A Real
Communication Flair
2. The power (and failure) of words.
Ron Mael is surely one of the most gifted lyric writers of
our time, with a unique way with words. His lyrics delight with words and
phrases that are unexpected, even unprecedented, in a pop song, mixing
different registers of speech, the elegant and poetic alongside slang
and (occasionally) swear words. They use language deftly to conjure up a
variety of emotions, often working on a number of different, even seemingly
contradictory, levels and abounding in cultural references and jokes. Ron has spoken of ‘always trying to find ways
to express things in ways that are unorthodox’ and of the ‘undercurrent of
feeling beneath the surface’ of the humour.
Of course, many songs are also mind-blowingly overflowing with words, a
challenge to which Russell, as singer, has always risen admirably., and we must
remember that Russell too has penned the lyrics of a number of songs. Many
Sparks’ songs also explore the subject of language itself, its meaning and
usages, and this theme is the topic of this essay.
Language and communication are fundamental to the human
condition and many Sparks’ songs explore different aspects of communication in
scenarios that are tragic, dramatic or humorous, and often all of those at
once! The songs are mini-dramas, involving many different situations and
protagonists (not to be confused with Ron or Russell) who tell their story, comment
on their feelings or complain of their problems, and in so doing, reveal their desires,
anxieties and insecurities. The listener is challenged to interpret and read
between the lines to glimpse the personality and motivation of the narrators or
the reality of their situation, even, perhaps, to imagine their back story. Often
the subtext speaks more to us than the words themselves. Relationships are a
central theme, and the lyrics reveal a constant connection between language and
sexual relations and anxieties. But Sparks’ songs far transcend this topic,
highlighting many other aspects of human experience of daily life.
Inarticulacy
and the inadequacy of language
Like the other inadequacies that humans experience,
inarticulacy or the failure of language to communicate are an important part of
Sparks’ lyrical armoury. This is, of course, deeply ironic, for Ron’s lyrics
are supremely articulate.
‘Popularity ‘ (from 1983 album In Outer Space), for
example, is a wonderful encapsulation of the theme of poverty of language, in
that communication is reduced to its
most banal level in the lyrics themselves. The limited and prosaic
experience of the narrator, an eager and self-satisfied young male, is
reflected in the language he uses to describe it. His relationship with a
girlfriend is explained as ‘I like you and you like me a lot/And we do those
things that can make us feel hot’, and their friends are ‘all right’ – ‘maybe
that’s why we’re friends’ he says, groping towards an understanding of the
dynamics of friendship. His description of his pastimes (driving into town to
meet his friends at a place the name of which he can’t remember and having a
cuddle in his car) lack any detail or colour other than repetitions of the
overworked adjectives ‘nice’ or ‘great’. He wants to communicate that these
things demonstrate his popularity on the social scene (such as it is) but,
sadly, lacks both self-awareness and the linguistic resources to do so.
A different view of the inadequacy of language to communicate
complex feelings is explored in ‘Bummer’ (Hippopotamus, 2017), another
example of Sparks’ ability to dissect a situation with which many can identify.
Here, the multi-layered and often ambivalent feelings of a friend or relative
at a funeral are seen as impossible to condense into a brief public speech.
This narrator’s relationship with the departed is complicated, with unresolved
tensions, as are his feelings about his friend’s sudden passing. He feels
alienated by the emptiness of the other speakers’ contributions, perhaps
attempting to emulate majestic speeches seen on TV or quote Shakespeare or the
Bible (‘You deserve something more, but they go through the motions’), but for
him they are second-hand and inappropriate, because ‘they don’t know you’. When invited to speak, he is conscious of
expectations of ‘thoughts everlasting’, but seems overwhelmed by the
impossibility of voicing his thoughts in public. How to sum up a lifetime in a
single phrase? Their past relationship seems to involve petty crimes, romantic
rivalry and the ‘best of times’, and the unexpected death of his friend seems
random and incomprehensible: as the chorus reiterates: ‘You never, never, never
know’. He tries to express his feelings in an internal conversation to which
only we, immersed in his point of view, are privy: a promise not to hit on the widow (‘though
she still drives me crazy’) and belated regret at an apparent falling out:
‘what I said angrily/I should have kept to me’. The importance of words, their
appropriateness or otherwise, and a reminder of how relationships are founded
(and indeed, can flounder) on verbal communication pervade this song. It is too
late now for reparation and his feelings can only be summed up in just one
word, ‘bummer’, its register socially
unacceptable and seemingly flippant in this solemn context, but in fact
bursting with different layers of emotion and meaning for the speaker.
This same idea appears in ‘Rosebud’ (Music That You Can
Dance To, 1986), a song that draws its inspiration from Orson Welles’ film Citizen
Kane (1941). It recounts the aftermath of an accident in which a beautiful
young woman lies serious injured in the street. ( Kane’s first wife and son are
killed in a car accident.) The narrator tries to comfort his beloved (although
his assertion that ‘You look helpless/There is beauty in pain’ is unsettling)
by painting verbal pictures of a happy future together while suppressing his
fear. Once again, what has happened is incomprehensible (‘Without a
warning/Without a reason/ There wasn’t even a scream’) and he refuses to call
it tragic because ‘that gives it meaning’. Once again, words are inadequate.
The link with Citizen Kane is most clearly effected in the last verse:
‘In a movie, a life can be summed up in a word/It’s a useful dramatic device/In
the real world, with real flesh and real blood/ One word is never, ever enough’
and the song finishes, like the film, with the enigmatic word ‘Rosebud’. The
plot of Citizen Kane hinges on the attempts to unravel the
meaning of the wealthy tycoon’s dying words which are, at the end, demystified
for the viewer by a close-up of his childhood sled with the name ‘Rosebud’
painted on it as it is cast, with other worldly goods, into the incinerator. In
the movie, the word acts as a symbol which brings together previous images and
thereby gains meaning, illuminating Kane’s life and character, but real life is
not neatly structured and edited in this way. Ironically, of course, the song
demands recognition of the implicit referencing of Citizen Kane to
explain the otherwise mysterious use of the word at the end of the song. As in
‘Edith Piaf Said It Better Than Me’, Sparks have referenced other well-known
words and put their own spin on them to evoke new depths of meaning. Sparks
sure love to challenge the listener.
The inability to communicate is explored in a different way
in ‘Probably Nothing’ (Hippopotamus, 2017), a short but intensely
poignant scenario that will resonate with many fans of the same generation as
Sparks. The narrator is afflicted with a degree of memory loss that often comes
with age, and can not recall what it was he wanted to impart. He optimistically hopes that ‘it will
come when it comes’ and covers his embarrassment by suggesting it was ‘probably
nothing’ anyway. Yet, he
is left feeling frustrated, dumb and awkward and aware of the ‘mild
disappointment’ on the face of the person to whom he is talking, as they ‘walk
away’. This he interprets as because they were expecting some important
pronouncement (‘what was it that you thought I might say?’) but it could also
be sadness that this ‘happens a lot recently’. The failure in communication
here opens up a wide range of emotions and reactions, not least a sense of loss
of intimacy, in what is a brief and deceptively simple song. So typically
Sparks!
Next up: How we use
(and abuse) language.
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