08-23-2015, 08:11 AM
So, here's where I'm at. This is what I think I know, stated abruptly, regarding how lyrics and poetry differ.
Poetic meter is determined by inherent stresses, and lyrical meter is determined by beats. All the lyrics writing books have a version of that.
My own version is that lyrics have three audiences: the melodist, the composer, and the performed-to audience, whereas poetry has only one audience: the reader.
That said, I think there's a longer, more interesting (and super-weird) answer, and the question about words vs colloquialisms might help me prove it.
The long answer is my own, and I have yet to locate any authority that agrees w me. (Also, my phrasing is still unwieldy, so sorry for that.)
The long answer is that reading words-for-music as poetry yields genre, melody (including vocal range), and the time signature, whereas reading those words as lyrics yields verses/choruses/bridges, instrumentation, dynamics, and styling.
So . . . I'm at least pretty comfortable saying poetry and lyrics aren't the same thing . . . As to whether colloquial phrases (e.g., down the street, hit me with your best shot, I came across a river, I'll keep my eye out for you) are the building blocks of lyrics, that's what I'm trying to figure out. I can think of very few songs that aren't a bunch of colloquial phrases stuck together. But my thought is, if you google a phrase or clause from song lyrics, you're more likely to get search results than if you google a phrase or clause from a poem. And I don't think that's because songs aren't as well written, I think it's because the colloquialism has access to musicality in a way that non-colloquial phrases don't.
Poetic meter is determined by inherent stresses, and lyrical meter is determined by beats. All the lyrics writing books have a version of that.
My own version is that lyrics have three audiences: the melodist, the composer, and the performed-to audience, whereas poetry has only one audience: the reader.
That said, I think there's a longer, more interesting (and super-weird) answer, and the question about words vs colloquialisms might help me prove it.
The long answer is my own, and I have yet to locate any authority that agrees w me. (Also, my phrasing is still unwieldy, so sorry for that.)
The long answer is that reading words-for-music as poetry yields genre, melody (including vocal range), and the time signature, whereas reading those words as lyrics yields verses/choruses/bridges, instrumentation, dynamics, and styling.
So . . . I'm at least pretty comfortable saying poetry and lyrics aren't the same thing . . . As to whether colloquial phrases (e.g., down the street, hit me with your best shot, I came across a river, I'll keep my eye out for you) are the building blocks of lyrics, that's what I'm trying to figure out. I can think of very few songs that aren't a bunch of colloquial phrases stuck together. But my thought is, if you google a phrase or clause from song lyrics, you're more likely to get search results than if you google a phrase or clause from a poem. And I don't think that's because songs aren't as well written, I think it's because the colloquialism has access to musicality in a way that non-colloquial phrases don't.
A yak is normal.