It is easy to forget that the plenitude of stanzaic forms we so admire in Renaissance poetry, stanzas with five different left-hand margins, etc., can partly be attributed to their original musical settings. Even some of Shakespeare's most beautiful songs are (Admit it!) rather difficult to say aloud.

It does embarrass me to read those awful "Poetry in Motion" posters in the New York City subways. Many of the "poems" are Tin Pan Alley lyrics, great songs, but untrackable without their melodic lines.

Michael Slipp

[This message has been edited by Mike Slippkauskas (edited May 09, 2006).]

Michael,
I think they are no less poetry for all of that. We come to those songs with pleasure because the words are already loved and known. That must be because of the separate power of the words.
Janet

This is another Paul Simon, from Rhythm of the Saints.


The Cool, Cool River


Moves like a fist through the traffic
Anger and no one can heal it
Shoves a little bump into the momentum
It’s just a little lump
But you feel it
In the creases and the shadows
With a rattling deep emotion
The cool, cool river
Sweeps the wild, white ocean

Yes boss. the government handshake
Yes boss. the crusher of language
Yes boss. mr. stillwater,
The face at the edge of the banquet
The cool, the cool river
The cool, the cool river

I believe in the future
I may live in my car
My radio tuned to
The voice of a star
Song dogs barking at the break of dawn
Lightning pushes the edge of a thunderstorm
And these old hopes and fears
Still at my side

Anger and no one can heal it
Slides through the metal detector
Lives like a mole in a motel
A slide in a slide projector
The cool, cool river
Sweeps the wild, white ocean
The rage of love turns inward
To prayers of devotion
And these prayers are
The constant road across the wilderness
These prayers are
These prayers are the memory of god
The memory of god

And I believe in the future
We shall suffer no more
Maybe not in my lifetime
But in yours I feel sure
Song dogs barking at the break of dawn
Lightning pushes the edges of a thunderstorm
And these streets
Quiet as a sleeping army
Send their battered dreams to heaven, to heaven
For the mother’s restless son
Who is a witness to, who is a warrior
Who denies his urge to break and run

Who says: hard times?
I’m used to them
The speeding planet burns
I’m used to that
My life’s so common it disappears
And sometimes even music
Cannot substitute for tears

Much is lost when the lovely melody is subtracted, but I still thinks this stands up:

WHEN I'M GONE
Phil Ochs

There's no place in this world where I'll belong when I'm gone
And I won't know the right from the wrong when I'm gone
And you won't find me singin' on this song when I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here

And I won't feel the flowing of the time when I'm gone
All the pleasures of love will not be mine when I'm gone
My pen won't pour out a lyric line when I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here

And I won't breathe the bracing air when I'm gone
And I can't even worry 'bout my cares when I'm gone
Won't be asked to do my share when I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here

And I won't be running from the rain when I'm gone
And I can't even suffer from the pain when I'm gone
Can't say who's to praise and who's to blame when I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here

Won't see the golden of the sun when I'm gone
And the evenings and the mornings will be one when I'm gone
Can't be singing louder than the guns when I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here

All my days won't be dances of delight when I'm gone
And the sands will be shifting from my sight when I'm gone
Can't add my name into the fight while I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here

And I won't be laughing at the lies when I'm gone
And I can't question how or when or why when I'm gone
Can't live proud enough to die when I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here

Just heard this Dylan song on the radio - sounded like a poem to me.

'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

And if I pass this way again, you can rest assured
I'll always do my best for her, on that I give my word
In a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

Not a word was spoke between us, there was little risk involved
Everything up to that point had been left unresolved.
Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail,
Poisoned in the bushes an' blown out on the trail,
Hunted like a crocodile, ravaged in the corn.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

Suddenly I turned around and she was standin' there
With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair.
She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

Now there's a wall between us, somethin' there's been lost
I took too much for granted, got my signals crossed.
Just to think that it all began on a long-forgotten morn.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

Well, the deputy walks on hard nails and the preacher rides a mount
But nothing really matters much, it's doom alone that counts
And the one-eyed undertaker, he blows a futile horn.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

I've heard newborn babies wailin' like a mournin' dove
And old men with broken teeth stranded without love.
Do I understand your question, man, is it hopeless and forlorn?
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

In a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes
I bargained for salvation an' they gave me a lethal dose.
I offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

Well, I'm livin' in a foreign country but I'm bound to cross the line
Beauty walks a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine.
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

Superficially, I disagree with Carol about Cole Porter, because I’ve loved musicals for years and I’ve always preferred his music to his lyrics, which are excellent by and large. I tend to think that Stephen Sondheim’s skill as a lyricist exceeds that of his music, which I like, but in any case Porter and Sondheim are two of the very few lyricists I’d judge as actual poets on the basis of quality light verse. Importantly, apart from the actual effort taken for the lyrics, they tend in Porter’s case to read off the page according to the music in a way most modern lyrics, even good ones, patently do not, and hence the general difference between poetry and words for songs.

I disagree that at the best of either there should be any distinction made. I’m certainly agreeing that, by and large, song lyrics are not poetry because they don’t have the same intention and do not obey the same rules. For a poem to be poetry, it has to contain both lyrical expressiveness and music. A song lyric has no necessity for functioning as anything other than words to be put to music in order to gain the same effect, with good lyrics, as poetry without it being so on the page.

This can be easily demonstrated, for example (and this is coming from an avid listener of most types of current music), by taking a poem also meant as a song by virtue of its metrical melodiousness, or even that of free verse: and comparing them to the sorts of thing which people commonly cite as a defence of the argument that lyrics in song can be poetry which were meant, first and foremost, as words to be set to music but having independence of the music itself.

Compare then, Swinburne’s ‘Itylus’, Hardy’s ‘The Voice’, or the ode to death in Whitman’s ‘When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d’ to the average lyric by even Dylan or Cohen and some differences are apparent. The poetry I have mentioned is not just hypnotically melodious, but is so mellifluous, in fact, that any attempt to set it to music would in a certain sense be redundant, because it would be forced to follow the exact musicality of the language, instead of the other way about. There is no intrinsic musicality, one of the fundamental attributes of good poetry, in even many straight lyrics that seem poetic in this fashion only when physically set to song. The second main characteristic to consider in the poems that I’ve mentioned is the beauty of the language and the onomatopoeic suiting of the language to the melody and mood. By contrast, the average lyric by even Dylan or Cohen is overly wrought and diffusive, filled with dead lines, bathos, filler lines which mean little but are used because they just sound good, occasional manglements of syntax purely to suit the backing music, and frequent use of clichés. The ability to write a lot of words in an affectedly mock literary style is not a thing which constitutes poetry. Lyricists first and foremost will always tend to be distinct from lyric poets for all of the reasons I’ve already given. This is not simple snobbishness on my part, simply, as a lyric poet myself, an objective outlook. I grant that there may be some exceptions to the rule.

Iain

[This message has been edited by Iain James Robb (edited May 22, 2006).]

A poem with music is such a different beast. But, that is how they started way back, and to the old Athenians the poem without music was the oddity until someone broke the strings and had to just - read. And, don't forget the rap (some may want to)

All,

Many of you have glanced the side of this issue, and I'm not taking any credit for a completely new take here, but wouldn't it be to a song's detriment if it had the density, complexity and detail we expect in poetry? I think the two art forms can be about equal in emotional impact but for different reasons. I only know Wagner's (and others') German, but as I listen to Strauss's Four Last Songs the Hesse and von Eichendorff texts are very far from my mind. Strauss and Wagner in their own libretti often came to grief through overelaboration. All that being said, I think there are some Tom Waits lyrics that best some Ray Carver free verse. Jagger/Richards perhaps? . . . but, no, not on the page. And they're greater artists for knowing it.

Best,
Michael Slipp

All,

Many of you have glanced the side of this issue, and I'm not taking any credit for a completely new take here, but wouldn't it be to a song's detriment if it had the density, complexity and detail we expect in poetry? I think the two art forms can be about equal in emotional impact but for different reasons. I only know Wagner's (and others') German, but as I listen to Strauss's Four Last Songs the Hesse and von Eichendorff texts are very far from my mind. Strauss and Wagner in their own libretti often came to grief through overelaboration. All that being said, I think there are some Tom Waits lyrics that best some Ray Carver free verse. Jagger/Richards perhaps? . . . but, no, not on the page. And they're greater artists for knowing it.

Best,
Michael Slipp

Mike: Yes, yes, yes. I'm thinking of a song I have on constant repeat right now, Elvis Costello's "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror." The first verse is sooooo good! (As a lyric, that is.)
That's a little flat on the page, but man, when Elvis starts belting it over that brass band, I wonder if you can have a pulse and not feel something.

The remaining verses arguably are more "poetic," but sung they feel somehow over-written. Here's the second verse:
Ugh. That belabored conceit with the tumbleweed . . . a fiberglass tumbleweed, no less! Elvis's reach exceeds his grasp; it seems to me like he's self-conscious of writing "good" lyrics, i.e., lyrics of the kind that Dylan made it okay to write.

There are about a million examples of this.

I wonder if there are any examples of poems successfully being set to contemporary, and specifcially, to popular music? (Apologies if this came up in the thread already; I haven't read the whole thing.) I've heard Joni Mitchell's try at shoehorning Yeats's "The Second Coming" into a song. Blech. Van Morrison does a pretty embarassing job of declaiming some of Blake's prose over an overwrought arrangement; on the other hand, he does a nice job of putting "Before the World Was Made" to music. (Is that the right title? The one that begins "If I should paint the lashes dark" and talks about an "original face / Before the world was made.")

Others?

--CS


[This message has been edited by Clay Stockton (edited May 23, 2006).]