“La la la”: Exploring the beloved lyric

“I don’t know what to say, oh, not another word, just la-la-la-la-la, it goes around the world.”
-A Touch of Class, “Around the World (La La La La La)“

Back in 2022, I had the privlege to see John Harvie open for a major rock tour. I enjoyed his music, so I purchased his debut album, told ya., and the opening track, “My Name (In Your Mouth)”, contained a very familiar lyric: “la la la.”

As a punk artist, Harvie mixed the genre’s carefree and bratty attitude into the phrase – similar to the old entertainment trope of a chlid, or sometimes even an adult, sticking their fingers in their ears and saying, “la la la.” It does not even have to derive from rebellious punk, though, and can even be exemplified in mainstream pop, as Naughty Boy and Sam Smith accomplished back in 2013.

This moment triggered that little part of the brain in everyone that is solely dedicated to storing music lyrics. You know, the one that has now placed these two songs in your inventory and will probably play them on repeat just before you go to bed. Have fun. Harvie made me recall all the mainstream songs and deeper tracks in my music lobe catalog that used the beloved lyric “la la la” – some with great success.

My rabbit-hole-research was off to discover a common correlation between said success and the use of the phrase, but I also wondered if there was more meaning behind this basic lyric and how it fits into the way we communicate.

“La la la”

In “‘La La La, I’m not Listenting (but I really am)’: Exploring the Meaning of a Rhythmic Hook in Rock and Pop Music,” I decided to dive into the lyric, analyzing 138 songs from 1960-2023. Of course, there are many more songs with “la la la” in the lyrics than that, so try to avoid becoming hot and bothered that some hipster deep cut or monster mainstream song was not included in my playlist. I get it. You know music. So do I and a bunch of other people, shockingly.

There needed to be a cutoff point for two reasons. First: sanity. I lost many hours of sleep with various “la la la” melodies stuck in a loop in my head. Thanks a lot, music lobe. Second: saturation. I was able to find five common reoccuring themes among the use of this lyric: love, reminiscing, communal, dismissive and just a basic hook.

The point of this study, however, was to prove that the lyric was more than just some rhythmic hook, non-lexical vocable or nonsensical placeholder. “La la la” could be interpteted to complement the meaning of the song in some cases, promoting sensical non-lexical integration.

As for the success rate of songs that used the lyric, 61 of the 138 songs analyzed landed on the Billboard Hot 100, including 49 top-40s. 30 top-10s and 11 No. 1s. Each decade analyzed had at least one top-5 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, except the ‘90s. Which is strange if you think about songs like “Self-Esteem” by The Offspring, “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt, “Mr. Jones” by The Counting Crows and, my personal favorite “la la la” song, “Story of My Life” by Social Distortion.

OK, not everyone listens to rock music, I get it. However, maybe they should. The “reminiscing” category, which included 11 songs, all in the rock realm, had the best ratio of charted songs (54%), best ratio of top-40s, top-10s and No. 1s, the best average chart position (7.2), and the most usage of “la la la” per song (20.7%).

Rock on.

So, from my analysis, I found that the lyric held more meaning. But, who cares, right? This is just one guy’s subjective opinion. You’re right! That is why I conducted a listener survey as well.

Listener perception

After creating five eight-song playlists, meticulously curated to include tracks from different genres, decades and chart positions, 153 participants took part in the study. The listeners were provided with one of the five playlists at random, asked to listen to the songs on shuffle, and then answer a few basic questions.

The results found that 74% of listeners perceived “la la la” to hold more lyrical meaning in some cases, and each of the 40 songs made available to listeners were recognized, favorited and the “la la la” portion of the track was stuck in their heads at least once – except for one. “Story of My Life” apparently is not that catchy. I cannot say I am not offended and confused.

You’re probably bored by this point, so, for your listening pleasure, here were the top-5 “la la la” songs, according to listeners:

This top-5 list shows a few interesting things, as well. These songs fall within four of the established five thematic categories and were released in four different decades. In addition, “Piano Man” was recorded in 1973 and the average age of the participants was 22, the song peaked at No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100, and fell within one of the least-favorited themes and genres by the participants.

So, for songwriters out there, it appears that “la la la” resonates with listeners no matter their age, taste in music or popularity. It also holds more meaning than meets the ear.

Moving forward

This dumb random study goes beyond support for sensical non-lexical integration in songwriting; it relates to broader forms of everyday communication. Something so simple such as “la la la” can be complex on how we contextually converse with each other. And we desperately need to find better, more creative ways to communicate in the modern era, because ghosting just isn’t working that well. If not, people may be stuck learning everything they know about the world from random people’s websites. Could you imagine?

La la la, I’m not listening to your answer, la la la, just moving on with my day.

“So everyone woke, telling the same joke, and singing the same chorus to a song, that hasn’t even been wrote, don’t know how to lead, just follow along, there is no right or wrong way for certain, make up your own verision, sing along, la la la la, la la la la, la la la la la la la la la.”
-Butch Walker, “ladies and gentleman… The Let’s-Go-Out-Tonites!“

Please feel free to reach out with any questions regarding more details about this study.

Featured image photo courtesy of Live Nation