Lyrics

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For the Wikipedia policies regarding the use of lyrics, see WP:LYRICS.

Lyrics in sheet music. This is a homorhythmic (i.e., hymn-style) arrangement of a traditional piece entitled "Adeste
Fideles", in standard two-staff format for mixed voices.

Play (helpinfo)

Lyrics are words that make up a song usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is
a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a
"libretto" and their writer, as a "librettist". The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics
are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter,
and symmetry of expression.
Contents
[hide]

Etymology[edit]

1 Etymology

2 Poems as lyrics

3 Shifter

4 Copyright and royalties

5 Academic study

6 Search engines
o

6.1 Riskiest search

6.2 Lyrics in Google search results

7 See also

8 References

9 External links

A lyrist on the Standard of Ur, c.2500 BC.

"Lyric" derives via Latin lyricus from the Greek (lyriks),[1] the adjectival form of lyre.[2] It first
appeared in English in the mid-16th century in reference, to the Earl of Surrey's translations of Petrarch and to
his own sonnets.[3] Greek lyric poetry had been defined by the manner in which it was sung accompanied by
the lyre or cithara,[4] as opposed to the chanted formal epics or the more passionate elegies accompanied by
the flute. The personal nature of many of the verses of the Nine Lyric Poets led to the present sense of "lyric
poetry" but the original Greek sensewords set to musiceventually led to its use as "lyrics", first attested
in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms.[5] Stainer and Barrett used the word as a singular
substantive: "Lyric, poetry or blank verse intended to be set to music and sung". By the 1930s, the present use
of the plurale tantum "lyrics" had begun; it has been standard since the 1950s.[1] The singular form "lyric" still
appears; its present use, however, is to refer to a specific phrase within a song's lyrics.

Poems as lyrics[edit]
This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup
reason has been specified. Please help improve this section if you can. (November 2010)
This section possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims
made and addinginline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be
removed. (March 2008)
The differences between poem and song may become less meaningful where verse is set to music, to the point
that any distinction becomes untenable. This is perhaps recognised in the way popular songs have lyrics.
However, the verse may pre-date its tune (in the way that "Rule Britannia" was set to music, and "And did
those feet in ancient time" has become the hymn "Jerusalem"), or the tune may be lost over time but the words
survive, matched by a number of different tunes (this is particularly common with hymns and ballads).
Possible classifications proliferate (under anthem, ballad, blues, carol, folk
song, hymn, libretto, lied, lullaby, march, praise song, round, spiritual). Nursery rhymes may be songs,
or doggerel: the term doesn't imply a distinction. The ghazal is a sung form that is considered primarily poetic.
See also rapping, roots of hip hop music.
Analogously, verse drama might normally be judged (at its best) as poetry, but not consisting of poems
(see dramatic verse).
In Baroque music, melodies and their lyrics where prose. Rather than paired lines they consist of rhetorical
sentences or paragraphs consisting of an opening gesture, an amplification (often featuring sequence), and a
close (featuring a cadence); in German Vordersatz-Fortspinnung-Epilog.[6] For example:

When I was a child,

[opening gesture]

I spake as a child,

[amplification...]

I understood as a child,

[...]

I thought as a child;

[...]

But when I became a man, I put away childish things. [close]

-1 Corinthians 13:11

Shifter[edit]
In the lyrics of popular music a "shifter"[7] is a word, often a pronoun, "where reference varies according to who
is speaking, when and where",[8] such as "I", "you", "my", "our". For example, who is the "my" of "My
Generation"?

Copyright and royalties[edit]

See Royalties
Currently, there are many websites featuring song lyrics. This offering,
however, is controversial, since some sites include copyrighted lyrics
offered without the holder's permission. The U.S. Music Publishers'
Association (MPA), which represents sheet music companies, launched a
legal campaign against such websites in December 2005, the MPA's
president, Lauren Keiser, said the free lyrics web sites are "completely
illegal" and wanted some website operators jailed.[9]
Lyrics licenses could be obtained in North America through one of the two
aggregators; Gracenote Inc. and LyricFind. The first company to provide
licensed lyrics was Yahoo!, quickly followed
by MetroLyrics and Lyrics.com. More and more lyric websites are
beginning to provide licensed lyrics, such
as SongMeanings and LyricWiki.[10]
Many competing lyrics web sites are still offering unlicensed content,
causing challenges around the legality and accuracy of lyrics.[11] In the
latest attempt to crack down unlicensed lyrics web sites a federal court has
ordered LiveUniverse, a network of websites run by MySpace co-founder
Brad Greenspan, to cease operating four sites offering unlicensed song
lyrics.[12]

Academic study[edit]
Lyrics can be studied from an academic perspective. For example, some
lyrics can be considered a form of social commentary. Lyrics often contain
political, social, and economic themesas well as aesthetic elementsand
so can communicate culturally significant messages. These messages can
be explicit, or implied through metaphor or symbolism. Lyrics can also be
analyzed with respect to the sense of unity (or lack of unity) it has with its
supporting music. Analysis based on tonality and contrast are particular
examples. Former Oxford Professor of Poetry Christopher Ricks famously
published Dylan's Visions of Sin, an in-depth and characteristically
Ricksian analysis of the lyrics of Bob Dylan; Ricks gives the caveat that to

have studied the poetry of the lyrics in tandem with the music would have
made for a much more complicated critical feat.

Search engines[edit]
Riskiest search[edit]
A 2009 report published by McAfee found that lyrics-related searches and
searches containing the word "free" are the most likely to have risky
results from search engines, both in terms of average risk of all results, and
maximum risk of any result.[13]

Lyrics in Google search results[edit]

Beginning in late 2014, Google changed its search results pages to include
song lyrics. When users search for a name of a song, Google can now
display the lyrics directly in the search results page.[14]

See also[edit]
Poetry portal

Lyricist, a writer of lyrics

Libretto, the "little book" of an extended musical piece, written by a

librettist

"singing in the Spirit", vocal improvisation in a spiritual context

scat singing & vocalese, vocal improvisation in jazz

bol, kouji, beatbox, forms of vocal mimicry or percussion

References[edit]
1.

^ Jump up to:a b Oxford English Dictionary 1st ed. lyric, adj. and n."
1903. Accessed 15 Jan 2014.

2.

Jump up^ Liddell, Henry & al. A GreekEnglish Lexicon 9th ed.,
"". Clarendon Press(Oxford), 1996. Hosted at the Perseus
Project. Accessed 15 Jan 2014.

3.

Jump up^ Sidney, Philip. An Apologie for Poetrie op. cit. OED (1903).

4.

Jump up^ Miller, Andrew. Greek Lyric: An Anthology in

Translation, pp. xii ff. Hackett Publishing (Indianapolis), 1996. ISBN
978-0872202917.

5.

Jump up^ Stainer, John & al. A Dictionary of Musical Terms, p. 276.
(London), 1876.

6.

Jump up^ Kelly, Thomas Forest (2011). Early Music: A Very Short
Introduction, p.53. ISBN 978-0-19-973076-6.

7.

Jump up^ Durant (1984). Cited in Middleton, Richard

(1990/2002). Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University
Press. ISBN 0-335-15275-9.

8.

Jump up^ Middleton (1990), p.167.

9.

Jump up^ "Song sites face legal crackdown". BBC News. 12 December
2005. Retrieved7 January 2007.

10. Jump up^ "Advertising on SongMeanings". SongMeanings.

Retrieved 21 July 2012. All of our lyrics are legally licensed through
LyricFind.
11. Jump up^ Plambeck, Joseph (May 9, 2010). "Lyrics Sites at Center of
Fight Over Royalties". The New York Times. Retrieved May 9, 2010.
12. Jump up^ "Court Orders LiveUniverse to Shutter Unlicensed Lyrics
Sites". Digital Media Wire. August 11, 2010. Retrieved September
5, 2010.
13. Jump up^ Keats, Shane; Koshy, Eipe (2009). "The Web's Most
Dangerous Search Terms" (PDF).McAfee. Retrieved 21 July 2012.
14. Jump up^ Jose, Pagliery (23 December 2014). "Google now displays
song lyrics in search results". CNN.com. Retrieved 23 December 2014.

External links[edit]
Look up lyrics or lyric in
Wiktionary, the free
dictionary.
[show]

Music

Categories:
Poetry

Lyrics

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