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Somewhat related to your points of music... There's an episode of "This is Pop!" on Netflix that explores why the Swedes write so many pop hits. One of the ar
by dagmx 5y ago
Somewhat related to your points of music...
There's an episode of "This is Pop!" on Netflix that explores why the Swedes write so many pop hits.
One of the arguments presented is that they speak English well as a second/third language so they're less focused on the lyrics making sense and being grammatically correct, and are free to make lyrics that sound like they work but are non-sensical on reflection. It's just the right amount of separation from the language.
Ever since I saw that, I've been listening closer to a lot of the top pop songs over the last decade, and it's fascinating how English is so breakable while sounding right to our mind, but falls apart under scrutiny. (Obviously this is not unique to the swedish writers, even people who only speak English do it as well)
- wincy 5y agoThe song “I want it that way” comes to mind, the song topped many charts including in the US, and the lyrics are very strange upon reflection. What does “I never wanna hear you say. I want it that way.” mean exactly? Apparently the Swedish songwriter barely spoke any English at all at the time.
- rightbyte 5y ago>> I never wanna hear you say, "I want it that way" << Probably?
- dagmx 5y agoThat's actually one of the songs that's mentioned, as well as Oops I Did It Again by Britney and Hit Me Baby One More Time Even more recently, Shake it Off by Taylor Swift. Somewhat along the same lines, I was watching the Get Back documentary on the Beatles and the number of songs they write by effectively scatting and then filling in the words that were their big hits is amazing. Again they're writing to fit the tune, then in filling the words based on a general theme. It's very different than the songs they write where you can tell someone's sat down and written the words first.