I just finished reading a book that was recommended to me (what book really doesn’t matter). In the book, there are a number of songs (written as text, without music). And the only thing that I could think when each one came along was, “not another stupid song!”
Now don’t get me wrong; I like music. In fact, it’s fair to say that I love music. But when a song comes along in a book, it’s not a song - it’s just lyrics. I know that lyrics are a form of poetry, but they are poetry written for music and do not, with rare exception, fare well without it.
Now there may be a few people out there who read my inaugural post (which was a song parody) who are saying ,“Linus, you fool! How can you say that you don’t like songs in that form, considering the nature of your fisrt post?”
“But”, I say, “in the case of a song parody, the lyrics have been written for a well known piece of music, so that when you read the lyrics, you can ‘hear’ the music in your head. Therefore, the lyrics are no longer just poetry (ranging from passable to very good), they become part of the music.”
So this is what I want to know: am I the only one who feels this way? Or are there others who wish that writers of novels (especially fantasy) would stick to prose (or poetry if they so chose) and save the songs for when we can hear the music, if only in our heads?
Lord of the Rings is full of songs like this - I skip past them every time… maybe someone should produce a version without songs… without the appendix, too (about 1/5 of the book) then I would be able to carry it about without a team of Sherpas
I agree with ShadowWarrior. I had tried to read the LoTRs for many, many years, but kept bogging down. Finally, I realized all I had to do was skip al the incredibly inane songs. Finished the trilogy in 3 days.
To me, a song is more than just the lyrics. It’s the music, the singer(s), and the musicians. Coming across a song in a book is the same to me as walking into a wall.
I’m one of the weirdos who, if faced with a song printed in poem form and don’t know music for it, will make up my own music. What’s up with that? Who knows!
I seem to remember Tom Wolfe making a painful attempt at rap lyrics in “A Man in Full”. The idea was to portray hard street thugs freestyling in prison. It came across as an old white guy trying to be hip. The book would have survived without the lyrics. “And then they began rapping” would have been just fine.
Kinda like in an 80’s sitcom. Old guy in a suit chanting, “My name is ______ and I’m here to say…”
The most unintentionally funny thing I’ve ever read in a book was in Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend, by James Rober Walker of Bridges of Madison County fame.
Our Hero, riding his motorcycle, happens to pull up next to the Dean and the Dean’s Wife (I can’t remember of Our Hero was schtupping the Dean’s Wife at that point or not . . . but anyway) and his radio was blasting . . .
Yup, that’s right, we know Our Hero is a badass because he listens to Neil Diamond.
Okay, yeah, anyway . . . I don’t mind songs in books in general. Like crazy4chaucer, I usually make up a melody in my head. I get annoyed when it’s a real song and I don’t remember what it sounds like, so if I make up a melody, I know I’ll be wrong, so I feel compelled to find it somewhere. Same goes for classical music. If a book says that a character is listening to Vivaldi’s Concerto in F for recorder and strings, I go nuts until I hunt it down and listen to it. But, well, then I get to listen to and maybe appreciate a piece of music that I wouldn’t normally.
Roald Dahl included songs in his children’s books, like James and the Giant Peach. I didn’t mind having them in there, but when I read it aloud to my sister or the dog I never sang them, I read them in sort of a singsong-ish way because of the ABAB rhyme scheme.
I second MachV on the painfulness of the Tom Wolfe rap.
I do think, however, the lyrics Carl Hiaasen makes up for “Shipwrecked Heart” in Basket Case are kind of cool.
I’ve tried that and I wish that I, like you and Podkayne, could do it. The problem is, I’m not much of a composer and the only thing worse than bad poetry is bad poetry set to bad music. Yes, some lyrics are good, even excellen poetry, but, as I stated in the OP, most do not stand well on their own. But I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who has had to skim past the songs in books such as Lord of the Rings. I always felt like such a philistine, but then I realized that that there’s no shame in being irritated by the inclusion of music that isn’t music.
