You are correct that I haven't heard of the songwriters on your lesser known list, but I'll enjoy checking their songs out.

My girlfriend and I went and saw cats many, many years ago in Toronto.

My reaction was kind of, "Away, you starvelling, you elf-skin, you dried neat's-tongue, bull's-pizzle, you stock-fish!"

Ok, not really, but also not really for me. I liked your pun.

High diction hey ? That's a first :D.

Your reply that song lyrics fall short of ordinary language ,,, is a tough read . Honestly is a bit baffling and certainly went right over my head , considering prose is the use of ordinary language :confused:

So no, you are not getting me correctly. I said nothing about putting "prose to music". Let me see if can use less high diction and be more clear

What I said (Or perhaps , what I was trying to say was)
Achieving "Prosody"........ not "Prose" (two very different things ) that evokes the intended emotion and actually works in context , involves twice the complexity in songwriting, as it does in poetry, simply because it involves twice the elements, language and music, as opposed to just language (note I said language not "prose" ) Simple math, 1 is 50% less than 2. .....Hope that is more clear

cut to 3030, when the world has decided that Milli-Vanilli are the greatest literary genius' of all time - who saw that coming, but girl you know it's true!

Does longevity equate to quality? Often, but not always.

Clearly, I find deeper meaning and higher talent in prose and novels than I do in songs, but I'm not so sure it's all as subjective as you imply. There is definitely a consensus here that my thoughts about this are misguided, although I'm not convinced I'm getting them across as clearly as I'd wished.

What I meant by "there isn't much there" is that a song is often pretty short. Remove the repetition and it can be a couple of verses and a chorus.

As Mycroft pointed out, some short works of poetry are very skillfully crafted, and so to use the length as a measure of quality maybe isn't the best.

I guess when I wrote that was thinking the work that went into Mr. Tambourine Man wasn't that much work. But it really isn't the length, it's the quality, although writing King Lear would take a lot of time. So perhaps we should compare Mr. Tambourine Man to Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening or something like that.

True, the greats make it look easy. But also applies to poets and novelists.

Yes, obviously my joke there with a wink didn't come across. Google tells me it was, in fact, award posthumously once, but sadly, not to Shakespeare. And it was in the same year the author died, so a bit of a technicality.

Hi Lj,

But then we both need to read all of Shakespeare and all of Dylan to compare. I haven't read all of either.

I don't think I ever brought up popularity as a criteria. Dylan is profound and relevant.

Finally, my problem is with ranking Dylan up with Shakespeare, which isn't done by me. I don't have an issue with the time gap, since I'm just giving my opinion on the two, as those who rank him so highly have also done.

Prose was the wrong choice of words. I thought it meant unrhyming poetry, but I see it really just means words without metrical structure. That's not what I( meant.

Prosody (linguistics): In linguistics, prosody is concerned with those elements of speech that are not individual phonetic segments (vowels and consonants) but are properties of syllables and larger units of speech, including linguistic functions such as intonation, tone, stress, and rhythm.

Prosody (music): In music, prosody is the way the composer sets the text of a vocal composition in the assignment of syllables to notes in the melody to which the text is sung, or to set the music with regard to the ambiance of the lyrics.

But my reply still stands. It may be more complicated to write words to music, but if the words aren't nearly as good, I don't think the musical prosody make up for that.

Really, that's where we are here? I feel insulted.

I appreciate everyone working to help understand my point, but it's alright, I'm only bleeding.

I'm trying to remember what Holden Caulfield said on his way out of Percy Prep.

"Frankly, my dears, what we have here is a failure to communicate. Good night, ya morons! I'll be back!":D

OK , can only go on what you said.

Yes and as I said is complex element #1



Well and also "the intonation, tone, stress, and rhythm" in the music and the lyrics . But no it is not "or ",In a song it is and )not "or" .....and as I said= is complex element #2) twice the complexity.....


BTW I know what the basic definition of Prosody is, in poetry and song, and exactly why I used the term. And I'll add that in music/song yes its"ambience" and more,,, when done well it as I said, evokes an emotion in the listener that is a function of the context of both the music and lyrics. The poet does not play in that emotional field....... the poets emotional field is 1/2 that.

"but if the words aren't nearly as good," is a totally subjective opinion.
I have a different opinion, if the words of poem "aren't nearly as good" no amount of calling it "poetry" makes up for that, either ....


Really? You feel insulted because the endeavor songwriting involves two complex elements is twice as complex, as the endeavor poetry that involves only one ? . I guess I have nothing to say to that... Except "Car--ry,,on,,,, lo--ve is coming,,,,,,, ,lo--ve is com-ing to us all"

Blowin in the Wind is one of the greatest sentiments in the world. I guess you had to live then to understand it’s impact.

My point was not that “Longevity” determines quality. The primary reason Shakespeare’s (or whoever wrote those words attributed to Shakespeare) is still revered and relevant today, is that his works convey the human condition like no other works, consistently and artistically. Will the works we revere today, still hold that place with people of 2420? That is a significant measure of artistic worth, value or quality. Consider also that in his day, Shakespeare was playing to the his audience. He gave the what they wanted in the same way that’s Steven Spielberg does today. But again, as I mentioned before, it matters not unless what is cultural significant is what you gravitate to artistically. In other words if the music of Bob Dylan moves you today, then that is what matters. To put it perspective- when I was a youngster, the Beatles didn’t do much for me. Yet, most of the western world thought they were the greatest music ever. To me, that was The Who. And I still feel the same way. Yet, 400 years from now it is unlikely either will be still relevant. To that I say, so what!

Quite. It looked like you were making a quite different point. As if the wink was implying that those people at the Nobel prize considered Yeats and Dylan equivalent, but not Shakespeare; meaning they didn't think he was equivalent to - or as good as - them.
The "joke" (the reference to Shakespeare) doesn't make sense otherwise. It seems a few others misunderstood it as well... ;)