Lyrics are making a Comeback

Jack Johnson said in one of his songs (can't remember which one) "Why don't the newscasters cry when they read about people who die. At least they could be decent enough to put just a tear in their eyes."

For some reason, lyrics has made for a powerful thought in my mind. Tuning into the lyrics, regretabbly, has become harder with the more songs I listen to. Sometimes, closing my eyes does help focus my auditory senses just to listen to the frolicking instruments mixed with vocals (I did this at Nadya Shanab's concert yesterday--which was great. Really allows you to appreciate her).

If you also string it together, you'll realize that the insane amounts of broadway musicals being turned into this new movie musical genre that's becoming fastly popular, it makes me understand why lyrics have been more on my mind. What unites all these films, if you think about it, is their desire to make their viewers tune into the lyrics while enjoying the music accompanying it. It's sort of saying "listen..no really listen to the lyrics." My obsession with Across the Universe (the beatles movie that was released last year), its soundtrack, the resurgence of the beatles' lyrics in my mind (and by the way, my constant fascination with Across the Universe's last scene where they perform at the top of an apartment building w/out a permit--screaming at the top of their lungs for people to not "let them down" and reminding us that "all you need is love") all have played a big part in this thought process on the power of lyrics.

Don't know where this 'snippet' below came from (I wrote it, but it was a bit surreal). But last night I was thinking again about lyric-writing and the industry that's blossoming out of it while listening to Nadya Shanab's concert at the Sakia Culture Wheel. I don't know if I would call these lyrics. But they just came together.

"There are always going to be happy people.
There are always going to be cynical people.
The chances that those people are in all of us,
Is a gamble I’m willing to make.

Why is getting harder to be one thing?
Why is it that the problems I see are closer to me than I think?

And where were the philosophers who philosophized about this twenty years ago?
Think they’ll be thinking ‘I told you so?’

Do the questions ever get met by one answer?
Can an answer satisfy more than one need?

Isn’t this all just too much work? :)"