Talk:1538: Lyrics

The character I'm missing in the title is Tibetan Mark Bska- Shog Gi Mgo Rgyan U+0FD0 108.162.216.129 06:13, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Description seems heavily referential, without a clear or concise description of the mechanisms involved. Surely there is a psychological concept associated with this, rather than "that one scat jazz song" 108.162.219.166 06:40, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

I feel like Randall is talking about all songs in this comic, not just ones where the singer favours "emotion, accent or style over clear pronunciation of the lyrics". I mean, has anyone ever listened to a song and immediately understood every single lyric on the first listen? I think that's the issue Randall is trying to express. Enchantedsleeper (talk) 14:36, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Unicode

And the second Box is a Mathematical Script small I (U+1D4BE) And the First Box is a Mathematical Fraktur small S (U+1D530) I think These are the only ones, that iOS7 can't picture. ẞ qwertz (talk) 06:35, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

More fun with Unicode. Question is, which OS does Randall have that has perfect support? (It has to cover emoji and obscure glyphs like these. Likely that it's multiple devices?) Azule (talk) 06:47, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Windows 7 here, everything displays properly for me. I don't think supporting most (or all) of the Unicode charset is as uncommon today as it used to be. 108.162.221.128 10:37, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Linux Mint 17 here, ditto. Seipas (talk) 11:05, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Most of todays operating systems have unicode support perfect, but may still lack some fonts. -- Hkmaly (talk) 12:08, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, http://i62.tinypic.com/258b02t.png is as far as I've so far managed to get my personal rendering. "...but it's hard to read and I can't focus ?it?" would have been be my guess. 141.101.99.48 14:28, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm looking forward to finding out what the words are in English (as opposed to Unicodish). Azule (talk) 06:47, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

"...but it's hard to read and I can't focus"? Gearóid (talk) 07:48, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Misheard Lyrics

Folks. I offer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI1hGShVdBA as the latest example of the genre. "I rub a Mexican loki" -> "I'm up all night to get lucky". Gearóid (talk) 07:02, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Not typical example. In typical example, you can't hear the lyrics over the music, not because the singer have bad pronunciation. -- Hkmaly (talk) 12:08, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Still, could be added to the explanation that "misheard lyrics" is its own genre on Youtube. Notable example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg5_mlQOsUQ --108.162.254.104 21:02, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

...Songs still have lyrics these days? {turns on the radio} BWWWUWWUWUWUWUB {turns off the radio} 108.162.215.111

I sometimes observe that while dreaming, I can read the seemingly intelligible text perfectly well, but it changes every time I look back at it. --173.245.48.161 09:04, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Title possibly inspired by http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags/1732454#1732454 (however, there is a lot of stuff like that) 108.162.254.108 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Why a phone? Why cannot Cueball be holding a tablet? -- RChandra (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Can it be remote control to the radio he's listening to? Or CD case with printed lyrics? I don't know how phone would fit the story. 173.245.51.120 13:18, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

For non-native English speakers is even funnier: you look up the lyrics after giving up on deciphering what it says and think: "After so many years studying this language, is *that huge* the comprehension gap between natives and I"? Then you find that natives don't pick up the lyrics either. 141.101.66.53 13:20, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Don't look up the lyrics. Whatever you imagine it to be is likely better, and if you can't tell what it is and have no idea: Consider yourself lucky. "If I could be so lucky, lucky, lucky!".108.162.254.149 13:46, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm the person that can hear all the lyrics without looking them up. I can't turn it off, and then my brain analyses what they actually mean. Trust me, you're better off not being able to understand them. They suck. Andyd273 (talk) 14:05, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

I only have that after looking up the lyrics. (non-native english speaker). I think I somewhat agree with you. --141.101.104.67 15:35, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Attempt at translating

Please feel free to add suggestions below those I have given here. I write first each line in the attempt I have given at typing what is actually written (of course not possible), and then the next line (indented) with the words I think should be there. I have already two possible interpretations of one line. So please just ad an :or and a new line here below. Then note below with a signature that you have added more lines here. Maybe we can include some of the best guesses in the explanation. I do not think this will turn out to be a real song we can find the lyrics to, but I would be very interested in good suggestions. --Kynde (talk) 15:02, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

I CANTFVEN +ELe THER

I can't even tell her

or

I can't even help her

or

I can't f-en please her ("plussee th-er")

ANDT⊕NG fHE WCAN NAp.

And ???? she can ???.

or

And ???? she wanna.

or

Finding she can nap

or

Finding she wanna.

or

Anything she wants ta (to?)

or

Anything she wants can have (wa' can 'haf)

HADBE AūτlfA!NNNG∩RKILL...

Had be ????????????? kill…

Had be ous tanning or I'll ? --162.158.68.29 15:26, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

or

Had be >autsaining< (outstanding?) or kill

or

Had ße aut?????? I'll (Had me out, saying "I will¨)

or

Had to be outstanding girl

FOR♡ITiNnaAGL♡OOO!VEEE ?-

For ????????? Loooveee?-

or

Foorgetting Looooveee

or

For tiny gloooooooove

or

For Tina's Looooooveee

or

Forgotten Love --162.158.68.29 15:26, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Please just fill in more suggestions above--Kynde (talk) 15:02, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Added some. Apearently someone can't tell some sleeping girl something because she is asleep and therefore not listening. He/she did not know the girl could nap before he found out she was asleep. The rest as of yet makes even less sense. What would the genre of this song be? --141.101.104.67 15:35, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

The drawn out "loooooove" makes me think pop. -Captain Video (talk) 16:55, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Added some of my own. I think it makes slightly more sense now, if you pick the right ones. Others are just silly. 15:54, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

The structure of the lyrics (four lines of equal length) suggests the standard A/B/A/B rhyme scheme, which could in theory help decipher them. In practice, the final syllables of each line appear to be her/nap/-ill/love, which make no musical sense. - Captain Video (talk) 16:55, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Accesibility/Readibility

I'm pretty sure I've seen the Transcript changed several times, presumably by different people, encompassing representations of 1) what it wants to be in 'normal' text, 2) what it might consist of in Unicode and 3) a compromise version of what it looks like in (mostly) non-Unicode. (As it currently stands, I still have character-missing symbols, in the transcript, on my particular platform.) Can I suggest that the transcript (and elsewhere where such things are quoted?) maybe uses something like the pattern "FOO (Bar)" for each line, "FOO" being the best-guess full Unicode representation (for the visual effect, where it works) and "Bar", here italicised and in parenthises but other formats being available, being the best-guess original text (for readability, especially for people without full Unicode support). Once the Attempt at translating, above, has settled down, of course. And how about doing the same for a 'readable' version of the Hovertext, too? You shouldn't assume that everyone who comes here is as fully equipped, font-wise, as any other contributor (or even Randall) is. Reducing to the 7-bit ASCII range of characters (i.e. #s 32-126) for the 'plaintext' version should be entirely possible and accessible to all current and future platforms, without any obvious limitations. 141.101.99.48 22:03, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Lyric Deafness

As soon as I read this comic it perfectly described how I hear lyrics in basically all music, and my reaction was "oh, wow, it's not just me". I am quite musically inclined, and can play a few instruments and quite quickly learn how to play a song just be listening to it. I can also, for example, often recognize a song I haven't heard in 10 years in just a couple notes and hum along with it -- but on the flip side, I can hear a song once or twice a day for weeks, and still not even know more than a couple words in the chorus despite otherwise knowing the song note-for-note. I have to really concentrate to actually hear the words. I was surprised to see no explanation of this phenomenon here. I started searching and quickly came across the term "lyric deaf", and in fact, there have been many discussions about this that very accurately reflect my own feelings:

• http://ask.metafilter.com/154586/Why-cant-I-hear-lyrics
• http://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/1eyche/i_cant_understand_lyrics_am_i_alone/
• http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/85/why-are-some-people-unable-to-easily-memorize-the-lyrics-to-a-song
• http://www.quora.com/Is-there-such-a-thing-as-being-lyric-deaf

I added a couple sentences about this but it could probably use some good citations. People that are not themselves lyric deaf are likely unable to understand what this even means.