Some people lament the decline in the popularity of poetry (English teachers of the 70's and 80's have much to answer for) whilst others are pedant to form (another slow death surely?) but has poetry mutated into lyrics? I used to do a piece where I sang part of Sting's 'Fields of Gold' and read aloud the other alternating the verse. It helped people who wouldn't know a poem if it stood up in their coffee cup to realise that it was a beautiful thing that resonates with the human condition - just like good poetry?

Maybe I'm wrong.

Indubitably. And, uh... ahm, if i may:

Who ate
all the pies
who
ate all the pies
you, fat bastard

you fat bastard
you ate
all
the pies
(TRADITIONAL, Anonymous)

Lyrics and poetry ... in my book there is a difference. My observation is that lyrics tend to rely on cliche and common imagery to make it easier for listeners to follow what is happening in the music as well as the words.

I'm not saying all lyrics are cliche and common. Certain song writers confuze the heck out of some folks with their twisted lyrics.

Poetry tries to avoid the common and the cliche where it can I think.

In my book there have always been lyrics that are poetry - look for example at Cats the musical. Say what you like about Andrew Lloyd Webber, but his lyrics in that were pretty good. "Down by the Sally Gardens" - Irish song that was a poem, "The rising of the moon" - ditto, "Jerusalem" - English song that was also a poem, and, of course, "Shaddapa your face".

Yes by the poet T. S. Elliot

Now if we are looking at the lyrics of hymes, like "Jerusalem" of course your back in the realms of poetry. I think I was more on the track of modern lyrics.

shadappa your face.

My point wasn't that the point along the time line at which the thing was written makes it a poem or otherwise. I was pointing out that some songs have been acknowledged as poems. Anyway, regardless of whether a consensus of opinion decides that something like e.g. big mouth strikes again is a poem (admittedly with a refrain, of which you would omit the repeat if writing it as poertry), or whether it doesn't, it clearly is a poem.

That hymn that goes glor -or-or-or- or or or -or-or-or or ia, blinking obviously isn't a poem. Neither are songs that don't scan and aren't "otherwise" structured because they rely on rests that you can put into a musical score, because you wouldn't read them that way if they were presented as poetry.

So, in short: 1. lyrics can be poetry; 2. some lyrics are acknowledged by a broad cross-section of the general public to be poems, and 3. broad cross-sections of general publics don't know jack and some things are only acknowledged as poems by me and I'm right.

Now that's a better response. I can agree with you on some points. Not all lyrics are poems, but some are. Not everyone agrees on were the line is drawn (Not all poems are poems when I draw the line).

Now as for the Gloria business... that was put in to fit with the music read more simply the verses themselves I would place in the poetry category. So, each to their own.

"DG is always right" .... especially when he isn't. lol

Song lyrics are principally an aural artform, so it is not usually a good idea to compare them directly with poetry. I don't feel Sting's Fields of Gold is good - as a lyric or a poem.
There are, however, a few truly poetic singer songwriters whose lyrics do stand up as poems notably Roddy Frame (Scotland) and Steve Forbert (USA).

Try these few lines from Roddy Frame's song Dry Land ...

"Folorn, my heart rebels and swells against its stays.
A world all torn apart and split too many ways.
But it all hangs together,
Missiles, smiles fur and feather.
I'm travelling slowly, taking note,
Feel like a spy in my infantry coat."

And from the same song ...

"The city strets reflect the hard lines of my mind.
Newspaper sheets protect the ones who're left behind,
Wrapped in sex and scandal,
More sin than mortals can handle."

Now that's poetry - and fine song-writing.

This is from Innocent When You Dream by Tom Waits.

I'd say it's my favourite song and I've always thought the lyrics were quite poetic.
I think poetry and lyrics can merge quite easily, and the phrased and confused event happening this summer is also taking on this subject in an elightening way, exploring 'the creative common ground between music and the lyrics'. http://www.phrasedandconfused.co.uk/


The bats are in the belfry
the dew is on the moor
where are the arms that held me
and pledged her love before
and pledged her love before

Chorus

It's such a sad old feeling
the fields are soft and green
it's memories that I'm stelaing
but you're innocent when you dream
when you dream
you're innocent when you dream

running through the graveyard
we laughed my friends and I
we swore we'd be together
until the day we died
until the day we died

Repeat Chorus

I made a golden promise
that we would never part
I gave my love a locket
and then I broke her heart
and then I broke her heart

And where does Bob Dylan stand in all this? Loved all the comments by the way. Apart from the technicals of poetry versus lyrics I still feel that they have something in common - resonance.

Bob Dylan ... a poet who set his words to music.

Does it fall apart as a poem when you have the music and then try and create words to fit in? .... gee I don't know. Perhaps it's like having a meter in a poem and then fitting the words around it?

How about .... if the words can stand without the music then the lyric is also a poem?

(scratching his head now and thinking there is probably no right answer to this one)

Bob Dylan always called himself a writer, rather than a musician. Indeed, his 'Boots of Spanish Leather' is in the Norton Anthology of Poetry.

A spaceman got up on the stage
and we all gave him a cheer.
He said "I'm from a planet
a long way from here.
I've wrote this dead important song
what it's imperative you hear",
and then he went "la lalala lalala"
and then threw up.

We all sort of shuffled about
and hunched low our heads...
humbled, and in awe at the
words he had said.
There are no deeper truths
in any books that I've read
than la lalala lalala
la la la eeyorrrkkk!

Being both a poet and a songwriter, I often go back and forth, either writing lyrics from existing poems or poems from existing lyrics. Personally I'm not a fan of heavily metered, rhymed poetry...which is exactly what many lyrics (especially in the pop vein) are. If you look beyond what's being played on the radio, though, I think you can find some great poet/lyricists. Peter Murphy (originally from Bauhaus) is one of my favourites.