i think close to me by the cure could be poetry when reading it the right way, same with i should be so lucky, it may have been a bit poo but kylie did it at a poetry evening or something and it worked well.

When I was doing English Literature, about the only songs you could get away with studying as poetry were those by Bob Dylan.

To avoid reproducing the entire of 'You're gonna make me lonesome when you go' on this thread, here is a link.

orad.dent.kyushu-u.ac.jp/dylan/youmakelon.html

I would be hard pressed to make the claim that that is *not* poetry whilst simultaneously I would find it hard to justify the claim that 'Spice Up Your Life' is.

Once lyrics are written down, they have formal characteristics of rhyme and meter that would fit the description of poetry.

However, in as much as poetry is the work of a poet, it might be legitimate to take into account the intention of the author when attempting to make the distinction.

Where you have a songwriter who over time expresses himself (herself) with the consistency of an 'author', (e.g., Dylan, Springsteen, Guthrie, Bragg) they might arguably be considered poets.

Where the intention is solely to create a piece of pop music (by definition transitory and impermanent), a commodity (Hearsay, S Club 7, Boyzone, Take That etc) then perhaps it is not poetry?

That said, any piece of communication is defined not just by its creation but by its reception. If someone came across the lyrics to 'Back for Good' on a piece of paper, they might legitimately treat it as poetry.

In summary ... who knows?

To be poetry, is it enough for one person to believe that it is?

At school, a few years ago, when it was world book day we studied lyrics and considered if they counted as poetry.

At first everyone said that they're nothing like poems and shouldn't be classed as poetry.

So we all took a song and wrote the lyrics out and nearly all of them we agreed on should count as poetry - except for that "Blue" song that someone chose which wa popular around that time "i'm blue da ba di ab dad di"

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by Incandenza
To be poetry, is it enough for one person to believe that it is?

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Hmmmm, it probably shouldn't be. But then, what can you use to classify it? After all there's no set definition of a poem. Some of them rhyme, some of them don't. They can be made of a few words or several hundred words. Some have a natural, flowing rhythm, some have no apparent rhythm.

Personally I believe that songs can indeed be classed as poetry. And I might even go so far as to say that Richey Edwards (ex-Manic Street Preacher) is one of my favourite poets. The lyrics he wrote were, by turns beautiful, touching, venomous, sorrowful ..... and they always managed to create vivid imagery in my head. I even let him come up with my quote!

With regards to where you draw the line on music being poetry, I don't know. In fact I don't think I'd like to draw a line and say that some stuff definitely isn't poetry. I read an interview with Jon Spencer recently, in which he said: "To me Little Richard yelling 'Awopbopalubop!' is just as valid as any Jim Morrison-type rock 'n' roll poetry.'

If, as opinions seem to suggest so far, that lyrics can be poetry, does that make the music a superfluous component? If the meaning can not just be conveyed, but conveyed effectively and beautifully on its own, then what can the music add?

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by Demona
what can the music add?

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Groove

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by Red
(quotes)

Groove

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Basically, yeah! The music is by no means superfluous. The lyrics convey a beautiful sentiment on their own, but, the music can do that too. Even without the lyrics, some songs just have such a cool tune that can convey emotions or just a general happy feeling! When you combine these two, you get something wonderful. Possibly better than conventional poetry, in my opinion.

Seasons in the Sun is one that I'm thinking of at the moment. That song always brings me close to tears (I'm thinking of the Black Box Recorder version as the Westlife version sucks and I don't really know the original very well). I've read poems that convey similar emotions, but none of them have had quite the same impact.

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by PictureOfFlowers
(quotes)

Basically, yeah! The music is by no means superfluous. The lyrics convey a beautiful sentiment on their own, but, the music can do that too. Even without the lyrics, some songs just have such a cool tune that can convey emotions or just a general happy feeling! When you combine these two, you get something wonderful. Possibly better than conventional poetry, in my opinion.

Seasons in the Sun is one that I'm thinking of at the moment. That song always brings me close to tears (I'm thinking of the Black Box Recorder version as the Westlife version sucks and I don't really know the original very well). I've read poems that convey similar emotions, but none of them have had quite the same impact.

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Strangely enough, I was thinking of Black Box Recorder as my own choice of lyrics as poetry, if any. I was looking up lyrics to songs I'd never heard and if I hadn't known what they were, I would not have been able to distinguish it from poetry (except perhaps in the use of a refrain, which is more unusual in poetry).

I cannot recall the lyrics to Seasons In The Sun right now, but one of my favourite set of lyrics would be to 'England Made Me':

I trapped a spider underneath a glass
I kept it for a week to see how long he'd last
He stared right back of me
He thought that he could win
We played the waiting game
He thought that I'd give in

England made me
England made me

I had a dream last night, that I was drunk
I killed a stranger, and left him in a trunk
In Brighton railway station
It was an unsolved case
A famous murder mystery
People love a mystery

England made me
England made me
England made me
England made me

I need my privacy, I lead a secret life
Sleep with the enemy, and betray both sides
I travelled all my life, but never got away
From the killing jar, and the garden shed.

England made me
England made me
England made me
England made me
England made me
England made me
England made me



Bob Dylan is often cited in these arguments. I'm not very familiar with his work, but I followed the link posted by Inc above. It is possible to analyse his work as poetry, but those lyrics still read like lyrics to me. They felt incomplete without being set to music.