By Ashley Lister
Oftentimes, whenever I mention to someone that I enjoy
writing poetry, they say: “Oh yes! I write song lyrics. That’s the same as
writing poetry, isn’t it?”
Honestly, if you listen carefully after someone’s said that
statement, you can hear the enamel cracking from the pressure as I grind my
teeth together. The composition of poetry and the creation of song lyrics do
not involve the same skills. It’s like comparing Leonardo da Vinci’s Sistine chapel
with a newly whitewashed lavvy ceiling. Yes, both involve the application of
paint to the top of a room – but it is not the same.
To illustrate this point (and I’m aware I’m in contentious
territory here) I’ve taken the liberty of copying some song lyrics:
“Dream, dream, dream, dream
Dream, dream, dream, dream
When I want you in my arms
When I want you and all your charms
Whenever I want you, all I have to do is
Dream, dream, dream, dream.”
Dream, dream, dream, dream
When I want you in my arms
When I want you and all your charms
Whenever I want you, all I have to do is
Dream, dream, dream, dream.”
All I Have to Do is Dream (1958)
Written by Felice and
Boudleaux Bryant
Performed by The Everly
Brothers
Q: Is this poetry.
A: No. It’s just drivel.
Whilst this employs many of the devices associated with
poetry it is not poetry.
It employs repetition. It employs a rhyme scheme. Some might
argue that it uses a metrical structure but they’d be wrong. The word dream (sung most famously by the Everly Brothers
as ‘Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam’) is not metrically correct unless the speaker has some
sort of larynx problem, or a very unusual stutter that falls on vowels (which
would be unusual because the majority of stuttering occurs on consonants). Even
so, this would be a sign of disability rather than a metrical scheme.
Q: Does it express a poetic sentiment?
A: Only to imbeciles and the clinically deranged.
The persona of this verse is using the word dream repeatedly. It could be said that he
or she is using the word repeatedly to foreground their obsession with an
unnamed fetish to the extent where he or she is dreaming their life away as they constantly think about this
person.
More accurately it could be said that this is sexist twaddle
and indicative of an unhealthy mindset.
The persona is patently male. The persona wants to physically
possess the (female) object of the song (I
want you in my arms/I want you and all your charms). From this we can see there
is no poetic device in use. This is not a metaphor. He simply wants her in his
arms. She has no name or identity beyond being the object of his psychotically
unwavering lust. In some regards it’s quite disturbing that the persona here is
so obsessed. Clearly he wants her in his arms solely for the purposes of sexual
exploitation. And I’m assuming here that the word charms (in the second line quoted here) is a euphemism for her fanny.
I could go on to analyse this in further depth but I suspect
I’m already annoying fans of the wonderful Everly Brothers so I’ll simply say
there are some good songs out there. But writing songs is not the same as
writing poems and I think I’ve just proved as much.