A Quote by Mary Timony

I've gotten to a point where I don't want lyrics to mean anything. — © Mary Timony
I've gotten to a point where I don't want lyrics to mean anything.
The point of public relations slogans like "Support Our Troops" is that they don't mean anything ... that's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody is going to be against and I suppose everybody will be for, because nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything. But its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something, do you support our policy? And that's the one you're not allowed to talk about.
The lyrics stand today (1980). They're still my feeling about politics. I want to see the plan. I want to know what you're going to do after you've knocked it all down. I mean, can't we use some of it? What's the point of bombing Wall Street? If you want to change the system, change the system. It's no good shooting people.
John Waters has certainly gotten to a place in his life where he doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do. He's always been that way, but at this point, he's greatly respected for it.
Society has definitely gotten to the point where everybody has to comment on anything, and if you want to stay sane as a performer, you're better off not reading that stuff.
I'm particularly attuned to lyrics, and very often a bad set of lyrics will ruin a song for me, while my friends will be just grooving on the music. I don't mean that it has to be about anything in particular, but there has to be some art applied to it, simple or otherwise.
[Opetaia Foa'i] brought in the melody and the lyrics, but the lyrics were in Tokelauan, and so, we talked about what it could mean and whether this could be the ancestor song. So, I started writing English lyrics to sort of the same melody.
Every song has a different genesis, or feeling. Usually the lyrics, I don't really know what it's all about, I just kinda do it. I mean, there's a combination of, like you're saying, that kind of lyrics about commitment or vaguely relationship lyrics mixed with jokey 90s Beck-style non-sequiturs and stuff.
The good news is at this point as I get older, the load has gotten heavier but my shoulders have gotten wider because I've gotten happier so it's a damn good thing.
Moral virtue is a mean . . . between two vices, one of excess and the other of defect; . . . it is such a mean because it aims at hitting the middle point in feelings and in actions. This is why it is a hard task to be good, for it is hard to find the middle point in anything.
I know people are going to be suspicious about everyone now. I know I don't have anything to hide. I've never done anything. It's just a shame it's gotten to this point.
The real news has gotten more surreal and absurd, and my fake news, if you want to call it that, has gotten more plausible. And at some point, those two trend lines crossed.
If you push in every time there's a big moment, then the tenth time you push in, you're not going to get the same effect. Or if you have too many close ups, then when you have a big moment and you want a close-up in order to make a point, it doesn't mean anything because you've already been doing close-ups. It's like writing in all capitals. Then after a while that doesn't mean anything. So, just because you can do something with a camera doesn't mean you should.
You know, anything more negative, anything more disparaging, anything more adversarial than what [Donald Trump] does already. The mystery is how he's gotten as far as he's gotten.
I try to write lyrics that will be able to function on their own if they get separated from the music. But I wouldn't want to take anything away from poets, who work without the frames songwriters get from melody, and I think lyrics should be considered as their own thing.
I don't know that I've gotten to the point where people know me more than my dad or that I ever will or even want to get to that point.
I used to do more melodic stuff, and I used to do more actual rap - like traditional hip hop vocals. I think my method of storytelling has led me to this point, at which I want to pare down my style. I think I give the lyrics more thought, and then when I try to perform the lyrics over the track I'll try it over and over again, and eventually the lyrics will sink into the track by the way I project them.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!