More Pop Song Trends!: Lyrics

Spinal Tap was way ahead of me on the topic that I would like to discuss. As a satirical rock band, Spinal Tap managed to make fun of everything rock n’ roll; their most popular skit being the “turn it up to 11!” scene from their fake rockumentary “This is Spinal Tap.” Besides the gags, they have also managed to write some very clever songs. One of my favorite Spinal Tap songs (mainly because I can remember playing it on Guitar Hero II) is “Tonight Im Gonna Rock You Tonight.” Haha they used the word “tonight” excessively! They really only needed one!.. yes I know. I know. Thank you.

It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Why did they decide to use the word “tonight” instead of any other? Well, either rock n’ roll lyric writing followed the same trend as many lyricisits are following now, or Spinal Tap could see into the future. I’m open for possibilities really.

This trend in either incorporating the word “tonight” or at least having the story or content of the lyrics take place during nightime is probably the most pervasive trend that we have talked about thus far. It can be seen in pretty much all genres of music, but is especially prominent in the Pop/Alternative music coming out of B 97 everyday. Some songs, like Spinal Tap’s song, are open about its lyrical content and have the word “tonight” in the title. Examples include Chris Daughtry’s “Feels Like Tonight“, The All American Rejects’ “It Ends Tonight“, and the Jonas Brothers’ aptly titled song “Tonight” (which, by the way, can be found under countless other artists). Other songs like The Black Eyed Peas’ “I gotta Feeling” and Secondhand Serenade’s “Fall for You” don’t actually have the word “tonight” in the title but still make plenty use of it.

The #2 iTunes download right now is Train’s “Hey, Soul Sister”, and I am all over this one. For not only does it randomly throw in the word “tonight” at the end of the chorus, but it uses that darn I V vi IV chord progression for the majority of the song. An interesting similarity arises when comparing this Train song with Boys Like Girls’ song “Great Escape.” During the choruses of both of these songs, the singer is going along telling his story all fine and what not, only to pause for a second at the end to insert a “tonight” to qualify it as a hit song I guess. I don’t know.

Like I said earlier, while some lyricists don’t actually overtly use the word “tonight” or “night” in their song, many of them still center the lyrics around nightime. Lady Antebellum’s “Need You Now” (#4 iTunes download) and Owl City’s “Fireflies” are both popular examples of this.

In thinking about why this trend exists, I have come up with a number of reasons. The first two deal exclusively with the songwriter. 1.) Since I enjoy writing songs as well, I understand that the usually ideal time to really write a song (especially the lyrics) is nightime. Nightime provides the quiet atmosphere often times needed to sit, reflect, and write. 2.) Many songs are about emotional encounters or aspects of the songwriter’s life, and, in my opinion, I would say that most of these emotional encounters occurr during the nightime. If you just broke up with someone, you can’t stop thinking about someone, your best friend just got way to drunk and did something stupid, it is probably nightime. Or not.

The other two reasons deal with the listeners or audience that the music targets. 3.) Alot of the Pop/Alternative songs are being heard primarily in dance clubs and bars by this target audience, and what time of day do you go to bars and clubs? Thus it would only make sense for the music to which they are listening to talk about how “tonight’s going to be a good, good night.” 4.) Teenagers are also the other big target audience, but they are too young to go to clubs and bars. But that’s OK. Nightime is the teenager’s world. After being in school all day, they listen to their music and talk to their friends primarily at night. So, it would only make sense for Boys Like Girls to sing to them about how we are going to make a great escape tonight and not today. Where does a song like Train’s “Soul Sister” fit in? It’s definitely not club music, and judging by the age of these guys, are they really going for teenagers? Is the word tonight just thrown into the song because the lyricist saw this trend? Once again, I don’t know. What do you think?

Here is a playlist of the songs mentioned in this post as well as other relevant songs:

“Tonight” Playlist