Singers that love their text more than their notes - Billie Holiday

It strikes me a little odd when someone says that their ear is more drawn to music than it is to the lyrics of a song. I have heard several people say this. It has always been my opinion that the words are just as significant, if not more significant than the notes. I mean, how can a song truly find its way into our heads, let alone our hearts if their are no words forging the path? Can we truly be moved by only notes? Is it fair to credit a singer more for their sound and less for their story? Perhaps this is the impact technology, marketing, and contemporary music styles have had on the art of song. Or perhaps it is the genre that decides how we hear and digest music. No matter the reason, there have been a few musical artists over the years that have reached us through the power of their words…

One of these people is Billie Holiday. She had an amazing ability to tell deeply emotional stories from her heart in a way that seemed to keep the notes of her songs at the words’ heels. Joni Mitchell puts it best when discussing her favorite singers, Edith Piaf and Holiday, “…those women never forgot what they were singing about, so the note almost played second position to the text. Not that there was anything wrong with the chosen notes. There was still beauty to them, but the emphasis was on telling the story from the heart.” Read more here.