Originally Posted by Mark Kaufman
I was thinking about lyrics that are written BEFORE there is music composed for them. Some people say a lyric by itself is a poem, but that's not really true.


Not true. A lot depends on the definition of poetry, which is basically a manipulation of language for purposes of emphasizing it's aesthetic or evocative properties, including sound and metaphor. A lot of so-called modern poetry does not emphasize the lyrical conventions you find in modern song lyrics (and it still considered poetry) but relies instead on semantics.

You can anything that is not standard prose a poem -- it might be a really BAD poem, as the VAST majority are.

Originally Posted by Mark Kaufman
Just a thought here: I notice in a lot of good songs, the lyrical lines have a bizarre rhythm all their own....not necessarily measured by traditional poetic meter nor by syllable count, but by the line's own peculiar rhythm.


You mean its meter. Prosody is the study of poetic meter. This is something that ALL writers should be familiar with but most don't have a clue. Most people think that all you have to do to write a lyric is have a certain number of syllables per line and make sure the final syllable in each line rhymes. As Alexander Pope once said, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.' The result is volumes and volumes of REALLY BAD POETRY. 99% of the bad poetry you read suffers from problems with meter. Some writers have an internal knowledge of this but most have to learn the rules (and MOST DON'T). The key is the stress patter in each metrical foot (which is a sequence of syllables. strong and weak). Here is some info about this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meter_(poetry)

If you area lyricist are are not willing to take a few hours and educate yourself about prosody and meter, you need to stop writing NOW.

Originally Posted by Mark Kaufman
You can't just trust to syllable count, because rhythms may be different. For example, the following two lines both have six syllables:

Johnny is a rock star
I want to suck your blood


...but they clash---they're too different to belong in the same musical phrase:[/quote]

The first line consists of three trochaic feet (three strong-weak feet); the second line consists of iambic feet (three weak-strong feet).

Originally Posted by Mark Kaufman

JOHNny is a ROCK star
i WANT to SUCK your BLOOD

And sometimes lyrics employ MIXED meter instead of a long run of say, iambic pentameter that sounds like ta-DA ta-DA ta-DA ta-DA.



Word choice will often affect this. All single words have a default heavy stress, except for pronouns in certain positions.

Fisherman hook fish; songwriters fish for hooks

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