Is a song a poem?

[CharleyH]

We have had posts on music and we love them , but do song lyrics make poetry?

 

[champagne1982]

We have had posts on music and we love them , but do song lyrics make poetry?

Of course. Lyrics are specially designed poetry to mate with a song.

Your question is akin to asking if a woman is a human because she is different than a man. Of course she is. A woman is a specially designed human to mate with a man.

edited to add: Oh, damn! That is not to say that a woman cannot mate with whoever she damned well pleases though...

 

[WickedEve]

Of course. Lyrics are specially designed poetry to mate with a song.

Your question is akin to asking if a woman is a human because she is different than a man. Of course she is. A woman is a specially designed human to mate with a man.

Oh, damn! That is not to say that a woman cannot mate with whoever she damned well pleases though...

I didn't know there could be so much mating in the discussion of poetry.
I like it.
Recently I was listening to my car radio, and I wondered if there are any songs that don't rhyme. Anyone know of any?

 

[My Erotic Trail]

poetry in lyrics >> the ultimate poetry

 

[CharleyH]

Of course. Lyrics are specially designed poetry to mate with a song.

Your question is akin to asking if a woman is a human because she is different than a man. Of course she is. A woman is a specially designed human to mate with a man.

edited to add: Oh, damn! That is not to say that a woman cannot mate with whoever she damned well pleases though...

LOL - You make a good point, we need sex. Is a poet a musician or reverse?

But now lets put Geoffrey Chaucers , "The Nun's Priest's Tale" to the test. Is it a song or a poem?

 

[champagne1982]

I didn't know there could be so much mating in the discussion of poetry.
I like it.
Recently I was listening to my car radio, and I wondered if there are any songs that don't rhyme. Anyone know of any?

all most all of the lyrics i've looked at don't rhyme until the chorus... i think choruses rhyme because of the jingle aspect of them... y'all know the words to this part... c'mon... ee aye ee aye ohhhhhhh....

 

[sandspike]

maybe these blasts from the past don't rhyme

I didn't know there could be so much mating in the discussion of poetry.
I like it.
Recently I was listening to my car radio, and I wondered if there are any songs that don't rhyme. Anyone know of any?

Gentle On My Mind
Elusive Butterfly of Love
and who can really say Louie Louie rhymes

 

[Angeline]

Not all lyrics are poetic, but think of lyrics written by people like Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits--to name a few. Many of their lyrics could stand as poems without any music, so why not?

 

[bogusbrig]

Having spent 20 minutes looking at my CD collection, I can safely say that whether you call lyrics poetry or not, does not change the fact that most lyrics are naked without their music and are appalling to read as poetry and are obviously written with the idea that they are sung and not spoken.

To make a categorical statement would only lead to someone pointing out an exception that really proves the rule. Just look at Ediath Piaf's Non Regrette Rein, an absolutely crap and pathetic read as poetry but put to miusic and interpretred by an artist, it is a work of pure geniuous and one of the best songs ever! Which tells me song lyrics are not poetry but a different animal altogether.

Leonard Cohen is also a poet as well as a song writer and it's easy to pull him up to prove lyrics are also poetry but his songs if you study them are different animals to his poetry, though he does sing a couple of his poems or does he recite a couple of his songs?

 

[Tathagata]

Not all lyrics are poetic, but think of lyrics written by people like Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits--to name a few. Many of their lyrics could stand as poems without any music, so why not?

Talking Heads

 

[Liar]

Yes, song lyrics can be poetry. Just like Hallmark cars can be poetry. It doesn't mean it's good poetry. Most of the time it's thin, contrived and crammed into a format where it doesn't really fit. It's always easier to get away with bad art (a crappy text) if you package it with good art in another genre (a nice melody).

Most of my recent poems here on Lit are song lyrics for my band. The readers here don't seem to think less of them for that.




And eve, yah. Songs don't always rhyme. And often when they do rhyme, they rhyme poorly.

 

[Angeline]

Talking Heads

And She Was

And she was lying in the grass
And she could hear the highway breathing
And she could see a nearby factory
She's making sure she is not dreaming
See the lights of a neighbor's house
Now she's starting to rise
Take a minute to concentrate
And she opens up her eyes

The world was moving and she was right there with it (and she was)
The world was moving she was floating above it (and she was)

and she was

And she was drifting through the backyard
And she was taking off her dress
And she was moving very slowly
Rising up above the earth
Moving into the universe
Drifting this way and that
Not touching ground at all
Up above the yard

She was glad about it, no doubt about it
She isn't sure where she's gone
No time to think about what to tell them
No time to think about what she's done
And she was

And she was looking at herself
And things were looking like a movie
She had a pleasant elevation
She's moving out in all directions

Joining the world of missing persons (and she was)
Missing enough to feel alright (and she was)

 

[Tzara]

It is quite common in classical music for composers to write music for existing poems. Does that make them lyrics?

 

[ishtat]

Poetry/lyrics

TS Eliot in his long preface to Kipling's Verse(1940 I think) drew distinctions between
1 Poetry,
2 Verse,
3 ballads,
4 Hymns
obviously with reference to Kipling but it is a very interesting long essay with many general applications. Sorry I cannot remember the Publisher etc.

 

[sandspike]

intersting

TS Eliot in his long preface to Kipling's Verse(1940 I think) drew distinctions between
1 Poetry,
2 Verse,
3 ballads,
4 Hymns
obviously with reference to Kipling but it is a very interesting long essay with many general applications. Sorry I cannot remember the Publisher etc.

Would TS's ideas matter today. I don't think he ever heard rock'n roll.
Now there are people making millions with rap. Known as poets around the
world. Was it Bob D. " The times they are a chang'n"?

 

[Liar]

Would TS's ideas matter today. I don't think he ever heard rock'n roll.
Now there are people making millions with rap. Known as poets around the
world. Was it Bob D. " The times they are a chang'n"?

Aren't they just like any old troubadour?

But richer.

 

[champagne1982]

It is quite common in classical music for composers to write music for existing poems. Does that make them lyrics?

I write lyrics for music only I can hear. Does that make them poems?

 

[sandspike]

well...yes

Aren't they just like any old troubadour?

But richer.

If troubadours carry 9 MM handguns. Give me FIFTY CENT!

 

[sandspike]

Hell yes

I write lyrics for music only I can hear. Does that make them poems?

That is where the rhythm comes from. You can't write a poem w/o a beat.
When you write poetry the volume is cut down.

 

[anonamouse]

L'après-midi d'un faune

Debussy "I added music to it"
Mallarmé "I thought I already did"

 

[DeepAsleep]

I'd cite Tom Waits' 'Blue Valentines' as a work that stands as good lyric or good poem. 'Burma Shave,' too.

Ani Difranco also walks the line between poem song,

Coming Up

our father who art in a penthouse
sits in his 37th floor suite
and swivels to gaze down
at the city he made me in
he allows me to stand and
solicit graffiti until
he needs the land i stand on
i in my darkened threshold
am pawing through my pockets
the receipts, the bus schedules
the matchbook phone numbers
the urgent napkin poems
all of which laundering has rendered
pulpy and strange
loose change and a key
ask me
go ahead, ask me if i care
i got the answer here
i wrote it down somewhere
i just gotta find it
i just gotta find it

somebody and their spray paint got too close
somebody came on too heavy
now look at me made ugly
by the drooling letters
i was better off alone
ain't that the way it is
they don't know the first thing
but you don't know that
until they take the first swing
my fingers are red and swollen from the cold
i'm getting bold in my old age
so go ahead, try the door
it doesn't matter anymore
i know the weakhearted are strongwilled
and we are being kept alive
until we're killed
he's up there the ice
is clinking in his glass
he sends me little pieces of paper
i don't ask
i just empty my pockets and wait
it's not fate
it's just circumstance
i don't fool myself with romance
i just live
phone number to phone number
dusting them against my thighs
in the warmth of my pockets
which whisper history incessantly
asking me
where were you

i lower my eyes
wishing i could cry more
and care less,
yes it's true,
i was trying to love someone again,
i was caught caring,
bearing weight

but i love this city, this state
this country is too large
and whoever's in charge up there
had better take the elevator down
and put more than change in our cup
or else we
are coming
up

~R
Yeah, yeah.

 

[CharleyH]

Not all lyrics are poetic, but think of lyrics written by people like Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits--to name a few. Many of their lyrics could stand as poems without any music, so why not?

Good point, so how do they?

 

[CharleyH]

Having spent 20 minutes looking at my CD collection, I can safely say that whether you call lyrics poetry or not, does not change the fact that most lyrics are naked without their music and are appalling to read as poetry and are obviously written with the idea that they are sung and not spoken.

To make a categorical statement would only lead to someone pointing out an exception that really proves the rule. Just look at Ediath Piaf's Non Regrette Rein, an absolutely crap and pathetic read as poetry but put to miusic and interpretred by an artist, it is a work of pure geniuous and one of the best songs ever! Which tells me song lyrics are not poetry but a different animal altogether.

Leonard Cohen is also a poet as well as a song writer and it's easy to pull him up to prove lyrics are also poetry but his songs if you study them are different animals to his poetry, though he does sing a couple of his poems or does he recite a couple of his songs?

So, if a song is not poetry, what makes a poem? Does not a poem have rhythm, beat and cadence? Isn't that a song?

 

[Angeline]

Good point, so how do they?

Always with the difficult questions, you!

I don't know: how does anyone who writes a good poem do it? Scramble together images that make use of poetic devices like allusion and metaphor that make the reader see and hear and smell and taste and feel something meaningful. Yes, you often can tell that they're meant to go with music because they have certain kinds of rhymes, repetitions and/or choruses. They may have awkward phrasings here and there to make words fit music. But! They're also poetic (as opposed to the lyric for, say, "Happy Birthday"), so where do you draw the line? Why can't some lyrics be poems?

To wit:

16 Shells From a Thirty-Ought-Six
Tom Waits

I plugged 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six
and a Black Crow snuck through
a hole in the sky
so I spent all my buttons on an
old pack mule
and I made me a ladder from
a pawn shop marimba
and I leaned it up against
a dandelion tree

And I filled me a sachel
full of old pig corn
and I beat me a billy
from an old French horn
and I kicked that mule
to the top of the tree
and I blew me a hole
'bout the size of a kickdrum
and I cut me a switch
from a long branch elbow

I'm gonna whittle you into kindlin'
Black Crow 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six
whittle you into kindlin'
Black Crow 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six

Well I slept in the holler
of a dry creek bed
and I tore out the buckets
from a red Corvette, tore out the buckets from a red Corvette
Lionel and Dave and the Butcher made three
you got to meet me by the knuckles of the skinnybone tree
with the strings of a Washburn
stretched like a clothes line
you know me and that mule scrambled right through the hole

I'm gonna whittle you into kindlin'
Black Crow 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six
whittle you into kindlin'
Black Crow 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six

Now I hold him prisoner
in a Washburn jail
that stapped on the back
of my old kick mule
strapped it on the back of my old kick mule
I bang on the strings just
to drive him crazy
I strum it loud just to rattle his cage
strum it loud just to rattle his cage


Story of Isaac
Leonard Cohen

The door it opened slowly,
my father he came in,
I was nine years old.
And he stood so tall above me,
his blue eyes they were shining
and his voice was very cold.
He said, "I've had a vision
and you know I'm strong and holy,
I must do what I've been told."
So he started up the mountain,
I was running, he was walking,
and his axe was made of gold.
Well, the trees they got much smaller,
the lake a lady's mirror,
we stopped to drink some wine.
Then he threw the bottle over.
Broke a minute later
and he put his hand on mine.
Thought I saw an eagle
but it might have been a vulture,
I never could decide.
Then my father built an altar,
he looked once behind his shoulder,
he knew I would not hide.

You who build these altars now
to sacrifice these children,
you must not do it anymore.
A scheme is not a vision
and you never have been tempted
by a demon or a god.
You who stand above them now,
your hatchets blunt and bloody,
you were not there before,
when I lay upon a mountain
and my father's hand was trembling
with the beauty of the word.

And if you call me brother now,
forgive me if I inquire,
"Just according to whose plan?"
When it all comes down to dust
I will kill you if I must,
I will help you if I can.
When it all comes down to dust
I will help you if I must,
I will kill you if I can.
And mercy on our uniform,
man of peace or man of war,
the peacock spreads his fan.

Little Green
Joni Mitchell

Born with the moon in cancer
Choose her a name she will answer to
Call her green and the winters cannot fade her
Call her green for the children who have made her
Little green, be a gypsy dancer

He went to California
Hearing that everything is warmer there
So you write him a letter and say her eyes are blue.
He sends you a poem and she’s lost to you
Little green, he’s a nonconformer

Just a little green
Like the color when the spring is born
There’ll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
Like the nights when the northern lights perform
There’ll be icicles and birthday clothes
And sometimes there’ll be sorrow

Child with a child pretending
Weary of lies you are sending home
So you sign all the papers in the family name
You’re sad and you’re sorry, but you’re not ashamed
Little green, have a happy ending

Just a little green
Like the color when the spring is born
There’ll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
Like the nights when the northern lights perform
There’ll be icicles and birthday clothes
And sometimes there’ll be sorrow

What do you think?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Bogusbrig said it all for me- most lyrics are not complete as poetry. They are created with an additional element, and you just can't take that away- it's like printing a poem without any vowels. The music is integral to the form- most of the time.
And, yes, there are poets that write poems that can be set to music- Leonard Cohen, of course of course of course. Of course, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits- Marc Bolan wrote funny little sonnets and sestinas and sang them to a rockabilly beat. Some Beatles lyrics are utterly poetic in their own write.
But, as Pete Townsend said-
"It's the singer not the song
That makes the music move along"
And for the most part, that's true, it's the melody, and the production, and the singer that takes the partial art of the lyric and turns it into the complete artform which is the song.

It is quite common in classical music for composers to write music for existing poems. Does that make them lyrics?

no, that makes them poems set to music, they were complete before that...


What a cool conversation to find going, actually. Because yesterday, I wrote lyrics for the very first time- I've never been able to do that before! And the thing that I finally learned- was to leave room for the music. You have to let the music complete the song. You have to see the words as a peice of the work, not the whole.

That was something like an orgasmic enlightenment kinda thing!