there are words in those songs?: or, I failed the test miserably

My friend Mo posted a link to an 80's music song quiz on another blog to which I belong. I failed the test. Miserably.

But it's no surprise, really, because I have always admitted that I'm not very keen on the lyrics in songs. Funny, I suppose, from someone who adores words the way I do, and tries (with some moderate success) to hack out a living as a writer. But when it comes to music, it really is all about the music for me. When there are lyrics in a song, I am not hearing the words, I am hearing the words as notes and the human voice as an instrument and I am hearing how the entire composition is balanced. I prefer instrumental tracks, as you can imagine, because too often the words get in the way. If the correct words aren't chosen to blend as notes with the music, the song is discordant to me, even though when taken separately the song is a "hit."

Perhaps this is one reason that I enjoy jazz as much as I do. Even the jazz singers have recognized the voice as instrument -- look at scat singing!

Sure, I bopped around and pretended to sing along to the hit songs in the 70's and 80's, but I was damned bad at it. Worse now. My wife will often try to describe a song to me by repeating some of the lyrics, and I almost never know what she's talking about. But when she can get a bit of the tune, it usually comes to me.

So, Mo...I failed the test. Single digit. I did get correct the questions I answered, but most of those lyrics were so foreign to me that I couldn't even pretend they were familiar. I wasn't searching or reaching, it wasn't as though I sort of knew them, or that the missing words were on the tip of my thoughts. They weren't there at all.

Now...if you can find the same sort of test with snippets of music....