Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing: songs with unintelligible lyrics

Have you ever felt like your emotional, vulnerable soul connects too deeply with the beautifully-written poetry in song lyrics? Do you need music playing while you study but get distracted by all those words? Well suffer no longer, here is a playlist with lyrics you won’t be able to understand at all.

1. Boys Age – “Postcards Holiday”

If a slacker rock band were led by a drunk five year old (and I mean this in the best way possible), this song would be the product. Every garbled word sounds like it’s part of secret language. If you look up the lyrics, they kind of seem right? I guess?

2. MT. OSSA – “Klaus & Kathy”

MT. OSSA’s experimental 70’s instrumental sound overpowers the clarity of the lyrics, but will still have you trying to sing along every time until you give up and hum. They’ve only released one cover since making Homework Machine in 2013, but the album is a fantastic, fluid listen from beginning to end with some clearer lyrics sprinkled in.

3. King Krule – “Baby Blue”

This song made its way to the playlist only because of the incomprehensible scat-like bit toward the end of the track. While the rest of the lyrics are easy to understand, what is truly confusing is how Archy Marshall can look like a scrawny redhead but have such a powerful baritone voice.

4. My Bloody Valentine – “When You Sleep”

The lyrics for “When You Sleep” are bittersweet and poetic, but are overpowered by the noisy, but dreamy high-feedback guitars until they’re reduced to a hum. My Bloody Valentine are credited as the pioneers of shoegaze, after all.

5. Grimes – “Genesis”

“Genesis” is Grimes’s biggest hit, and I have to wonder if the 43 million YouTube views come from watching and rewatching to try to figure out what she’s saying. Her slight lisp and ambient vocals can make this a difficult feat, but once you figure it out (or just look it up), this repetitive track is easy to sing along to.

6. Cocteau Twins – “Pearly-Dewdrops’ Drops”

Cocteau Twins’s dreamy, ethereal 80’s pop sound is complemented by their completely unintelligible lyrics that sound like an angel speaking in tongues. Their signature lyrical style focuses on verbal sound rather than semantics- you can make out most of the words, but together they are meaningless.

7. Tonstartssbandht – “5FT7”

Here, the band’s name alone hints that their music may not be so clear. The swooping bass and distorted, sweeping vocals make everything unclear except for the title lyric “I’m five feet seven.” But it’s still catchy.

Written by Abby Blaine