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Music And Lyrics As An Ode: Songs Titled After Names

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Music and Lyrics as an Ode: Songs Titled After Names

by Tia Briggs

Songwriters get inspirations for their music and lyrics from the unlikeliest places. Oftentimes, listeners don’t get to know where the inspiration for the lyrics and music were acquired unless the artist talks about it. But there are a number of instances when the source of inspiration for the music and the lyrics can easily be found out just by looking at the song’s lyrics and the content of the song. And then there are times when, beyond the lyrics, the song’s inspiration is probably proclaimed for the whole world to see. Yes, this happens when the artists title their songs after names.

There are a number of songs titled after names. The names usually aren’t actual names of people, although they usually reflect how the music and the lyrics of the song came about. For instance, Michael Jackson’s famed “Billie Jean” talks about a personal experience—a woman claiming that her child was Jackson’s child—and the lyrics obviously reference a number of real life occurrences. So while “Billie Jean” is not named after a real person, the lyrics and the title still reflect the source of the inspiration. Of course, the composition and the relation of the title and the lyrics in this type of songs do not always work the same way.

For instance, there are a number of songs where the title is also the persona the singer is talking to. An example of this is “Adrienne” by The Calling. In the lyrics of this song, the speaker (or the singer) is clearly speaking directly (or addressing) to the titular female Adrienne. In fact, the name Adrienne came up in the lyrics a number of times (the chorus of the lyrics: “Adrienne I thought I knew you / Once again you used me used me / Adrienne I should have left you / Long before you used me used me up”).

Then there are songs where the titular person in the song has very little to do with the lyrics and the song itself. Grace Kelly in Mika’s song of the same name function that way. Part of the lyrics of this song goes: “I try to be like Grace Kelley / But all her looks were too sad.” Obviously, the titular Grace Kelley is an actual person—she was an American actress who married the prince of Monaco, Rainier III, and became Princess Grace of Monaco. A number of songs were also titled after the name of actual people, such as “Nelson Mandela” by The Special and “Seymour Stein” by Belle and Sebastian.

Giving a song a title after a person’s name is said to be technique in writing lyrics. Most of the time, the name in the title does not actually pertain to an actual person; hence the name usually cannot be found in the lyrics itself. The name, instead of pertaining to a specific person, actually refers to the “everyman”—meaning the lyrics of the song could be for anyone who could relate to it. “Adrienne” in the lyrics and title of The Calling could be anyone, for instance.

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