The art of the subtle lyrical change

When so much is said by so little

There are a lot of small things that I love to hear in music. Delayed beat drops are one of them, for example - so much additional impact can be added to a final chorus by bringing in all the instruments a beat later and catching the listener off guard with that.

Another little thing I really love in music is when an implied lyric isn’t delivered upon, with a subtle shift to the line in some way. And I’m not talking about obvious or major changes, like between the choruses of The Beatles’ Let It Be, or of Bright Eyes’ Lua. I mean tiny changes or misdirections, which you can miss if you aren’t thinking about them. This is something I’ve grown to love over the past year or so, and I’m going to use three examples to talk about it, and talk about a bit of my interpretation as to why the change is present.

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Maggie Rogers - Don’t Forget Me (first two choruses vs final chorus, 3:30-3:45)

So close the door and change the channel
Give me something I can handle
A good lover or someone who's nice to me

vs

So close the door and change the channel
Give me something I can handle
A good lover, someone who's nice to me

This is the original moment that made me want to talk about this phenomenon. Don’t Forget Me, as I wrote about in December, was one of my favorite songs of 2024, and a big part of that was the journey that it represents towards accepting and valuing yourself, and towards hope, in a way. Maybe there is a stranger standing, holding out for love, just waiting on the next street, just for me.

But the moment I want to talk about is the omission of “or” from the last chorus. To me, it’s the culmination of the personal growth that Maggie goes through as she narrates the song - she’s no longer willing to settle for just one of the two things, a good lover or someone who’s nice to her - no, she wants both now. She strives for pleasure both physically and emotionally, refusing to accept just one. This little change makes me feel so good when I hear it, because it makes me feel extremely happy in an almost proud, “as she should!” type of way. It’s just so singularly heartwarming despite only being manifested in the exclusion of a solitary, two-letter word. It’s what really puts the song over the edge for me from something that I love to something I’m obsessed with, from a top 20-30 favorite song of the year to number 2.

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Adrianne Lenker - Sadness As a Gift (first chorus, 1:01-1:09, vs second chorus, 2:07-2:15, vs third chorus, 3:40-3:49)

Leaning on the windowsill
You could write me someday, and I think you will

vs

Leaning on the windowsill
You could write me someday, and I bet you will

vs

Leaning on the windowsill
You could write me someday, and I hope you will

One of the most singularly heartbreaking songs of 2024 also had an example of these small changes. Here, similar to Don’t Forget Me, they illustrate a progression; but the progression here is much less optimistic.

This one speaks more to a growing sadness and diminishing confidence in regards to a relationship that has, in truth, become a thing of the past. Adrienne starts off in the first chorus sounding fairly convinced that the person she is singing about is in the same boat as her - thinking about her and potentially hoping for the relationship to rekindle; then, as the second chorus rolls around, she starts to lose that confidence, but outwardly still tries to maintain it; and finally, by the third chorus, the possibility that the other person has, in fact, moved on, unlike her, seems to have fully dawned on her, and all that’s left to do for her is hope - hope that they will still call her some day, that they’re still thinking of her, that they haven’t forgotten her. And this hope isn’t really rooted in anything; there’s nothing that convincingly supports this idea; but, in this line, she still clings on, still refusing to abandon the hope that one day, things will go back to the way they used to be. Even though, in truth, she probably knows that this will most likely never happen.

I generally cannot recommend this song enough; the songwriting is so gut-wrenchingly good, the instrumentation is so atmospheric and also full of a really cutting melancholy, and Adrianne’s vocals are incredibly sincere, making this one of the best ballads I’ve heard so far this decade.

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Olivia Rodrigo - teenage dream (first verse, 0:13-0:40)

When am I gonna stop being wise beyond my years, and just start being wise?
When am I gonna stop being a pretty young thing to guys?
When am I gonna stop being great for my age, and just start being good?

The change I’m talking about here is more a change in the structure of the songwriting than a tangible one between repeating segments; this is more of a misdirection than a change per se; but I think it still qualifies, and is probably my favorite instance of this. My favorite example coming from my favorite pop album of all time (and fourth favorite overall in any genre), who would’ve thought it, I know.

Anyway, the main reason I love this one so much is because of just how subtle it is, and how much it manages to say nonetheless. In the first set of lines, Olivia establishes one set of rules lyrically - she doesn’t want to be something with an asterisk, a footnote, referring to her young age, she just wants to be that thing flat out - in this case, wise. So, as she goes into what sounds like the same structure again, with “great for my age”, you expect her to finish the line with “just start being great”. But no, she instead finishes the line with “just start being good”.

That little downscaling in her aspirations hits me like a sledgehammer every time that I hear it. Because growing up comes with so much pressure, and so many expectations, oftentimes ones that we ourselves set. And being great is something so big, so monumental; sometimes, reaching for something that lofty just becomes too much to stomach, and it’s alright for you to just be good. To just be enough, to just do things right and not mess up in any big ways. It comes off as a desperate plea in a way, just a cry to the heavens to give her some inner peace. I feel like that’s the reason this hits as hard as it does for me - that sentiment is incredibly relatable to me and my own life experiences. Sometimes you get tired of trying to be great, and you just want to be happy, and not worry about things as much.

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The fact that little line is so impactful just highlights to me once again how great a songwriter Olivia Rodrigo truly is, and how much more credit she deserves in that department. I might write about that on its own down the line.

For now though, that concludes my little exploration of one of my favorite specific musical phenomena. I hope you’ve enjoyed this piece, it’s different from anything I’ve written before, but I really liked putting together and writing this so I’ll probably do more stuff like this in the future - feel free to share your own examples of little things I should talk about in the comments!

I’m scheduling this to go up the day before my final exam of the winter, which I spoke about in my piece the vicious cycle. That means that, if you see this on the day it comes out, then I’ll see any feedback in a couple of days. Hope everybody is doing great!