Singing to one’s heart

Comparing lyrics of a song and a poem is more like comparing a red rose and a white rose. Rose is a rose with all of its spectacular characteristics, but still differs by its colours. Comparative research on lyrics and poem are vastly done and often carried out in relation to the relevant social context.

Lyric, in ancient Greece, a poem accompanied by a musical instrument, usually a lyre. Although the word is still often used to refer to the songlike quality in poetry, it is more generally used to refer to any short poem that expresses a personal emotion, be it a sonnet, ode, song, or elegy.

Lyrics may be composed in almost any metre and on almost every subject, although the most usual emotions presented are those of love and grief. Lyrics are a kind of poetry, generally short, characterized by a musical use of language. Lyric poetry often involves the expression of intense personal emotion. 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.

On the other hand, poetry is an imaginative awareness of experience expressed through meaning, sound, and rhythmic language choices so as to evoke an emotional response. Poetry has been known to employ meter and rhyme, but this is by no means necessary. Poetry is an ancient form that has gone through numerous and drastic reinvention over time. The very nature of poetry as an authentic and individual mode of expression makes it nearly impossible to define. There are as many definitions of poetry as there are poets. Wordsworth defined poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings;” Emily Dickinson said, “If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry;”

Poetry is the chiselled marble of language; it’s a paint-spattered canvas - but the poet uses words instead of paint, and the canvas is the society. One of the most definable characteristics of the poetic form is economy of language. Poets are miserly and unrelentingly critical in the way they dole out words to a page. Carefully selecting words for conciseness and clarity is standard, even for writers of prose, but poets go well beyond this, considering a word’s emotive qualities, its musical value, its spacing, and even its special relationship to the page. The poet, through innovation in both word choice and form, seemingly rends significance from thin air.

In Sri Lankan literary canon, lyrics and poetry are considered as entirely different modes of literature. Writers like Rathna Sri Wijesinghe seem to have conquered the two domains. In a country like Sri Lanka, there is a great social responsibility before lyrics writers other than poets. Nowadays people seem flock before media to watch and listen to music, and media institutions seem step into a competition in providing musical programmes to their viewers. There is no doubt that lyrics of a song should be simple and easily perceptible, but that does not mean that it should be entirely meaningless.

Referring to the history of freedom struggles and political insurgencies, there can be seen an enthusiastic contribution of lyricist in them. Professor Sunil Ariyaratne, turned a new page in Sinhala lyrics literature by introducing alternative lyrics genre in his joint venture with Nanda Malini in Pavana. Whether the ultimate result of the struggle was a success or a failure, the musical venture was a success. Even after two decades still Pavana songs linger in people’s minds. Especially a song like Wahinnata haki nam gigum dii’ (If I could be a storm that would moisten dry lands) is a timeless piece, though it was originally written on the alternative purpose.

Whether the listener is literate or not, lyrics of a song reach the mind of the listener. And after all, it goes along with an attractive perk, the melody. It is an obvious stimulation in brainstorming our lethargic society.

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