[gravitas]

Originally Posted by hello

...the first hint of what's coming is when a writer says..."Without the music, the lyrics don't sound as good, so you should hear them with the music!" If you feel that way about your lyrics, take it as a sign that they are not finished yet! The age old argument, that a song isn't completely understood without the music, may be true on some level. But that doesn't take away from the fact that the lyrics may be weak...no music, no matter how wonderful, actually improves the state of the lyrics!

I agree with you on some level. The quality of lyrics will not improve with music. But their delivery will, and delivery is king. Think of the Talking Heads. That was some mundane crap most of the time, but the way David Byrne always sounded whacked out of his gourd really stuck 'em up.

Also, it doesen't sound like you're considering meter, either. Mere written lyrics can be daunting to read- like some mad e. e. cummings or Ferlinghetti creation- depending on how the music itself flows. For example, here is a poem I rattled out ages ago. It follows a strict meter, so it won't provide the reader with anything challenging in its presentation.

A laquered stone,
Of subtle verse,
Of little glow or shine,

Its mind is prone,
The clacking nurse,
So brown, a scab of mine,

A muddy throne,
And evening curse
Of efforts asonine,

The nighttime lone,
The mind is pursed
And grain eroded fine.

The Prismal glass,
Of teak nightmares
Beholds the hardened germ,

A wooden mass
Of wicker care
Is rotted, and the worms

That wrought the grass
Ascend the stair,
And in my pallet squirm,

For carven brass
So distant there,
Existence is affirmed.

It's also copyrighted, not only from the instant it was posted but from the moment I received the letter from myself that guarantees it, called a poor man's copyright, cully. But that's not the point. The meter for this poem is in most respects flawless. And ya know what? It's boring as hell in song format. I know, I've tried. Flat, like a reading, because the meter offers no variation. Something like this here that I wrote recently, however, is a totally different story:

Embraced by the
shroud of quickening night we shudder
soft in silence,
our lives of basements and black
far and quite removed,

we shrink away in dryness.

And in our minds
we love to love you all-
you carefree,
you foreclosed-
we'd live in bitter silence
for the sweet security of
naught. We would also

(if allowed) go silently screaming
to the eclipse of human thought.

As it is,
warm winds are blowing.
They moan of white sou'erly sands
and bathe us in their tender light,
they crawl like shining spiders
in our sockets,
through our hair.

The weariness from in our bones
betrays all deft reproach;

Our lashes are caterpillar lovers-
they couple,
we sleep.

That song right there seems a little disconnected. But the cadences therein are their own living, breathing things when delivered on stage. The music that backs it is no superficial thing; it does not back it at all. They are one. It's that perfect marriage between song and lyric that define the music itself.