Markup View

Author: porschelemans

Feb 10th 2013 at 2:53:00 AM

I find the post above me ridiculous, as lyrics are by far the least important part of a musical composition. A song can be radically changed in a very objective way without altering the lyrics at all. Look at my example, the difference between a studio version that was recorded backwards on throbbing synthesisers and a live version performed forwards (obviously) on piano should be immediately obvious to anyone blessed with the gift of hearing, even if the lyrics are the same.

I think this should only apply to cases in which the lyrics have been altered greatly, or, more importantly, when the instrumentation or song structure is noticeably changed. An extended saxophone solo does not change the instrumentation or song structure by any significant amount, but an entirely new saxophone solo not present in the studio recording alters both.

Along the same lines, changing one line of a song is not a significant change lyrically, whereas adding, removing, or completely changing an entire verse would be an enormous change.