In today’s pop hits, I find that word painting exists a lot more than one would imagine, especially since a lot of popular hits seem to lack content in the lyrics and sometimes melody. However, there are a few diamonds in the rough that include beautiful or clever word painting relating to the lyrics of the song. I wanted to present a few examples of this, because word painting is one of my favorite aspects of music with vocal lyrics. Specifically, I often see a connection with word painting in dance music, which once again, could surprise someone. I feel that many of my favorite dance anthems have this positive feeling that connects with the lyrics, and often they use many different methods of word painting to express this intense, positive emotion. The first song I wanted to talk about was “Walking On Air” by Kerli, which is in the following lyric-only video.

The song starts off with lyrics discussing a creepy girl, in a creepy town, and so on. The melody itself is dark-sounding, using minor scales and a lower key in order to create this feeling. However, the chorus become more positive in its lyrics. The melody changes, and the singer is singing ascending scales, building up, especially during “go fly, so high” to create a beautiful, intense feeling. She is really trying to represent this difference between the verses and the chorus, as well as try and create a feeling for listeners about “walking on air”. To me, I love this song because of the word painting Kerli uses and how unique the chorus is from the verse. You start to listen to this song thinking it’s negative, and creepy like the lyrics, but she does a complete reversal and is able to do so through great word painting.

Another quick example is Justin Timberlake’s “What Goes Around”. During the chorus, he creates a feeling of going around and coming back by using word painting. As he sings “what goes around, goes around, comes back around” the vocal scale he uses connects to this, using a descending octave then ascends to the original first note.