The Importance of Lyrics

Lyrics are important to look at when making a music video because they tell you the narrative to the song and can give you an idea of what the music video should be like. Lyrics consist of the artists emotions and often convey a message to show a point which is important when engaging the audience and allowing them to relate to it. The relationship between the lyrics and the visuals is an important aspect of music videos because they need to make sense and work together in order for the audience to understand the song and enjoy it. A lot of music videos often involve intertextuality within the lyrics and visuals referencing to other media texts such as films and television. Visuals can be literal and specifically relate to the lyrics for example Riptide by Vance Joy is a very literal song which involves lyrics like ' I was scared of dentists and the dark' and the music video will show a shot at the dentist and a shot of the dark.

I completed a task looking at lyrics and considering how to develop a music video that works with them. I analysed at the lyrics of Leave Right Now by Will Young because I haven't seen the music video before. I mainly looked at the storyline of the lyrics and put into perspective of what I thought the music video was about. I put my idea of how I would relate these lyrics to the visuals and what it might look like. This allowed me to practice linking my ideas to the lyrics of the music video to make sure I involve literal aspects and to make sure it makes sense. I could tell the music video would be very heavy on the narrative aspect because the lyrics involve a situation/conversation between the artist and his partner.

After I completed this task I then watched the music video which allowed me to compare my thoughts to the actual outcome. I had most of the storyline correct however the music video was quite different to how I imagined. The music video was set in one place and was only one shot throughout the whole thing which involved the artist singing at the camera like you are the person he is singing to. I really like this idea as its very different to what you would normally expect from a music video but I feel like its also quite simple and can get boring after a while as your watching the same thing for the whole song.

By doing this task I have learnt that analysing the lyrics are important for making a music video because the content involved show follow along with the lyrics so that it makes sense and makes it easy for the audience to follow the meaning of the song. This will help me when making my music video as I now know that its important to analyse the lyrics to make sure I understand what the song is about and what sort of content I need to include so that it makes sense.