Summer is a great example of someone whose popularity was in the queer community alongside the more mainstream music-loving market. 

Donna Summer | 'Now I Need You'

The eighties was an incredible period for LGBTQIA+ artists and musicians. Previously, many references to same sex relationships were coded and subtly mentioned in songs, but it was more explicit in the eighties.

Bronski Beat | 'Smalltown Boy'

This is an iconic song and iconic video. These artists were working under the shadow of AIDs and there was a lot of fear, paranoia and prejudice around gay men in particular. 

Pride is so important as it creates a space of positivity for LGBTQIA+ people. There are many who still don't feel comfortable expressing their authentic identity, so having a period that demonstrates pride hopefully creates an environment where they do feel supported and cherished. 

Among more contemporary artists, Frank Ocean is an influential artist and producer who came out in 2012 while promoting his album, 'Channel Orange'. He's a huge talent in the hip hop genre of hip hop which has a complex relationship with sexuality and queer culture. 

Frank Ocean | 'Thinking 'Bout You'

It would only be appropriate to mention SOPHIE as a producer, and artist blending genuine experimentalism with pop. She was boundary pushing while still being accessible for a large audience. Also, although she shouldn't be completely defined by her trans identity, SOPHIE was undoubtedly a genre-pusher artist for trans music creators. 

SOPHIE | 'Bipp'

In the past it was too confronting for me to listen to the Pet Shop Boys. Back then, I couldn't accept myself and my sexuality. Now I can, and the Pet Shop Boys are essential to how I express my own pride. I have so much love for the band and their cultural impact. 

The Pet Shop Boys | 'Being Boring'

Anjali Perinparaja | The Art of Improvisation

Improvisation in music is the art of creating something spontaneously on the spot - it's about playing something unprepared. We associate it with playing a solo but musical improvisation can take many forms. 

Many cultures and genres have this concept embedded into their music. For example, it is at the core of jazz and blues in their style and character and it has inspired many different musicians. The majority of acts will improvise when playing live as they have the space to stretch out their music, and vibe off the audience and their energy. It's exciting to watch as a fan as you're seeing musicians taking risks and taking flight as opposed to recording a particular version, something which is often very rehearsed. 

Johnny Cash is a great example of an artist whose live performances were almost as popular as his studio work, particularly his prison albums, 'At San Quentin' and 'At Folsom Prison'. They captured something raw in terms of who he was performing to and how he connected to the prisoners through his performance. 

Here, he conveys fun and musicality in a simple bluesy harmonica solo in his performance of 'Orange Blossom Special'. He actually played this solo by switching between two harmonicas which must have been so exciting to watch and you can hear the uproar from his audience as it was entertaining but also very musically satisfying. 

Johnny Cash | 'Orange Blossom Special'

In the worlds of pop and rock, many solos are performed on guitar or keyboards. Jimi Hendrix often highlighted his incredible skills on guitar through his solos. 

Jimi Hendrix | 'Voodoo Child'

Solos can act as a transition like a bridge section and can often therefore be found in the second half of a song. They are there to create a sense of departure once the main verses and choruses have been heard and create some space before the final chorus or end of a song. 

For example, in the Doors 'Riders on the Storm', Ray Manzarek's Fender Rhodes solo is one of the highlights of this brilliant track and creates a different mood, and build up after the main vocal sections have been established by Jim Morrison. 

The Doors | 'Riders on the Storm'

Sometimes, a drum solo can create a huge amount of excitement, building up the force and energy of a song too. The Snarky Puppy drummer Larnell Lewis does this brilliantly over this repeating riff in their song, 'What About Me?'

Snarky Puppy | 'What About Me?'

Many singers improvise too, changing the performance each time they perform a song or piece of music. It depends on the genre and you can get more of this with jazz singers like Ella Fitzgerald. There can be vocal runs at the end of phrases in R&B and soul too. The singer Yebba is incredible at this and has an emotional charge and incredible phrasing to her vocal runs as you can hear here. 

Yebba | 'My Mind'

It's not just singers but also rappers freestyling in hip hop. They can create so much excitement from spontaneous creativity in the moment. It's an art form to do these rap battles. 

Improvising a solo comes down to the musical knowledge and experience of the player, what they want to create emotionally. They need to think about where they want the music to go, what moments they want to create for an audience, band mates and themselves. 

Claire Torry's vocal improvisation on Pink Floyd's 'The Great Gig in the Sky' from 'Dark Side of the Moon' is an iconic performance, wordless but full of emotion and narrative and made this whole track by Pink Floyd something quite otherworldly. 

Pink Floyd | 'The Great Gig in the Sky' 

Sophie Daniels | Spoken Word As A Songwriting Tool 

In this songwriting setting, spoken word is different from rapping and singing. There are various ways of doing this, infused by an artist's vision, identity and what they want to achieve and has been having a moment again recently among younger artists. 

Ian Dury | 'Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick' 

In this track, Ian Dury is clearly enjoying every word. It's quite performative, knowing and inclusive. He's speaking a lyric that could be sung, so the listener can take in every single word. 

Gil Scott Heron's example is much more like a speech over freeform music. It's almost like a curated political speech full of analogy and metaphor. 

Gil Scott-Heron | 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised'

It's not hip hop but it's powerful and very political. 

Rap is an artform of its own where the use of rhyme and flow and their relationship is crucial. It has an intrinsic musical quality within it whereas speaking creates more of a contrast to the music. This can demand more attention from the listener and create more drama. For example, Faithless' music sometimes feels like a sermon with a contemporary music backdrop due to the spoken word of their front man Maxi Jazz. 

Faithless | 'God is a DJ'

With spoken word in song, you can tell a story, but in a more traditional way than with rap. You can offer a monologue or dialogue, there's more freedom of lyrical form and it can create a greater sense of intimacy too. Spoken word removes the feeling that the song has been pre-prepared. 

The Streets | 'Dry Your Eyes'

In this song, you can almost see what Mike Skinner is talking about behind him. 

Self Esteem is another artist who utilises spoken word in a way that feels almost like a play. This is so modern, she's using statements said to her either in person or on social media. She's collected them together into something that feels like a monologue. It's very clever how all these different statements are juxtaposed together.

Self Esteem | 'I Do This All The Time'

This song does stop you in your tracks as she's talking rather than singing. Jarvis Cocker is another artist who knows the difference between singing something and speaking it - and he's playing on the difference in his delivery. Which of course, musical theatre has always done. This Self Esteem track shows how nonsensical and shocking some of the comments levelled at her have been. 

Using spoken word to get big messages across is coming through with younger artists too.

Honeyglaze | 'Don't'

It's so clever how angry and direct it is but it's contained within a song. The speech is levelled at society rather than an individual. It means the listener can take an impartial view rather than see it as a personal attack. 

Kae Tempest is a hero to me. Their work is brilliant and 'On Connection' is a must-read for all performing artists and songwriters. 

Their track 'People's Faces' is a real highlight from their catalogue. 

Kae Tempest | 'People's Faces'