No exceptions: not even for this one. A song is a song and its lyrics, however “deep” or even good, are song lyrics.
(Next week: Serge Gainsbourg.)
April 30, 2008...11:59 am
elegantly dressed undead poetry myth of rock & roll
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11 Comments
April 30, 2008 at 12:13 pm
What a hero… Laughing Len is a genius.
April 30, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Ben, you’re so right… I feel a bit funny pulling him out over this, but I really feel that even if Leonard Cohen writes a song, it is a song, and if he writes a poem, it is a poem. And he’s so beautiful.
April 30, 2008 at 4:08 pm
He’s my man…now Serge I am less convinced by. He encouraged so many women to sing who really should not have done so at all…and didn’t if you listen to them…(perhaps living in France and having to watch them endlessly on French TV has not helped)
April 30, 2008 at 7:20 pm
I think Len is on of the rare artists who can blur the lines between poetry and song. Not always, but ‘Take this Waltz’ stands without the music – okay so it’s a translation of Lorca, but what a translation. His prosody is flawless.
April 30, 2008 at 9:21 pm
So how about Go No More A-Rovin’? Does Byron count as a poet, a lyricist, or both?
Lenny has appropriated his own poetry to use as song lyrics from time to time. Or do you reject the notion that he’s a poet at all?
How about Blake? Does the fragment of his introduction to Milton borrowed by Parry for Jerusalem count as a lyric or not? It has become one, and acquired a meaning quite at odds with that which Blake intended. But it’s still a poem too, surely?
Christina Rosetti? In the Bleak Midwinter? Poem or lyric?
A poem stands alone, needing no music. A lyric demands the music. But there are always exceptions.
May 1, 2008 at 8:03 am
Lots and lots and lots of exceptions. Exceptions can be more interesting than rules too.
May 1, 2008 at 11:58 am
Dear Ms Baroque,
It’s strange, but though I quite enjoy Leonard Cohen’s poetry, especially when he is reading it himself (Ladies and Gentleman, Mr Leonard Cohen), something entirely whoosh-bang happens when he sings: suddenly magic. Some spell gets invoked and there we go, it’s an amazement! Thanks you darling man!
Warm regards
Hazel
May 2, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Ah, children. Well, first I feel it necessary to point out that there are no value judgements at work here. I’m not, as people sometimes seem to do, equating “poem” with “good” and “everything else” as “not up to the mark.”
Stephen, you’re right: of course there are exceptions. “In the Bleak Midwinter” is one of my favourite carols – but once you’ve heard the tune, can it ever work again as a poem? The Byron works on the page because the metre is very clear. Did he write it as a song?
But I simply think that to say a song lyric is “So good it’s poetry” is facile, and does no service to either poems or songs. That’s my main point.
I can’t imagine “Suzanne” working on the page. I think at least half of Cohen’s genius is melody, anyway, and a certain kind of rhythm that goes with it. Which makes him a songwriter. When he’s writing songs. I’ve never read his books of poetry…
May 3, 2008 at 2:18 pm
I don’t see why there can’t be an overlap between the groups of words marked ’songs’ and the groups of words marked ‘poems’. Marking out territories too harshly can often be a mistake…that’s my feeling.
Plus just because something seems facile…does that necessarily mean that it is wrong? Don’t we all have our facile moments? Don’t they (just sometimes) produce the odd gem?
May 8, 2008 at 7:11 am
A poem (from one poet to another)
Ms Baroque and Samuel,
Went to see a ‘film from hell’.
Then at the pub, half empty glasses,
Discuss the tastes of the middle-classes.
Leigh’s film was a dog, on that they agree,
And soon they’re defining poetry
I like to think that they’re seeking veracity
But all their conclusions?
Intentional fallacy!
EJ Thrib (aged 6¾)
May 8, 2008 at 7:38 am
Samuel? Make that ‘Spaniel’, it fits better and plays nicely off the ‘dog’, don’t you think?