Song Lyrics Appearing First as Poems

[Jonathan Lighter]

"The Star Spangled Banner"?

JL

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 7:15 AM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Song Lyrics Appearing First as Poems
>
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> I hope I will be forgiven exploiting the general knowledgeability of people
> on this list with a query that has virtually no relevance to linguistics.  I
> recently read that the lyrics of Leonard Cohen's 1967 song "Suzanne"
> appeared earlier as a poem in a 1966 book of his.  Are there other examples
> of well-known song lyrics that appeared earlier as poems?  I am not talking
> about well-known poems that were also made into songs, but rather about
> texts that are usually thought of as songs but were actually first poems.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
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