Weezerpedia:Topic For Discussion:Repeat lyrics

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Weezerpedia Discussion Topics: "Repeat sections" in our lyrics

This is the second article that Weezerpedia has ever pegged as a Topic For Discussion. Let's see how it goes!

Instructions

  • Please sign all entries with --~~~~
  • Begin all entries with a bullet point by typing * before your post. To respond to someone's comment, enter two asterisks a line below their post.
  • Place either Repeat:, Don't Repeat:, or Other: at the beginning of each entry

Discussion

Should our lyrics have repeat sections?
I'm defining "repeat sections," for lack of a better term, as the parts of a song that recur - i.e. choruses that are sung multiple times. If we want this, we would spell out those chorus lyrics every time they're sung in a song. For an example of a song that is currently formatted this way, see Say It Ain't So#Lyrics. If we don't do this, our lyrics sections would skip over a chorus the second time it's sung, for example, and proceed right to the bridge. El Scorcho#Lyrics provides an example of this.

Responses

  • Repeat: Until thinking about it just now to create this discussion page, I would have said we shouldn't repeat, mostly because that's what Rivers did when writing out the lyric sheets for Blue and Pink. I like the aesthetic of it on the wiki page - more succinct and short. I also like that it honors the text of the lyrics in their own right, as opposed to merely transcribing what is sung. I've changed my mind, though, in thinking about our being a wiki. I think part of the point of a project like this is to document and stay out of the way as much as possible. There are big exceptions to this which I fully embrace, of course - we lean rather enthusiastically into "being in the way" on fandom pages, and I wouldn't change that. But in the lyrics of a song page, I think the responsibility is to just present exactly what the song contains, without editorializing or formatting to our liking. For that reason I vote "repeat." I'm happy to be convinced otherwise, though. --MyNameIsJason (talk) 05:55, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Repeat: (Editing from phone, so excuse mistakes) Personally, I don't see a reason not to repeat choruses and other similar lines in the standard lyric transcriptions of songs. I understand not repeating in an attempt to replicate the way the song was originally written by Cuomo, but if that's an intention, there ought to be some sort of separation between song lyrics and written lyrics. Who's to say what sections shouldn't be repeated? It's almost entirely subjective (Disregarding the afformentioned Cuomo lyric sheets) where lyrics should or should not be excluded due to repition. Along with this, it undoubtedly stands to confuse new users and editors. I have no doubt new pages by inexperienced users would not follow a "Don't Repeat" standard, and that there would be editing wars by those trying to ""fix"" the lyrics. And for lesser known songs, ignoring later choruses may be overall misleading. Weezerpedia results are relatively high on Google searches, it seems unreasonable to present an incomplete form of each song in every case. I frankly do not see a decent reason to indiscriminatly remove lines from the wiki's transcriptions of the songs due to repition. I may be missing something, however, so like MNIJ says, I have no objections to being convinced that it'd be a positive change.--I Donte Like Birdse (talk) 06:24, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Other: I think one major purpose of having lyrics on a page is to follow along while listening, so repeating would make that more straightforward. However, if you're concerned about brevity, we could label Chorus sections etc and just put "[Chorus]" in place of the full text for repeats. Also, for songs with multiple versions/revisions of lyrical content, I stand by the current practice of only including the sections that differ in the space for the alternate lyrics. --Lettuce (talk) 19:04, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Repeat: I think repeat choruses are good. I feel like the alternative would necessitate labeling sections as [Chorus], [Pre-chorus], [Bridge], etc. which other lyric sites do and which I think just looks messy in the context of this site. I agree that it's good to have the repeats in the interest of following along with the lyrics. Sometimes lyrics can go on a little too long on the page, but I think that's often a problem of unnecessary use of line breaks. However, I think in instances where a chorus repeats twice in succession, I think it's preferable to simplify things by just including one instance.--HMC (talk) 23:25, 15 January 2021 (UTC)