THE POWER OF AN AUDIENCE: Trust the Art, Not the Artist

Written by Michael Black

Bob Marley once wrote "One good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain" (Marley). Indeed, millions of people around the world find significant meaning in popular song. Over the course of the last century, song lyrics have become an essential part of the form of popular song. Whether it be rock'n'roll, rap, folk, pop, reggae, or many other forms of music, lyrics give people a special connection to songs that would otherwise be absent, and while writers try hard to put their thoughts and feelings into song, often times the meaning of lyrics are misinterpreted. Many would like to attribute this misinterpretation to poor lyric writing or an unperceptive audience, but the truth is at this point it does not matter because the audience has shaped their own interpretation of the text. In turn, the analysis of misinterpretation of lyrics and an audience's power legitimizes the argument of mass mediated texts being polysemous.

In The Rhetorical Limits of Polysemy, Condit argues, "Audiences do not simply receive messages; they decode texts", but what happens when they decode them incorrectly (Condit, 104)? Is there a correct or incorrect way to decode? Does the artist have the ability to control how they are decoded? Unfortunately, after a song has been written and recorded the songwriter has virtually no control over what meanings are attached to his or her song.

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