Pop pickers are economic soothsayers

Gordon Brown might learn more about the country's future economic performance by listening to Top of the Pops. A study of pop lyrics over the past 40 years has found that the words used in best-selling songs can predict an economic recession.

Gordon Brown might learn more about the country's future economic performance by listening to Top of the Pops. A study of pop lyrics over the past 40 years has found that the words used in best-selling songs can predict an economic recession.

Adrian North, a psychologist at Leicester University, said that an analysis of the 1,400 songs that have made it into the top five since 1960 have revealed an unnerving link between the optimism of the lyrics and the nation's economic outlook. He used a computer model to analyse the lyrics and classify them on the basis of 31 categories, such as optimism, pessimism and certainty. He found that optimistic lyrics turned to pessimistic ones just before the country plunged into a financial quagmire.

Dr North told the British Association's annual meeting. "The Treasury takes a measure effectively of economic optimism and you find that as lyrics get more optimistic or express more certainty, lo and behold the country's economic optimism goes up," he said.

The period under study covered the boom years of the late 1960s, when the Beach Boys were cheerfully singing "Good Vibrations". There then followed the years that immediately preceded the oil crisis of 1973, which led to one of the worst recessions in postwar Britain.

"We looked specifically at the 1960s and we found that that period differs from the years surrounding it. The lyrics were more upbeat with signs of political activism. They were also more certain and less vague," Dr North said.

The Archbishop of Canterbury might also take an interest in the nation's favourite pop songs. "We also looked at the number of marriages conducted with a religious component. We found that as pop music lyrics express more certainty, the number of those types of marriages go down."