Another, more creative, thing we can do is to start actively “producing” the lyrics, which means carefully integrating the language, images, ambiguities and resonances of the words with the language of the music. How this is done is far beyond the scope of an article like this, but there are some generalizations that can be made. To begin with, the words have both explicit meaning (“Baby, I love you, yeah, yeah, yeah!”) and a kind of implicit message (“I want to make love with you, and I’m singing this song in the hopes that you will agree to make love with me”). Much of the power of the lyrics comes from the way that those explicit and implicit messages relate. Sometimes, they are in actual conflict, so that the surface message of the lyrics goes one direction while the sub-text is saying just the opposite. Often, too, there is a bittersweet quality to good lyrics, so that within the explicit message itself, there are conflicting messages. I’ve always really liked, for instance, the hard-boiled sweet-talking blues line: “You're so beautiful, but you gotta die some day . . . So c’mon baby, give me some lovin’ along the way!”.

By the same token, the music can be thought of as a third layer of sub-text, a commentary or parallel expression of the same, related or conflicting feelings and images. So, as you produce the recording of the song, you think about how you are going to support the lyrics, comment on them, undercut them, or play with their ideas. In this way, the entire production can be thought of as having several simultaneous and different levels:

- What the singer is actually saying,

- what the singer means,

- what the music implies that he or she really means.

These issues can be approached in many, many ways, and part of the power of the art form lies in its ability to convey extremely complex and ambiguous emotions through some deceptively simple and uncomplicated materials.

To get back to where we started, one of the first exercises that I do in the course I mentioned is to have the class take a look at Donald Fagen’s Ruby, Baby (from Nightfly), which is a cover of a fairly straight-ahead and uncomplicated R&B blues tune. As we begin to get into it, the first responses to the query “what is the song about” go along the line, “Well, it’s about this guy who’s in love a girl named Ruby, and someday he’s going to convince her to be his girlfriend.” Little by little, we get into the question of what does Fagen really mean? Is he really in love with Ruby? What does the music say? And so on and so forth. As we go along, the perception emerges that actually Fagen is one step removed, that he is actually singing a song about a song about a guy who’s in love with Ruby. And the production supports this, with a slick, highly artificial and clearly synthetic multitrack studio performance that is in contradiction of and contrast with the rough-and-ready blues performance of the original version. The effect works!

So, as part of the testing and evaluation process that is central to producing a successful recording, really try to pick up on what your significant other hears, and what your friends’ significant others hear when they listen to your tape. They may give you a much clearer and better idea of how your music is perceived in the larger world than you or your musician friends can possibly provide.

And, as you continue refining the work, use the various levels of expression available to you to enrich, enhance and empower your music, to make it a stronger and deeper emotional experience for your listeners.