the.com/lyric
the line you'll mishear for decades, then defend like it was scripture.
means The words of a song, or short personal poetry that sings with feeling rather than telling a long story.
from From Greek 'lyrikos,' meaning 'singing to the lyre' — the lyre being that small handheld harp the ancient Greeks plucked while reciting verse. So 'lyric' literally carried the sound of strings: poetry meant to be sung, not declaimed. The word strolled through Latin 'lyricus' and French 'lyrique' before settling into English, where it eventually shed the harp and came to mean the words themselves.
- origin
- Named for the lyre, sung not spoken
- mishearing
- Called a mondegreen, named from a misheard ballad
- shortest hit
- Some chart songs repeat under ten words
- legal weight
- Lyrics now cited as evidence in courtrooms
- memory glue
- Brains store melody and words as one packet
bohemian rhapsody — queen's 1975 hit with no chorus, just narrative verses that made radio stations nervous about its 5:55 length
like a rolling stone — bob dylan's 1965 song with 16 verses of cutting social commentary, famously booed when played electric at newport
lose yourself — eminem's 2002 oscar-winning song from 8 mile with internal rhyme schemes so complex they defined modern hip-hop bars