The thread I was refering to was the one called "Poetry."
I don't know why people here like to come up with absolutes like "all lyrics are poetry."
First of all, no they are not. Secondly, any time you have an all inclusive maxim like that, it can never be right.
"all X are X" = not correct. But this is going to lead to people trying to prove me wrong. The point is, theres a long and historic culture to poetry. It rarely rhymes, its often alot more structural than lyrics (poets will often use grammar and word play) and has set patterns in some cases (sonnet, villanel (sp?))
The closest I think poetry ever came to music was in two places:
1. Leonard Cohens "Suzanne" which was a published poem before it was put with music.
2. When, out of mutual respect, Shakespeare had his poetry made into instrumentals by the leading Lute player of the day (whose name escapes me).
The point is, lyrics aren't the most poetic because they are dealing with more than just words. They are often attempting to adhere to a strict pacing with the music, and the music changes. The most famous poetic pacing, Iambic pentameter, would make for a horrible song because musically, its too repeditive.
Im not the worlds foremost poet by any means, but im telling you, as someone who, at least dabbles, they are not the same. I know someone will come out of the wood works with some "well I read this and you're wrong" type argument, so hold off for a couple days while I ask some good poets and give you their opinion.... (to be continued)
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