Song lyrics are just all right with me

I listen to song lyrics more than I should. They often disappoint. Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want to Wait” starts out

So open up your morning light

And say a little pray for I

God, me hate that.

Perhaps the lyric that gives me the most consternation is “Jesus is just alright with me.” It brings up all kinds of questions. First we have to look at this word “alright”.  In formal English, of course, the spelling is all right. Taken literally, that would mean everything is right about Jesus. But more often than not, all right or “alright” means “okay,” it’ll do in a pinch.  Jesus is just okay with me. In which case, you’d hardly write a song about Him, would you? The song was composed by a gospel singer around 1960. (The song was first recorded by the Byrds and then made semi-famous by the Doobie Brothers.) The lyrics talk about Jesus as “my friend.” So you get the sense that we’re supposed to take the lyric positively. So what’s that “just” all about?

There is another use of “alright”–as an exclamation.  You say, “Kids, let’s go get pizza.” And the kids exclaim “Alright!” That would make a sort of sense in the song. Jesus is just alright! with me. The just there would be a kind of “you know,” a pause as the singer thinks of just the right word. Jesus is, you know, alright with me.”  I guess “alright” could be a cool, understated way to say “awesome.”  Could it be as simple as the composer wanting to say, “Jesus is alright with me” but needing an extra syllable to fit the music structure, and so he just stuck in a “just?” Anyway, the song comes across as just ambivalent about Jesus.

But I think we like that in a rock song. The worst songs are the ones with sentimental, perfectly understandable lyrics that wear themselves out in short order. Better to have a song like those from the band YES, who later on, I understand, admitted that their songs are fairly meaningless. They merely came up with thoughtful sounding phrases that fit perfectly into the musical structure, and the result was a sort of quasi-poetry that you can almost get, but never quite, as in this refrain from “Your Move”:

I’ve seen all good people turn their heads each day so satisfied I’m on my way.

Or the chess-infused lyrics that are all about the game and queens and such, but who really knows:

‘Cause it’s time, it’s time in time with your time and its news is captured
For the queen to use.

At least there is the invitation to explore the language and perhaps invent our own meanings. Unlike the in-your-face teen talk found in Kelly Clarkson’s latest beauty. Notice the phrasing in the song is a lot like three lines of a poem, drawn out and suspenseful but, of course, the words themselves make you think poetry is dead forever:

My life

Would suck

Without you.

Wish I could say the same, Kelly.