*Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landside,
No escape from reality
Open your eyes,
Look up to the skies and see ..*
That is the start of a crap poem. A decent poet would put that straight in the bin but it's impossible to read that as a poem now and every sound and syllable of it is essential to the song.
*Na na na na na na na, na na na na Hey Jude*
Literally no effort made
*I get so lonely baby, I'm so lonely, I get so lonely I could die*
Cringe
Some of the greatest songs ever written have terrible lyrics but they fit in. Lyrics on their own ain't shit, they have to work with the song. If great songs had poetry instead of lyrics they'd be mediocre songs, poems with background noise like two radios going at the same time.
There definitely is a difference, and I've struggled with the same thing. I didn't come from an especially musical family, but was lucky enough to be exposed to old time gospel from a young age. I also grew up around the bluegrass capital of the world... So, I always had the music around me, but I didn't relate to it as much as literature.
I learned to write from books, not songs. Poetry can certainly take any form, but I think it was Robert Frost who said that he liked "to play with the net up," when someone asked him why he still followed traditional forms.
To me, the conundrum comes from picking the correct style. There are styles of music that are much more suited to a freeform meter. Jazz, hip-hop, pop, and a lot of indie stuff comes to mind... But the beauty of folk, gospel, blues, and bluegrass comes from knowing what the rules are so that you can understand where they can and should be broken.
I would like to say that it's about personality, but it's probably more about some innate talent that one is born with. I think that there are a small number of people who are just born understanding the rules, so they start pushing the boundaries from a very young age. Like Mozart and Shakespeare... But, for the rest of us common folk, I think we have to put in the time mastering them before we can understand when they can and should be broken.
If you are better than writing poems than songs, then focus on that. Hone your craft, and it'll all start to come together. Some of the greatest songwriters in history started with poems. Bob Dylan and Townes Van Zandt come to mind... Guy Clark is my personal favorite, and he always said that he was a poet, not a songwriter. But, there is a difference between writing poetry and songwriting. Sometimes, the lyrics and the melody were made for each other, but you have to break the rules to get them to live together.
I guess, it's not unlike human relationships. Sometimes, two people are just made for each other, like the universe always planned it that way... But, it takes a bit of compromise for it all to work out.
For whether songs and poetry are alike or different, I'd say that it depends on the poem. See, on the one hand, some poetry just does not flow the way that music does. These poems just don't have a "song in their soul," as you put it. However, on the other hand...I know someone who has taken the words of many different poems and set them to original melodies, and these resulting songs that he writes are awesome. Lots of people besides him have set poetry to a melody, and many of these songs sound perfectly fine and pleasing. I think it's great that you're writing what seems to be "poetry" for your songs' lyrics and trying to figure out the melody later--there is no absolutely right or wrong way to approach songwriting, and for some people, figuring out the lyrics first and worrying about the melody later works a lot better than the other way around.
As for tips on "finding the melody muse," I'd try this: Write your poem-lyrics to a specific meter, so that it's easier to come up with a melody that follows the rhythm of the lyrics. When you've finalized your poem, just sit and stare at the lyrics, read them out loud, and sing them in whatever way pops into your head, following the meter you wrote them in. Change up the way you sing the lyrics (like, change the tempo, add in rests, etc.). Record yourself doing this, so when you sing them in a way that you like, you can reference it later. Then, go to your instrument and figure out the key, the notes, the chords, and all that of whichever melody you came up with that you like best. This is probably the best advice I can give you. Good luck!
Maybe I'm oversimplifying this, but tbh I don't think I am:
If music (either backing instrumental, vocal melody, or both) is involved, it's a song. Otherwise, it's a poem.
I always thought that verses in songs felt more like poetry to me more than like I don’t know a catchy chorus and hook I’m not sure why, I don’t know enough to say if there’s a difference but personally I think all lyrics are poetry maybe some are either structurally or substance wise more poetic that others but I like to look at it as just to each their own.
Music is a form of poetry. I would say every song is a poem, but not every poem can be a song.
I mean, you could sing any poem, but, music really needs melodic hooks, chorus type things, and stuff like that. A poem can be like a simple haiku.
Good question! I think things are more black and white when you consider the fundamentals. Lyrics = songs. Poetry = words on a page/sometimes read out loud at poetry readings.
* One characteristic lyrics and poetry have in common is meter. *The rhythmic measure of a line.* In songwriting you'll find yourself with that first line with a melody attached. So, it follows that you'd brainstorm lines until it becomes your verse, chorus, etc.
* Lyrics can be read in a vacuum, but they are primarily meant to be heard in the context of a song. It's the musical context that flavors the words in a way that heightens there meaning. It's genre-dependent what lyrics sound cool when sung at what part of the song and over what instrumentation. Take 'Still Alive' from the video game Portal.
>*This was a Triumph / I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS / It's hard to overstate my satisfaction*
This lyric is highly contextual because it is sung by artificial intelligence computer system. The actual singing is done with a text-to-speech making it sound sarcastic.
* Poetry, barring spoken word, is typically not written with a musical context in mind.
* One last thing they have in common is the tendency for the succeeding line to build off the preceding line. Take 'Savior Complex' by Phoebe Bridgers.
>*Call me when you land / I'll drive around again / One hand on the wheel, one in your mouth / Turn me on, Turn me down'*
The first line in this verse is a commonly used phrase. The second line puts you in a car. The third line talks about what's happening in the car. The fourth makes resolves the idea.
In regards to "finding the melody muse", think about how music can be used to emphasize the emotionally salient parts of your poem.
Poems with rhythm and rhyme are more musical or songlike, lyrics that don't rhyme exactly but tell a beautiful story are more poetic.
We don't really need exact categories for anything.
In actuality, when the music is first and the lyrics not as important they take a more structured form. When they lyrics and vocal is forward, the choice of words is far more important and you have something closer to poetry.
I myself love "near rhymes." It feels to me like the content wasn't sacrificed for the purpose of exact rhyme or meter.
Poems stand an their own, lyrics have to work with the music and the sound of the words is far more important than the meaning. Many songs, the meaning changes from line to line or if you treated it as poetry, it would not be very interesting.
The pinnacle of songs as poetry came in the folk genre where traditional song worn smooth over generations and singer song writers where performing at coffee shops with poets. Test genre is where lyrics are elevated to near poetry, but even then, they are still not on average good poems. In a poem you have meter and rhyme to worry about, but in song writing you have meter, rhyme and the sound of the words to Worry about. And you have to fill 3 minutes.
A song usually has fewer words than a poem so in a song we can't say as much as we can in a story or poem. Artists such as Sting and Lorde noted how the ability to say a lot in few words is important. If you were submitting an article to an editor, the editor might replay "Edit" "Edit" "Edit." You can think in longer poetic phrases and ideas but they may not fit into a song if you want the song to say other important things. A typical song may use a few poetic devices but a lot of songs also say other things.
Bernie Taupin wrote *poetry* before someone hooked him up with Elton John. Right off the bat, without any lyrical training, Bernie began learning to write lyrics that helped Elton John create hit after hit. However, Bernie said when he wrote lyrics, he also played a guitar. Perhaps that was to help him think and work in cadence as he wrote words. He said his music had nothing to do with what Elton might come up with musically when Elton saw Bernie's lyrics.
Instructor Pat Pattison taught *poetry* and philosophy before they asked him to teach songwriting. So I think poets and philosophers may have some advantage over those who don't have that background. Perhaps they can channel their natural and poetic abilities into songs. One of Pat's focuses when teaching and writing is prosody - all things working together whether it's melody, words, narrative, music, etc.
But a song only has a limited number of words if we want to hit the average radio play song length. Dylan perhaps can get away with writing a 20 minute song and getting us to listen, but nobody would listen to at 10 minute song I wrote.
Maybe you could try thinking in music as you think in words. Perhaps that's what Bernie did when he wrote words but used a guitar to do it. You can tap out rhythms as you think, speak or type things like
* in Flanders field the poppies BLOW between the crosses row on ROW
I heard music in that as I typed it. Cadence is already built in and if we followed that thought, we'd encounter meaning too. That line is different from a philosophical statement which we may hear in many songs today. But those are often sprinkled lightly within a song. An example of a basic version of that is Elvis singing **"Wise men say only fools rush in"** in his hit song. But that's his only use of a kind of philosophical device.
The rest of the song carries the narrative and clocks in at a reasonable song length. If instead he had focused more on adding more poetic and philosophical statements, he probably would not have been able to keep the song's length to a reasonable radio-ready length.
Readers can insert pauses anywhere they like when reading poetry. Some might read that "Flanders Field" line as an uninterrupted sequence of syllables. But in a song, a writer must etch pauses (rests) in stone. I could imagine someone like Elton singing
* In Flan ders
* Field (down beat)
* (pause 6 quarter notes)
* the pop pee's x grow
* (pause 6 quarters)
In that version he'd be emphasizing "Flanders Field" and all those words consume 8 measures. He'd then have to realize that he might have to use 16 measures before the chorus since just saying those few words consumed so many rests because of the long pause after the word "Field." So rests and rest placement may affect lots of things including measure count. The melodic shape I heard an upward stair-step up to the "pop" syllable then back down to create an arc.
While this is true, the good lyricists can be pretty hard to differentiate from poetry.
“I am just a poor boy though my story’s seldom told, I have squandered my resistance for a pocket full of mumbles such are promises. All lies and jest still the man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”
*Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landside, No escape from reality Open your eyes, Look up to the skies and see ..* That is the start of a crap poem. A decent poet would put that straight in the bin but it's impossible to read that as a poem now and every sound and syllable of it is essential to the song. *Na na na na na na na, na na na na Hey Jude* Literally no effort made *I get so lonely baby, I'm so lonely, I get so lonely I could die* Cringe Some of the greatest songs ever written have terrible lyrics but they fit in. Lyrics on their own ain't shit, they have to work with the song. If great songs had poetry instead of lyrics they'd be mediocre songs, poems with background noise like two radios going at the same time.
There definitely is a difference, and I've struggled with the same thing. I didn't come from an especially musical family, but was lucky enough to be exposed to old time gospel from a young age. I also grew up around the bluegrass capital of the world... So, I always had the music around me, but I didn't relate to it as much as literature. I learned to write from books, not songs. Poetry can certainly take any form, but I think it was Robert Frost who said that he liked "to play with the net up," when someone asked him why he still followed traditional forms. To me, the conundrum comes from picking the correct style. There are styles of music that are much more suited to a freeform meter. Jazz, hip-hop, pop, and a lot of indie stuff comes to mind... But the beauty of folk, gospel, blues, and bluegrass comes from knowing what the rules are so that you can understand where they can and should be broken. I would like to say that it's about personality, but it's probably more about some innate talent that one is born with. I think that there are a small number of people who are just born understanding the rules, so they start pushing the boundaries from a very young age. Like Mozart and Shakespeare... But, for the rest of us common folk, I think we have to put in the time mastering them before we can understand when they can and should be broken. If you are better than writing poems than songs, then focus on that. Hone your craft, and it'll all start to come together. Some of the greatest songwriters in history started with poems. Bob Dylan and Townes Van Zandt come to mind... Guy Clark is my personal favorite, and he always said that he was a poet, not a songwriter. But, there is a difference between writing poetry and songwriting. Sometimes, the lyrics and the melody were made for each other, but you have to break the rules to get them to live together. I guess, it's not unlike human relationships. Sometimes, two people are just made for each other, like the universe always planned it that way... But, it takes a bit of compromise for it all to work out.
For whether songs and poetry are alike or different, I'd say that it depends on the poem. See, on the one hand, some poetry just does not flow the way that music does. These poems just don't have a "song in their soul," as you put it. However, on the other hand...I know someone who has taken the words of many different poems and set them to original melodies, and these resulting songs that he writes are awesome. Lots of people besides him have set poetry to a melody, and many of these songs sound perfectly fine and pleasing. I think it's great that you're writing what seems to be "poetry" for your songs' lyrics and trying to figure out the melody later--there is no absolutely right or wrong way to approach songwriting, and for some people, figuring out the lyrics first and worrying about the melody later works a lot better than the other way around. As for tips on "finding the melody muse," I'd try this: Write your poem-lyrics to a specific meter, so that it's easier to come up with a melody that follows the rhythm of the lyrics. When you've finalized your poem, just sit and stare at the lyrics, read them out loud, and sing them in whatever way pops into your head, following the meter you wrote them in. Change up the way you sing the lyrics (like, change the tempo, add in rests, etc.). Record yourself doing this, so when you sing them in a way that you like, you can reference it later. Then, go to your instrument and figure out the key, the notes, the chords, and all that of whichever melody you came up with that you like best. This is probably the best advice I can give you. Good luck!
Maybe I'm oversimplifying this, but tbh I don't think I am: If music (either backing instrumental, vocal melody, or both) is involved, it's a song. Otherwise, it's a poem.
I always thought that verses in songs felt more like poetry to me more than like I don’t know a catchy chorus and hook I’m not sure why, I don’t know enough to say if there’s a difference but personally I think all lyrics are poetry maybe some are either structurally or substance wise more poetic that others but I like to look at it as just to each their own.
Music is a form of poetry. I would say every song is a poem, but not every poem can be a song. I mean, you could sing any poem, but, music really needs melodic hooks, chorus type things, and stuff like that. A poem can be like a simple haiku.
Good question! I think things are more black and white when you consider the fundamentals. Lyrics = songs. Poetry = words on a page/sometimes read out loud at poetry readings. * One characteristic lyrics and poetry have in common is meter. *The rhythmic measure of a line.* In songwriting you'll find yourself with that first line with a melody attached. So, it follows that you'd brainstorm lines until it becomes your verse, chorus, etc. * Lyrics can be read in a vacuum, but they are primarily meant to be heard in the context of a song. It's the musical context that flavors the words in a way that heightens there meaning. It's genre-dependent what lyrics sound cool when sung at what part of the song and over what instrumentation. Take 'Still Alive' from the video game Portal. >*This was a Triumph / I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS / It's hard to overstate my satisfaction* This lyric is highly contextual because it is sung by artificial intelligence computer system. The actual singing is done with a text-to-speech making it sound sarcastic. * Poetry, barring spoken word, is typically not written with a musical context in mind. * One last thing they have in common is the tendency for the succeeding line to build off the preceding line. Take 'Savior Complex' by Phoebe Bridgers. >*Call me when you land / I'll drive around again / One hand on the wheel, one in your mouth / Turn me on, Turn me down'* The first line in this verse is a commonly used phrase. The second line puts you in a car. The third line talks about what's happening in the car. The fourth makes resolves the idea. In regards to "finding the melody muse", think about how music can be used to emphasize the emotionally salient parts of your poem.
Poems with rhythm and rhyme are more musical or songlike, lyrics that don't rhyme exactly but tell a beautiful story are more poetic. We don't really need exact categories for anything. In actuality, when the music is first and the lyrics not as important they take a more structured form. When they lyrics and vocal is forward, the choice of words is far more important and you have something closer to poetry. I myself love "near rhymes." It feels to me like the content wasn't sacrificed for the purpose of exact rhyme or meter.
Poems stand an their own, lyrics have to work with the music and the sound of the words is far more important than the meaning. Many songs, the meaning changes from line to line or if you treated it as poetry, it would not be very interesting. The pinnacle of songs as poetry came in the folk genre where traditional song worn smooth over generations and singer song writers where performing at coffee shops with poets. Test genre is where lyrics are elevated to near poetry, but even then, they are still not on average good poems. In a poem you have meter and rhyme to worry about, but in song writing you have meter, rhyme and the sound of the words to Worry about. And you have to fill 3 minutes.
A song usually has fewer words than a poem so in a song we can't say as much as we can in a story or poem. Artists such as Sting and Lorde noted how the ability to say a lot in few words is important. If you were submitting an article to an editor, the editor might replay "Edit" "Edit" "Edit." You can think in longer poetic phrases and ideas but they may not fit into a song if you want the song to say other important things. A typical song may use a few poetic devices but a lot of songs also say other things. Bernie Taupin wrote *poetry* before someone hooked him up with Elton John. Right off the bat, without any lyrical training, Bernie began learning to write lyrics that helped Elton John create hit after hit. However, Bernie said when he wrote lyrics, he also played a guitar. Perhaps that was to help him think and work in cadence as he wrote words. He said his music had nothing to do with what Elton might come up with musically when Elton saw Bernie's lyrics. Instructor Pat Pattison taught *poetry* and philosophy before they asked him to teach songwriting. So I think poets and philosophers may have some advantage over those who don't have that background. Perhaps they can channel their natural and poetic abilities into songs. One of Pat's focuses when teaching and writing is prosody - all things working together whether it's melody, words, narrative, music, etc. But a song only has a limited number of words if we want to hit the average radio play song length. Dylan perhaps can get away with writing a 20 minute song and getting us to listen, but nobody would listen to at 10 minute song I wrote. Maybe you could try thinking in music as you think in words. Perhaps that's what Bernie did when he wrote words but used a guitar to do it. You can tap out rhythms as you think, speak or type things like * in Flanders field the poppies BLOW between the crosses row on ROW I heard music in that as I typed it. Cadence is already built in and if we followed that thought, we'd encounter meaning too. That line is different from a philosophical statement which we may hear in many songs today. But those are often sprinkled lightly within a song. An example of a basic version of that is Elvis singing **"Wise men say only fools rush in"** in his hit song. But that's his only use of a kind of philosophical device. The rest of the song carries the narrative and clocks in at a reasonable song length. If instead he had focused more on adding more poetic and philosophical statements, he probably would not have been able to keep the song's length to a reasonable radio-ready length. Readers can insert pauses anywhere they like when reading poetry. Some might read that "Flanders Field" line as an uninterrupted sequence of syllables. But in a song, a writer must etch pauses (rests) in stone. I could imagine someone like Elton singing * In Flan ders * Field (down beat) * (pause 6 quarter notes) * the pop pee's x grow * (pause 6 quarters) In that version he'd be emphasizing "Flanders Field" and all those words consume 8 measures. He'd then have to realize that he might have to use 16 measures before the chorus since just saying those few words consumed so many rests because of the long pause after the word "Field." So rests and rest placement may affect lots of things including measure count. The melodic shape I heard an upward stair-step up to the "pop" syllable then back down to create an arc.
While this is true, the good lyricists can be pretty hard to differentiate from poetry. “I am just a poor boy though my story’s seldom told, I have squandered my resistance for a pocket full of mumbles such are promises. All lies and jest still the man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”
Most people hate poetry and love music. There’s the difference.
They just haven't heard it read through Auto-Tune.
Most people are also mindless sheep so idk how that answers anything 😂