And that's the fundamental difference between song and poetry. Songs have rhythm in a way that good poetry often doesn't.Song rhythm tends to be dictated by melody. Good poetry often works well by disrupting an expected rhythm in a way that would in a song be completely unmusical (Shakespeare's "iambic" pentameters would be a good example).Song as a form depends on the interplay of words and music - on their own, song lyrics and melodies tend to be rather simple forms of verse and music, but put together good songs are more than the sum of their parts.Beeswing is a good example - the lyrics are (on their own and read as poetry) run-of-the-mill, but when performed as a song as originally intended, Richard Thompson's delivery and guitar accompaniment give the words completely new resonance.What's then really interesting is to compare Richard Thompson's perfomeance of his song (eg on Mirror Blue) with Christy Moore's (on Burning Times) - which is smoother musically and as a result, merely run-of-the-mill.Richard Thompson is possibly my favourite song-writer - but I've never thought of his lyrics as "poetry". "Song" and "poetry" are really two different forms.
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Topic: poetry