Let us not forget two classic British authors in the light verse-comic song genre: W.S. Gilbert and Noel Coward. Whenever I'm depressed, I only have to open my book of Noel Coward lyrics and read "Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs. Worthington" to feel better for the rest of the day.

I guess this goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. Even if a great song lyric may lose something divorced from the melody, that doesn't make it any less great. The fact that the words don't function in a way they were never intended to function does not mean they are less than successful.

Yet, once we know the lyrics of a truly great song, such as so many that Dylan wrote, it's as if our ears have become trained to hear a "meter" that we never would have heard had we not been trained by the melody and/or the performance, and that "meter" allows us to continue hearing the greatness of the words as if they were still accompanied by music. At that point, the words often pack the power of great poetry even without the music, but this happens only for those who learned through the music how much power the words contained.

I guess the reverse is true. A song melody, even standing alone, can become stamped with the words to a listener who has heard them both together. When I hear an instrumental of "Stardust," I don't need the words to know it's the melody of love's refrain.

Dear Michael,

Thanks so much for directing us to previous threads on the matter of song lyrics. As a newbie, I wasn't aware of them; if I had been I might have thought twice about introducing this topic yet again.

Still, I'm fascinated by the responses so far, particularly by Daniel's notion that "with some judicious tweaking to remove the song related artifacts. . . the poetry in the songs might come out better." I do think that very often it's those artifacts (respectable conventions in the context of song, of course) that are solely responsibile for weakening the poem on the page. I refer to things like repetition; or the occasional (and clearly irrelevant) "oh yeah" or "wo-wo-wo"; also a lot of guesswork involving line breaks, a good example of which I'll try to dig up.

Meanwhile, I'd love to see a few more examples of lyrics that overcome all that. What about Simon's "The Boxer", for instance, or Ira Gershwin's "My Ship", or Fred Ebb's hilarious "Razzle Dazzle," or Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns"? I'm sure there must be many others that would qualify, especially after their scaffolding is removed.

Marilyn

I'm a big fan of Paul Simon - I have hardly had "Rhythm of the Saints" out of my CD player since Christmas. I think his "Duncan" is pretty strong as a poetic lyric, as well as "America" and "American Tune". On "Graceland", "The Boy in the Bubble" is incredibly imagey, if less than clear.

Here's the lyrics to the latter:

The Boy in the Bubble

It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of shop windows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slow motion
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry
Don't cry

It was a dry wind
And it swept across the desert
And it curled into the circle of birth
And the dead sand
Falling on the children
The mothers and the fathers
And the automatic earth
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slow motion
The way we look to us all o-yeah
The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry
Don't cry

It's a turn-around jump shot
It's everybody jump start
It's every generation throws a hero up the pop charts
Medicine is magical and magical is art, think of
The Boy in the Bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart

And I believe
These are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information
A loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires and baby
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all o-yeah
The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry
Don't cry

Bugsy

There are, of course, many examples of poems set to music, as noted above. But I do think that the two are simply different animals. For example, I've always loved the lyrics of Black Flag's "My War." The first verse goes (if memory serves):

My war!
You're one of them.
You said that you're my friend,
But you're one of them.

Typed out, it's godawful, but barked out by Henry Rollins over a hideously wonderful guitar line by Greg Ginn, it works.

Quincy

del.

[This message has been edited by Robert Meyer (edited May 28, 2006).]

This Travis tune haunts my dreams. Certain lines just resonate with spiritual significance. Yet, on the page, the storyline seems a bit daft. So I suppose it's another example of how so-so or confused lyrics can still make a super song when set to music.

THE WEIGHT

I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' 'bout half past dead
I just need some place where I can lay my head
"Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?"
He just grinned and shook my hand, and "No" was all he said

Take a load off Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny
And (and) (and) you can put the load right on me


Picked up my bag, went lookin' for a place to hide
When I saw Carmen and the Devil walkin' side by side
I said, "Hey, Carmen, come on, let's go downtown"
She said, "I gotta go, but m'friend can stick around"


Found on:

"Coming Around" (CD2)

Take a load off Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny
And (and) (and) you can put the load right on me


Go down, Miss Moses, there's nothin' you can say
It's just old Luke, and Luke's waitin' on the Judgement Day
"Well Luke, my friend, what about young Anna Lee?"
He said, "Do me a favour, son, won't you stay an' keep Anna Lee company?"


Take a load off Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny
And (and) (and) you can put the load right on me


Crazy Chester followed me, and he caught me in the fog
He said, "I will fix your rack, if you'll take Jack, my dog"
I said, "Wait a minute, Chester, I'm a peaceful man"
He said, "That's OK, just feed him when you can"


Take a load off Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny
And (and) (and) you can put the load right on me


Catch a cannon ball now, to take me down the line
My bag is sinking low and I do believe it's time
To get back to Miss Fanny, you know she's the only one
Who sent me here with her regards for everyone


Take a load off Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny
And (and) (and) you can put the load right on me

I'm a huge fan of Leonard Cohen, much more of the words than of the music. I could type out a number of songs of his whose lyrics I really enjoy. This song, for example, from Various Positions, is called "The Captain."

The captain called me to his bed.
He fumbled for my hand.
"Take these silver bars," he said,
"I'm giving you command."

"Command of what? There's no one left;
There's only you and me.
All the rest are dead or in retreat
Or with the enemy."

"Complain, complain, that's all you've done,
Ever since we lost.
If it's not the Crucifixion,
Then it's the Holocaust."

"May Christ have mercy on your soul
For making such a joke!--
Amid these hearts that burn like coal
And the flesh that rose like smoke."

"I know that you have suffered, lad,
But suffer this awhile:
Whatever makes a soldier sad
Will make a killer smile."

"I'm leaving, Captain, I've got to go,
There's blood upon your hand!
But tell me, Captain, if you know
Of a decent place to stand."

"There is no decent place to stand
In a massacre.
But if a woman take your hand
Then go and stand with her."

"I left a wife in Tennessee
And a baby in Saigon.
I risked my life, but not to hear
Some country-western song."

"Ah, but if you cannot raise your love
To a very high degree,
You're just the man I've been thinking of,
So come and stand with me."

"Your standing days are done!" I cried,
"You'll rally me no more.
I don't even know what side
We fought on, or what for."

"I'm on the side that's always lost
Against the side of heaven.
I'm on the side of snake eyes tossed
Against the side of seven.
And I've read the bill of human rights
And some of it was true,
But there wasn't any burden left
So I'm laying it on you."

Now the Captain, he was dying,
But the Captain wasn't hurt.
The silver bars were in my hand.
I pinned them to my shirt.

Not sure what I would say if this were posted as a poem; as a song though one is impressed by the formal choice of the ballad meter and the dialectical treatment of the subject. I might criticize it for being allegorical and ungrounded, but at least the allegory is interesting, and there are some great lines ("I'm on the side of snake eyes tossed / against the side of seven"). There are some bad lines too I think (the bit about the "hearts that burn like coal," which even though clever, still feels overly "poetic" to me), and things that I don't really get (the stanza beginning "I know that you have suffered"). Also, certainly, he does things we don't do in Poetry (the Captain, he), and there are metrical glitches the singing covers up. In general, the mode is weird for a contemporary poem. Even so, though, I think it's pretty cool, and as a song, driven by an ironically jaunty piano melody and Cohen's sardonic pseudo-crooning, I think it's really cool. Maybe that's just me, though.

Chris

It is a strange song indeed, but Eliot and Pound get a mention in it:

"Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan

They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row

Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says," You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave"
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row

Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortunetelling lady
Has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row

Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid

To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row

Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have Mercy on His Soul"
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row

Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words

And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outa Here If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row"

Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row

Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row

Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the door knob broke)
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row

Bob Dylan is one thing -- in the sorta category. But my answer has to be that song lyrics can be poetry. Much of what we read as medieval or ancient poetry are really the older equivalent of reading the collected Cole Porter lyrics. Consider the Psalms:

Psalm 137 (granted the King James is not the most lyrical of the translations of Psalms)

1: By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
2: We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
3: For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
4: How shall we sing the LORD's song in a strange land?
5: If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
6: If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
7: Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.
8: O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
9: Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

I think it is also worth keeping in mind that music and drama are considered in Aristotle's
Poetics; though of course the word means something a bit different today, but it is true that song and poetry were at one point considered the same. Ultimately, a song's lyrics are as poetic as the writer feels like making them.