Bob Dylan was awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature a few years ago. I’m happy for him. It was about time they gave it to a songwriter. But it’s Tom Waits who would have got my vote, or Bruce Springsteen, or Gil Scott-Heron, or Joni Mitchell. When I say that, I’m thinking like a copyeditor who has an opinion on what strong writing is and should do. My point is that all the qualities that make for strong writing are easiest to notice in the strongest song lyrics.
I’m not suggesting that prose should rhyme or that it should take on a steady meter. I’m saying that the qualities of the best song lyrics are a distillation of the qualities of strong prose: sound, cadence, forward propulsion, all harnessed to a purpose. Every piece of writing is a story. With fiction, it’s an actual story. With history, as the word itself suggests, there is always something that happens next. With every other piece of strong writing, there is always a through-line, and a copyeditor should be on the lookout for it, and provide one if he can’t find one. Anyway, here are two samples of what I mean:
Well, I got a job and I put my money away
But I got the kind of debts that no honest man can pay
So I drew out what I had from the Central Trust
And I bought us two tickets on that Coast City bus
Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact
But maybe everything that dies some day comes back
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic City
Here’s another:
but you can’t take your eyes off her
get another cup of java
and it’s just the way she pours it for you
jokin’ with the customers
and it’s mercy mercy Mr. Percy
there ain’t nothin’ back in Jersey
but a broken down jalopy of a
man I left behind
and a dream that I was chasin
and a battle with the booze
and an open invitation to the blues