In the beginning of the song “no body, no crime” sirens play, setting the tone of the song before the music itself even begins. The storyline of the song revolves around a husband killing his wife and the wife’s best friend getting her revenge. Thus, the atmosphere of the song is quite eerie and ominous. Beginning with a siren and the low vocals helps clue the listener in on the crimes that are about to unfold.
Olivia Rodrigo also uses sounds to into her song, however, in this case, the sounds are used to create the idea of a specific physical setting for the listener. The song opens with a car door closing, keys jingling, the engine starting up, and the car beeping. As the beeping turns into the initial note of the song, the listener clearly understands the setting of the song, which directly correlates to the lyrics.
My last example is from the song “View Between Villages,” the extended version. Unlike the previous two examples, the “non-musical” element in this song is speech. Noah Kahan includes recordings of two members of his hometown, describing what the town means to them. These clips are massively significant to the meaning of the song. Kahan’s entire album references the town from his perspective, which isn’t exactly positive. However, including the voices of two key members of the community to share a completely different perspective is a way of acknowledging the beauty of that community. It also was extremely important for that perspective to come from people who felt it, and not Kahan trying to emulate that view.