Thursday

The Songwriter as the New Poet

Songwriting has come, over time, to virtually replace poetry. While poetry lives in small, less well known communities, music reaches every ear in this culture of "virtual connection." Everyone knows when the next album of so-and-so artist will come out, and the hit song is the buzz of the week. It is common to hear your friend reference a song in conversation. Back in the day, when songwriting was less common, and poetry celebrities were actual poets, the lines of the most popular ones were at the tip of the tongue for every educated individual.
In a way, vocal music today has become the universal poetry. Many songs employ similar rhythms and rhymes as traditional poems, and include insights, and deep meanings. Today, with the lack of interest in traditional poets, those with the talent to produce poetry reroute their energy to songwriting, because it gains more appreciation with today's culture.
It is interesting how a song like one the Beatles wrote can have a similar effect on person as a poem that T.S. Eliot wrote would have had on the people then.

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