Songwriting vs. Poetry

The Guardian has a story, Meet the Bands with Poetry on the Brain, discussing the recent spate of literate poetry-minded rock bands, including Vampire Weekend, The Mountain Goats, and, pictured above, the Fleet Foxes.

From the story...

The Hold Steady's Craig Finn is not shy about stating his literary intentions. 'I consider myself a writer as well as a songwriter,' he says. 'The further we get on from the birth of rock'n'roll, the more people who have ambitions to be a writer feel that rock'n'roll is a worthy art form to express themselves in.

'I find playing songs and having people sing them back to you gratifying in a way that say poetry readings aren't,' he goes on. 'There, it's just 15 people being quiet and getting ready to read their own work. There's no sense of community and it doesn't seem as exciting as going out and trying to share your ideas with real people in front of you.'

Silver Jews' David Berman agrees: 'Over time, I've started to consider myself more a songwriter than a poet. Poetry is traditionally privileged as being a higher art [but] for me, there's more exciting work to be done today in song lyrics. Songs are an interesting place to try out different things that aren't being done in other parts of culture. In music, you can still work with sentiment, you can still make a song a slogan.'