Stories in Music

The musicologist and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin estimates that we hear about five hours of music per day. It sounds impossible, but Levitin is counting everything: elevator music, movie scores, commercial jingles, and all the stuff we mainline into our brains through earbuds. Of course, not all music tells a story.

There are also symphonies, fugues, and avant-garde soundscapes blending wind chimes and bunny screams. But the most popular brand of music tells stories about protagonists struggling to get what they want—most often a boy or a girl. Singers might work in meter and rhyme, and alongside guitarists and drummers, but that does not alter the fact that the singer is telling a story—it only disguises it.