I’M going to let you in on a secret to songwriting – the words are what matter, not the music.

A love for great literary works, authors or poets is not a prerequisite to be a lover of words. It doesn’t necessarily mean devouring the canonical whole to find great meaning or wisdom within the prose. A love for wit and turns of phrase is a better start. Sometimes, the best and most profound lyrics are out there waiting in others’ conversations. You just need a prying ear.

While a majority of middle- and upper-class tiger mums and helicopter parents rush to enrol their children in music lessons (which are oftentimes miserable for the kid, mind you) in the hope that what they heard through the grapevine about how learning music or an instrument adds to a child’s “intelligence” (I doubt any of them actually read the research from which this myth emerged) is true, not many give much thought to the power of articulating personal ideas and emotions in song.

There’s always a utilitarian false belief attached to creative or artistic endeavours in the contemporary world (more so in Asia – I might be wrong; it might be the pandemic), which, to me, is just a symptom of economic rationalism hijacking the arts. I’ve been asked many times why I pursue creative or artistic activities (and I’m sure others in the creative arts have, too), and it will be followed by the dumb question “Got money ah?”. Or just because my face is occasionally plastered in magazine articles or the arts section of local newspapers (which have shrunk like the Aral Sea), “Wah, already famous, got money ah?” sometimes follows.

For me, it shows that the arbitrary lumping together of “the arts” and “entertainment” in our social categories has reduced the critical function of what society at large can benefit from the former: to give the people a “voice”.

Don’t get me wrong, all art must somewhat “entertain”, but maybe that word itself has been bastardised. Let us ponder on this oft-used and abused word with the help of the humble Google Search:

Entertain /ɛntəˈteɪn/

Verb

1. Provide (someone) with amusement or enjoyment.

2. Give attention or consideration to (an idea or feeling).

So much for my assumed bastardisation of the word in the first definition. As a verb, it does indeed refer to “providing” someone with “amusement” or “enjoyment”. Notice how I kept the quotation marks (an important skill to avoid plagiarism and being deemed a liar). These words have very different connotations and purposes in different contexts. For example, a night out with work clients at a KTV outlet in Kuchai Lama versus a visit to Sunway Lagoon with the family during the school holidays.

We get warmer to my intended direction with the second definition: to give “attention” or “consideration” to an “idea” or “feeling”. This is the magic that a lot of great performers unleash on their audiences, which many miss the point of.

Most seminal stand-up comedians, like Richard Pryor and George Carlin, did not tell jokes. They told stories, sometimes their own, sometimes observational, that were often rooted in pain, misery and hard-biting social realism. In Malaysia, when one says “comedy”, the mental image that leaps to mind is of the garden-variety “lawak bodoh” (dumb humour)... not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m just saying there are more dishes laid out in the buffet, and I’m pointing you to that direction.

Sorry, I digress. Back to the topic.

An artistic “voice” is something most creatives seek, and this does not refer to the superficial need to hit several octaves or the ability to stretch notes with your vocal cords or sound “divine” unlike how you look (an important element of those so-called “talent” shows like The Voice). The “voice” is embedded not in the sonics of singing, but in the words that are uttered, and how they are uttered.

What the hushed protest by some literary circles against the bestowal of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature on Bob Dylan tells me is, we as a society have not grown up when it comes to understanding our “voice”.

As for Malaysia? Fuhgeddaboutit. We place misguided “hopes” on politicians and other elected representatives time and again because we have been rendered “artless” and “rational” by the system – just as The Man had ordered. We have forgotten how to “feel” and “listen to our gut”.

Are elected officials really our “voice”? Or are the artistes (not “artis”) rendered derelict by economic rationalism our real “voice”? If so, we have collectively allowed it to be suppressed by our consumerist attitudes and apathy. One will find only futility if one seeks merely utility in life.

I’ve changed my mind. I’ll keep the other secrets to songwriting for my memoir… – May 15, 2020.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.