The Importance of Vocals

In Conversations with Tom Petty, Petty was talking about his song "Spike," which is kind of a silly song about a redneck who saw a punk rocker and is kind of shaken up by it. (Petty claims the band was stoned at the time it was recorded, which might explain quite a bit ).

So anyways there was some discussion about how Petty sang it low in his register and that he had slipped into "a character" and that he didn't want people to confuse that character for his views. And then he talked about Randy Newman a bit and then the interviewer (Paul Zollo) mentioned that Petty sometimes has an "Elvis quality" to his voice or something like that so they talked about that... I'm going off memory as it was a while ago I read it.

Another song where Petty goes low in his register is "A Self-Made Man," which is also relatively obscure.

So that got me thinking that sometimes the vocals (whether or not there lyrics are) are used as an important thing in songs. So I thought this might be a good discussion.

(Speaking of vocals, even Petty doesn't know why he used that cheesy Spanish accent on "Breakdown.")

Considering I like vocalists as disparate as Billy Corgan and Freddie Mercury, I tend not to tend not to put so much stock in it unlike the lyrics. Lyrics are the important part.

madviking said:

Considering I like vocalists as disparate as Billy Corgan and Freddie Mercury, I tend not to tend not to put so much stock in it unlike the lyrics. Lyrics are the important part.

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Yeah, but suppose you take a song. One version of them is sung in a very painful way and one of them is sung in a sort of detached way. Doesnt that make the lyrics different?

aimeeandbeatles said:

Yeah, but suppose you take a song. One version of them is sung in a very painful way and one of them is sung in a sort of detached way. Doesnt that make the lyrics different?

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Well granted Corgan and Mercury wrote their own lyrics, so the lyrics fit their style by default.

But you can consider the Nine Inch Nails song "Hurt", and compare it Johnny Cash's cover of it. They are completely disparate stylistically, but Cash sings it differently, well, and differently well.

aimeeandbeatles said:

So that got me thinking that sometimes the vocals (whether or not there lyrics are) are used as an important thing in songs. So I thought this might be a good discussion.

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I think they can be very important; they can add a character to a song or make it unbearable (often the same song heard through two people's ears).

For examples, listen to
Ian Curtis's anguished howl in "New Dawn Fades"
Bilinda Butcher's dreamy, whispered mumbling in "Only Shallow"
Thom Yorke's resigned, weary falsetto in "No Surprises"

All it has to do is fit in with all the other instruments.

Vocals are an instrument in themselves. When I listen to a song, I rarely hear the 'lyrics', just the 'vocals' (I assume this is to do with how I was musically trained). This means that the timbre is far more important to me than any meaning conveyed by the words. This is why I hate Bob Dylan, or other similar 'musical poets'. I don't really hear what they have to sing, just how they sing it. If that is grating, or doesn't fit in with the other instruments, then it doesn't do it for me. So I'd definitely agree that 'vocals' are distinct from 'lyrics' are super-important.

There are way too many beautiful vocal performances to even think about listing that feature in my all time most meaningful musical moments ( alliteration anybody?) to even question the importance of a great vocal.

Camikaze said:

Vocals are an instrument in themselves. When I listen to a song, I rarely hear the 'lyrics', just the 'vocals' (I assume this is to do with how I was musically trained). This means that the timbre is far more important to me than any meaning conveyed by the words. This is why I hate Bob Dylan, or other similar 'musical poets'. I don't really hear what they have to sing, just how they sing it. If that is grating, or doesn't fit in with the other instruments, then it doesn't do it for me. So I'd definitely agree that 'vocals' are distinct from 'lyrics' are super-important.

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This post reminds me of something that Stan Lynch (former Heartbreakers drummer) said. He used to sing some of the background vocals, and this is from an interesting interview

And, on the Heartbreakers stage, Stan sings all the main harmonies with his boss, not a pedestrian task given Petty’s idiosyncratic style. “Tom’s always been a style singer. He’s never gonna do Pavoratti, but he’s a style man. Singing with Tom is a riot, because you have to fake him. You’ve got to, otherwise you stick out like a sore thumb. Tom has his own way of thinking, walking, talking, and just doing it.”

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