I think it must be something about Spring, as I have been reading a lot of poetry these last few weeks. It is such a joy revisiting something that I loved as a teenager, particularly as words have always been at the core of my love of music.
Although there is no doubt that they are different disciplines in many ways, I have always felt that poetry and lyric writing run as allies. True, rock stars do not always make great poets, equally not all poets can find their feet in the medium of music but listening to the words in some of my favourite songs, I am struck again and again by how beautiful, and poetic, how true and funny and tragic, lyrics can be.
There is certainly an art to writing pop song lyrics, one that does not translate so well onto paper. The lyrics to ‘Umbrella,’ or ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ probably do not make up a Nobel Prize winning poem.
But many great lyricists are also great poets.
One of the most famous is perhaps Leonard Cohen, who was first recognised as a poet before he became a song writer and singer.
Poetry books such as 'Book Of Mercy', a book brimming with despair and doubt, were published before the haunting 'Hallelujah’ was released.
Jim Morrison, Nick Cave, and Joni Mitchell, were also all published poets, and their lyrics bear out their talent for narrative and expression. Masters of two mediums their words have inspired and touched millions. From the breathless metaphors of ‘Both Sides Now;
‘I have looked at clouds from both sides now, from up and down, and still somehow,
Its cloud illusions I recall, I don’t know clouds at all.’
To the gritty realism of The Doors or Joy Division, the lyrics of these songs have become as persistent in people’s minds as the melodies.
And neither popular, nor modern music shy's away from poetic content. Alex Turner (front man of Arctic Monkeys and winner of best album for 'AM' this year) closes that album with a favourite poem of a friend of his, John Cooper Clarke, put to music.
‘I Wanna Be Yours’ starts with the now famous line, as it has become a GCSE staple, ‘I wanna be your vacuum cleaner, breathing in your dust.’
Laura Marling, another Brit winner, and favourite of mine, is a wonderful and evocative lyricist. Her songs run out like sweet confessions, honest and full of imagery,
'I wrote my name in your book,
Only God knows why,
And I bet that he cracked a smile ' (Goodbye England)
Another frontier of poetry in music – one sometimes overlooked – is in rap music. Its clever, sometimes crude, social commentary is often beautiful and brilliant.
This from Odd Futures ‘Oldies’ is masterful in its imagery, internal rhyme and brutality (and it's author is still a teenager.)
‘I’m Zeus to a Kronos, cartilage cartridge is boneless
Smiles of cowards in lead showers, dead spouses in red blouses
children who fled houses on Mustang horses and went jousting'
Although there are many components to a memorable and evocative song, I return to words again and again for the life blood of my song writing. And when stuck for inspiration I find myself being pulled back to Tom York to remind me that simply the joy of words can be enough;
‘Her green plastic watering can for her fake Chinese rubber plant in the fake plastic earth
that she bought from a rubber man’
(Fake Plastic Trees)
Tagged in Lydia Baylis