A Word-Frequency Analysis of NIN Lyrics
investigated by nancy p.
A
But is there any scientific basis to our gut feeling about these recurrent themes? To anyone who is both a NIN fan and a computer geek, there is an obvious way to answer this question: Write a program, feed it all the NIN lyrics, and have it spit out the usage frequency of all the words. I hereby admit to being a NIN geek (hell, it was better than doing taxes). The results, given below, are generally what one would expect, though they do give a bit of additional insight.
Top of the list: I. I I I I I. And quite a bit of Me. Well, Trent has always been up front about the fact that he writes about his own inner feelings. It is true that You also shows up high on the list, but I suspect that's because of all the things You did to Me. Some of verbs at the top of the list add to the story:
I want
We do indeed find that our friend god and different forms of the
infinitive to fuck are both high on the list. In fact, the
Religious Right should take heart: Whereas god showed up 24 times,
hell was only mentioned four times and the devil five times (but
something is burning somewhere). Pigs rate somewhere in between
god and hell. Trent doesn't Kill very much, but he
does like to Smash. Nothing can stop him, and he is in
Control...or is it that he is Nothing, and someone or
something else has Control? Some of our other favorite words show up
much less than one might think or expect: Fist. Fix.
Suck. Vaseline.
I feel
I can
I can't
I get
I think
I know
And now, without further ado, the results.
Word Frequencies, five uses or more (alphabetical within category,
except for "100 or More," which is ordered by frequency):
i, i'm, i'll, i'd, i've
50 - 99 Uses:
you, you're
me, myself
it, it's
all
30 - 49 Uses:
can, can't, cannot
just
my
this
up
what, what's
want, wants, wanted
away
20 - 29 Uses:
come, comes, coming
feel, feels, feeling, feelings
get, gets, getting, got, gotta
have, having, has, had
he, he's, him
know, knows
now
that, that's
your
down
15 - 19 Uses:
everything, everything's
fuck, fucked, fucking
give, giving
god
how
like, liked
make, making, made
maybe
never
so
take, taken, taking, took
think, thinks, thought, thoughts
but
10 - 14 Uses:
control
go, going, goes
inside, insides
lie, lies, lying, lay
no
not
nothing, nothing's
part, parts
see, sees, saw
she, she's, she'll
something
still
there, there's
world, world's
believe, believed
5 - 9 Uses:
burn, burning, burned
could
eye, eyes
head
help
hey
his
if
let, let's
need, needed
one
only
out
pig, pigs, piggy
pure, purest, purity, purified
right
say, says, said
slave, slavery
smash, smashed
tell, told
thing, things
use, used
way, ways
will
well
anymore
back, backs
care, cares
become, becoming
big
blood, bleed, bleeding
broke, broken
deserve, deserved
devil, devils, devil's
drown, drowns, drowning
dream, dreams, dreamed
find, found
gonna
gun
guess
hand, hands
hard
hate, hatred
her, herself
hole
hope, hoped
hurt, hurts
kind, kinda
left
little
live, lives, lived, living
look, looks, looking, looked
lose, losing, lost
mean, means, meant
messed
money, money's
more
much
new
oh
open, opens, opened
promise, promises
put
real
realize, realized
really
same
screams
shoot
skin
someone, somebody
soul, souls
stop, stopped
taste
than
they, them
those
through, thru
throw, threw
time
too
try, tries, trying, tried
true, truth
turn, turning
understand, understands
watch, watching, watched
wave
when
where
who, who've
why
wish
would, wouldn't
In the past year, there has been some discussion indicating that longtime fans are growing weary of some of these recurring themes. Since the NIN boys are working on a new album, now is a perfect opportunity for us to suggest some new words they might be able to use. Starting with "creamy," "peanut," and "butter," of course. Mail your suggestions to nancyp@netcom.com, and we'll compile a list. Which can be used as input to the obvious follow-on to this exercise: The Automatic NIN Lyric Generator. (If 1,000 Trent Reznors sat in front of 1,000 keyboards, would they eventually create the complete works of Shakespeare? Or scripts for Oliver Stone films?...)
The Fine Print:
Songs included in this analysis are original NIN songs only (no covers or remix versions): songs from pretty hate machine, broken (excluding "suck" and "physical"), and the downward spiral, plus "now i'm nothing," "burn," "purest feeling," and "maybe just once." Lyrics were taken from the Unofficial Nine Inch Nails Home Page, with some cleanup for typos. Repeating choruses were removed except where wording differed.
Analysis was done using a perl program, plus a lot of manual massaging. Articles ("the," "a"), simple prepositions ("to," "for," etc.), forms of "to be," and other uninteresting words were removed. (It is interesting to note that even before removing these words, forms of "I" still topped the list.) Grouping of words was somewhat arbitrary. Accuracy is not guaranteed, since most of this was done late at night on a caffeine high. Please mail any errors to /dev/null.
nancy p. is a software engineer and occasional a.m.ninnie. She lives in Los Angeles.
