Poetry vs Lyrics?

[GregB]

To my mind:

• 'Poetry' can take on any form.  It is prose broken down into lines which may or may not have rules of interdependence such as rhythm, syllable count, rhyme or continuance.
• 'Lyrics' are poetry set to music.  Sometimes rhyming, sometimes not. Sometimes crammed into every spare second. Sometimes sparse. Sometimes being just one phrase repeated ad nauseam.

 

If the above is true, why bother having two separate discussion groups in Songstuff?

 

I have raised the subject of "Poetry vs Lyrics" with someone I know who writes poetry professionally, without getting a satisfactory answer. I've also searched this Forum for "Lyrics" without finding a full-on discussion in relation to a comparison with 'poetry'.

 

Is a poem set to music no longer a poem?

Are lyrics, not written with music in mind, really a poem?

 

Elton John attributed credits to Tim Rice as Lyricist.  But Tim never heard the music until Elton had finshed writing the music, using the words as a source of inspiration.

 

Sheet music sometimes say 'Lyrics by', other times it is 'Words by'.

 

All moot and probably not worth the electrons to discuss, but I'm always fascinated by such inconsistencies in language.

 

Greg

[lojo538]

 

Poems, though they might be lent to music, always struck me as an essay stripped down to essential meaning. I also associate poems with the elite, the reading class. Lyrics, with their rhymed storytelling, seemed more for the proletariat, particularly before formal education was widespread. The rhyming (a la Shakespeare's couplets) help the illiterate remember the refrain.

 

Then again, as much of art grew out of its association with ritualized worship, perhaps the lyric was a devotional meant to be used to express joy or pleasure whereas poems were more serious worship tomes. 

 

Whatever, I think the distinction became blurred somewhere in the 1960s with the rise of the singer-songwriter recording artists like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell or Gil Scott Heron whose words could stand on their own without music and be utterly coherent and even transcendent art, like poems. I don't think that happened often in popular music prior to this. And now we use the terms interchangeably much the same way we comingle "soda" and "pop" for that tingly refreshment.

[Radarmc]

i think lyrics are just an expanded aspect of poetry. both artistic expressions

Edited May 18 by Radarmc

[ImKeN2]

Well, I don't really mind if Poetry and Lyrics were in the same category, just as long as the writers label them appropriately before seeking feedback, as the rules of writing differ quite a bit.

 

Nice topic of discussion!

Edited July 14 by ImKeN2
Word change

[AliceDarkFae]

Oddly enough , this mirrors not just my agreement, but a current experiment.
I'm experimenting dumping my poems straight into.. erm..suno.

(i assume 'suno' is a dirty word on here? at least amongst musicians? I don't claim to have any musical talent though)

 

I found they translate surprisingly well, though can get glitchy due to length/structure.

But I consider good songwriters of today the modern poets. I don't have much stomach for free verse etc, despite my youth I was teethed on the English Romantics, and there I stay.

 

I uploaded some short clips of my experiments to a soundcloud if anyone is interested.
keep in mind they are generally self pity depression stuff, but without going into details, I think I'm entitled.

If anyone wants to hear more/longer clips just say as much..

 

(the lyrics are my poems "as is", no editing was done. 
(I call most of my poetry 'poetry sketches' as they are straight onto the page without tweaking either..)

 

clips here: https://soundcloud.com/alicedarkfae

[john]

8 hours ago, AliceDarkFae said:

Oddly enough , this mirrors not just my agreement, but a current experiment.
I'm experimenting dumping my poems straight into.. erm..suno.

(i assume 'suno' is a dirty word on here? at least amongst musicians? I don't claim to have any musical talent though)

 

I found they translate surprisingly well, though can get glitchy due to length/structure.

But I consider good songwriters of today the modern poets. I don't have much stomach for free verse etc, despite my youth I was teethed on the English Romantics, and there I stay.

 

I uploaded some short clips of my experiments to a soundcloud if anyone is interested.
keep in mind they are generally self pity depression stuff, but without going into details, I think I'm entitled.

If anyone wants to hear more/longer clips just say as much..

 

(the lyrics are my poems "as is", no editing was done. 
(I call most of my poetry 'poetry sketches' as they are straight onto the page without tweaking either..)

 

clips here: https://soundcloud.com/alicedarkfae

 

Are you planning to write a song (from the get go I mean)?

 

How do you think English Romantics would approach writing song lyrics? There are no song rules as such, but there are guidelines for good reasons, and obviously consequence for the choices you make as the writer. Lyrics are to an extent poems designed to work within the heavily ruled and guidelined world of music. They conform to certain structures for musical reasons.

 

As far as Suno goes, it is something that people are curious about and fearful of. As a writer there are many potential issues. In fact some platforms are banning generative AI music from their content. Such songs cannot be registered with the US library of congress. The human written components can, just not the AI content. I will add that for isolated lyricists it can offer an illustrative demo. The question is unresolved as to whether that really benefits the lyricist or if it is more of a vanity project. There are other topics on the board where this is discussed, I don’t want to pull this topic off-topic so I’ll leave it there, other than to say, there are still a lot of discussions to be had.

 

I’m off to check out your songs

[john]

Scarily good Alice.  It makes me curious about the possible results when working with a composer and producer. It also makes me wonder how difficult it would be after having AI versions created, because comparisons would be inevitable…. And the AI created content couldn’t be used if copyright is to stand and proper music releases were to be made… plus obviously there is no value in bringing on board a composer just to sideline them. An interesting quandary… for another topic lol

[AliceDarkFae]

i ran some other less 'acoustic' ones i did by an audio producer/musician friend who said he thought the music was over produced and over mixed and terrible, and the ai vocals are auto-tuned to death, but "that's ok if pop is your goal". (though it improved drastically from 3 to 3.5..really more like 3.8 now (but still called 3.5)

 

suno was / has only ever been (for me anyway) a quick way of rapidly 'prototyping' genres, sounds, ideas etc . esp mood.feel before (if) doing a proper song with decent tools etc. ii can pump out a dozen different versions and music styles in under a minute easily.

 

I don't use the ai lyric features, just for the music/vocals. i clicked the ai lyrics once to see what it could do and nearly laughed it was soooo bad.

 

As a poet i found it very useful actually, to hear it read/sung/ ( interpreted even), differently to how it sounds when read your own work, even out loud. 

even simple things like pauses where you don't expect them can make you see your own work in a different light,

and often (now, down the track a bit ) It can also help you recognise redundant words or even the entire wording if eg, you have to fit pentameter into 4/4.

 

sadly though, my "on the spot" parody songs for/of family and friends (esp their pets)  is the only thing that turned out the most entertaining use of suno thus far

 

i still have 800+ poems my publisher told me would easily find a publisher etc as  apparently I have a proclivity to tend toward superfluous verbosity with an unusual way of looking at things. (or as my friend put it 'jesus you talk a lot of sh*t" )

 

i'm pretty sure that praise line is just  something they have printed on the back of their business cards.  regardless, I wanted to do 'something' with them, and already had more than enough just print published, lyics/music seemed logical.

 

(apart from the part where I have no apparent musical talent (except clarinet..where oddly "two hands' are like one hand. ie compared to piano/guitar etc, where two hands are two separate hands..if that makes any sense).

wow, digression hey... back later..

[AliceDarkFae]

those were actually not very good examples, as i was trying for a modicum of uniformity towards 'bedroom folk'. I'll upload some clips of ones i switched words out to fit (eg a two syllable word for a one syllable.. they should be up maybe  ..an hour after whenever this is timestamped..

[AliceDarkFae]

 

more of an interesting mix, still all just my poems with the odd  word edit

 

https://on.soundcloud.com/kib8vFcsbeaWPjBX8

 

lol , on re-listen... maybe some unresolved anger there..

 

Edited September 24 by AliceDarkFae

[AliceDarkFae]

 

sorry got distracted spilling coffee into my laptop, this second one is fairly long/lots, i just kinda dumped stuff..laptop is worth ..tooo much.

but mm coffee..

 

https://on.soundcloud.com/ceKaZ9e7ktQrWmVz7

[AliceDarkFae]

and just to ensure those likes

 

https://on.soundcloud.com/h3PJLk4K9yMFriCRA

 

(also done with suno using 'spoken' tag)

 

in summary, lyrics and poetry 'can' basically be the same thing, although just listening to mine, and reading lyrics of my faves like Tori Amos .. it reads like poetry.. but there's subtle differences I'm still not fully grasping..most likely due to my lack of practical music experience.

 

(sorry, could prob just have said that at the start and spared you all the suffering  )

Edited September 24 by AliceDarkFae

[MisterB]

5 hours ago, AliceDarkFae said:

in summary, lyrics and poetry 'can' basically be the same thing,

 

I agree with this. The rules of engagement are different between writing poetry and writing lyrics, but also, rules are there to be broken, so anything goes.

 

I feel that there is less opportunity in songwriting to deviate from a familiar meter. That is, once the meter has been established by putting the first verse (or chorus, bridge, etc...) to music, it tends to stay in a similar meter (perhaps deviating by one or two syllables per line max). But that's for the benefit of the music, to maintain a feeling of familiarity when the same section returns (for verse 2, 3, etc...).  There's no reason it has to be that way, and I'm sure there are lots of examples in the real world, where it isn't. I've never studied poetry, but it seems that it has more freedom in this regard because its not restrained by another element. Would that be true to say? 

[AliceDarkFae]

kind of agree, kind of not.

that's a bit like saying just use any rules in a game of..cricket, or soccer, (or whatever normal people play) and then still call it cricket/soccer. Doesn't quite work when you dig far enough down. Poetry has structure and conventions like most things, other wise it would be called ..soccricket... which I why I don't really go in for the whole 'free verse' idea.

That's just... grammatically incorrect prose, really.

 

but (without looking it up) I would imagine lyrics are defined as words that go with music, or something along those lines, then sure, poetry as lyrics is by the book. But if you trash the rules/definition of either..that's a whole different ball game.

[john]

12 hours ago, AliceDarkFae said:

sorry got distracted spilling coffee into my laptop

Eek!