JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Songwriter Message Forum "Lyric" forums should mostly be called "Poetry"

To say that Bob Dylan is the only writer that can write many complex lyrics and music...is simply ignorant.

There are a huge number of amazing writers...yes WRITERS - on this site and elsewhere.

While I am a long time Dylan fan, I am also accutely aware of the immense talent that exists right here in JPF. Check out the lyrics of Bobbie Gallup, greydog ( Corky Bernard), sideman66....to name a few.


Here is one of the many definitions of "lyric" from the Columbia University Press:

lyric, in ancient Greece, a poem accompanied by a musical instrument, usually a lyre. Although the word is still often used to refer to the songlike quality in poetry, it is more generally used to refer to any short poem that expresses a personal emotion, be it a sonnet, ode, song, or elegy. In early Greek poetry a distinction was made between the choral song and the monody sung by an individual. The monody was developed by Sappho and Alcaeus in the 6th cent. B.C., the choral lyric by Pindar later. Latin lyrics were written in the 1st cent. B.C. by Catullus and Horace. In the Middle Ages the lyric form was common in Christian hymns, in folk songs, and in the songs of troubadours. In the Renaissance and later, lyric poetry achieved its most finished form in the sonnets of Petrarch, Shakespeare, Spencer, and Sidney and in the short poems of Ronsard, Ben Jonson, John Donne, Herrick, and Milton. The romantic poets emphasized the expression of personal emotion and wrote innumerable lyrics. Among the best are those of Robert Burns, Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Lamartine, Hugo, Goethe, Heine, and Leopardi. American lyric poets of the 19th cent. include Emerson, Whitman, Longfellow, Lanier, and Emily Dickinson. Among lyric poets of the 20th cent. are W. B. Yeats, A. E. Housman, Rainer Maria Rilke, Federico García Lorca, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Wallace Stevens, Elinor Wylie, Dylan Thomas, and Robert Lowell.
Bibliography

See J. M. Cohen, The Baroque Lyric (1963); C. D. Lewis, The Lyric Impulse (1965); J. Erskine, The Elizabethan Lyric (1967); P. Dronke, The Medieval Lyric (1968).


So....lyric, poems and music have always been intertwined.


Whether or not a poem or lyric can be effectively put to music is entirely subjective. For instance, the famous child poet, Matty Stepanik, who died at age 14 after publishing many books of his exquisite poetry ( Heartsongs) , didn't intend for his poetry to be put to music. The choir that I sing with, Angel City Chorale, premiered one of Matty's poems set to music in December 2006. The lyrics seemed perfect. You would have never known that these words were poems first.

Most accomplished lyricists and composers need lots of time to grow as artists. This site is an ideal place for many to practice the art of writing.

Emily