Lyrics as poetry
 

I'm a school teacher (6th grade) and have been using song lyrics for a poetry unit. I've tried to be as diverse as possible as far as who to use (Ani DiFranco, Doors, Clash, Kathy Mattea, Pet Shop Boys) but was wondering if anyone else could help me.

The tricky part is to find songs that are appropriate. This means that it can't be about sex or have swearing but it also means that it can't be too political or have references to historical events or literature unless they're obvious and well-known (Romeo & Juliet - yes, Narcissus - no).

Anyway, if anyone has any good suggestions, I'd appreciate you making my life easier.

If anyone cares, the students look for the following as well as what they song is about and the structure of it:

Symbolism
Repetition
Simile
Metaphor
Idiom = Cliché
Imagery
Alliteration
Hyperbole
Personification

(wow, this post sure looks like an assignment....sorry)

Leonard Cohen.

Hmmm. Cool topic. Glad to see you've picked Ani and The Clash, too!

How about REM? Obscenity free, and there's a lot of Michael Stipe lyrics that seem ripe for interpretation. For some reason, songs like Belong and Fall On Me come to mind immediately.


Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Two Tribes
- Maybe a little out your guidelines, but it covers the whole dicey Reagan/Gorbachev and US/Soviet relations circa mid-1980s under the guise of two tribes about to go to war.


you sound like a very cool teacher, btw... :thumbsup:

Which Leonard Cohen song would you recommend? I have a lot of his stuff but most of it was a little too abstract (although Chelsea Hotel would be awesome if it wasn't for the "unmade bed" line).


And 12thMonkey: You'll be happy to know that Stipe is singing backup on today's song which is 10,000 Maniac's "A Campfire Song". Do you recommend a particular song by REM?

There's a bunch, but songs like Belong (from Out of Time) and Fall On Me (from Life's Rich Pagaent) come to mind immediately

"Suzanne" or "Bird on a Wire", maybe? It's hard for me to gauge what's appropriate.

check out 'grace' by jeff buckley. lots of symbolism there.

and if you find some u2 lyrics, here is a website that gives their interpretation of many of u2's songs:

http://hem.bredband.net/steverud/U2MoL/

i particularly like ' when loves come to town ' and 'ultraviolet'.

also check out sting's first three albums. some very poetic lyrics on those albums...heck you could probably just pick a song and go. but anything after soul cages is complete shit and should be avoided. :)

and...if you have the guts....i 'spose you could delve into some doors. but you might have to hand out the electric koolaid first.....

I remember hearing a live version of "Sisters of Mercy" on his live CD from a few years back. Lyrically it's pretty straightforward, but there were a couple of lines that just really hit home with me.

You could probably find a few Cure songs you could use. "Lullaby," maybe.

And this might not be what you're looking for, but Iron Maiden turned Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" into a song. Lyrics here

You could also probably use some lyrics by The Smiths, The Pixies.

Speaking of Sisters of Mercy, they do some sort of interested bits of wordplay in some of their songs like "This Corrosion."

Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot has some of the most literate, poetic lyrics I've come accross in a LONG time.

I've always liked the poetic flow of Brighton Rock by Queen, from the Sheer Heart Attack album:

Happy little day, Jimmy went away
Met his little Jenny on a public holiday
A happy pair they made, so decorously laid
'neath the gay illuminations all along the promenade
"It's so good to know there's still a little magic in the air
I'll weave my spell"

"Jenny will you stay - tarry with me pray
Nothing 'ere need come between us tell me love, what do you say?"
"Oh no I must away to my mum in disarray
If my mother should discover how I spent my holiday
It would be of small avail to talk of magic in the air
I'll say farewell"

O rock of ages, do not crumble, love is breathing still
O lady moon, shine down a little people magic if you will

Jenny pines away, writes a letter everyday
"We must ever be together, nothing can my love erase"
"Oh no I'm compromised, I must apologise
If my lady should discover how I spent my holidays..."

or, The Trees by Rush from the Hemispheres album tells a nice little story:

There is unrest in the forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the Maples want more sunlight
And the Oaks ignore their pleas.

The trouble with the Maples
And they're quite convinced they're right
They say the Oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light.

But the Oaks can't help their feelings
If they like the way they're made
And they wonder why the Maples
Can't be happy in their shade.

There is trouble in the Forest
And the creatures all have fled
As the Maples scream "Oppression!"
And the Oaks just shake their heads.

So the Maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights
"The Oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light!"

Now there's no more Oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By Hatchet, Axe, and Saw.

Tori Amos - Winter, China
They Might Be Giants - Birdhouse In Your Soul, Particle Man, Cowtown, Lazyhead and Sleepybones, and many many more
Simon and Garfunkel - Sounds of Silence, The Boxer, Bridge Over Troubled Water

Also, the song that I'm currently captivated with...

This Side of the Blue - Joanna Newsom

Svetlana sucks lemons across from me,
and I am progressing abominably.
And I do not know my own way to the sea
but the saltiest sea knows its own way to me.

The city that turns, turns protracted and slow
and I find myself toeing th'embarcadero
and I find myself knowing the things that I knew
which is all that you can know on this side of the blue

And Jaime has eyes black and shiny as boots
and they march at you, two-by-two (re - loo - re - loo);
when she looks at you, you know she's nowhere near through:
it's the hardest heart beating this side of the blue.

And the signifieds butt heads with the signifiers,
and we all fall down slack-jawed to marvel at words!
While across the sky sheet the impossible birds,
in a steady, illiterate movement homewards.

And Gabriel stands beneath forest and moon.
See them rattle & boo, see them shake, see them loom.
See him fashion a cap from a page of Camus;
see him navigate deftly this side of the blue.

And the rest of our lives will the moments accrue
when the shape of their goneness will flare up anew.
Then we do what we have to do (re - loo - re -loo),
which is all you can do on this side of the blue.

Her whole album is packed with poetic lyrics actually.

Thanks for all these ideas. I can't believe I forgot about Tori Amos and I'll look through my Cure and TMBGs for a good song.

Some of you named three of my favorite Leonard Cohen songs but they're tough for a 6th grade class (11 year olds), I could probably do them in high school. Bird on a Wire isn't bad but it talks about a stillborn baby which is wonderful use of 'imagery' but I would expect some phone calls for that. Suzanne is my favorite song but they sleep together in it and Sisters of Mercy are hookers, right? I know the term can also mean nuns but the lyrics don't seem to support that use of the term.

Those are all three songs that I've played in the classroom before but I have to be much more up-tight about what the songs are when the students are breaking down the meaning of each line.

Thanks for all these ideas, I'm hoping to use a lot of them!

"Across the Universe" - The Beatles
"Pure" - the Lightning Seeds
"Streets of Philadelphia - Bruce Springsteen
I was thinking of "The Boxer" but the line about the whores on 7th Avenue might not be appropriate for 6th graders.

Some Beck lyrics would be good for the priceless looks on the kids' faces. :)

'Saturn' and 'As' by Stevie Wonder might work...?