I don't have a specific answer to this and I'm not sure I'm looking for the answer to everything, I just thought it might be fun to discuss song lyrics and poetry.
I think about some of my favourite songs that seem to have really poetic lyrics. Some that come to mind are Right Where You Left Me - Taylor Swift, Ladylike - Ingrid Andress, Saw The Lights Go Out On Broadway - Billy Joel, Clementine - Halsey, I Know The End - Phoebe Bridgers. Some of these examples have the characteristics of songs (eg. rhythm/rhyme) but they also have really intricate imagery. If I handed these lyrics to someone without accompanying music, could they be classed as a poem?
I mean, there are other song that don't seem to be as complex. Paper Rings by Taylor Swift springs to mind. It's one of my favourite songs but could that be a poem? What about Bring It All Back by S Club 7 and I Want It That Way by the Backtreet Boys? (Yes, I did just scroll through my iTunes to find these examples...)
Is poetry a sliding scale?
I'm just curious as to what people think about poetry vs. song lyrics.
I thought for a long time that Dolly Parton is a poet as well as a terrific song writer, also as i have mentioned before and someone else has said look at Bob Dylan's work.
Poems can become songs. As songs are written as music before instruments are invited.
2000s rock music (Linkin Park, Evanescence) comes to mind as the lyrics themselves could be enough to be poems themselves.
Absolutely! My A Level teacher once did an entire lesson on this, us having to find the songs and the poems (I think she'd watched Dangerous Minds one too many times! 🤣) I think people who write songs that tell stories (Taylor Swift immediately comes to mind) are really just writing poetry to music. Old school Country music (Johnny Cash) and a lot of music from the 60s also has really vivid imagery akin to that normally found in poetry. I think paper rings could absolutely look right as a text, it's just reading it out in poem form that might not work..! Although that leads to the discussion whether poetry should be written to be spoke or read or both!! I couldn't find a poem I liked so we had Forever Young condensed into a reading at our wedding. And my husband has lyrics from our respective favourite Biffy Clyro songs mingled in a tattoo across his ribcage (ouch!) the tattooist actually commented on what a beautiful poem it was and was quite surprised they were lyrics. Apparently the songs he usually gets asked to ink are cringeworthy.
Lots of Simon and Garfunkel songs from the sixties would work as poems but I like the music. Sounds of Silence, Scarborough Fair, The Dangling Conversation and many more could be read as poems.
Françoise Hardy and ZaZ are songstresses belonging to two French generations but uf!! their songs are poetry in motion. Françoise Hardy's work is in fact poetry set to music as it can pretty much all be recited just as well as sung.
And to flip this on its head, can poems be songs?
This comes to mind right away:
Wonderfully arranged, but I personally prefer it in poetry form
Bob Dylan
😏
I think some song lyrics without the music could be called poetry. A favourite that comes to mind is 'This is Who I Am' sung by Vanessa Amorosi. I think the music and hearing the words sung add extra depth and strength but the words on their own are a poem to me.