Can lyrics matter without music?

Why?

Lyrics are never written sans everything else and are usually written for a specific performer.

1) Because he's a great lyricist (not so great a, you know, poet, if Tarantula was any indication).

2) Because no one would actually buy a Norton Anthology if it weren't for a school assignment. It's considered boring, antiquated, canonical, etc. Dylan gives it an image-revamp... not that he's so popular with "the kids" now, of course, but it might be a little premature to included Eminem (plus, I mean, "I go to TRL / look how many hugs I get"?).

So lyrics maybe can standalone. But I don't think they can tell you if you will like the music, which is maybe more where the question was coming from.

I suppose this is also by way of asserting that the power of music is stronger than the power of prose (as well as that of advertising, as earlier established)

i wonder if these songs had never been released with their dramatic renderings if these words would seem as inspired? especially 'born to run'.

Also, simple questions demand complex answers!

This is why I've always enjoyed considering the counter-intuitive statement that the writen word preceeds the spoken (though I can't recall who claims this). I do think song lyrics very often feel 'written'. It may be that the best way to assess the lyrics is outwith the 'sung context' because words are for writing not speaking or singing.

Arguably this may not always have been the case (was 'writing' alays a concept before there was anything written?) and there are some 'songs' -Diamanda Galas's Litanies of Satan for instance - that use the human voice in a non-lyric orientated way.

consideration of lyrics out of context of music = better than consideration of lyrics in context of music

tracer the sonnets are totally about being read on the page => hence ditto anything else he used a pen for (a bit)

Words are not the only communication tool, nor are they necessarily the primary tool in any given instance, which blows the filter analogy to bits. What if the music is the primary tool and the words augment/filter it? Or more often, there's some subtle interplay between the two. Consider the classic "sad words/happy melody" which makes the words completely different. We could actually apply the filter analogy here -- but this wouldn't be an addition/subtraction deal -- matrix multiplication would be involved. At which point, asserting the words stand alone would be absurd, since their final meaning would be impossible to divine absent the rest of the song.

Imagine Kelly's "even when I'm with my boo/you know I'm crazy over you" From "Dilemma" as rapped by Ms. Jade (or better yet, Eve) and you'll see what I mean.

Sure, lyrics can and should be appreciated apart from music, but that doesn't make them poetry. That's not how they're intended or taken, anyway.

On the other hand, anyone who says lyrics aren't their own art is talking crazy. Think about Woody Guthrie's "lost" songs that were put to music only later by Wilco and Billy Bragg. Or Joe Strummer's "Janie Jones" before Mick Jones got hold of it. Or when The Source (or anyone else) excerpts great lyrics you've never heard. Just because a dress is meant to be worn doesn't mean you can't admire it without the body underneath.

I agree with you, but according to many of the arguments made above, it still doesn't wash because (a) apart from the rare a capella, every rap is meant to be performed over a backing track of some sort, making the music again integral to the text, and (b) the delivery is still an essential part of how the words are received. To be too reductive, a melodic element has simply been substituted for an extra focus on rhythm.

And Saul Williams' guest spot on Blackalicious' Blazing Arrow I think makes a great case for the combo/interchangeability-at-best of poetry and hip hop. One of the finest moments on that disc, if not the finest.

this is not right -- i say words used to matter a lot more as equal component than now -- songs on the radio are catchy mantras or shaggy dog stories -- escapist

rap takes escapism to the other extreme via grandiosity, perversity, fantasy and stupidly of all the almost staccato speed of rhyme word to rhyme word require -- a most silly "cred" barometer

it's all worrying considering the vietnam war produced two generations of songwriters with plenty of thought provoking essential lyrics cf: today dancing as escapism (when at least donna summer sung about something and used song models to produce harmonic progression), endless repetition of bumper sticker catchy phrases and the heavy metal induced dumbing down of rock to sub-grunge with one "grunge" idea to sing about

are people to busy to actually sit down and listen to an albums lyrics ? those subjects that should be dealt to and used to be dealt to in songs from the '60s through '80s are not addressed in music anymore -- where's the anti-war music ? are the multi-national media giants not rocking the boat for buddies ?

the music industry has become too standardised, despite indie et al (which are mostly marketing niches for university students anyway) leading me to conclude that there's more irony and wit on most madonna albums than concurrent music that had more "cred" (and that's not to slight madonna) -- who's singing politics to the people ? no-one -- centralised median learning level music per country with guarenteed political safety == $$

i've no idea how "effective" this song is as music, or what its effect is, even, in an ARTISTIC sense: unlike george, i absolutely don't accept there's been a "dumbing down" in the entertainment industry: exactly the opposite, really => and THAT'S the problem: isn't it because of an achieved level of artistic sophistication that a song like "where have all the flowers gone" (sappy words, sappy arrangement, tremendous potential our-tune force to anyone english-speaking who lost a child or a sibling to that war) wd (i.) never arise now in an "anti-establishment" context, and (ii.) would not cross out any context in which it did arise

So lyrics maybe can standalone. But I don't think they can tell you if you will like the music, which is maybe more where the question was coming from.

True, true. I can well remember the day that my idealistic fifteen year old self bought "The Singles" and on the way home looked at the lyrics sheet, "Know Your Rights" specifically: "damn, these lyrics rule" I thought "this has gotta be the best Clash Punk Rawk anthem EVER!"

Then I went home and listened to the damn thing. Oh my.