[stylist] songwriting vs. poetry

Wed Feb 29 05:14:31 UTC 2012

Uh, I think it's a song because it has verses and a chorus.  That doesn't 
mean it truly is a song.  Here, I'll grab it and attach it and you tell me 
how far off I am.
Barbara

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance. -- Carl Sandburg
-----Original Message----- 
From: Donna Hill
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2012 4:57 PM
To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [stylist] songwriting vs. poetry

Hi Barbara,
The lyric side of songwriting is poetry, and it can be a wide variety of
rhythm and rhyme patterns. Some songs have repeated choruses or refrains,
some have bridges, some have talking parts -- it's all wide open at this
point. I personally can't write song lyrics without a melody. It's the lyric
kernel that pulls the melody down out of the sky and the grounded melody
working with the thoughts that allow a platform for the lyrics to take
shape. People have set all sorts of poetry to music -- poetry that wasn't
written as song lyrics, but somebody was inspired to set the poetry to
music. A British songwriter named Peter Bellamy did a whole album of Rudyard
Kipling poems that he had set to music, and The Lady of Shalott by Alfred,
Lord Tennyson was set to music by Canadian singer-songwriter Loreena
McKennitt. Sometimes, the musicians alter the poem in some way, such as
taking a specific line or couplet and making it into a repeated chorus.
Other times, archaic language is altered to make the end product more
understandable to the modern audience.

I'm curious how you, as a writer who writes lyrics only,  differentiate in
your own writing between something that is a song lyric and something that
is a stand-alone poem. How do you know you've written a song lyric? Do you
have some melody in your head but you can't rein it in, but it somehow
creates a certain structure for you?
Donna

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Barbara Hammel
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2012 2:39 PM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Subject: [stylist] songwriting vs. poetry

So, what's so different about writing songs from writing poetry?  I get that
there usually is a chorus and two or three verses.  Sometimes there might
even be a bridge thrown in for good measure.
I've often though of trying my hand at songwriting, in fact I have one I
wanted to give to someone to see if they could work up a tune for it but I
wasn't on that friendly a terms with her.  A friend and I wrote one, too,
when she was in high school and I was in college.  I saw the email with
Brad's tip, so will look at that, too.
Barbara

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance. -- Carl Sandburg
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