Poems to songs?

S

Snadman

New member
Hello everyone. I was wondering if most songs actually originate from poems. I write a lot of poems and I've even put some on poetry.com that are going to be in books, put to music (I don't know how yet), and I've been inducted to the poetry comittee in Washington DC. No mean to sound stuckup by any of this, but I'm wondering if being a poet would help me along the lines of songwriting. Thanks!
 
Hey Snadman.

I start out with music, the flow when ever the music is right.
I'd rather be beaten with a stick, by an ugly woman, than have to put music to a poem. Some can, I have trouble doing it that way. I'm full of music, guess that's why.
Take ten people, they'll all do a song differently.
 
If I write the music first; the lyrics will generally flow and end up being fairly simplistic.

My first album that I worked on was a 'songwriters' album. For these songs I had written the lyrics first and the whole processs is very different. I have the original drafts of some of the completed lyrics recorded. It's funny; they start of very poetic and gradually get precised down to song lyrics (basically get rid of the long words, re-structure for breathing). It really is a very nice way to write a song as opposed to sitting with a guitar and writing. I like the best of bost worlds and do both.

If you want to see the works of a true poet/artist/musician (check my work out..LOL), check out Leonard Cohen. Then also go a listen to Dylan, Lou Reed......................

It really depends on what sort of mucis you are doing. Poetary; however simplistic it may be tends to be far more intellectual that song lyrics and it's both hard to sing the poetary lines yourself or give them to someone else to do the honers.

Try it out....get one of your poems, cut and cut and cut it until you have a song.

If your playing to yourself, by all means write music dircetly over the entire origianl draft.

Now if you were a classical composer you could write music to your lyrics as complex as the poem but without ever opening your mouth.
 
When the Chili Peppers guitarist died, the vocalist wrote a poem about it as he felt pretty bad. He left, wasn't found for four days, he came back to find that the band had found the poem, and written up parts to it. That was the very song that made them really hit it big.

My favorite band, Stabbing Westward, does that all the time.

(however usually not all originate from poems)
 
I wrote a bit of poetry before I started doing lyrics and i think I was and still am pretty accomplished at it. There's no doubt that being a decent poet helps when you are writing lyrics, and depending on your style can help you avoid the cheesy cliched lines which are all too often spread all over 99% of songs. I've never yet taken a poem and put music too it, I've never really tried it and i don't think I'd ever want to, but I have sometimes taken a 'great ;)' phrase or line that I've come up with in a poem and incorporated it into a song, or even built the theme of lyrics around it. I guess what I'm saying is you should set out to write lyrics rather than fit your poems to music, and since you say your good at it then you have the potential to be a good songwriter.

Jags
 
I just wanted to share this, and I saw this thread and thought it would be okay to do here. Over the weekend, my friend was married. These are the lyrics to the song that played as the bride walked up the aisle. A poem fashioned into a song. Possibly the most beautiful poem I have ever read. The words are sung in spanish. In english, I doubt the song would have the same effect.

Poem by Carlos Oquendo de Amat (fragment of a piece written with the poet Omar Aramayo)
Music by Susana Baca

For you
I have a smile
printed on Japanese paper.
Gaze upon me…
You make the grass of the meadows grow
Woman.
map of music
like clear water
feast of fruits.

Let me kiss your voice
That sings
In all the branches
Of the morning








Jeez! Tito, get me a tissue!
 
Well sounds to me like it's kinda half and half. I also write guitar instrumentals for www.guitarwar.com and it's rather fun. But I'm used to making the backing music first the putting the solo over it. So I guess in an analogic-sense it's the same thing maybe. I make the music first the put the words in later. Thanks for all fo your input.
 
You can look at it the other way... how often do you read the lyrics of songs as poems... an Aussie artist, Paul Kelly released a book of his call "Don't start me talking". It contains the lyrics to all his songs which read like poetry and I've read that this artist pen's the lyrics to a song before the music comes... as all musicians, he might come up with a guitar lick then go from there.

Personally, I've always written lyrics before the music comes about. I think that my songs could be read as poetry. I've got the lyrics on my mp3 site.. http://www.mp3.com.au/danielporter True Time was initially written over a 3 chord progression... Feelings was written the chords were put over the top.. A new song which should be up in a couple of weeks .. Together, Forever, Just You and Me was wrtten not intially as a poem however it can be read as one.

Have I just blabbed on???? Well.. If I did, sorry, if not, thanks for reading :)
 
Six one way, a half dozen the other

I have written poems that years later I've made into songs. Then I have wrote songs and then put music to them. I've also wrote the music then came the lyrics.

I said all that to say this: Don't put creativity in a box. Look at your poems if a melody flows, go with it. But don't force it. One of the biggest mistakes I've seen in songwritting is when the lyrics and the music don't gel because the over-eager songwriter took a hammer and drove a square peg in a round hole and said, "there it is". Also don't be scared to rewrite a line of a poem to make it flow in a song. Experiment, there is more than one way to say, roses are red.

Enough with my babblin'

Good Luck,

George
 
Hi

I am afraid that putting poetry to music without modification is just about impossible. In some cases it is easier to go the other way. I am not saying it can not be done. I would have to see your stuff. Most of the time poems are structured different though.

Do you have anything on the web I can look at? If so send a link to me, or the group. I would hate to pigeon hole you. For all I know you could be the next big thing.


depperly@crpud.net

www.mp3.com/freudian_slip1
 
I used to write the lyrics first and then put them to music a couple days later. Recently I have been writing them both at the same time, though, and I think the results are better songs and maybe better poetry. I usually come up with a cool chord progression and melody--usually a whole verse-chorus. Then, if this is good enough to be a song it will get stuck in my head for a while and what I find is that new lyrics and sometimes new music come along as I'm walking across campus or driving or going to bed. I find that the lyrics and music generally mesh better AND perhaps most importantly, the song is written over a longer period of time which almost always makes it better. Awkward lines tend to get re-written almost automatically and you tend to come up with a lot more material than one song can hold, so you can glean the best verses for the final song.

On the other hand, there is a long tradition among songwriters of setting poetry to music. Even then though, they would often modify the poem to make it flow like they wanted. Faure did that a lot -- rearrange words and stuff.
 
Hi snadman...In the past, that is pre-pop music days, a lot of what got written down was poetry set to music. Writing in the modern "pop" mode, that is for mass consumption is a different craft altogether. With pure poetry a writer has more room to explore a subject. "Song" writing, in the modern sense is more like a sound-bite than a short story. When it is done well it makes very economical use of language, and every word counts and carrys it's own weight, so-to-speak.IMHO. There are no real "rules", just make it interesting, with a beginning, a middle and an end.
write-on...chazba
 
Originally posted by Snadman ....
"I was wondering if most songs actually originate from poems. "-

No, though i think that lyrics are just a subset of poetry, it's a matter of being structured differently.

"but I'm wondering if being a poet would help me along the lines of songwriting. Thanks! "

yes, because you already have a grasp of one of the concepts of writing lyrics, meter. And, it's sort of given that poets have a knack for words(duh!) :-) and that's what you need to be a lyricist. Once you learn how to structure lyrics in the genre that you are trying to write for, then you're home free.
Bubba
 
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