More Than a Performance: Song Lyrics and the Practices of Songwriting

This chapter has emerged from a series of conversations about song lyrics, and our sense of frustration that the scholarly literature on lyrics tends to neglect the work of songwriters and the practices of songwriting. The most sustained critical engagement with debates about song words can be found in the writings of Simon Frith, initially through a series of essays and then in Performing Rites (1996). Frith’s approach was and is insightful and influential. A critical engagement with his writings has inspired the route we have taken in this chapter, as we move from debates about lyrics as read and as expressed by the singing voice towards the circumstances and practices through which lyrics are produced.