Chris,
Nowhere is this discussion does anyone separate words from music. The word "song" is erroneously used by popular writers and most posters here to mean words that please them. A song succeeds by the marriage of words and music, whether or not the words were conceived separately. Most musicologists who trace the history of any particular folksong find many threads and many "histories".
I wanted to speak of the phenomenon of deliberately created songs by individuals of outstanding ability and scholarship. That isn't thought elitist whan we speak of poetry. Why are songs different?
The genius of Britten was to unite words and music so that they became one. That is true of all great composers of songs, wherther folk singers or classical composers.
We take poetry very seriously and when we discuss poetry we try to find the finest examples we know. Here we are still doing that but ignore the nature of song. We are more demanding when we write of poetry.
I decided to make a case for the highest achievements of song.
I hear professional pop commentators using the word "music" when they are speaking of the lyrics.
Janet
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