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Songwriting: Lyrics as Literature - ENG00102H

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  • Department: English and Related Literature
  • Module co-ordinator: Dr. J T Welsch
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: H
  • Academic year of delivery: 2023-24

Module summary

This module treats lyrics as literature. We’ll consider a range of lyricists and musical texts – from Childish Gambino to Taylor Swift, Hamilton to Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan to Disney classics – examining the formal and narrative techniques that modern genres have inherited from classical lieder, vaudeville, musical theatre, and various folk traditions. We’ll reflect on the overlapping histories of songwriting and other literary modes, considering broader notions of ‘lyrical’ writing, and artists who also write poetry and fiction, such as Leonard Cohen, Kae Tempest, and Gil Scott-Heron. Applying literary criticism to the analysis of song lyrics and the writing of your own, we’ll see how the use of rhyme, prosody, voice, address, time, and story in musical contexts might inform our wider critical and creative practice. More generally, we’ll see how these textual features link to the dynamics of contemporary culture and identity at play in popular music.

This is a practice-based writing module, and engagement with weekly playlists and assigned albums will feed directly into the writing and workshopping of your own lyrics. The syllabus highlights specific points of songcraft, such as the development of metaphorical conceits, song structure, or the role of performance and persona. The one-hour session will focus on listening and discussion, followed by a two-hour workshop for peer feedback on weekly exercises. Assessment combines an EP-length set of original lyrics (typically 5-6 songs) with a 2000-word critical essay on a topic in contemporary songwriting.

There is no requirement of musical knowledge or previous creative writing experience, and no expectation that anything written for this class will be performed, either for feedback or assessment. Whether you’re a music lover or an aspiring writer in any form, this module offers a deeper appreciation for the ‘literary’ features of song lyrics. We’ll achieve this through careful reading and listening, and by experimenting with your own new work.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 2 2023-24

Module aims

This module aims to:

  • provide a critical understanding of the formal and genre-related demands of contemporary lyric and songwriting;
  • explore a range of approaches to contemporary lyric writing;
  • support your production of original creative work in response to examples.

Module learning outcomes

On successful completion of the module, you should be able to:

  1. Demonstrate an advanced understanding of and engagement with the analysis of contemporary lyrics and songs.
  2. Demonstrate an advanced understanding of and engagement with techniques and approaches in contemporary lyric writing.
  3. Evaluate key debates within the relevant critical fields dealing with popular music, song and lyric writing.
  4. Produce independent arguments and ideas which demonstrate an advanced proficiency in critical thinking, research, and writing skills.

Assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Essay		 N/A 100

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

You will be given the opportunity to submit a 1000-word formative essay for the module, which can feed into the 3000-word summative essay submitted at the end of the module.

Your essay will be annotated and returned to you by your tutor within two weeks.

You will submit your summative essay via the VLE during the revision and assessment weeks at the end of the teaching semester (weeks 13-15). Feedback on your summative essay will be uploaded to e:Vision to meet the University’s marking deadlines.

Reassessment

None

Module feedback

You will receive feedback on all assessed work within the University deadline, and will often receive it more quickly. The purpose of feedback is to inform your future work; it is designed to help you to improve your work, and the Department also offers you help in learning from your feedback. If you do not understand your feedback or want to talk about your ideas further you can discuss it with your tutor or your supervisor, during their Open Office Hours

For more information about the feedback you will receive for your work, see the department's Guide to Assessment

Indicative reading

Primary texts will be available online, through lyrics websites (or students’ own transcriptions). Albums and weekly playlists will be accessible through free Spotify accounts. A typical week’s playlist might include nineteenth-century art songs, folk and blues traditionals, Tin Pan Alley or Broadway standards, world music examples, canonical singer-songwriters, and lots of contemporary pop, rock, and hip-hop.

Critical sources are likely to include the following:

  • Pat Pattison, Writing Better Lyrics: The Essential Guide to Powerful Songwriting, 2nd ed. (Writers’ Digest, 2010).
  • Charlotte Pence (ed.), The Poetics of American Song Lyrics (University of Mississippi, 2012).
  • Katherine Williams and Justin A Williams (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Singer-Songwriter (Cambridge UP, 2016).
  • Glenn Fossbraey and Andrew Melrose, Writing Song Lyrics: Creative and Critical Approaches (Red Globe / Springer, 2019).
  • Allan F Moore, Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song (Ashgate, 2012).
  • Adam Bradley, The Poetry of Pop (Yale, 2017).
  • Imani Perry, Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop (Duke UP, 2004).
  • Paul Zollo, Songwriters on Songwriting, 4th edition (De Capo, 2003).
  • Bob Dylan, Chronicles: Volume One (Simon & Schuster, 2005).
  • Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics (Hodder & Stoughton, 2020).


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University is constantly exploring ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary by the University. Where appropriate, the University will notify and consult with affected students in advance about any changes that are required in line with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.