Lyrical Writing

Leonard Cohen is one of my favourite poets and songwriters, and knows how to turn a phrase. He is now 82, and has just released a new album, 'You Want it Darker.'

In the 1960s his muse was Marianne Ihlen, for whom he wrote his song, 'So Long, Marianne'

This summer, he learned that Marianne was dying from cancer. He contacted her. "Well, Marianne," he wrote, "it's come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch your hand, I think you can reach mine."

Two days after Cohen sent her those words, and they were read to her, Marianne died.

I want to write like that, so simply, so true. I doubt I ever will.

electricblue66 said:

Leonard Cohen is one of my favourite poets and songwriters, and knows how to turn a phrase. He is now 82, and has just released a new album, 'You Want it Darker.'

In the 1960s his muse was Marianne Ihlen, for whom he wrote his song, 'So Long, Marianne'

This summer, he learned that Marianne was dying from cancer. He contacted her. "Well, Marianne," he wrote, "it's come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch your hand, I think you can reach mine."

Two days after Cohen sent her those words, and they were read to her, Marianne died.

I want to write like that, so simply, so true. I doubt I ever shall.

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Beautiful -- he's a master of wistfulness

Music today will never capture the "mood and feel" of the 60's. I may listen to all kinds of music ranging from Waylon Jennings to Obituary, but the roots of my music are breed in the heart and soul of the 60's. As for simplistic poetry..... I'm pretty sure Jim Morrison fits in there somewhere.
Kant

There are things known and things unknown and inbetween are the doors. JM.

1960s were sweet for a new musical lyricism because lives and tastes were changing faster than the established music industry could cope. Earlier, it was easy to poke music into a few controllable channels. Dance and race and hillbilly and show and classical music, a few national musics -- no problem. Then the scene exploded beyond Mitch Miller's control. Record companies had to lower their filters and try all sorts of shit. Frank Zappa said he had about a five year window to make his mark ca. 1966. Before 1964 and after 1969, he would have been ignored. So many voices emerged then that have shaped everything since, and are still being copied.

An artifact of then and there lives near my remote mountain hamlet. Daryl Hooper is a Grammy-winner now teaching music at the Fiddletown CA primary school. He was keyboardist with The Seeds, the prototypical L.A. garage/punk band. "You're pushing too hard / Stop pushing on me / You're pushing too hard, what you want me to be?" A perfect representation of teenage angst, eh? Hooper was the first to use electric keyboard bass, presaging The Doors' Ray Manzarek. You can take lessons from him at the music store down in the county seat.

But I digress. I could drop a zillion names of great 1960's musical poets working in many genres and languages and insanities. I could name many focal points where artists merged and collaborated -- fountains of lyricism and depravity. I lived in many of those USA places, ran into many lyrical maniacs of greater or lesser fame. Those were heady and frightful times. No one gets out alive.

electricblue66 said:

Leonard Cohen is one of my favourite poets and songwriters, and knows how to turn a phrase. He is now 82, and has just released a new album, 'You Want it Darker.'

In the 1960s his muse was Marianne Ihlen, for whom he wrote his song, 'So Long, Marianne'

This summer, he learned that Marianne was dying from cancer. He contacted her. "Well, Marianne," he wrote, "it's come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch your hand, I think you can reach mine."

Two days after Cohen sent her those words, and they were read to her, Marianne died.

I want to write like that, so simply, so true. I doubt I ever will.

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I've always loved Leonard Cohen's music, and particularly, his lyrics. I used to play "So Long Marianne" on the guitar. Sad to hear that she passed away. I guess it really is "so long Marianne" now...

Kantarii said:

Music today will never capture the "mood and feel" of the 60's. ...

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Or the '70s which, in many genres, produced better music than the '60s.

Or the '70s which, in many genres, produced better music than the '60s.[/QUOTE]

For some reason, the Eagles and Pink Floyd suddenly come to mindKant

Kantarii said:

Or the '70s which, in many genres, produced better music than the '60s.

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For some reason, the Eagles and Pink Floyd suddenly come to mindKant

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Both sprouted in/from the 60s. Byrds (1964) ==> Dillard & Clark (1968) ==> Eagles (1971) and Pink Floyd (1963).

Hypoxia said:

Pink Floyd (1963).

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A bit early, more like 1965

Rolling Stones, 1962
The Who, 1964
those other guys, can't remember their names, around the same time
The Doors, 1965
Led Zep, 1968

You all have lost me. Yes, there's lyrical writing in songs. That's what song lyrics are about. I sort of hoped this would be about lyrical writing in the fiction being written here, but other than just a small snippet in the OP--and it's a lot easier to be lyrical in a couple of lines than in a short story--I don't see that this is about lyrical writing that's relevant to what we do here.

I have a story here that I think commenters were putting into a lyrical writing category ("La Lectura": https://www.literotica.com/s/la-lectura). I was hoping to see discussion of more stories written like that on this thread, not just song lyrics.

I agree, so much.

We had true poets writing songs then ... Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Phoebe Snow, Paul Simon. People who cared about the words of a song, and led you to an area of your soul that you had never been to before. I doubt if any of them would be able to break into the music industry the way it is today.

Or maybe it's we, the buyers of music, who have changed. Maybe we don't have room for poets in our lives anymore. We prefer the banal and the standardized blandness of popular culture. The only way we can connect with that part of ourselves now is through rap, which seems to me, at this point, as stereotypical as a McDonald's Happy Meal. It does well enough in disparaging or dissing the world as it is, or telling that world to fuck off, but its colors fade fast. It doesn't create characters I want to hug and cherish, that make me think that I'm worth hugging and cherishing. Why is that?

So this is just a thread about writing lyrics, not really a thread about lyrical writing. Pity. I think it would have been a good topic--and a change from the handful of topics that come up weekly here.

electricblue66 said:

Hypoxia said:

Pink Floyd (1963).

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A bit early, more like 1965

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1963–1967: Early years (WikiPedia)

those other guys, can't remember their names, around the same time

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Kinks? Zombies? Them? Beach Boys?

Led Zep, 1968

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Who were originally the New Yardbirds, born from that cauldron (1963). Yardbirds were the heaviest guitar band ever, with leads (sometimes shared) by Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page. Fuck, I love Jeff Beck! The other guys ain't bad either. Zep was good too -- turned my cousin into a satanist.

Athalia said:

We had true poets writing songs then ... Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Phoebe Snow, Paul Simon. People who cared about the words of a song, and led you to an area of your soul that you had never been to before. I doubt if any of them would be able to break into the music industry the way it is today.

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As Frank Zappa said, there was a window of about 1964-69 when the record biz was perplexed by change and tried almost anything, a window of opportunity for those who didn't fit the molds. Much of what we think of as 70's greatness was nurtured in the 60s.

Or maybe it's we, the buyers of music, who have changed. Maybe we don't have room for poets in our lives anymore. We prefer the banal and the standardized blandness of popular culture.

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One of my sayings:

Q: What's the difference between poetry and songwriting?
A: Royalties.

Even the best Anglophone-world print poets starve, or teach. Successful songwriters can live very well. Leonard Cohen was a prominent print poet before he decided music royalties lasted longer. If music is the blueprint of your life, if what you hear drives your thoughts and actions, then poetry is significant. That's the 60s to me. If the music is background then words don't really matter; they're background chatter. (Much of the later 70s, and on.) So why pay big royalties to poets when the producer's doggerel works just as well and said producer needn't give up any money?

Kantarii said:

For some reason, the Eagles and Pink Floyd suddenly come to mindKant

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And Jethro Tull (excellent lyrics), King Crimson, Yes (weird lyrics), Genesis, ELP (weak lyrics), Black Sabbath, etc. I could name SO many more, but those were the pioneers. Regardless of their lyrics, though, their music was outstanding.

Some of those started - or had roots- in the '60s, but like Pink Floyd, they all produced their best work in the '70s.

sr71plt said:

So this is just a thread about writing lyrics, not really a thread about lyrical writing. Pity. I think it would have been a good topic--and a change from the handful of topics that come up weekly here.

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That would be a good thread, I agree.

Why not start one

haulover said:

That would be a good thread, I agree.

Why not start one

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I did make an effort to restart the topic the head seemed to promise.

But, I'll just let it go. More interest here in discussing what underage isn't accepted and telling everyone how/what to write for some presume universal reader--one who wants to downplay sex on a porn story site.

sr71plt said:

I did make an effort to restart the topic the head seemed to promise.

But, I'll just let it go. More interest here in discussing what underage isn't accepted and telling everyone how/what to write for some presume universal reader--one who wants to downplay sex on a porn story site.

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Jesus wept, Pilot, where the fuck did that last come from? This thread is OBVIOUSLY about song lyrics, and every other poster appears to have got that except you. And you know what, it was all friendly till you came along.

You tried to "restart" a thread to suit your idea of what the subject matter should be? What gives you the right to do that? Clearly, everyone in this thread is indulging in a bit of nostalgia for sixties music - hey, remember him, that band, weren't those guys great, who was your favourite, Beatles or Stones! Shooting the shit and having a good time, in other words.

And now you bring in discussion of underage, universal readers, and down playing porn. Where in THIS thread are ANY of those things mentioned?

If you don't get that some people here don't always want the world according to Pilot, can you at least desist from commenting in every single place? Get off your hobby horses and let some other people run the threads they want to run. It's not all about you, AH isn't your private domain, you're not the king in the high castle.

Don't feel you have to respond, although I know you will.

"The Pilot" - the shortest possible period of time between when a post goes live, and the moment one hears the patter of feet running down the corridor to see if it's all about him....

one pilot two pilot three pilot four... he'll be along soon. He always is. Seriously, I don't know why physicists bother about atomic clocks, we've got the most predictable time keeper, right here on Lit.

sr71plt said:

I did make an effort to restart the topic the head seemed to promise.

But, I'll just let it go. More interest here in discussing what underage isn't accepted and telling everyone how/what to write for some presume universal reader--one who wants to downplay sex on a porn story site.

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Go on, Pilot. Put your thoughts up. It's high time we raised the level of discussion in this corner. (Just my personal opinion - before you all jump on me. )

sr71plt said:

So this is just a thread about writing lyrics, not really a thread about lyrical writing. Pity. I think it would have been a good topic--and a change from the handful of topics that come up weekly here.

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Actually, it looks like this thread is about bands from the 60's...

On making prose more poetic - telling a story in prose requires a literal approach, since the reader needs to be able to follow the narrative. A song, on the other hand, might be listened to over and over again. In that scenario, it's almost better to leave the listener guessing as to the meaning. Theoretically, the mystery will be part of the appeal of the music, drawing the listener back time after time.

In prose, metaphors and similes really help. I remember reading something by one of LIT's most scorned writers (Scouries? BFW?) where he compared a woman's tits to torpedoes. That's a really good image - if a little corny. I think this is what separates the great writers from the competent writers - the ability to come up with metaphors without having to work at it, unless perhaps the "work" is a notebook full of metaphors and phrases to be used at a later date. Songwriters do that, collecting little snippets and phrases to draw on when a lyric needs some help.

It should be noted that Dylan has said repeatedly that all the professorial treatises analyzing his lyrics are silly, since he just tosses them off without thinking. On the other hand, Cohen has been known to work on one song for over a year - and I think it shows.

For anyone interested in the creative process, the documentary "Beyond the Basement Tapes" chronicles a group of musicians setting Dylan's "lost" lyrics to music. Apparently, someone found some of his notebooks from the Woodstock era (a year in which he wrote at least 180 songs) and got permission to work them up into songs. T Bone Burnett is the producer, and Elvis Costello is the old pro writer thrown in with some of today's young, hip writers, including one of the Mumford guys. It's really interesting watching them come up with several different music treatments for the same lyric, or in some cases, the lyric gets lines moved around to accommodate the music. The documentary is mostly recording studio footage, with some writing sessions thrown in. The only annoying part is some fake "archive" footage of Dylan and the musicians from The Band hanging out at Big Pink and the surrounding locale. It's grainy footage, and the Dylan guy doesn't quite look right. During the movie credits, the "reenactment" actors are named. (facepalm)

There were so many different kinds of music then and people were tying to pigeon hole the types into groups when many of the songs and singers jumped all over the place. I liked songs from the 50s that told a story like the Kingston Trio's "Tom Dooley" or Marty Robbins's "El Paso". To the singers already mentioned from the mid-sixties, I would add Rod McKuen and his "Soldiers Who Want to Be Heroes" and "Seasons in the Sun". Moving through the 60s into the 70s Gordon Lightfoot "Lost Children" and "All the Lovely Ladies". Jim Croce had a way with words that painted pictures clearly. "Don't spit into the wind" "Meaner than a junk yard dog". Anyone that has ever been to a junk yard or landfill knows exactly how mean that is.

Lyrical writing can also infest stories. Literally. Jenny Be Fair extrapolates on a traditional song. Substitute Pussy grew specifically from a WHO song. I include traditional and my own lyrics in several stories featuring performers.

These obviously aren't the same as lyrical prose, discussion of which Pilot seemed to expect. The trick here is definition: when is prose lyrical? For me it's when I hear what I'm reading or writing as a song in my head, a poetic vision brought to life. It's a mix of imagery and sensation triggering feelings within me, a thrill, a rush, hot and cold flashes across my body like chugging a triple shot of vodka, or maybe only a gentle warm pulse that has me nodding in time to rhythms and rhymes. (I think that last clause was lyrical.)

I remember the first Robert Ludlum novel I read, an early work. I thought, "This prose is brutal, wham thunk bang, no subtlety, no music." I compared it to a Mary Renault I'd just read, a work of singling classical beauty. I didn't think the word 'lyrical' but that what it was.

How to write lyrical prose? Maybe write some song lyrics first, learn how to spin compelling mental images in a few evocative lines. A previous poster mentioned Marty Robbin's EL PASO which I see as a masterpiece of 1st-person present-tense POV at the end. Verses sketch-out vivid scenes using a minimum of words within a loping rhythm. To me it's a prose poem. It could be printed straight as a story text, a vignette too short to submit to LIT.

Okay, I'm maundering. My bottom line: If it sings in my head I'll call it lyrical.

electricblue66 said:

Leonard Cohen is one of my favourite poets and songwriters, and knows how to turn a phrase. He is now 82, and has just released a new album, 'You Want it Darker.'
...

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RIP Leonard Cohen (11/10/2016)

Very sad.

electricblue66 said:

Jesus wept, Pilot, where the fuck did that last come from? This thread is OBVIOUSLY about song lyrics, and every other poster appears to have got that except you. And you know what, it was all friendly till you came along.

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This. But don't be too hard on him. I have been known to miss the gist of threads myself, as Pilot knows well.

Don't feel you have to respond, although I know you will.

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Although it seems that he didn't, after all.

But a thread on lyrical writing, not simply songwriting, might not be a bad thing. Maybe Pilot should start one.

The thread title was "Lyrical Writing," not "Writing Lyrics," and this is a story site, not a song writing site. It was just a disappointment not to see the thread more relevant to this site. It also became obvious folks wanted to talk about songs lyrics others have written not stories they could write.

Oh, there you are!

sr71plt said:

It also became obvious folks wanted to talk about songs lyrics others have written not stories they could write.

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A fair point. I suppose I could be more "lyrical" in my prose writing. I think I came pretty close with "Endymion" but being lyrical in erotica is tricky business. I haven't found a way yet of doing it without it coming across as silly. Are there any passages you can direct my attention to that manage this trick?

Athalia said:

Oh, there you are!



A fair point. I suppose I could be more "lyrical" in my prose writing. I think I came pretty close with "Endymion" but being lyrical in erotica is tricky business. I haven't found a way yet of doing it without it coming across as silly. Are there any passages you can direct my attention to that manage this trick?

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Up the line, I cited one of mine that has gotten that sort of comment. I think it's as much to have a rhythm going with it as anything else.

I'd like to suggest that Dylan Thomas was a bit of a dab hand at lyrical writing. 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' (which I have always thought of as a short story) often turns up in poetry collections. Discuss (as they say).