Lyrics
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You are currently reading a thread in /lit/ - Literature
You are currently reading a thread in /lit/ - Literature
Can we get a lyrics thread going? Who's your favourite lyricist? How do you approach lyrics? Do you think due to the medium they're inherently subordinate to the music, or can they be equal to or sometimes above it?
I have a hard time treating lyrics as literature sometimes because I get too carried away by the music. The one huge exception is Joanna Newsom. I own all her albums in physical format so I've gone through every word along with the liner notes, and her words are up there with all of my favourite poets and authors. She writes incredibly intricate and polished lyrics, can be painstakingly anal about form, which I love (especially in her last album Divers), and touches on some fantastic themes (from motherhood and family to time travel and multiverses). She also really engages with big authors such as Joyce and Shelley in a fascinating manner. Her love of Nabokov also shows throughout her work, in the wordplay, sounds (especially alliteration) and complexity.
Here's some examples:
En Gallop
>Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.
Emily
>Come on home, the poppies are all grown knee-deep by now
>Blossoms all have fallen, and the pollen ruins the plow
>Peonies nod in the breeze and while they wetly bow
>With hydrocephalitic listlessness ants mop up-a their brow
>And everything with wings is restless, aimless, drunk and dour
>The butterflies and birds collide at hot, ungodly hours
>And my clay-colored motherlessness rangily reclines
>Come on home, now! All my bones are dolorous with vines
Baby Birch
>There is a blacksmith and there is a shepherd and there is a butcher boy
>And there is a barber who's cutting and cutting away at my only joy
>I saw a rabbit as swift as a knife and as pale as a candlestick
>And I had thought it'd be harder to do but I caught her and skinned her quick, held her there
>Kicking and mewling upended unspooling unsung and blue
>Told her wherever you go little runaway bunny I will find you
>And then she ran
>As they're liable to do
>Be at peace baby, and be gone
>Be at peace baby, and be gone
Sapokanikan
>And the records they left are cryptic at best
>Lost in obsolescence
>The text will not yield, nor x-ray reveal
>With any fluorescence
>Where the hand of the master begins and ends
Time, as a Symptom
>Joy! Again, around–a pause, a sound–a song:
>A way a lone a last a loved a long
>A cave, a grave, a day: arise, ascend
>(Areion, Rharian, go free and graze. Amen.)
>A shore, a tide, unmoored–a sight, abroad:
>A dawn, unmarked, undone, undarked (a god)
>No time. No flock. No chime, no clock. No end
>White star, white ship–Nightjar, transmit: transcend!
>White star, white ship–Nightjar, transmit: transcend!
>White star, white ship–Nightjar, transmit: transcend!
>White star, white ship–Nightjar, transmit: trans-
Pic related. There's a small mistake in the last line but whatever.
every one of your examples sounds pretentious
>>8258385
I really don't know why I'm biting, but
>big words are automatically pretentious
Never change, /lit/.
How about you explain why it's pretentious and provide examples of lyrics that are not pretentious and better? "Pretentious" is such a buzzword... Should never be used in literary criticism unless you actually explain what its pretentions are and how it fails to achieve them. What is Joanna trying to achieve and how is she falling short? Can you point out and explain why every one of my examples is pretentious?
Thanks for the contribution.
This are literally the best lyrik I have ever red
>Black then white are all I see in my infancy.
>red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me.
>lets me see.
>As below, so above and beyond, I imagine
>drawn beyond the lines of reason. Push the envelope. Watch it bend.
>Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.
>Withering my intuition, missing opportunities and I must Feed my will to feel my moment drawing way outside the lines.
>Black then white are all I see in my infancy.
>red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me.
>lets me see there is so much more
>and beckons me to look through to these infinite possibilities.
>As below, so above and beyond, I imagine
>drawn outside the lines of reason. Push the envelope. Watch it bend.
>Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind. Withering my intuition leaving all these opportunities behind.
>Feed my will to feel this moment urging me to cross the line.
>Reaching out to embrace the random. Reaching out to embrace whatever may come.
>I embrace my desire to
>feel the rhythm, to feel connected
>enough to step aside and weep like a widow
>to feel inspired, to fathom the power,
>to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain,
>to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human.
>With my feet upon the ground I lose myself
>between the sounds and open wide to suck it in,
>I feel it move across my skin.
>I'm reaching up and reaching out,
>I'm reaching for the random or what ever will bewilder me.
>And following our will and wind we may just go where no one's been. >We'll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one's been.
>Spiral out. Keep going, going...
>>8258432
You're a tool.
Too many mirrors share my face
I break mirrors with my face in the united states
I dont care about real life
I think Lyrics are a worthwhile form of literature, but unlike OP's examples, lyrics are better when they're slightly more direct as the words are harder to follow when listening to music than they would be reading them.
Nick Drake is my favourite lyricist.
>>8258494
OP here and that's a fair point. You definitely need to sit down and look at the words on paper for Joanna Newsom. That doesn't really take away anything from them for me though, but that's obviously personal. It just requires more work on the listener/reader and it is less immediate at first. Not really an issue when you're familiar with them though.
I also love Nick Drake. What's your favourite album by him? Favourite lines?
>>8258420
>>big words are automatically pretentious
who are you quoting? the only reason you like the lyrics is because of the big words because in your mind big words = literature
>>8258533
Here's your (You) bud. Hope (You) enjoy it!
>>8258549
i would have contributed to your thread if you didn't get so buttblasted by my first comment
>>8258560
"Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fools gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proved to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying."
