Literary Criticism And Contemporary Music

Back in college, we did exercises on popular music. The aim was to select a song and dissect the lyrics through the lens afforded to us by the theories of literary criticism. It was fun. It also made us aware of how banal or how intricate some songs really are based on their lyrics.

To be honest, a song can never be appraised, let alone appreciated, by its lyrics alone. A bigger component is its melody, the music which draws everything together.

But applying literary criticism on songs adds another level of evaluating these artworks. It is as if we are not only scrutinizing the appearance of an orange but we are also tasting its pulp and savoring its juices.

I wonder why we don't do this as often as we should.