Song lyrics that can stand alone as poetry

There are countless songs we consider poetic or, at least, poetic sounding. However, most of these songs, when stripped of their instrumentals, may not hold up so well as serious poetry.

What songs do you feel, on paper, could pass for poetry so much so that a reputable publishing company would want to acquire and distribute them regardless of the identity of the author?

Just to get things started, here are a few of my personal choices:

All My Love - Led Zeppelin
What a Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong (written by Bob Thiele & George David Weiss)
The House of the Rising Sun - authorship uncertain

I'll stop at three for now. What songs would you suggest?

You may wish to look at this discussion from a short while ago:

http://174.133.97.227/forums/showthread.php?t=35162

I can think of ten right off the bat:

Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles
Stairway To Heaven by Led Zeppelin
Fields Of Gold by Sting
America by Simon & Garfunkle
The Boxer by Simon & Garfunkle
Kid Charlemagne by Steely Dan
Subterranean Homesick Blues by Bob Dylan
All Along The Watchtower by Bob Dylan
The End by The Doors
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down by The Band

We've already had this one, that's St Lukes' point. Might as well just bump the old one.

How about this?

Quote:

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I close both locks below the window
I close both blinds and turn away

Sometimes solutions aren't so simple
Sometimes good bye's the only way

[Chorus]
And the sun will set for you
The sun will set for you

And the shadow of the day
Will embrace the world in grey

And the sun will set for you
[End Chorus]

In cards and flowers on your window
Your friends all plead for you to stay

Sometimes beginnings aren't so simple
Sometimes good bye's the only way

[Chorus]
And the sun will set for you
The sun will set for you

And the shadow of the day
Will embrace the world in grey

And the sun will set for you

And the shadow of the day
Will embrace the world in grey

And the sun will set for you

And the shadow of the day
Will embrace the world in grey

And the sun will set for you
[End Chorus]

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This is Shadow of the Day by Linkin Park.

Nope... pretty bad as poetry.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Nope... pretty bad as poetry.

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In my opinion, pretty bad music as well. Seriously, this is the reason people don't take lyrics seriously, because the people who preach lyrics on these boards usually paste the worst of the lot - for instance, that kid who posted a rap song that was 40% censored by the board's autocensor.

Apparently, only because rap is "talked" and not "sung" his lyrics must be great, as if the only form of oral expression is poetry. Of course they have some vallue of political manifestation, but so had Sex Pistol musics. Anyways, I think the main mistake is that some genres do not demand from the musicians lyrical virtuose, or they will drift from such genre, such as rock and roll, and peeople usually think about rock and roll or similar pop genres as examples.

I may be wrong but I think it was Ray Charles who said of rap: "It's bad poetry with a monotonous drumbeat." Right on Ray.

Dumb
Lithium
and many others by Kurt Cobain.

At night young faces grow sad and old
and hearts of fire grow cold
we swore blood brothers against the wind
I'm ready to grow young again
And hear your sister's voice calling us home
across the open yards
baby, we'll cut some place of our own
with these drums and these guitars

(from No Surrender)

They paved Paradise and put in a parking lot...

Joni Mitchell

Be careful while bending the law...

Gordon Lightfoot

and many more snippets that I think make great poetry.:)

I think many of Led Zeppelin songs are poetry in lyrics and in music as well.
And there are several Arctic Monkeys songs worth mentioning...

:brickwall

One of my favourite bands is Augie March, an Australian, er, 'progressive rock' group. Their lyrics are self consciously poetic and although I don't think any of the following constitute great or even good poetry in and of themselves, to my mind (a mind not formally trained in poetry) there are enough decent lines and phrases to suggest that lyricist Glen Richards may have some talent as a poet.


BRUNDISIUM
They married, a dandy and a back alley tough,
on the foreshore while kids in the needling rough,
stayed low, in, and laid till they'd had enough
of the somersaulting hot roll of revolting September.

By thickets beneath the hot halo above,
the plague bodies bathed in their talentless love.
It's hot in the town with its back to the sea,
O darling don't put your veil over me.

From thinking a life was about them when, long,
they were the thorn in its side,
The hard men got plucked and by measures were gone,
at pride it plucked and out, out it pried.

Where's the shame in a gentle man? Stand him next to me.
It's hot in the town with its back to the sea,
O darling don't put your veil over me.

Honey we'll go without, honey grow old and thin,
I love you like I love my own skin.

From thinking a life was about them but stranger,
The soft women lowed and came in and were in,
to swoon "O welcome hot united sailor",
Welcome from unsteady decks and from danger,

Did you see a new sun in the sky?
The sun is blood and blood is a lie.
It's hot in the town with its back to the sea,
O darling don't put your veil over me...

Honey we'll go without, honey grow old and thin,
I love you like I love my own skin,
O my bonny lies over the ocean,
My bonny grows old and thin,
I love her like I love my own skin...

THERE'S SOMETHING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BLACK POOL
There's something at the bottom of the black pool
I daren't dredge it up not while the weather's still cool
A feathered thing it's origins mixed and untrue
Once a straw body, now a lamb picker, now a clove in a black brew
I think of the peacocks of the gorge and I think of the gryphons they keep in the Tower Zoo
An unexpected torrent swept all before it
as it rushed on terribly through

And left them all here, and spread through the park
Amid the myriad mangles of the coming dark -
of the shadow of a loon, the howl from the bloody craw
those strange interruptions don't scare me anymore,
Since all the while the weather was cool I stood at the crumbling edge of the black pool

Perhaps a pidgeon fell off it's stool,
I have drowned a conscience or two,
There are palm trees and clouds and the undersides of drowned blues
and sometimes the faces of people I think I knew
I know at one time this thing flew,
I have sunk an ambition or two,
Now when I think to drink, then I wonder with who,
I pretend that I'm sitting in the booth with you -

O what a ****in' sentence, what a ****in' noise
I don't know these girls, I don't trust these boys
And over there in the corner, there hangs a strange bird
Sings a strange song but it won't be heard
A song to enquire whither went the milk money
While the darling babes of Toorak are a'yowling for their honey

Let's walk up this hill, let's go walking on up this hill,
The sun is in the middle of the sky, the grass is yellow from being dry,
There's music, there's you, many others here and I,
Up the hill then, up where those holy lodestones lie -
How suddenly still, and though the wind blow,
From here we will never leave or go,
And but for a will, but for companions,
we might go tumbling home below,
To a place at the table, to gamble and settle,
Make the words "amiable" and "able"
of resting assured, in the breast of bird,
that I sure did not suffer a fool,
Since all the while the weather was cool I stood at the crumbling edge of the black pool


HEARTBEAT AND SAILS

Scoop my brains and let my heart have action
In its thousand million lots,
In the dumb city dawn I am senseless and drawn to the sun
as the blackbirds and the toppyknots.
And in biting down on the great foam world
What is the looming thing?
Not money, not flesh, not happiness,
But this, which makes me sing.
O scoop my brains and let my heart have action
In its thousand million lots,
And feel the subterranean movement a fraction
and deep under ocean, the celibate rocks.
Has it borne me down?
Has it run me through?
If I give it a name do I contract it too?
More likely this thing has been growing in me,
Like I have grown in you.

Scoop my brains and let my heart have action
In its thousand million lots,
In the dumb city dawn we dispense with the forlorn beasts
that we were in the night, grown lean on love.
A love which will pierce and callous and tumesce,
O upon the birth oath the morbid bloom
Is a child's sense of impending doom
in a womb that is ambushed,
in a womb that is ambushed.
In biting down on the great foam world,
What is the looming thing?
Not money, not flesh, not happiness,
But this, which makes me sing.
Not money, not flesh, not happiness,
But this, which makes me sing.

Anyone else quite fancy a bit of MUSE?

Falling Away With You..

I can't remember when it was good
moments of happiness elude
maybe I just misunderstood

all of the love we left behind
watching the flash backs intertwine
memories I will never find

so I'll love whatever you become
and forget the reckless things we've done
I think our lives have just begun
I think our lives have just begun

and I'll feel my world crumbling
I'll feel my life crumbling
I'll feel my soul crumbling away
and falling away
falling away with you

staying awake to chase a dream
tasting the air you're breathing in
I know I won't forget a thing

promise to hold you close and pray
watching the fantasies decay
nothing will ever stay the same

all of the love we threw away
all of the hopes we cherished fade
making the same mistakes again
making the same mistakes again

I can feel my world crumbling
I can feel my life crumbling
I can feel my soul crumbling away
and falling away
falling away with you

all of the love we've left behind
watching the flash backs intertwine
memories I will never find
memories I will never find

Others might disagree but i find it quite good, and i agree that there are a few Arctic Monkeys songs that are nice, Alex Turner is quite poetrical in his lyrics.

I have quite a broad taste in music. But I find most of it, if not all, hard to accept as poetry.
Most rock & pop lyrics just don't make it. Just imagine the tedium of reading 'Satisfaction' by the Rolling Stones, or lyrics as repetitive as 'Where have all the flowers gone? To be honest I find the overall effect completely different. All in all, I can't think of any songs I would regard as poetry unless it is actually poetry: Owen's 'Futility' was set to music, although for me, the poem immediately lost its gravitas - it just did not have the same impact anymore. I can say my favourite lyricist is probably Paul Simon. These songs by Simon & Garfunkle are the only tunes I can listen to without wishing they had better lyrics.

In class last year we had to recite a poem. I did 'In the Ghetto' by Elvis Presley. The teacher liked it. The words didn't have much meaning behind them. I knew what they were saying, however there wasn't very much to interpret.

Half of the class chose 'I'm Yours' by Jason Mraz. Most of it was almost sung, however there was nothing be hind it.

I agree, wlz, Simon and Garfunkle are probably the best for poetry, as far as I'm concerned.

When I was at school and The Beatles' influence was still quite strong Penny Lane turned up in a poetry anthology that was handed out to the class.

This appearance was due - the teacher explained - to one particular line that Lennon threw in there:

Behind the shelter in the middle of the roundabout
The pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray
And though she feels as though she's in a play
She is anyway

Can one line transform a pop star into a poet? I have my doubts...

Well, I don't suppose John Lennon was known for his poetry. That would be something for the whole word to decide.

It is pretty good though.

Doesn't take a genious to write one line of value.

So byyyye bye miss American pie! PUT THE CHEVY TO THE LEVY BUT THE LEVY WAS DRYYY!!!!
(you'll call it poetry too when you're wasted and stumbling down an icy road at five in the morning)

But really, Jim Morrison wasn't a bad poet.

Lions in the street and roaming,
Dogs in heat, rabid, foaming.
A beast caged in the heart of a city.
The body of his mother
Rotting in the summer ground,
He fled the town.
He went down South and crossed the border,
Left the chaos and disorder,
Back there over his shoulder.

Yes. Jim Morrison is pretty good by the sounds of that.

On the other hand of all of this, how many poems can be considered songs.
All of them are, almost. If somebody adds a melody to it.
In that case, what is a lymric if it is both? Or a catchy radio jingle?

originally, poetry was always accompanied by music

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jermac

originally, poetry was always accompanied by music

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This is still true of some poetic traditions. People trying to reestablish Inuit culture are exploring the traditional "chants" as poetry

Edit: I'd like to say though that greatest lyrics are not necessarily going to be great poetry. Song lyrics are written with the music in mind, and how the lyrics play off the music is a huge part of them. When we remove the music from the lyrics we cut ourselves off from their quality as lyrics within and of themselves.

Leonard Cohen is considered a great lyricist, but he's in general considered only a mediocre poet. Although, he was published as a poet prior to having any success in music.

I'm Sticking with You - Velvet Underground

I'm sticking with you
'cos I'm made out of glue
Anything that you might do
I'm gonna do too

You held up a stage coach in the rain
And I'm doing the same
So you're hanging from a tree
And I made believe it was me

I'm sticking with you
'cos I'm made out of glue
Anything that you might do
I'm gonna do too

People going to the stratosphere
Soldiers fighting with the cong?

But with you by my side I can do anything
When we swing
We hang past right or wrong

I'll do anything for you
Anything you want me too
I'll do anything for you
Oohoh I'm sticking with you
Oohoh I'm sticking with you
Oohoh I'm sticking with you

The Doors produced some truly great stuff, but Jim Morrison was far from being a good poet.:sick:

I'd like to say though that greatest lyrics are not necessarily going to be great poetry. Song lyrics are written with the music in mind, and how the lyrics play off the music is a huge part of them. When we remove the music from the lyrics we cut ourselves off from their quality as lyrics within and of themselves.

Exactly... and this point was made already on the earlier thread on this same topic. Poetry has its own internal rhythm and "music" if you will. Most song lyrics do not, rather the music provides this framework for them. Reading a great many of these song lyrics is almost painful without this framework. In an earlier discussion we brought up the fact that even a vast majority of opera librettos, texts for cantatas or oratorios, lieder, chanson, etc... do not hold up well as literature divorced from the music.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

I'm Sticking with You - Velvet Underground

I'm sticking with you
'cos I'm made out of glue
Anything that you might do
I'm gonna do too

You held up a stage coach in the rain
And I'm doing the same
So you're hanging from a tree
And I made believe it was me

I'm sticking with you
'cos I'm made out of glue
Anything that you might do
I'm gonna do too

People going to the stratosphere
Soldiers fighting with the cong?

But with you by my side I can do anything
When we swing
We hang past right or wrong

I'll do anything for you
Anything you want me too
I'll do anything for you
Oohoh I'm sticking with you
Oohoh I'm sticking with you
Oohoh I'm sticking with you

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I've never heard this song.
Is it a boppy, girly tune?
I hope it is, would sound alright.
Only I'm not going to check it out, so I'm not disappointed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Heathcliff

I've never heard this song.
Is it a boppy, girly tune?
I hope it is, would sound alright.
Only I'm not going to check it out, so I'm not disappointed.

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Velvet Underground can be described as many things, but boppy, girly probably isn't one of them :p

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwzaifhSw2c
(It's a different song of theirs so as not to disappoint too much)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

Velvet Underground can be described as many things, but boppy, girly probably isn't one of them :p

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwzaifhSw2c
(It's a different song of theirs so as not to disappoint too much)

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Aw. Not girly.

That particular song totally made it NOT girly. It's pretty good though.
Would also serve a good orchestral piece...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

The Doors produced some truly great stuff, but Jim Morrison was far from being a good poet.:sick:

I'd like to say though that greatest lyrics are not necessarily going to be great poetry. Song lyrics are written with the music in mind, and how the lyrics play off the music is a huge part of them. When we remove the music from the lyrics we cut ourselves off from their quality as lyrics within and of themselves.

Exactly... and this point was made already on the earlier thread on this same topic. Poetry has its own internal rhythm and "music" if you will. Most song lyrics do not, rather the music provides this framework for them. Reading a great many of these song lyrics is almost painful without this framework. In an earlier discussion we brought up the fact that even a vast majority of opera librettos, texts for cantatas or oratorios, lieder, chanson, etc... do not hold up well as literature divorced from the music.

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Hmm, I like to think that, but then I recall poetry started off as a sort of song-based art - Orpheus, Homer, and the rest, all accompanied by music - not to mention the Classical Chinese poets, the Vedic Indian poets, and others. I think Japanese poetry started off as textual, but I am not sure.

The point is, is that the separation is really unnatural, so I have a bit of trouble understanding it. I think really it is that music can work without good lyrics, but that music in itself is not poetry, but I don't think lyrics themselves work if they are bad with good music. The song itself works, but I don't think the lyrics do. So if we maintain distinction, it is easy to suggest one work is mediocre in one regard, but the compensation of the whole manages to keep the thing afloat.

So, we can have the opposite, where Dylan isn't the best singer in an objective sense, but when he uses his lyrics, they become a sort of performance art work that is legitimized under the standards of good music, for the sake that their lyrics are top notch. The same thing goes the other way, and it just ends up that we evaluate one element.

the music is something that can not be explained or repeated by anyone, it just kicks a~~, and the lyrics are pure poetry


Led zeppelin kashmir

Oh let the sun beat down upon my face
With stars to fill my dream.
I am a traveler of both time and space
To be where I have been.

To sit with elders of a gentle race
This world has seldom seen.
They talk of days for which they sit and wait
When all will be revealed.

Talk an' song from tongues of lilting grace
Whose sounds caress my ear.
But not a word I heard could I relate
The story was quite clear.
Whoa-ohh-oh
Whoa-ohhh-oh-oh

Ooooh
Oh baby, I've been flyin'
Nooo-yeah
Oh mama there
Ain't no denyin'

Oh!
Ooooh-yes
I've been flyin'
Ma-ma-ma
Ain't no denyin'
No denyin'-uh

Oh!
All I see turns to brown
As the sun burns the ground.
And my eyes fill with sand
As I scan this wasted land.
Tryin' to find
Tryin' to find
Where I've been.

Oh pilot of the storm who leaves no trace
Like thoughts inside a dream
Who hid the path that led me to that place
Of yellow desert screen.

My shangri-la beneath the summer moon
I will return again.
Sure as the dust that floats high in June
When movin' through Kashmir.

Yer, Rimbaud, that is pretty poetic, the verses in particular.

Anyone know Low by Flo Rida and T-Pain? Can poetry get that coarse?
Would that still be considered a love sonnet? :lol:

Hmm, I like to think that, but then I recall poetry started off as a sort of song-based art - Orpheus, Homer, and the rest, all accompanied by music - not to mention the Classical Chinese poets, the Vedic Indian poets, and others. I think Japanese poetry started off as textual, but I am not sure.

Certainly both music and poetry began in song. Sappho supposedly wrote music to the poems and the Biblical Psalms were songs. In these instances the lyrics stand up separate from the music... and I am not saying this is impossible. Certainly Wagner's and Richard Strauss' opera librettos can stand alone as literature... as can many of the German lieder and French chanson set to poetry by Goethe, Heine, Morike, Verlaine, Gautier, etc...

The point is, is that the separation is really unnatural, so I have a bit of trouble understanding it.

That is my point as well. I cannot understand why some wish to experience the lyrics of Led Zeppelin or the Doors as separate from the music. Songs and opera and oratorios and masses are completely different beast from the poem. It seems to me no different than discussing the music and the screenplay and the photography and even the acting of a film as independent entities. As Petrarch'sLove pointed out John Williams music to Schindler's List was powerfully effective... but she had to wonder how it might have functioned in a lesser film... or a film that was overly sentimental. Fred MacMurray's acting in Double Indemnity was perfectly suited to the film... but would have been over-the-top and even comic in another context. My guess is that many high-school students are introduced to the notion that pop lyrics are poetry (which they certainly are... I'm disputing this) either through teachers wishing to grab their attention... or simply on their own as these lyrics become virtually the only exposure that many will ever have to poetry... and certainly the only instance in which many will actually memorize verse.

I think really it is that music can work without good lyrics, but that music in itself is not poetry, but I don't think lyrics themselves work if they are bad with good music. The song itself works, but I don't think the lyrics do. So if we maintain distinction, it is easy to suggest one work is mediocre in one regard, but the compensation of the whole manages to keep the thing afloat.

Most works of art have strengths and weaknesses. An artist as undeniably central as Michelangelo can be criticized for the absence of a real setting (there is little effort placed upon the background) as well as for his lack of concern for the individual character of his people. These are more than compensated for by his strengths... and seriously... the "deficient" areas are never really "bad" to the point that they detract.

Schubert built his vocal masterpiece, the Winterreise, upon the mediocre poems of Wilhelm Müller. The poems are certainly not great on their own... they do not stand up to Goethe or Heine or Holderlin. They are just adequate examples of German Romantic poetry. The music, however, not only compensates for the poetry... but ennobles it... essentially reinterprets it or re-imagines it so that it resonates far more than the words alone do. In this manner I think of how apples are surely among the most common-place or mundane of subject matter for the artist... but in Cezanne's hands they are transformed into something more so that I never find myself thinking, "Great handling of paint. Brilliant composition. I just wish he'd painted something less mundane."

So, we can have the opposite, where Dylan isn't the best singer in an objective sense, but when he uses his lyrics, they become a sort of performance art work that is legitimized under the standards of good music, for the sake that their lyrics are top notch.

But certainly the music... including his singing... is perfectly suited to the lyrics so that together they both become more than what they are separate.

I've always loved this one... the central core of the Hebrew faith reduced to pure satire in one verse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BH8U_z7Q6c

Isnt there an anedocte about Mallarme, when a singer did a homage to him singing one of his poems and afterwards asked him if he liked when the poem was turned into music, Mallarme answered: Why, wasnt musical before?

Anyways, I would say that the answer of lies on Borges, when he says a poem recall his oral origem. That is all, a poem only tries to produce an effect which made us recall of sound. It is not music, just like a painting is not a tree. While the lyrics of a song is really part of the music.

But like in any art, exchange is fundamental, limits will be broken. Hamlet is not really a romance or novel, but a script for a play. It is write in a way that only makes sense if we are aware that wast meant to be said by actors. Of course Shakespeare writting quality makes pleasant to read it and ignore the author, but would all scripts be that good?

The problem mostly is that modern pop music, even Dylan and Velvet are pop, need some basic rules in their lyrics that are catchy and not exactly the best poetry. Beatles pretty much are master of this. A few lines well placed, but not the entire work.
I would give example of brazilian culture, we are more musical than writen. Cultural wise, there is a demand for good lyricist, so poets are often seen also writting musical pieces. It was also a better way to make money. And the popular culture is very strong, if you seek the old samba lyrics, you will see they are mostly written following rules of poetic metric from popular oral poetry. And we had Vinicius de Moraes, a poet that was a great musician, and would walk from one art to another as easily as he would left empty a beer bottle.

Visions of Johanna by Dylan is perhaps one of my favorite poems, and it is indeed a song. I could read it over and over (though I prefer to listen to it, harmonica adds a nice touch).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Heathcliff

I've never heard this song.
Is it a boppy, girly tune?
I hope it is, would sound alright.
Only I'm not going to check it out, so I'm not disappointed.

---

Mine was not a serious post, Heath, but you should listen to some Velvet Underground so I will add to Orphan's list (more "girly" songs this time ;)):

I'm Sticking With You

After Hours

along with those who wrote the music: Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Ira Gershwin, and, of course, Cole Porter. Just take some time and watch the old B&W movies: songs like Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Night and Day, You'll never Know I Much I Love You .... Ah yes those were the days!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

Mine was not a serious post, Heath, but you should listen to some Velvet Underground so I will add to Orphan's list (more "girly" songs this time ;)):

I'm Sticking With You

After Hours

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Yes I know... Still, it is amasing the impression you can get from a series of lyrics, totally different to the song.

In English last year, my teacher brought in the lyrics to I am a Rock, I am an Island by Simon and Garfunkle. None of the class had ever heard it before. She made us spend a whole period trying to put a tune to it. Nobody was even close.

This is some of it:
" A winter's day
In a deep and dark December;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island. "

Really amazing how hard it was for my class, although it is very difficult.
Like what wlz said in page two, Simon and Garfunkle are awesome. Maybe no in those exact words... still.

I listened to those, Sher, I really liked I'm Sticking With You. Very interesting. Very cute and girly. :blush:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Heathcliff

I listened to those, Sher, I really liked I'm Sticking With You. Very interesting. Very cute and girly. :blush:

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Have you watched the movie "Juno"? It is in the soundtrack.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

Have you watched the movie "Juno"? It is in the soundtrack.

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I haven't seen the movie. I should.