Narrator, Perspective, and Persona in Song
It’s common for songs to be written from the first person perspective. And in music reviews, this is often assumed to be the perspective of the singer.
How many times have you read that an album is so-and-so’s “most personal yet”?
But writing as yourself is only one option among many. It’s a legitimate approach, but there’s also much more to explore when it comes to perspective.
In this post, we explore perspective and persona in song. We ask who the narrator of a song is, and consider the tension that can be created between lyrics and music.
Finally, we discuss a number of ways you can play with perspective in your own music.
Interpretive distance
In posts like my song analysis for songwriters series, I often refer to “the narrator” instead of the actual person singing. I do this even when it’s very likely that the narrator is the singer.
That’s because it’s useful when interpreting (and writing) a song to create that distance. A song can be interpreted in terms of the life of its creator, but it can also be interpreted as a more self-contained whole.
As songwriters, we should assume our listeners will interpret our songs on their own terms. And thinking this way also gives us more freedom as creators.
But before we can talk about the narrator of a song, it will be useful to review the use of perspective in fiction. This will allow us to compare and contrast its use in music.
Perspectives
If you’ve read about writing fiction (or studied it in school), you’re probably familiar with perspective. At a basic level, there are three options:
- first person (I, we)
- second person (you)
- third person (s/he, they)
In fiction, you mostly find first and third person. In songs, all three are common.
In fiction, “the narrator” is whoever is telling the story. In first person stories, the narrator is talking about their own experiences. In third person, they’re telling about someone else’s experiences.
But let’s say you’re reading a fiction story by Silvina Ocampo↗(opens in a new tab). You know that the narrator and Silvina are not the same person, even if the story is in first person.
We can get more fine-grained by specifying how much information the narrator has access to. For example, here are 3 types of third person perspective:
- Third person limited: the narrator can relate the events, facts, thoughts, and feelings available to one character.
- Third person omniscient: the narrator can relate any events or facts, as well as the thoughts and feelings of any character.
- Third person objective: the narrator can relate any events or facts, but no internal thoughts or feelings of characters.
Sometimes songwriters can feel as though they must write songs from their own personal perspective. But this is a choice!
The framework of perspective we’ve discussed in this section is available to songwriters just as much as fiction writers.
Who is the narrator in a song?
In a first person song, the narrator is talking about their own experience. This is not necessarily the perspective of the real-life singer.
In third person, the narrator is describing someone else’s experience. Of course, this “someone else” can be fictional.
In second person, the narrator is talking directly to someone. That “someone” is normally not the listener! It’s often a lover, ex-lover, or would-be-lover, but fortunately there are other options.
In each case, the narrator brings a set of assumptions, values, interpretations, desires, etc. to the table. And narrators are not always reliable.
To better understand what I mean by the unreliability of a narrator, consider a few questions:
- Should you trust that a spurned lover is giving you just the facts?
- Is the advice often doled out to “you” in songs really given for “your” own good?
- Can the narrator be wrong?
- Is there a layer of meaning that lies above the surface details of the narrative? Something the narrator might not be aware of?
Narrator and persona
Let’s come at this from a different angle. Musicians are often known for a public persona that is not necessarily their “authentic” self.
One of the masters of persona was David Bowie, who took on a series of characters over the course of his career. Ziggy Stardust, for example, spanned multiple albums.
When we consider a particular song from that period, say “Starman”, that background persona colors our interpretation of the narrator of the song.
Some artists retain a more consistent persona that develops over time, Prince being a great example. And others stick with a persona that barely changes. Think Joey Ramone.
In cases like these, the lines between persona and the real person are not always clear.
But it’s also possible to straight-out play a character. For example, for his Quasimoto project, Madlib artificially speeds up his voice to rap as “Lord Quas”.
Kate Bush pushes the idea of multiple personas even further. For example, on “The Dreaming”, one of my favorite albums, she takes on a different persona for each song.
Of course, we can’t help but interpret these perspectives through her own persona as an artist. So there are multiple layers at work.
The complex relationship between persona and narrator is perhaps even more obvious when it comes to cover songs. Here are a few interesting examples:
- Jimi Hendrix’ cover of Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”
- Johnny Cash’ cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt”
- Tori Amos’ cover of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence”
What role does the music play?
So far I’ve been describing perspective in music as though songs were just very short stories. But of course, lyrics are only one part of a song!
The meaning of those lyrics are shaped by the musical setting. And there are many tools available here.
Let’s start with melody.
Some notes are more unstable than others. For example, the 7th note in the major scale is particularly tense, pulling us strongly up to the root note.
If you place an emotive word on the 7th, it will amplify its effect. That’s fairly straightforward.
But imagine you’re singing a line that superficially communicates confidence, like “I know it’s true.”
If you sing either “know” or “true” as the 7th, you can create the impression that the narrator isn’t really so confident. Or maybe the narrator is confident, but wrong.
Rhythmic placements can have similar effects. Scarlet Keys gives the example↗(opens in a new tab) of someone saying they’ll marry you. If they lean forward and say it with confidence, you might believe them.
But if they pause between every other word, something is up. You can imitate this kind of effect in the rhythmic places of important words and phrases in a line.
And of course, the melody itself always exists within a larger harmonic context. For example, by creating contrast between the sentiment of a melodic line and the sentiment expressed by the chords, a songwriter can add different levels of ambiguity.
We’re just scratching the surface. These are powerful tools that aren’t available to a fiction writer.
Is the narrator the same as the character?
Before discussing some of the ways you can play with perspective in your own songs, I want to briefly touch on a deeper question about perspective in music.
We’ve been assuming that the narrator and the character or persona singing the lyrics are one and the same. But you could argue that the “narrator” encompasses all of the elements of the song.
George Wilson has made a similar point when it comes to narration in film. In his book Narration in Light↗(opens in a new tab), he argues that even when a film has a voice-over narrator, that narrator is only one element in a larger system. That system includes the framing and editing of shots, the on-screen dialogue, the music and sound, etc.
The perspective of the film is communicated through this system as a whole. And it can complicate or contradict the perspective of the protagonist or voice-over narrator.
To get at this question for music, ask yourself this question: Can a song communicate a message or perspective that is different from the one literally expressed in the lyrics?
If so, who is communicating that perspective?
It’s tempting to say it must be the artist, but I hope our discussion so far makes you think twice about this answer.
Just as an artist is free to take on a persona through lyrics, they are also free to take on a persona in the creation of the entire song. This allows them to explore, complicate, and challenge ideas in a way that wouldn’t be possible as “little old me”.
Playing with perspectives in your music
I hope that our discussion so far has already sparked ideas for how to play with perspective. Either way, let’s consider a few approaches you can try out.
First, if you normally write songs from your own, personal point of view, I encourage you to experiment with new perspectives. It stretches your narrative muscles, disrupts your habits, and gives you a different view of what a song can be.
Perhaps the most obvious idea is just to think of a character and write the song from that character’s perspective. There’s no end to the possibilities here.
Some songwriters will draw directly from works of fiction or films. Some will base characters on people they’ve met or read about. Others will just invent them.
Another approach is to explore more abstract ideas. You can write lyrics about something, without any particular character in mind. Then you can use the music to complicate the perspective.
As an example, you could write about the emergence of life on Earth. If your description is cold and distant, then a perspective is emerging: that of the scientist. If instead you use metaphor and sensory writing, then perhaps the perspective is more that of an artist.
You can then use the music to complicate this perspective. Let’s say we take the detached perspective of the scientist in the lyrics. Here are some possibilities for the music:
- A cold, electronic approach might cast this lyrical perspective as alien or even funny.
- An awe-inspiring approach might emphasize the limits of describing nature “objectively”.
- A weird, experimental approach might cast the lyrics as creepy and inhuman.
- A melancholy approach might stress the humanity of the scientist hidden under the surface of the words.
Maybe these ideas wouldn’t make for a great song, but they illustrate how many options you have as a songwriter. And these make for great songwriting exercises to add to your practice.
Long story short: your next song doesn’t have to be about your own experience of unrequited love. Experiment and have fun!