You can have a song…only if there is a melody.
You can have lyrics…but without a melody…it’s poetry.
You can have rhythm…but without a melody…it’s just a beat.
Of course lyrics and rhythm are important aspects in music, but the only essential ingredient is melody. A song without lyrics is still a song…an instrumental…and you can vary the rhythm.
There’s an excellent book Songwriters On Songwriting by Paul Zollo.
He interviews over 60 songwriters. One of the more fascinating revelations is that songwriters tell him some of their best songs come to them almost like the universe is presenting them with a gift. Three famous examples of this are the songs “Yesterday”, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “You’ve Got A Friend”. Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, and Carole King say the songs came to them in dreams. Plus, so many times songwriters have said…”It practically wrote itself”.
So who is the best melody writer? Paul Simon says it’s Paul McCartney. Let’s check the evidence. The most recorded song of all time is “Yesterday”. For years, the second most recorded song was “Michelle”. A recent search of the top ten most recorded songs found “Yesterday” still at #1 with “Eleanor Rigby” now at #2. Also in the top ten are “And I Love Her” and “Blackbird”. No other songwriter has more than one song in the top ten. John Lennon has “Imagine”, and then there are older classics like “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” and “Summertime”.
Here’s a playlist of some of McCartney’s Beatles songs:
- I Saw Her Standing There
- All My Loving
- Can’t Buy Me Love
- And I Love Her
- Things We Said Today
- I’ll Follow The Sun
- Yesterday
- We Can Work It Out
- I’ve Just Seen A Face
- Michelle
- Paperback Writer
- Eleanor Rigby
- For No One
- Here There And Everywhere
- Penny Lane
- Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
- She’s Leaving Home
- When I’m Sixty-Four
- The Fool On The Hill
- Lady Madonna
- Hey Jude
- Back In The U.S.S.R.
- Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da
- Blackbird
- I Will
- Get Back
- Two Of Us
- The Long And Winding Road
- Let It Be
While nearly everyone knows The Beatles were the top Billboard singles artists of the 1960’s, it might come as a surprise that Paul McCartney was the top singles artist of the 1970’s (he was mistakenly listed as #2 earlier). Sir Paul has had 37 top 40 hits, 9 number one singles and 8 number one albums. McCartney opens himself to criticism at times for less than poignant lyrics, but no one questions his melody writing.
A playlist of some of McCartney’s best solo songs:
- Junk
- Every Night
- Maybe I’m Amazed
- Another Day
- Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
- My Love
- Live And Let Die
- Band On The Run
- Jet
- Venus & Mars/Rockshow
- Listen To What The Man Said
- Silly Love Songs
- Mull Of Kintyre
- With A Little Luck
- Wanderlust
- No More Lonely Nights
- My Brave Face
- Hope Of Deliverance
- Calico Skies
- Somedays
- This Never Happened Before
Today, there’s a lot of criticism about the lack of great melodies, and of course Rap is often devoid of melody altogether. The trend in Pop music is to have teams of writers manufacture the hits. This results in some interesting arrangements that can have “hooks”, but most do not have the classic flow of great melodies. Maybe there needs to be a little less teamwork and commercial intent, and a little more soul and inspiration.