Vowels
I read somewhere that when Justin Vernon of Bon Iver was recording his first album, the lyrics to his songs were formulated only after he had created the sound of the vowels that give structure to the words.
So they actually weren't words yet -- just another complement to the layer of sounds as a song develops.
The music is first.
Then, he determined which words sounded like the vowels and chose words most appropriate to what he was trying to "say."
The result was a subconscious expression from the same source that was the genesis of the song.
I'm not a musician, but it seems that this would expand the vocabulary of a songwriter (even though words would have to be selected within the confines of a certain form based on vowels -- not unlike writing a poem in haiku).
The musician is freer to select the words that will ultimately be printed as the lyrics to his song, because he knows his aim isn't to tell an entirely conscious story.
The lyrics then don't have to mean much of anything -- though if the point of the artist is to share his experience, even if it's just in explaining his experience to himself, the words will bear some resemblence.
The listener is free to hear the words he wants to hear, to interpret what he feels more than what he thinks.
And the artist, by nature of how he arrived at his creation, encourages this.
Music, dance, poetry, painting, photography ...
It's best when comes from a place you have to express instead of explain.
Writing can only take a person so far on the journey to enlightenment.
It's like a boat carrying you through seas that are too deep and vast to swim -- but if you want to truly know, you're going to have to take a plunge eventually and let what creates the words be your source.
