Do you have trouble hearing song lyrics?

[Suguri]

Do you have trouble hearing song lyrics? I hope I'm not the only one who gets too distracted by the instruments in a song to understand what the singer is saying. ^^; I always end up having to look up the lyrics just so I can understand the song's message.

 

[bestfriendsally]

for me, it was, until just now (yesterday(20/12/24 at 9:21 PM)... the song ''just begun'' megumi hayashibara, from the slayers anime with the line ''Tada katsu tame ni '' ... i thought she was singing ''tatakau'' tame ni ahhhhhh!! but... i think i should've thought about hearing harder my world got turned upside down...



i've gotten used to it, now, though :3

 

[Seastar]

Yes, I definitely have this problem. It depends on the song but there's quite a lot of instances where I don't know what the lyrics are at all, especially if I never heard the song before.
I believe there are some songs where it's easier for me to figure out, but not always.

 

[azurill]

Yea all the time. I have bad hearing so I often get the lyrics wrong and have to look them up.Its kinda funny how wrong I sometimes get the lyrics especially when hearing a song for the first time.

 

[ZeldaCrossing64]

All the time, lol. I have to really listen intently to get all the lyrics (or relisten to a song over and over until I memorize it), otherwise I don't understand what the singer is saying or I mishear something. I initially had trouble getting into certain artists like Korn and Rob Zombie, because the singing sounded like pure gibberish to me.

I relistened to "The Frayed Ends of Sanity" by Metallica the other day, and I had only just registered some of the lines, particularly "Now the candle burns at both ends". I was like... "Uh, that was in the song?!"

 

[Clock]

Overall it depends, but most of the time it comes from me playing music at low volume.

 

[Suguri]

Yes, I definitely have this problem. It depends on the song but there's quite a lot of instances where I don't know what the lyrics are at all, especially if I never heard the song before.
I believe there are some songs where it's easier for me to figure out, but not always.

Looks like I'm not the only one, after all! Yeah I can definitely relate. I can't remember their names right now but I'm pretty sure there were some songs I listened to where the lyrics were so clear I could make them out on the first try.

Yea all the time. I have bad hearing so I often get the lyrics wrong and have to look them up.Its kinda funny how wrong I sometimes get the lyrics especially when hearing a song for the first time.

Ah, I'm sorry. Though that makes sense for you honestly, because for me I still have trouble getting lyrics even with decent hearing lol. I'm positive I'm like that because I'm autistic.

All the time, lol. I have to really listen intently to get all the lyrics (or relisten to a song over and over until I memorize it), otherwise I don't understand what the singer is saying or I mishear something. I initially had trouble getting into certain artists like Korn and Rob Zombie, because the singing sounded like pure gibberish to me.

I relistened to "The Frayed Ends of Sanity" by Metallica the other day, and I had only just registered some of the lines, particularly "Now the candle burns at both ends". I was like... "Uh, that was in the song?!"

omg even my partner T0T

and wow that Metallica song! I enjoyed the instrumentals there so much I never paid attention to what they were saying hahah! I... honestly forgot that was one of the lines so I get it. Maybe I should listen to it again!

 

[Tude]

Mishearing lyrics doesn't just happen to autistic people so don't feel bad. I mishear stuff too and I'm not autistic. Singing has a way of obscuring words in and of itself most of the time.

My high school choir teacher was a stickler for enunciation. He taught us we had to over emphasize consonants, sing with our palates elevated, our mouths rounded and open wide, stand up straight, take deep breaths from our stomachs and not shallow breaths from our lungs, and other stuff I'm forgetting. It sounded like we were singing with a British accent.

He said popular music (rock, pop, country, etc) didn't use proper technique and that's why it's hard to understand singers sometimes.

 

[Suguri]

Mishearing lyrics doesn't just happen to autistic people so don't feel bad. I mishear stuff too and I'm not autistic. Singing has a way of obscuring words in and of itself most of the time.

My high school choir teacher was a stickler for enunciation. He taught us we had to over emphasize consonants, sing with our palates elevated, our mouths rounded and open wide, stand up straight, take deep breaths from our stomachs and not shallow breaths from our lungs, and other stuff I'm forgetting. It sounded like we were singing with a British accent.

He said popular music (rock, pop, country, etc) didn't use proper technique and that's why it's hard to understand singers sometimes.

Don't worry about it! I'm okay, I was just wondering why I have trouble understanding lyrics and this was my best guess. Your choir teacher has great insight BTW!

 

[Giddy]

Being someone with hard of hearing for most of my life, I definitely don't hear all the lyrics completely when I first listen to a new song. It's probably also why when I do listen to music, I go for the lyrics on the screen so I actually know whats being said.
And I think because certain words sound the same, is why I hear something different to what is being said.

It's funny how unsure I could be listening to a new song, due to trying to hear the lyrics over the music, and then read the lyrics on screen and my ears automatically understand that's what the words are saying! (kinda reminds me of when 'ghost hunters' hear something, and then put on the screen what 'they' think the whispers are saying, and since your brain is reading that, your brain is trying to fix that word into the whispers it hears, so then it does actually sound like that, when it could just be something not ghost like.)

 

[lasagne_of_death]

So I'm usually okay with song lyrics, but sometimes I don't quite catch what's said/sung. For example, I literally cannot hear "set fire to the rain" in Adele's song and didn't know those were the words until someone asked me if I'd ever heard the song and I was like "no, I don't think so."

It's also known to happen where I think I heard the lyrics perfectly, then when I go to sing coughsquawkcough I get the words wrong and people just look at me like:

As @/Tude said, over enunciating words helps understand the lyrics when being sung, but it does feel a bit silly when you're doing it. And the British accent thing is real, I know this one Polish guy and he sounds Polish, but when he's singing it's like a switch has been flipped and suddenly he's English. Good singer though.

When I don't like the lyrics to a song, or I think it would sound better if phrased a different way, I will attempt to make myself believe that the words are different and everyone else is wrong. It never works but I persist anyway.

 

[SkyKnight03]

I often have trouble hearing lyrics and I also use subtitles for movie dialogue.

Although lyrics will clear up if I hear a song multiple times or go out of my way to learn what is being said.

 

[a potato]

Oh definitely
There have been so many times when I look up lyrics and say ohhhhh