讓一首歌流行有什么因素？一切都是“你”

What question motivated you to do this research?

是什么問題促使你做這項研究？

Jonah Berger: We’ve been doing a lot of work around what’s called natural language processing, extracting behavioral insights from textual data. Everything we do — from this interview we’re recording, conversations we have with friends and family members, reviews we leave online, customer services calls, songs we listen to, articles we read — contains language. There’s a really exciting opportunity now to mine some of this data for behavioral insight to understand why songs or movies succeed, to understand why some customer service calls go better than others, and to use language to be more effective. Essentially, [we want] to extract wisdom from words, so we can all understand behavior better and be more effective.

伯格：我們已經(jīng)圍繞所謂的自然語言處理做了很多工作，從文本數(shù)據(jù)中提取對行為的洞察。我們所做的一切——從我們錄制的采訪、與親友的對話、網(wǎng)上評論、客服電話、我們聽的歌、讀的文章——都包含著語言。
現(xiàn)在有一個非常令人興奮的機會來挖掘這些數(shù)據(jù)，以獲得對行為的洞察力，從而理解為什么這首歌曲或這部電影會成功，理解為什么一些客服的電話服務比其他人更好，或是如何使用語言來提高效率。本質(zhì)上，我們希望從語言中汲取智慧，更好地理解行為，變得更有效。

In this particular case, we were interested in a question that I think many people have wondered about at one point in their lives. Why do some songs become hits? We all know hit songs. We hear them on the radio — we listen to them for years, if not decades, after they come out. Some songs become hits, others fail. Same thing with books, movies, and so on. Why do some of these things win out in the marketplace of ideas, and others fail? I think we’ve all wondered that as consumers, but as a marketing professor, this is something I’ve tried to study and to quantify.

在這個特殊的案例中，我們對一個問題很感興趣，那就是很多人都曾有過疑問：為什么有些歌會成為熱門歌曲？我們都知道熱門歌曲。我們在收音機上聽過它們，在它們出來之后，我們會聽上好幾年，甚至幾十年。有些歌成為熱門歌曲，而有些卻默默無聞。書、電影等也一樣。為什么這些文化產(chǎn)品中有一些在市場上火爆，而另一些卻失敗了？作為消費者，我們都很好奇。但作為一個營銷教授，這是我試圖研究和量化的主題。

We did a paper a few years ago where we found that atypical songs — songs that are about different things than [usual in] their genre —  are more successful. Take country music, for example. Country music tends to talk a lot about things like girlfriends and cars. But looking at thousands of songs across multiple years, we found that songs about different things in their genres are more successful. In that project, we controlled for a variety of other factors: genre, artist, time period, and individual words. We controlled for pronouns. For example, I might use the word “I” or “me,” I might use the word “you,” I might talk about “we” or “us.” We controlled for these things to make sure that those weren’t driving our results.

幾年前我們做了一篇論文，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)非典型歌曲——歌詞中討論不同類型事物的歌曲——更為成功。以鄉(xiāng)村音樂為例。鄉(xiāng)村音樂傾向于談論很多事情，比如女朋友和汽車。聽了數(shù)年來的數(shù)千首歌曲，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，這種討論不同類型事物的歌曲更為成功。在這個的研究項目中，我們控制了其他各種因素：音樂流派、藝術家、時間段和某個單詞。我們還控制人稱代詞。例如，“我”、“你”、“我們”。我們控制這些元素以確保它們不會影響我們的結果。

We had hundreds of controls in that project, but we noticed one thing was particularly unusual. There was one class of words that we were using as a control variable that stood out for us. We started wondering why that might have worked out the way it did, and that’s really what started this new paper.

我們在那個研究項目中有數(shù)百個控件，但我們注意到有一件事特別不尋常。有一類詞是我們用來作為控制變量的，讓我們眼前一亮。我們開始懷疑為什么會有這樣的結果。而這正是這篇新論文的出發(fā)點。 

“We started with a simple question: Why do some songs become hits?” –Jonah Berger

“我們從一個簡單的問題開始：為什么有些歌曲會成為熱門歌曲？”——喬納·伯格

In your study, you hypothesized that the success of a lot of popular songs boils down to one simple word: the pronoun “you.” Can you explain to us why?

在你的研究中，你假設很多流行歌曲的成功可以歸結為一個簡單的人稱代詞“你”。能解釋一下為什么嗎？

Berger: First, let’s make sure we understand what we mean by “you.” We use that word all the time. “What are you doing today? How are you feeling? You made me happy. You made me sad.” Songs use this word often. Think about Whitney Houston’s famous song, “I Will Always Love You.” Right? Think about Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” You can think about lots of songs that use the word “you” at some point.

伯格：首先，讓我們確定“你”是什么意思。我們?nèi)粘Ｒ恢痹谟眠@個詞?！澳憬裉旄墒裁?？你感覺怎么樣？你讓我很開心。你讓我傷心?！案枨?jīng)常用這個詞。想想惠特尼·休斯頓的名曲《我會永遠愛你》（I Will Always Love You），對吧？皇后樂隊的“我們會搖滾你”（We Will Rock You），你可以想到很多歌曲在某個時候用了“你”這個詞。

You might be sitting and thinking, “Well, what do you mean? Of course, songs use the word ‘you.’ But I don’t really pay attention to whether songs use the word or not.” Even in our daily life, we don’t pay attention to the word very much. “You” is an example of what is called a style word. It’s sort of treated like noise. We pay very little attention to the words that go in between the content of what we talk about. Language researchers often talk about the difference between content versus style. If I have an important meeting, for example, I’m thinking about the content I’m sharing, what ideas I’m talking about within my presentation, but I don’t think a lot about the little words in between — articles like “and” or “the,” pronouns like “I” versus “we” or “you” that go between these more content-based words.

你可能會想，“好吧，你是什么意思？當然歌曲中會用到‘你’這個詞，但我并不太在意啊？”是的，即使在日常生活中，我們也不太注意這個詞?！澳恪笔且粋€被稱為風格詞的例子。有點像嘈雜音。我們很少注意到這類詞語。語言研究者經(jīng)常談論內(nèi)容和風格的區(qū)別。例如，如果我有一場重要的會議，我會考慮分享什么內(nèi)容，在演講中談論什么想法，但不會考慮太多一些連接詞，比如“and”或“the”，或是人稱代詞，比如“我”與“我們”或“你/你們”，更多的是基于內(nèi)容的文字。

The words don’t have any meaning by themselves. They are just connectives between larger themes. But what we saw in this preliminary analysis was the word “you” seemed to be lixed to success. Songs that said “you” more often — songs like Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” or Queen’s “We Will Rock You” — seemed to be more successful. We started wondering, why might that be?

這些詞本身沒有太大意義，它們只是大主題之間的連接詞。但我們在初步分析中看到，“你”這個詞似乎與成功有關。更常說“你”的歌——像惠特尼·休斯頓的“我會永遠愛你”或皇后樂隊的“我們會搖滾你”——似乎更成功。我們開始納悶，為什么會這樣呢？ 

We started doing different analyses to try to figure it out. For example, we started with a data set of around 2,000 songs over three years. We went to the Billboard charts, scraped what songs were popular in different years and controlled for a variety of things like radio airplay, genre, artists and the content. We found that songs with more “you” were more successful. We started to do a little bit more work to understand why and what made songs with “you” more likely to be a hit.

我們開始做不同的數(shù)據(jù)分析來找出答案。例如，我們從三年內(nèi)大約2000首歌曲的數(shù)據(jù)集開始。我們?nèi)タ戳藷衢T歌曲排行榜，搜集了不同年份流行的歌曲，并對廣播節(jié)目、流派、藝術家和內(nèi)容進行了控制。我們發(fā)現(xiàn)歌詞中有更多“你”的歌更成功。我們開始做更多的探究，了解為什么和什么使歌曲里有“你”更可能成為熱門歌曲。

You point out in your paper that there is a difference between the subjective and obxtive use of “you.” Can you explain the difference and why the latter case is the more powerful one?

你在論文中指出，“你”的主客觀用法有區(qū)別，你能解釋一下這種區(qū)別嗎？為什么后一種用法更有力？

Berger: Take “I Will Always Love You.” The subject is Whitney singing to someone else, saying, “I will always love you.” We might think she’s singing to us. We might think she’s singing to Bobby Brown, or whatever it might be. Same with Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” “We” is the subject of that sentence. Maybe it’s Queen, maybe it’s our sports team when we think about singing it, singing to the other team, “We will rock you.” You are the obxt of that sentence.

伯格：以“我會永遠愛你”為例，主題是惠特尼對別人唱歌，說“我會永遠愛你”，我們可能認為她在對我們唱，或是她在給鮑比·布朗唱歌，或者別的什么人。和皇后樂隊的“我們會搖滾你”一樣，“我們”是那句話的主語。也許是皇后樂隊，也許是我們的球隊，當我們想唱的時候，我們對另一支球隊唱，“我們會搖滾你”。你就是那句話的對象。 

That’s different than sentences in which “you” is the subject, “you” is the driver of the actions. So, “You hurt my feelings.” “You love me.” “You make me feel so happy.” All of those are cases where “you” is the actor or the subject of the sentence.

這與“你”是主語，是動作的推動者的句子不同。比如在“你傷害了我的感情”，“你愛我”，“你讓我覺得很幸?！边@些句子里，“你”是推動者，或是句子的主語。 

“Natural language processing is a powerful tool to understand why some songs succeed and others fail, and how artists can impact that.”–Jonah Berger

“自然語言處理是一個強大的工具，可以幫助我們理解為什么有些歌曲成功了，有些歌曲失敗了，以及藝術家們?nèi)绾斡绊戇@種情況。”—— 喬納·伯格

We started this project by thinking maybe it’s the traditional sense of “you.” When Whitney Houston sings, we sit there imagining Whitney singing to us. It makes us feel really good inside, and that’s why it’s successful. It didn’t seem to be that. Maybe we’re imagining Whitney’s singing to Bobby Brown, and so we’re following a really amazing narrative. It didn’t seem to be that. It seemed to be something a little bit more nuanced.

我們開始這個項目的時候想的是，也許這是傳統(tǒng)意義上的“你”。當惠特尼·休斯頓唱歌時，我們坐在那里想象她為我們唱歌。這讓我們內(nèi)心感覺很好，或許這就是這首歌成功的原因。但好像不是這個原因。也許我們在想象惠特尼在給鮑比·布朗唱歌，所以我們是在聽一段非常精彩的故事。但又好像不是這個原因。這種感覺似乎有點微妙。

The idea is, when we hear a song like “I Will Always Love You” or “We Will Rock You,” we think about someone in our own life that we feel that way toward. I think this is quite interesting because this gets to the core of why we like cultural products. Why do we like books and songs and movies in the first place? Sometimes, we like to be transported to other places. We watch a sci-fi movie because we want to be transported to something outside our own lives. But other times, we [consume] these things and enjoy them because they make our own lives in some way better. They help us see our own relationships, our own social connections, as deeper and different as they might be otherwise. When Whitney Houston is singing, “I Will Always Love You,” we might be thinking about Whitney, and Whitney singing to Bobby, or Whitney singing to us. But what we actually find in our study is it causes us to think about, “This is really an amazing, romantic song. Who do I love?” It helps us think of a close other in our own lives.

這個想法是，當我們聽到“我會永遠愛你”或“我們會搖滾你”這樣的歌詞時，我們會想到自己生活中的某個人，我們會有這樣的感覺。我認為這很有趣，因為這是我們?yōu)槭裁聪矚g某一種文化產(chǎn)品的核心。
為什么我們一開始就喜歡書、歌曲和電影？因為有時我們喜歡被帶到其他地方。我們看科幻電影是因為想被帶到生活之外的地方。但其它時候，我們享受（消費）它們，是因為它們讓我們的生活在某種程度上變得更好。這些作品幫助我們看到自己，以及我們的社會關系，讓這種關系變得更深刻和不同。當惠特尼·休斯頓演唱《我會永遠愛你》時，我們可能會想到關于惠特尼的事，惠特尼唱給鮑比，或者惠特尼唱給我們。實際上研究中發(fā)現(xiàn)，這讓我們聯(lián)想“這真是一首美妙浪漫的歌曲。我愛的是誰呢？”它幫助我們想到生活中的某個人，某個親密的另一半。

I was in junior high school when Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” came out. I remember singing that song in my head to my girlfriend at the time and thinking about how much I cared about her. It activates that self in our own lives that makes us feel more connected to the song. Now, it’s not just this abstract song. It’s this thing that touches our own life and makes our own life feel a little better. That’s one reason “you” is so powerful; it helps us connect with others and like the cultural product more as a result.

當惠特尼·休斯頓的《我會永遠愛你》走紅時，我還在上初中。我記得當時在腦海里對著女朋友唱著那首歌，想著自己有多在乎她。它激活了生活中的自我，讓我們感覺到與歌曲的聯(lián)系更加緊密。因此它不僅僅是首抽象的歌，它觸動了我們的生活，讓我們的感覺更好。這就是“你”如此強大的一個原因——它幫助我們與他人建立聯(lián)系，并因此更喜歡這個文化產(chǎn)品。

Let’s touch a little bit on your experiments. How do you actually go about studying this kind of thing?

讓我們稍微談談你的實驗吧。你是怎么著手研究這類事情的？

Berger: I know some folks are probably going, “Well, that’s cute.” Songs that have more “you’s” in them are more successful. But how do you know that’s the reason they’re more successful? There are hundreds of reasons why songs are successful. As I mentioned, we tried to control for various things, like a certain artist might be liked more, certain genres might be more or less popular, and more radio airplay is going to help songs be successful. We did that in the field, but then we also did some experiments. What we wanted to do is essentially manipulate the number of times a song had “you” in it and examine the lix to success.

伯格：我知道有些人可能會說“好吧，這挺扯的?！庇懈唷澳恪钡母枨晒?。但你怎么知道這就是他們更成功的原因？歌曲成功的原因有上百種。正如我提到的，我們試著控制各種因素，比如某個藝術家、某個流派可能更受歡迎，更多的廣播節(jié)目將有助于歌曲的成功。但我們也做了一些實驗。我們想做的是基本上控制一首歌中包含“你”的次數(shù)，并檢查這一因素與成功的聯(lián)系。

We started with something really simple. We asked a number of people in an experiment, “Think about a song that you’ve heard recently, and think about how much you like that song.” Then we went ahead and grabbed the lyrics to those songs and counted the number of “you’s” that appeared.

我們從非常簡單的事情開始。我們在一個實驗中問了一些人“想想你最近聽過的一首歌，想想你有多喜歡那首歌?！比缓笪覀冏テ鹉切└璧母柙~，數(shù)了數(shù)出現(xiàn)“你”的次數(shù)。

“‘The word ‘You’ can drive action, even outside of music.”–Jonah Berger

“‘你’這個詞可以推動行動，甚至在音樂之外的領域?！薄獑碳{·伯格

What’s neat about work like this is, we’re not sitting there manually counting the number of you’s. We’re using natural language processing, automated textual analysis, to count it for us. We use scxts that run through the data and can pick off things like pronouns, counting the number of “you’s.” We find not only that people report liking songs with “you” more, just like what we found in our field data, but we find evidence for a mechanism. When we asked people, “How connected do you feel to others in your own life when listening to songs like this? How much does it enable you to imagine a personal other in your own life?” — when songs happen to have more “you’s” in them, people report imagining a personal other more. And that leads them to like the song more.

這類工作的巧妙之處在于，我們不是手動處理數(shù)據(jù)，而是使用自然語言處理軟件，讓文本自動分析和計算。我們使用的腳本在數(shù)據(jù)中運行，可以挑選代詞，計算“你”的數(shù)量。我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，不僅人們更喜歡有“你”的歌曲，就像在現(xiàn)場訪談中發(fā)現(xiàn)的那樣，我們還發(fā)現(xiàn)了為什么人們會喜歡此類歌曲的機制的證據(jù)。
當我們問他們“當你聽這樣的歌時，你覺得自己和生活中的其他人有什么聯(lián)系？它能讓你在多大程度上去想象自己生活中的某個人？——當歌曲中恰巧有更多的“你”時，人們會更加傾向于想象另一個人。這讓他們更喜歡這首歌。 

You could say, “Well, hold on. That’s nice. But you’re still not manipulating the number of you’s.” My co-author, Grant Packard, has a great songwriting talent. He put together some amazing songs where we could manipulate the number of “you’s.” They’re not chart-toppers, let me tell you, but we made up these songs and asked people to listen to different versions of the songs and read the words from different versions of the songs.

你可以說“等等，那很好。但你仍然沒有控制‘你’的數(shù)量?！蔽业暮现?，格蘭特·帕卡德，有很好的作曲天賦。他改編了一些很棒的歌曲，我們可以通過這些歌曲來控制“你”的數(shù)量，雖然它們不是排行榜上的佼佼者，但是我們編輯了這些歌曲，讓人們聽不同的版本，并且讀出不同版本歌曲的歌詞。

We created one version of a song where there were lots of “you” pronouns – writing, for example, “I’ve known you for a while now,” where “you” is an obxt. We also created a no-personal-pronoun condition, where the song said things like, “I’ve known it for a while now.” All other lyrics are the same, but we’ve shifted that ‘you’ to become an “it.” We even did a third condition where we replaced the “you” pronouns with third-person pronouns. “I’ve known her for a while now,” or “I’ve known him for a while now.” In all these cases, the rest of the lyrics are the same. They’re identically decent, it turns out. But even doing that, people like the song more when it has more “you’s” in it. And they like it more because it encourages them to think about someone in their own life that they feel that way towards.

我們創(chuàng)作了一首歌的新版本，里面有很多“你”的代詞，比如“我認識你有一段時間了”，其中“你”是賓語。我們還創(chuàng)造了一個沒有人稱代詞的歌詞，比如“我已經(jīng)認識了一段時間了?！被蛘咚衅渌柙~都是一樣的，但是我們把“你”改成了“它”。
我們甚至做了第三個條件，用第三人稱代詞替換了“你”代詞?！拔艺J識她有一段時間了，”或者“我認識他有一段時間了?！痹谒羞@些情況下，其余的歌詞都是一樣的。事實證明，他們的確同樣不錯。但即使這樣，當歌曲中有更多的“你”時，人們還是會更喜歡這首歌。他們更喜歡它，因為它激勵著他們?nèi)ハ胱约荷钪械哪硞€人。他們對此有這樣的感覺。

What I think is really nice about this is we can not only say we have good causal evidence for the role of ‘you’ in encouraging people to like things and why, but we can also show it affects real songs in the field. If you’re a music artist, for example, and you’re trying to think about how to get people to like your songs more, this is certainly one way [to do that].

我認為這一點很好，因為我們不僅可以說我們有很好的因果證據(jù)證明“你”這個詞在鼓勵人們喜歡以及為什么喜歡所起的作用以及原因，而且我們還可以證明它影響了這個領域的真實歌曲。舉個例子，如果你是一個音樂藝術家，你正努力思考如何讓人們更喜歡你的歌，這當然是一種方法。

Are there lessons here for marketers beyond the music industry?

對于音樂行業(yè)以外的營銷人員來說，這方面有什么可以學習的嗎？

Berger: I think there are a few interesting things that come out of this paper. Specific for the music industry, if I’m a songwriter, the number of “you’s” may impact whether or not my song is successful. If I’m a music producer or a label thinking about investing in a particular artist, this might be useful to know and understand — mining lyrics as a source of insight. There have been lots of people over time who have argued they can understand why songs succeed. [But there has been] very little data actually looking at that. I think natural language processing is a really neat avenue to understand why some songs succeed and some fail, and how we can impact that.

我認為這篇論文中有一些有趣的地方。具體到音樂行業(yè)，如果我是一個詞曲作者，“你”的數(shù)量可能會影響歌曲是否成功。如果我是一個音樂制作人或一個考慮投資于某個特定藝術家的唱片公司，了解和理解挖掘歌詞作為一種洞察的來源可能會很有用。
一直以來，有很多人認為他們可以理解為什么這首歌會成功。但實際上很少有數(shù)據(jù)關注這一點。我認為自然語言處理是一個很好的途徑來理解為什么有些歌成功了，有些歌失敗了，以及我們?nèi)绾斡绊懰?br />
Beyond the music industry, I think this has a lot of interesting implications. There’s other work showing that the word “you” can increase attention. For example, if I’m reading an ad or a piece of mail or an e-mail, and a subject line says, “You need to read this,” or “You won’t believe what happens next” . You often see a lot of second-person pronouns used in very successful online content because it encourages us to pay attention. It draws our attention to something because, “Oh, wait. I want to know the implication of this for me.”

除了音樂產(chǎn)業(yè)，我認為還有很多有趣的含義。還有其他研究表明“你”這個詞可以增加注意力。例如，如果我正在讀一則廣告或電子郵件，標題行上寫著“你需要讀這個”，或者“你不會相信接下來會發(fā)生什么”。你經(jīng)常會看到很多非常成功的網(wǎng)絡內(nèi)容中在使用第二人稱代詞，因為它鼓勵我們關注，它引起了我們的注意，因為你會想：“哦，等等。我想知道這對我意味著什么?！?nbsp;

“Companies are sitting on a wealth of textual data, that can provide deep insights into to consumers and markets more generally.” –Jonah Berger

“公司坐擁大量的文本數(shù)據(jù)，這些數(shù)據(jù)可以更廣泛地為消費者和市場提供深入的見解。”—喬納·伯格 

I’ve even done some work looking at online written content for a large consumer-facing company, looking at how the language they use impacts customer service reactions, and the likelihood that people read content and find it helpful. Second-person pronouns play a big role there as well. So, “you” can be a nice word to drive action, even outside of music.

我甚至為一家面向消費者的大型公司做過一些在線書面內(nèi)容研究，研究他們使用的語言如何影響客戶服務反應，以及人們閱讀內(nèi)容并發(fā)現(xiàn)其有用的可能性。第二人稱代詞在那里也起著很大的作用。所以，即使在音樂之外，“你”可以是一個很好的詞來推動行動。

Grant Packard has done some really nice work on this in customer services itself. It turns out we have to be really careful about using the word “you.” First, they find that “I” is more effective than “we.” Rather than saying, “We’ll take care of that for you,” or “We’ll be happy to solve your problem,” if I’m a customer service agent, using the word “I” and taking responsibility, saying, “I’ll solve that for you, I’m really sorry that happened,” rather than distancing it with “we,” is much better.

帕卡德在客戶服務方面的語言領域做了一些非常好的工作。事實證明，我們在使用“你”這個詞時必須非常小心。首先，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)“我”比“我們”更有效。如果我是一名客服人員，使用“我”這個詞并承擔責任，而不是說“我們會為你解決這個問題”或“我們很樂意解決你的問題”，而是說：“我會為你解決的，我真的很抱歉發(fā)生了這樣的事，”這樣比用“我們”有更好的效果。

But “you” also matters. I was having an issue at home a couple of days ago with my Nest thermostat. I called up Google, and they said, “Have you tried this? You should try that. Did you think about doing this?” It turns out when you use the word “you” a lot in that customer service context, it can make people feel like you think they’re responsible. Customers can get really annoyed about that.

但“你”也很重要。幾天前我家里的Nest恒溫器出了點問題。我打電話給谷歌，他們說“你試過這樣嗎？你應該試下。你有想過這樣做嗎？”事實證明，當你在客戶服務中經(jīng)常使用“你”這個詞時，會讓人們覺得你認為他們自己有責任。顧客對此會非常惱火。

Many companies now are doing some version of what we call social listening — listening to the chatter on social media about products and brands and services, and mining that for insight. Social media is a useful channel with a set of useful data. But it’s not the only useful data out there. There’s really lots of opportunity to mine more of this data for more insight

現(xiàn)在許多公司正在做一些我們稱之為“社交傾聽”的工作——傾聽社交媒體上關于產(chǎn)品、品牌和服務的討論，并挖掘這些內(nèi)容來獲得見解。社交媒體是一個有用的渠道，有很多有用的數(shù)據(jù)。但這并不是唯一的數(shù)據(jù)來源。我們有很多機會挖掘更多的數(shù)據(jù)，來獲得更多的見解。