Academic waxes lyrical about pop's meaning: David Lister finds the message in the medium as musicologists join for an evening of deconstruction

WEDNESDAY night at the Royal Festival Hall. And all musical life was there. On stage the BBC Symphony Orchestra was performing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 5. In a neighbouring room nearly 100 musicologists were analysing a recording of punk rock star Poly Styrene singing 'Oh Bondage] Up Yours'.

Not since Jean-Paul Sartre wrote an essay on the American hit parade, analysing it as a form of alienation, has there been such a comprehensive academic exploration of pop lyrics.

Nearly 100 people packed The Voice Box, the culture dissection room at London's South Bank Centre, as Britain's leading rock academic kicked off a two-month season of lectures, concerts and discussions endeavouring to discover such things as why there are so few women rappers, what happened to political songwriting and, with luck, who put the ram in the rama-lama- ding-dong. Simon Frith of the University of Strathclyde, a professor of English but also author of many books on the sociology of pop, shut the door on any lingering strains of Beethoven and explained how form could convey as intrinsic a message as content in the work of Ms Styrene.

'The politics of this song ('Oh Bondage] Up Yours') clearly lie in the voice,' he said. 'It's a female voice demanding to be heard. Such rawness and spontaneity serve the purpose of punk authenticity. The words are there in order to convey the voice.'

Or as he explained later in differentiating between the genres: 'A country song where you couldn't hear the lyrics immediately would be thought rather peculiar. A punk song where you could hear the lyrics immediately would be thought rather peculiar.'

One of Professor Frith's insights was into the irony of lyrics used for a purpose contrary to their intention. Bruce Springsteen's 'Born In The USA' was meant to tell of the hardships of being born into working-class America and being drafted to Vietnam, but the exuberance of the delivery obscured the message and it was used by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 as an example of patriotic triumphalism.

According to Professor Frith: 'The lyrical theme is tied to Springsteen's persona as is shown by the iconography on the record cover. But finally the song is structured around the chorus line. It's rhythmic and relentless and gives a lift.'

Equally The Strawbs' 'Part Of The Union' was conceived as an anti-union song but was widely sung on picket lines in the Seventies. 'We don't need no education', a line from Pink Floyd's 'Another Brick In The Wall', was chanted by black children in South Africa demanding education, and Tom Robinson's 'Glad To Be Gay' is sung by rugby clubs at the end of discos.

But then, argued Professor Frith, there are many ironies around the pop song lyric. 'It's very entertaining that the BBC can only ban songs according to the lyrics, not the sexually provocative sounds. It's like assuming heavy metal fans only commit suicide because of the lyrics of a Judas Priest song.' Deconstructing nearly every assumption about pop lyrics, and citing research from sources as diverse as Frankfurt University 1940, to Elvis Costello in the New Musical Express 1982, Professor Frith said there was not a single instance of a song lyric which could, like a poem, stand alone on a page. Nor did people listen to a song because they liked the words. You got into the words via the song.

Academic thinking about the pop lyric was undergoing a revaluation, he said. Until recently all analysis about pop centred on the lyrical content. Current thinking was that while words do matter in the Anglo-American tradition, good lyrics are rarely good poetry because they don't have to be.

The question, Professor Frith said, was why certain lyrics were heard as real and others as sentimental, the paradox being that the most banal lyrics John Lennon ever wrote were about his real love for his real wife on the album Double Fantasy.

Professor Frith himself was surprised by the sudden resurgence of interest in analysing pop lyrics. 'The last time I did anything like this it was to an audience of three Leonard Cohen fans,' he said.

What lies between classic lines

THE Independent asked Professor Simon Frith to analyse these classic pop lines:

1. 'Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door' (The Beatles: 'Eleanor Rigby').

This was simply a reference to make-up, a cold-cream jar.

2. 'She blew my nose and then she blew my mind' (The Rolling Stones: 'Honky Tonk Women').

He is playing around cleverly with the word 'blow'. It has cocaine and sex connotations, but it is an innocent word and therefore hard for the BBC to ban the record.

3. 'Take me for a trip upon your magic swirling ship' (Bob Dylan: 'Mr Tambourine Man').

That's clearly a drug reference. It's a drug song but has interesting use of medieval troubador imagery.

4. 'You can check out any time you like but you can never leave' (The Eagles: 'Hotel California').

This is typical of The Eagles' imagery. All their songs had the romantic Hollywood notion that you're doomed.

5. 'Oliver's army is here today' (Elvis Costello: 'Oliver's Army').

Costello is an incredibly over- clever songwriter. Irish imperialism, Cromwell, Churchill, Thatcher, unemployment and football hooliganism are all in this song.

6. 'She says baby better come back maybe next week, can't you see I'm on a losing streak' (The Rolling Stones: 'Satisfaction').

I've always assumed this is a reference to a girl having a period. It's fascinating use of what is normally gambling imagery.

7. 'Doo wah diddy diddy dum diddy doo' (Manfred Mann: 'Doo Wah Diddy').

Originally a black song, it's classic doo-wop but I don't think the lyric has a specific meaning.

8. 'The mother and child reunion is only a motion away' (Paul Simon: 'Mother And Child Reunion').

This refers to an abortion.

9. Fat-bottomed girls, you make the rockin' world go round (Queen: 'Fat-Bottomed Girls').

Just literal, I imagine.

(Photograph omitted)