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The Cookers' book

Jazz

Sense in the sound

HARD WORK: By the time Cassandra Wilson wrote the lyrics to “Go the Mexico,” she really did want to go to Mexico.

It was at PJ Harvey’s first Boston-area show, at T.T. the Bear’s, that I realized how much lyrics can matter when the singer cares. I didn’t know what Polly was talking about, but I hung on every word of the opener (“Dry”?) as she delivered them over her one-note guitar picking. It was a reminder: oh yes, singers can do more than sing notes. They can shape words. And even if you don’t know what those words mean, the singer can create the illusion that you do.

I recently heard a radio interview where the cabaret singer Michael Feinstein said that Sarah Vaughan, one of the greatest singers in the history of jazz — perhaps in the history of recorded song — didn’t understand the lyrics to “Send In the Clowns.” Much of the music derived from musical theater really is about the words — and that would include the whole of what’s come to be called the Great American Songbook. Listen to John Pizzarelli sing Sinatra and then listen to Sinatra sing Sinatra and the difference is clear. Johnny Pie sings the words as though he didn’t know what they mean. Sinatra sang “Fly Me to the Moon” as if his life depended on it. If he knew what the lyrics meant or he didn’t, he sold ’em.