Are Song-Lyrics Poetry ?

[crusoe]

In my opinion yes. Songs accompanied me all my Life,
played on my moods and even influenced the course of my reading.

Here an example by The Cult, Song: True Believers

"I was standing on the mountain, back against the world
Left it all behind me, how my life had turned
Seen so much destruction, the fear upon your skin
Don't let it turn against you, drive you down again"

If you're interested:
http://www.lyricsdepot.com/the-cult/true-believers.html

What about YOU ?

[Monamy]

Well, not 'all' songs, but yes, I'd agree to some level.
Although, peoms still have their unique magic, if you ask me.

[Alexander III]

Sure they are. just so happens that 99% of them are bad poetry. 0.9% mediocre poetry, and 0.01 % are good poetry.

[crusoe]

Sure they are. just so happens that 99% of them are bad poetry. 0.9% mediocre poetry, and 0.01 % are good poetry.

lol, I think we both generalize...and I started it. Stupid me.

[crusoe]

One of my favourite songs deals with Jealousy:

Excerpt from Lou Reed's "Keep away"

You keep your jealousy and your snide remarks to yourself
you know that I'm not seeing anyone else
You just keep your ear down to the ground
yell your head off if you hear a sound
Here's a whistle, a badge and a phone
you can arrest me if I'm not at home
And if I don't keep my word I swear
I'll keep away

Here's some books and a puzzle by Escher
here's Shakespeare's Measure For Measure
Here's a balloon, a rubber band and a bag
why don't you blow them up if you think you've been had
Here's a castle, a paper dragon and a moat
an earring, a toothbrush and a cloak
And if I don't keep my word I swear
I'll keep away

http://www.lyricsdepot.com/lou-reed/keep-away.html

[The Comedian]

I'm tempted to say "no" -- they're not poetry. They're song lyrics, and, therefore, different than poetry. It doesn't mean they're bad, they're just not poetry. The comparison is sort of like saying are comic books novels?

Sure, they share some similarities: characterization, plot, dialogue, . . . . but there's some pretty important things that make them different: Art for example, in comics. And a musical score in songs.

I suppose you could try to isolate the lyric from the music, then pass it off as poetry. But my suspicion is that people enjoy song lyrics BECAUSE they are accompanied by music and voice. Then later they look at the words, maybe even read the words (probably in their minds still following the rhythm and cadences of the singer and the song). But even in this isolation, the song is never truly divorced from the lyric.

[JCamilo]

Not really comedian. He asked about "song lyrics", not the the song. The written lyrics has very little difference from a Poem. He already isloated it. (Poetry is not necessarily present only in poems anyways.)

Your own last sentence about "In their minds" trying to follow the singer while reading is a good effect of the words creating a "illusion" of music.

[The Comedian]

Not really comedian. He asked about "song lyrics", not the the song. The written lyrics has very little difference from a Poem. He already isloated it. (Poetry is not necessarily present only in poems anyways.)

Your own last sentence about "In their minds" trying to follow the singer while reading is a good effect of the words creating a "illusion" of music.

Oh. So, most likely, the OP and others who classify "song lyrics" as poetry go to song lyric web sites to read the lyrics or have books of song lyrics that they read, and the rhythm and music of the of the song lyric comes from the word-smithing of the lyric writer?

It doesn't come from having listened to the song, liking it, then studying the lyrics (often reading the lyric with the music of the song in one's mind, or how the singer sung the song as your inner voice)?

EDIT: I guess I'm still trying to figure this out. If "song lyrics" are poetry, then is the reverse also true?. . . . that poetry is song lyrics? So can I say that I read some of Yeats' "song lyrics"? Or that "I recently purchased a volume of Neruda's song lyrics on Amazon.com."

Or is poetry an umbrella category for a lot things: Epic, sonnet, song lyric. . .?

[Helga]

I think some song lyrics can be considered poetry but like someone before me said there is just something about poetry that makes them unique. So few people read poetry these days and song lyrics seem to have taken their place in some ways.

I can't listen to music if the lyric doesn't 'say' something important.

Also at least here on the ice most of our famous songs are poems turned into music. There are so many CD's with songs to the poems of some famous poet.

[JCamilo]

Oh. So, most likely, the OP and others who classify "song lyrics" as poetry go to song lyric web sites to read the lyrics or have books of song lyrics that they read, and the rhythm and music of the of the song lyric comes from the word-smithing of the lyric writer?

What define an object is not the first form those objects are first approached. Several poems became popular because many people knew it in oral form and not written, and this include even The Comedy and Orlando Furioso. Mallarme himself used to recite his poems always before allowing it to be published. Song Lyrics work well. If they are printed and you do not listen to the music while reading, then you do not have music either, do you?


EDIT: I guess I'm still trying to figure this out. If "song lyrics" are poetry, then is the reverse also true?. . . . that poetry is song lyrics? So can I say that I read some of Yeats' "song lyrics"? Or that "I recently purchased a volume of Neruda's song lyrics on Amazon.com."

Really? Because many Yeats poems and Neruda are indeed called Lyrics or Lyrical, aren't them. They are not song lyrics just because they weren't created primally to be a song. And just like a shark is a fish, but not all fishes are a shark... Oh, I guess what you are trying hard to figure should not be so hard, right?


Or is poetry an umbrella category for a lot things: Epic, sonnet, song lyric. . .?

Really? Epic poetry is Poetry of course, Sonnet is poetry of course, specially if you are using poetry as textual form. If you are using as the use of language, you will get several prose works who are poetry. Sometimes poetry may reffer to even unwritten texts, as the language can be poetic if you talk, right? Writen song lyrics work as poems, any could just cheek Vinicius de Moraes poetry and song writting to see the line is to thin.

In the end, Music has poetry, it is not a literary genre (does not even needs, it is a older and big art by itself) if you stop listening The Beatles. You must read it (be good or bad), there is differneces, but if you get a published book with Bob Dylan lyrics to read, what you are doing?

[Alexander III]

I'm tempted to say "no" -- they're not poetry. They're song lyrics, and, therefore, different than poetry. It doesn't mean they're bad, they're just not poetry. The comparison is sort of like saying are comic books novels?

Sure, they share some similarities: characterization, plot, dialogue, . . . . but there's some pretty important things that make them different: Art for example, in comics. And a musical score in songs.

I suppose you could try to isolate the lyric from the music, then pass it off as poetry. But my suspicion is that people enjoy song lyrics BECAUSE they are accompanied by music and voice. Then later they look at the words, maybe even read the words (probably in their minds still following the rhythm and cadences of the singer and the song). But even in this isolation, the song is never truly divorced from the lyric.


But the thing is, if one says that song lyrics are not poetry then what about Greek poetry. In ancient greece poetry was sung accompanied by a lute or lyre or sometimes and orchestra, it was intended as a performance art, the Illiad and Odessy in truth were song lyrics. But they are great because on paper they stand out as amazing poetry.

That is why I believe that song lyrics must be classified as poetry. The simple fact is that 99% of song lyrics without music are crap poetry. Of-course there are exemptions like Bob Dylan whose songs stand out as good poetry on paper.

[Revolte]

Sometimes, but the bar has been raised a long time ago with Neutral Milk Hotel:

Song Against Sex

And the first one tore a picture
Of a dead and hanging man
Who was kissing foreign fishes
That flew right out from this hands
And when I put my arms around him
I felt the blushing blood run through my cheeks
And an eeriness surrounded when his tongue began to speak
And he said...Oh boy you are so pretty
Enough to wrap tight in rice-paper string...
And when I finally kissed him the whole world began to ring
Lost like a bell that's tipping over
With two cracks along both sides
And I knew the world was over so I took a look outside
And watched the fires that were reaching
Up to the weather vane and the tops of trees
And the waiting scene and the sunday dream
They're all waiting here for me

Deli markets with their flower stands
Pretty girls and the burning men
Hanging out on the hooks next to the window displays
And I took out my tongue twice removed from my face
Across a bridge and across the mountains
Threw a nickel in a fountain
To save my soul from all these troubled times
And all the drugs that I don't have the guts to take
To soothe my mind so I'm always sober
Always aching, always heading towards
Mass suicide, occult figurines
And wasted gas-station attendents
Attending to their jobs
And a nice drive in the country
Finds a nice cliff to drop off
Oh when this world just gets so grating
All the grittiness of life
But don't take those pills your boyfriend gave you
You're too wonderful to die

From anything we could call loving
Any love worth living for
So I'll sleep out in the gutter
You can sleep here on the floor
And when I wake up in the morning
I forgot to lock the door
Because with a match that's mean and some gasoline
You won't see me anymore


Defiance Ohio has some good writing too:

Calling Old Friends

The roads that stretch ahead of us, the roads that led us here;
singing traditional renditions of the songs we sang last year.
And though these times have made us stronger, the outcome's no more clear.

Calling old friends to make sure they're real,
Talking, talking just to feel
That sense of home you lost when you left last year.
Distance is just numbers on a dashboard, hours thinking about
Nothing but the transmission stutter you fear.

I remember what you whispered in my ear,
And all those things we tried so hard to never have to hear,
Like "kids tighten up, start saving for the golden years."
Well, that picture it fades day by day and the outcome's not so clear.

Don't think I'll see you around this winter,
And my tongue's stuck full of splinters,
'Cause I'm embarrassed to admit what I've been thinking.
Well, hope keeps some afloat,
But for me it's no life boat.
The tighter I hold on the deeper down I'm sinking.

I tried to put my finger on it, but I gave it my whole arm.
I reached out with good intentions, but it only did more harm.
We find ourselves alone ever since the day we're born,
And we seek someone to sew sutures in the places where we're torn.

[The Comedian]

Oh, I guess what you are trying hard to figure should not be so hard, right?

Okay, so song lyrics are poetry, prose is poetry, music "has poetry but is not a literary genre", talking is sometimes poetry. . . . .

I don't disagree that "song lyrics work as poetry". They do. But I'm not sure if they are poetry. I mean, I've used a rock to hammer in a nail, but that rock was never a hammer. I just used it in place of one.

Maybe I'm just getting the adjective, "poetic" with the noun "poetry" mixed up. . . .I'll have to keep thinkin' about it.

In the mean time, I think I'll go to my song lyric shelf, pull down a copy of The Divine Comedy and read some of the best song lyrics I've read. ;)

[The Comedian]

That is why I believe that song lyrics must be classified as poetry. The simple fact is that 99% of song lyrics without music are crap poetry. Of-course there are exemptions like Bob Dylan whose songs stand out as good poetry on paper.

That's what I was wondering -- if song lyrics are a type of poetry. . . . .like other types of poetry. If so, then poetry is the most popular genre of literary experience currently in the world. Hell, people plug themselves into battery powered poetry blasters (iPods) all day long, casting their day and their their hours in the poetry of drums, guitars, and voice.

[JCamilo]

Poetry is the most popular genre of literature in the world if you do not consider shopping lists.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

No. They're song lyrics. They're written for a different reason than poetry--to accompany music. This doesn't devalue lyrics in contrast to poetry. It's what they are.

[The Comedian]

No. They're song lyrics. They're written for a different reason than poetry--to accompany music. This doesn't devalue lyrics in contrast to poetry. It's what they are.

*touches his nose* that's what I'm thinkin'.

[JCamilo]

You know She walks in beauty like the night.... etc, It was written to accompany music too.

[Revolte]

There is only one real difference between lyrical song writing and poetry. With a song's lyrics it's important to fit the words into the rhythm of the music, in order to properly compose the piece. Because of this you sometimes have to sacrifice even lines that flow to the lips alone in order to have them bounce around musical notes. Rhyming is also important for a lot of songs, where it doesn't always read well in poetry, it helps a lot in a song's flow.

However, if you take a well written song and do some trimming and a small amount of editing, it's not difficult to compose a poem.

But, if done well, a song's lyrics serve the same purpose as a poem. All the instruments played in a band, even if it's just one person and a banjo, are stand alone. They are just modified to work together. It's hard to say it isn't a form of poetry.

[MystyrMystyry]

It depends on the country and culture. A place like Greece tends to place importance on lyrical quality before music is added. I'd put up a link but you'd mostly get rough translations from the originals. Perhaps look at Doc Heart's poems and see how easily they could be put to music, they're almost demanding it.

[YesNo]

Take a string of characters. Create four pigeon holes. Call one "poetry". Call another "prose". For the jibberish, call one pigeon hole "neither poetry nor prose". For the confused, call the last one "both poetry and prose". The task at hand is to put all possible strings into one of the these four pigeon holes.

Suppose the lyricists don't want to be associated with the poets. Or the poets think they are too good for the lyricists. Then create another set of pigeon holes and call one "lyric". Now neither the lyricists nor the poets will be embarrassed with being in the same pigeon hole.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

You know She walks in beauty like the night.... etc, It was written to accompany music too.

Then it's a lyric. I'm not sure what your point is (maybe you're not even trying to explicitly make one). Plenty of poets have written lyrics knowingly, and labeled them as such. All that means is that the poet feels there is a musical (or lyrical) quality to the poem that may lend itself to music. I'm thinking some poets labeled them as such in hopes that a musician would combine the lyrics to a song; maybe the poet wasn't a musician and didn't feel up to the task. If he was, in the case of that lyric, he'd go beyond being a poet and become a song-writer.

Merriam-Webster's definition of "lyric," as an adjective is interesting in the context of this discussion:

1 a : suitable for singing to the lyre or for being set to music and sung

So it looks like the very word "lyric" comes from "lyre."

So, if some of you want to stick to your guns and say lyrics are poetry, fine, but one must at least say it's a lyrical poem, since it's intended use is for it to be set to music.

Also, when is the last time you've ever heard a musician say they're writing a poem, as in "I'm writing poetry for my newest song"? Never. They always write lyrics. If they do write poems, as many musicians have done, they are published as such.

I think this topic is being made more complicated than it needs to be. A poem is a poem. A lyric is a poem intended for music. The end.

[Jack of Hearts]

No, song lyrics are not poetry. Poetry is not poetry. There is no such thing as poetry.







J

[JCamilo]

Then it's a lyric. I'm not sure what your point is (maybe you're not even trying to explicitly make one). Plenty of poets have written lyrics knowingly, and labeled them as such.

No, lyrical poetry is a genre. The name is related to the "Lyre", but plenty of lyrical poems are never intented to be followed by music Today is a reference to emotive poems, instropective, etc. Narrative poems like Epics were also meant to be oral in the past, but this is besides the point.

The point was that She walks in beauty is widely reckonized as a poem, nobody denies it and was writen to be followed by music. Not with the hope of such thing happening, it was intented as such, the very first edition came with musical settings. Byron wrote it just like any song lyric writer do today.

Therefore being writen to be in music or being a lyric is not something that exclude poetry and if it is writen, will be read as a poem. And can be still lyrical even never gets in music or any intention to do it.




Also, when is the last time you've ever heard a musician say they're writing a poem, as in "I'm writing poetry for my newest song"? Never. They always write lyrics. If they do write poems, as many musicians have done, they are published as such.

But that is different. Albeit it happens, usually musicians write a lyrical piece as part of the process of producing a music and indeed, even guys like Leonard Cohen say they are different, mostly because as you say, they are not meant to be printed to be read and they work with the limitations of a music. Yet, Bob Dylan or Lou Reed have song lyrics published in books to be read as poems. Several Medieval stories were musical pieces, no more sung, but read. Carmina Burana for example goes back and forth.

Obviously you can argue, those "poems" lack something. But calling the writen lyrics of song of poems is far from awkward.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I can't tell if you're disagreeing with what I've said or not, or trying to, because it looks like you've said pretty much what I've said.

[miyako73]

Most national anthems were poems originally. If poems are turned into songs, then the lyrics of those songs are poems. "Ice Ice Baby" is definitely not a poem. I don't know if it's even a song.

[Alexander III]

No. They're song lyrics. They're written for a different reason than poetry--to accompany music. This doesn't devalue lyrics in contrast to poetry. It's what they are.

So we are not allowed to call Homer a poet, and now we must call him a lyricist?

[crusoe]

If that ain't poetry, than a cadillac ain't a car...:rofl:
(Is that you, Bobby Bare ?)

"Minstrel In The Gallery", by Jethro Tull

The minstrel in the gallery looked down upon the smiling faces.
He met the gazes --- observed the spaces between the
old men's cackle.

He brewed a song of love and hatred --- oblique
suggestions --- and he waited.
He polarized the pumpkin-eaters --- static-humming
panel-beaters --- freshly day-glow'd factory cheaters
(salaried and collar-scrubbing).

He titillated men-of-action --- belly warming, hands
still rubbing on the parts they never mention.
He pacified the nappy-suffering, infant-bleating
one-line jokers --- T.V. documentary makers
(overfed and undertakers).
Sunday paper backgammon players --- family-scarred
and women-haters.
Then he called the band down to the stage and he
looked at all the friends he'd made.

The minstrel in the gallery looked down on the
rabbit-run.
And threw away his looking-glass - saw his face in
everyone.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

So we are not allowed to call Homer a poet, and now we must call him a lyricist?

You can call him whatever the hell you want. I don't care that much. I was just answering the questions presented.

[crusoe]

I think, Lyrics can be poetry if the writer wants it to be. For some of us,
"A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum is sheer poetry...

We skipped the light fandango
Turned cartwheels 'cross the floor
I was feeling kinda seasick
But the crowd called out for more
The room was humming harder
As the ceiling flew away
When we called out for another drink
And the waiter brought a tray

And so it was that later
As the miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly,
Turned a whiter shade of pale

She said, "There is no reason
And the truth is plain to see."
But I wandered through my playing cards
And they would not let her be
One of sixteen vestal virgins
Who were leaving for the coast
And although my eyes were open wide
They might have just as well been closed

And so it was that later
As the miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly,
Turned a whiter shade of pale

She said, "I'm here on a shore leave,"
Though we were miles at sea.
I pointed out this detail
And forced her to agree,
Saying, "You must be the mermaid
Who took King Neptune for a ride."
And she smiled at me so sweetly
That my anger straightway died.

And so it was that later
As the miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly,
Turned a whiter shade of pale

If music be the food of love
Then laughter is it's queen
And likewise if behind is in front
Then dirt in truth is clean
My mouth by then like cardboard
Seemed to slip straight through my head
So we crash-dived straightway quickly
And attacked the ocean bed

And so it was that later
As the miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly,
Turned a whiter shade of pale...

for others it's pure Kitsch.

[crusoe]

LOVE STREET - The Doors

She lives on Love Street
Lingers long on Love Street
She has a house and garden
I would like to see what happens

She has robes and she has monkeys
Lazy diamond studded flunkies
She has wisdom and knows what to do
She has me and she has you

I see you live on Love Street
There's this store where the creatures meet
I wonder what they do in there
Summer Sunday and a year
I guess I like it fine, so far

[stlukesguild]

This topic has popped up repeatedly. A few years back we discussed the question in some depth here:

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35162

I'll stick by what I said at that time:

Song lyrics are absolutely poetry.

How good or bad is another question altogether.

Poetry... in written form... relies solely upon the words to create the music and the meaning. This is quite different with the song. With a song (an aria, chanson, lieder, ballad, pop song, etc...) the music and the words combine to create the music and the meaning. If we take a song such as the Beatle's Norwegian Wood, the lyrics in and of themselves are not bad. There is something open-ended and surely more sophisticated than the usual teen age love song... but (if we are speaking of great poetry) we are talking Shelley/Keats/Blake/Yeats here. With the music, however, the song (Norwegian Wood) takes on a greater meaning as the music and the inflections of the singer's voice reinforce the words.

Perhaps the greatest example of this is to be found in the songs of Franz Schubert, long acknowledged as t greatest classical song writer. Schubert famously set a cycle of poems by Wilhelm Müller known as Die Winterreise (the Winter's Journey) to music. The poems on their own are but mediocre examples of German Romantic poetry. They most certainly are not upon the level of Goethe, Schiller, Holderlin, or many others whom he might have set (and did on other occasions). The musical accompaniment, however... the piano and the vocal... reinforce... expand... or even contrast with the actual lyrics making the end result far more profound that the lyrics standing upon their own.

Mahler's great symphonic cycle, Das Lied von der Erde (the Song of the Earth) is built upon a German translation (mediocre at best) by Hans Bethge of Chinese poetry from the Tang Dynasty. Yet the resulting work... especially the closing Der Abschied or "Farewell" is among the most profoundly moving in the whole of orchestral lieder and powerfully conveys the composer's own feelings of the transience of life and his own impending death. Sung by the inimitable Kathleen Ferrier who was dying at the time the resulting work ii almost unbearable:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtV7TSRLs5Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X_Ii0ymVRM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdZR2XEnB5c

The attempt to tear down an art form into separate elements seems wrong-minded to me. Many "librettos" (text) of operas or choral works (masses, Requiems, Stabat Maters, etc...), as well as songs are not the most original... and quite often are rather bad taken solely as a text. By the same token, just because a film works brilliantly in no way means that if we dissect it we will find that each individual element will be found to work brilliantly and stand independent of the whole... that the screen play will stand as great literature, the cinematography as great photography, the musical score as worthy of standing along side Beethoven, etc... The whole in a work of art is not necessarily simply defined as a sum of the parts. Inflated claims for the "poetry" of John Lennon, Robert Plant, Lou Reed, etc... underestimates real poetry as well as it underestimates the the importance of the music in song and the merger of the two in creating the whole.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Separating lyrics and poetry doesn't tear down an art form, though. I don't know why so many people automatically think poetryis better than lyrics, i.e., saying lyrics are "sheer poetry."

[Revolte]

Separating lyrics and poetry doesn't tear down an art form, though. I don't know why so many people automatically think poetryis better than lyrics, i.e., saying lyrics are "sheer poetry."

They probably don't read or write a lot of poetry on there spare time.

I've noticed certain crowds (people who don't or don't seem to read or write a lot) have lower standards as to what constitutes as good writing.

So they could compare lyrics to your usual 4-5 stanza (4 lines per) poem because they roughly look the same.

But in reading you would have to do some rearranging with the lines, words and schemes to make for a bearable read.

With music, it's all in keeping the rhythm. All the instruments work for themselves.

I have tried so many times to take a poem written by myself and use it as lyrics to a song. But most of the time you won't be able to out right transfer. You have to change it's structure to fit the notes.

A song is one complete piece, composed of multiple pieces (in most cases, some songs are just words and a voice). This means they have to work together, otherwise you will destroy the song.

I've been in bands, and played a solo artist for a good seven years now. I'm not the only musician here either, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who writes outside of music. I'm thinking they will agree with me, but I could be wrong.

This is how song writing usually gos (but not all the time), for fun I'll add in an entire band:

Ever member has their tool, their own piece they need to create. Eventually you end up with four or more separate pieces (one for each instrument).

All mashed together it sounds like crap, lyrics included. So you have to restructure, rewrite and recompose every piece to work together. They all blend into one specific piece of art, the song.

Because of this process, each piece loses a little, if not all, of their stand alone quality. Lyrics are part of this, just like the mandolins and snares.

[crusoe]

Please keep it coming. It's very interesting. :bigear: I'm not sure that I ever read an article in which Reed,Lennon or Plant claimed to be a poet. Some of their followers might have mentioned something like it, though.

SUNDAY MORNING - Velvet Underground

Sunday morning, praise the dawning
It's just a restless feeling by my side
Early dawning, sunday morning
It's just the wasted years so close behind

Watch out, the world's behind you
There's always someone around you who will call
It's nothing at all

Sunday morning and I'm falling
I've got a feeling I don't want to know
Early dawning, sunday morning
It's all the streets you crossed, not so long ago

[Monamy]

I agree. That's actually very informative. And yeah, like Mutatis-Mutandis said, it's just different kinds of implementations for the same Art.

Revolte, you brought a great point here. The sacrifice all instruments must do in order to work together, same goes for lyrics to work with the musical piece. So true, but wouldn't you say that those instruments gained something in return? Something in place of what they sacrificed of their distinctive stand-alone qualities?

Can't we implement that on lyrics as well? That lyrics were poetry to begin with, before being used for the song?

[JCamilo]

Nah, Revolve is confuding the question. Writting for a song is indeed different than writting for reading only, but so is writting for a newspaper and for a scientific thesis, or for an epic and for a haikai or for a drama (nobody questions of Shakespeare is poetry, and indeed his work also needs arrangements to be read as we usually do and was also only intented as to be oral).

And there is enough written poems that were adapted to music without needing a single word change. Vinicius de Moraes poems were turned into music, often without much changes. And there is several song lyrics who are read as poem today without the changes.

Song lyrics are not a song, just part of it. The sameway a script is part of a Play and not all of it and still literature, simple because art can be complex enough to use other art's a part of their construction without losing their identidy.

[Monamy]

Song lyrics are not a song, just part of it. The sameway a script is part of a Play and not all of it and still literature, simple because art can be complex enough to use other art's a part of their construction without losing their identidy.

interesting indeed.

[Alexander III]

Nah, Revolve is confuding the question. Writting for a song is indeed different than writting for reading only, but so is writting for a newspaper and for a scientific thesis, or for an epic and for a haikai or for a drama (nobody questions of Shakespeare is poetry, and indeed his work also needs arrangements to be read as we usually do and was also only intented as to be oral).

And there is enough written poems that were adapted to music without needing a single word change. Vinicius de Moraes poems were turned into music, often without much changes. And there is several song lyrics who are read as poem today without the changes.

Song lyrics are not a song, just part of it. The sameway a script is part of a Play and not all of it and still literature, simple because art can be complex enough to use other art's a part of their construction without losing their identidy.

:iagree:

[Paulclem]

I was listening to Grand Master Flash's The Message recently. The last part is very powerful I feel - and, as it's rap, is in an appropriate oral form. It is bisecting the song form, but the words here are powerful enough too.

A child is born with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but he's frowning too
Because only God knows what you’ll go through
You’ll grow in the ghetto, living second rate
And your eyes will sing a song of deep hate
The places you play and where you stay
Looks like one great big alley way
You'll admire all the number book takers
Thugs, pimps, pushers and the big money makers
Driving big cars, spending twenties and tens
And you wanna grow up to be just like them, huh,
Smugglers, scramblers, burglars, gamblers
Pickpockets, peddlers even panhandlers
You say: “I'm cool, I'm no fool!”
But then you wind up dropping out of high school
Now you're unemployed, all non-void
Walking ‘round like you're Pretty Boy Floyd
Turned stickup kid, look what you’ve done did
Got sent up for a eight year bid
Now your manhood is took and you're a Maytag
Spent the next two years as a undercover fag
Being used and abused to serve like hell
'Til one day you was found hung dead in your cell
It was plain to see that your life was lost
You was cold and your body swung back and forth
But now your eyes sing the sad, sad song
Of how you lived so fast and died so young
[5th Chorus]

(Read more: GRANDMASTER FLASH - THE MESSAGE LYRICS http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-message-lyrics-grandmaster-flash.html#ixzz21TmNgAVi
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