Why Music is Incomplete Without a Background Story (Part 2)

"It's About Love" Is Not a Specific Topic!

Aside from introducing The Lost Enemy as a nearly-completed novella for exposure purposes, my reason for mentioning it as a supplement to three of my upcoming piano albums was to assert that story-telling and literature is deeply ingrained in music. I would even go so far as to say that music without a background story is not just incomplete but down-right inadequate. I don't know if this is true for everyone, but anytime I listen to a piece of music, regardless of the genre, whether it has lyrics or not, the following questions always come to my mind:

1) What, specifically, is this piece of music really about?
2) Why did the composer/songwriter write it?
3) What was the composer/songwriter feeling or thinking when he/she wrote it?

With regard to #1, I usually tend to be far more interested in a song if there's a specific meaning or background story behind it. I lose a lot of interest in a song when the composer responds with any of the following, or anything like it:

1) It's about sadness.
2) It's about a river.
3) It's about sticking up for yourself.
4) It's about a woman I fell in love with.

I'll be brutally honest. The four examples you see above are completely boring to me. Examples of songs that perk my interest and that I find fantastic are ones like these:

1) It's about a woman grieving the loss of her daughter, who got caught up in a rip tide at a beach one day and drowned.

2) It's about the feeling of humility I had one day when I visited a river to escape the stress from my job, and I came across an enormous waterfall, and the waterfall was so massive and so loud that the roaring sound was like the waves of an ocean.

3) It's about a time when I was in an abusive relationship, and after a huge fight I couldn't take it anymore and so I stormed out of the house and ran breathlessly in a random direction, in the middle of the night, and while I was running I could feel my tears blending in with the pouring rain. I then felt a huge sense of relief, knowing that I had just stood up to my abusive partner and left him for the very last time.

4) It's about a woman I met when I was at a house with a bunch of friends, and when the electricity went out they had to light a bunch of candles to see, and while we sat around a table and played cards I could see the candles reflected in the woman's eyes. While my friends were chit-chatting, I was completely oblivious to everything that was going on because I was so captivated by the candle-like glow in her eyes and how beautiful she was that night.

Now those are stories! Specific stories and experiences like these are what make the music meaningful. It doesn't really matter if it's fictional or true, or just partly true. What matters is that they are relatable and imaginable. This is the sort of stuff that, when you combine it with a well-written piece of music, can bring a person to tears. I'm a complete snob when it comes to this combination. Maybe even too much - I don't know. But I'm generally not that interested in a song if it doesn't have this specific of a story behind it. If the song is still well-written, my response will often be, "Well that's very nice, the music is very pretty, BUT... what's it really about?" I like to know a little something about the composer/songwriter, even if it's just about a brief feeling, emotion or experience. I think a lot of people like knowing this, because it's relatable.


Being Raised to Ask, "What's the Song About?"

I think this "story-behind-the-music" snobbishness that I have stems from how I was raised. And by that I mean how I was raised musically. I had quite a bit of exposure to different genres of music growing up (classical music, classic rock, 70's/80's, progressive rock, to name a few), but one of the things my father used to show me is what the music is really about. A great example is the famous band Pink Floyd, which I was exposed to a lot. In 1982, Alan Parker finished directing Pink Floyd: The Wall, a film that was based on the album with the same name. The film depicted the actual story behind the album. The story, by the way, is fantastic. It involves a deeply disturbed boy whose father died while fighting in World War II. It has children launching a revolt against an oppressive school system, with "Another Brick in the Wall" as the background song (and the kids are being fed into a meat grinder, which is an outstanding use of symbolism). It also shows the effects of an overprotective mother, among other things. The fact that these topics are dark, relatable and autobiographical are partly what I think made this album so popular. It has substance. What's more, the music itself is high-quality, original, and it stands out because it's different from the mainstream music of the time (as well as today's popular music, for that matter). This kind of combination is what good music is. The artistic quality of the animation in the film adds to this also. I could go on and on.

My assumption that a musical piece should always have a story behind it goes back even further, though. I remember being as young as ten, maybe younger, and my father was listening to Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, a popular collection of classical music. At first I thought it was just a random collection of nice-sounding songs with violins, cellos, and a harpsichord, and I figured that the music was written just to make it "sound nice." But my dad pointed out that in one of the movements (the classical music equivalent of a "song") there was a story behind it, and what he told me was this:

The song is actually about a group of hunters on horseback, and they're chasing a fox because they're trying to hunt it. The fox is terrified and is trying to run away as fast as it can. Every time the orchestra plays, it represents the horsemen with their rifles chasing the fox. Every time the solo violin plays, it's the fox running away. (In the song, the solo violin and the orchestra go back and forth, alternately). Towards the end of the song, the solo violinist plays again but he slows down dramatically. This is the part where the fox gets so tired from running that it slows down and can't run anymore. The horsemen then shoot the fox, pick it up, and ride into the sunset.

             

  Antonio Vivaldi        

When my father told me this, it completely changed the way I viewed the song. There was a mix of fascination and a deep sympathy for that poor fox (even though this is probably fictional). The song now had meaning. It actually made sense and was about something, and it was no longer just a random progression of pretty notes. Nowadays I expect all songs to have something attached to it that could be seen as at least somewhat meaningful, and if it doesn't, I consider the song to be incomplete.

I don't mean to say that music "isn't worth listening to" if it doesn't have a background story; I will still listen to it and enjoy it if it's well-written.  Franz Schubert's famous piece Ave Maria, for example, is religiously-charged, but I still listen to it even though I'm not religious, simply because it's a gorgeous song to listen to. There still is nothing wrong with listening to a piece of music for the sheer beauty of it, and even in a song long Ave Maria one can appreciate any of its aspects (i.e. the song is also connected to the epic poem The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scott).


Walt Disney's Fantasia (1940)

Another great example of how music is connected to literature is the 1940 release of Walt Disney's Fantasia, a film that features animated episodes and/or stories that are set to classical music. One of the most dramatic pieces in the film is Modest Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain. If you just listen to the music itself, you might think it's merely a collection of loud instrumental music with lots of dramatic melodies, cymbal crashes and loud brass progressions. But if you listen to it in conjunction with the story set in the film, you realize that it's about a grotesque monster terrorizing a village. If you research it further, you'll discover that the monster's attack takes place at a gathering of witches (called a "Witches' Sabbath") during a traditional summer solstice celebration that takes place in Russia. Mussorgsky was Russian, and so his music often reflects traditional Russian literature. Again, knowing the story and/or some of the history behind the music can make a difference, both in the enjoyment of the piece as well as the appreciation of the music itself. Not to mention the enormous amount of effort that the composer must have put into a piece like Night on Bald Mountain. Watch a piece like that being played on YouTube and ask yourself how long you think it took to compose a piece like that, and you will begin to really appreciate the amazing amount of work and patience that some of these classical composers put in.

An animated depiction of the villain from Night on Bald Mountain, from the Walt Disney production Fantasia

One of the stories from Fantasia that also sticks in my mind is a piece called The Sorcerer's Apprentice. The music was written by a French composer named Paul Dukas, and the story behind it is based on an 18th-century poem by Johann Goethe. The story starts with the portrayal of a "sorcerer", a sort of wizard who clearly has supernatural powers. He uses these supernatural powers because of a magical "hat" that he wears. He has an apprentice, and the apprentice's mind-numbing job is to repeatedly fetch water in a pail. This apprentice is seen performing this boring task over and over, and at one point in the film he is temporarily left unsupervised. He's expected to perform this same job while the sorcerer is gone, but the apprentice gets so bored that he decides to try on the sorcerer's hat and play with his magical powers. This soon leads to complete chaos as the apprentice loses control. The situation gets completely out of hand, and in the midst of the chaos the sorcerer returns and catches his apprentice in the act. The music that accompanies this story is also very catchy, with a melody and a motif that "sticks in your head," timed perfectly with the animation in the film. What's especially brilliant about it is that there is absolutely no dialogue in the episode, yet it's very easy to tell exactly what's going on by the characters' actions, their body language, their facial expressions and by the changes in the music.

Again, I could go on and on with this. The connection between story-telling and music goes back in history for hundreds of years, and as someone who was brought up to be educated about it, it's just hard for me to imagine music without a story, an image, or a background experience of some kind.


Grassy Hikes, Freezing to Death, and Alcoholic Mothers

Having played the piano for a long time now, all of my compositions have always been "about" something, mainly because it never occurs to me to write music "just because". I write it to express something, or because something happened, or because some story inspired me, or because I saw something in a movie or a documentary that fascinated me, or because something sad, amazing, wonderful or tragic took place in my life. Sad events, such as break-ups, or deaths, are great inspiration for writing music. However, it's important in my opinion that the topics are specific, and not just about "being sad from a break-up". A composer is also free to exaggerate the experience when writing the song. Or just flat-out make up a story. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this, just as a novelist is permitted (and often expected) to write a bunch of fiction that comes out of thin air.

In my case, every song I've written has either a story behind it, both true and fictional, or it conveys some experience I had. I wrote a piece called "Gales in the Summer Grass", which is simply about a time when I was walking in a field of grass, and a warm gusty wind erupted and caused the grass to ripple. It also made a sound similar to that of wind-swept trees. That's it. A few songs, like this one, are just about brief experiences like these and they don't necessarily have to have the beginning-middle-end formula of an actual story.

Other songs I've composed, however, are far more specific. After watching the movie Into the Wild, for example, I ended up composing a song called "Freezing by Sterling's Brook," and it's about a man who gets lost in the wilderness, collapses next to a river, and freezes to death. Yes, it's dark and a little depressing, but it has substance. It's juicy. It's something that makes people feel something in their chest. That's what you want. A topic such as "It's about being sad" has absolutely no effect on most people (although the music itself could very well be breathtaking if it's well-written).

The story of the man freezing to death is fictional, while the film Into the Wild is based on real events. An example of a song based on a true story is a piece I wrote called "Midnight in the Sleet." It's about a kid who decides to run away from home because of his alcoholic mother, and he ends up missing for several days. He is then found sleeping in the corner of a building and shivering during the night. I wrote this piece because it's based on real events, and the kid who ran away from home was one of my neighbors, and a close friend. This obviously affected me enough to write a song about it. Again, substance.


That's Your Song Title? Really?

Keeping in mind the argument that "specific stories are good stories" for music, I tend to make very specific song titles as well. I cringe at titles like "My True Love." That kind of a title, to me, is just too general. Tell me something about her! Something like "The Glitter in Anaya's Hair" is much better. We don't have a clue who Anaya is but it's still good -- it makes us wonder who she is and it opens up our imagination, making us picture what she might be like when we try to imagine this character.

Titles like "Ocean" or "Stars" are okay, but they're general too and to me a tad mediocre. "Ocean at Sunset" is better, although it's very cliché. Something like "Ocean's Wrath on Kodiak Island", on the other hand, is outstanding. That's because it's specific and it's an actual place. Again, we might not be familiar with the name of the island but that doesn't always matter. It's specific and it also describes the ocean. Yes, personifying the ocean ("Ocean's Wrath...") is a bit cliché as well, but I still like it.

I don't judge a book by its cover, though. The American pianist George Winston did actually write a song called "Stars" and it's actually a great piece. I just think that "Stars in the Skies of ____________"(enter name of a place here) would be better.

George Winston

An example of an actual title that I think is great is a song called "The Bricklayer's Beautiful Daughter," which is a solo guitar piece by William Ackerman. Notice how specific the title is. It immediately makes you wonder who this daughter is, and right away we know her father's profession. It doesn't really matter that we don't know why it's important that her father is a bricklayer (or in what way his daughter is "beautiful") - what's important is that the composer clearly wrote the piece based on a feeling and/or experience he had that probably involved a real situation, and real people. That's what makes the piece powerful, and that the music happens to be intricately written and beautiful to listen to as a result. This also suggests that the composer was probably thinking about her when he wrote it.


Wait... Jurassic Park Has Dinosaurs?

Needless to say, the little experience I have (and definitely want more of) in composing soundtracks for movies has a lot to do with this pickiness that I have for substance behind a piece of music. So far I've been involved in three independent film projects that I wrote soundtracks for. This only contributed to the effect I have when I watch movies in general. When I watch regular Hollywood films in the theater, for example, I am sometimes distracted from the plot because I'm so busy enjoying and picking apart the music in the soundtrack while watching it. I had to watch Jurassic Park twice because I was so captivated every time I heard the beautiful melody in that soundtrack by John Williams. I had to watch it a second time to follow the plot. I often joke with people and tell them that eventually I realized the movie had something to do with dinosaurs.

So the next time you've written a song and you want to play it for me, you'll have a better idea of what I'm asking when I say "What is it about?" I like to know what really affects people, what makes people smile, what makes people cry, what people deeply care about. I like hearing other people's songs, what they're about and why people wrote them. Life is rich with experiences, often with intense ones, and communicating them through a blend of music and story-telling is a really enjoyable and beautiful way to do it.