An interesting and mostly successful attempt to identify the poetry in rock lyrics of the Sixties. As in just about any selection, there are notable omissions (no Rolling Stones – what about 'Ruby Tuesday'? – or Jimi Hendrix – 'Castles Made of Sand'?), but a number of the chosen songs do look particularly fine when rendered on the page ('In My Life', 'Darling, Be Home Soon', 'Suzanne', 'White Rabbit' and 'The Sound of Silence' in particular).

It is a limited book: to my disappointment, author Richard Goldstein didn't try to show how pop lyricism is a continuation of the traditional poetic form – placing words and meaning into metre and rhythm. (Indeed, the earliest poets like Homer and Sappho composed in metre as the poems weren't written down; the song structure helped them to remember. Whilst this may not be immediately apparent in a modern culture that still sees poetry as something written by Wordsworth or Tennyson, it is worth remembering that conventional poetry and song lyrics share a common ancestor). Rather, Goldstein has a very Sixties view of pop culture (the book was written in 1969) and I can't help but feel he sees rock music as separate-but-equal from conventional poetry; its specialness defined by its newness and countercultural advocacy. This struck me as a rather limited approach; in fact, rock lyricism as poetry has outlasted and outgrown the Sixties counterculture, as shown by the lyric songs of the likes of Tom Waits and Nick Cave.

Nevertheless, Goldstein's advocacy of pop lyricism as poetry is well thought-out: he acknowledges that some songs don't translate well to verse, as there is a strong sense of "sound-as-content" in the form (pg. 4) – i.e. that rhythmic grunts or 'sha-la-las' might be integral to a song but look silly on the page. His argument is based around the strong notion that whilst "all rock lyrics are altered by versification... not all suffer castration as well." (pg. xi). He argues, rightly, that the "impressive awareness of language and a profound sense of rhythm" (pg. xii) evident in some pop lyrics validates them as an art form. Like any medium, rock music can produce both "art and drivel... The crucial factor is not the style [form], but those who choose to work in it." (pg. 6). The great Sixties artists were not conventional 'poets' but the likes of Dylan and Lennon/McCartney; in avoiding written poetry in favour of a electric guitar and a raucous backbeat, they were the latest inheritors of a lyric tradition that had evolved and endured for millennia. ( )

This was a textbook in one of my literature courses back in the seventies. Some interesting choices that might still interest people as poetry. ( )

Den innehåller mycket av det jag lyssnat på. ( )