Ron Butlin: What is life without a song in your heart?

SEVERAL lifetimes ago I used to be a song lyricist. Well before computers I'd be scribbling words on the back of an envelope to hand over to my friend, Reg, whose day job was on the buses.

Back home in his bedsit, he'd hammer out a tune, chorus and the regulation middle 8, recording the entire song on his four-track tape recorder. Then it was over to me to knock on doors up and down Denmark Street (where the London music publishers had their offices) trying to get someone, anyone at all, to listen to our efforts.

Getting past reception (there was no security in those days) was the hardest part - we were no-record nobodies. The nearest I got to The Beatles was going up in a lift once with Paul McCartney. He didn't speak to me.

Our band made three terrible records, including the appallingly entitled My Love is like a Solid Gold Mountain. No wonder we bombed big time - the lyrics stank. Reg stayed on the buses and the rest of us ignored the Stones' advice and faded away ASAP.

However, I had been bitten by the word bug and kept on writing song lyrics that nobody ever sang.

So what makes a good lyric? Most people hum or even sing to themselves every day - walking down the street, at work, in the shower. It's as natural as feeling good or feeling bad, and whatever your mood, there'll be a song that'll say it all for you. Not only that, there's a timelessness to its straight-from-the-heart words that moves us, even when expressing the most commonplace feelings or telling a story we've all heard a thousand times before.

Just a couple of days ago, for example, when walking along Causewayside, I saw a guy ahead of me who looked a bit p****d off with life. Eyes down, shoulders hunched and plodding along the pavement, he was clearly going through a moment of inner distress. Half mumbling and half snarling to himself, he kicked a small stone every few steps in front of him as though to keep time with his low-volume rant. This man was seriously miserable. Gradually, I began to make out what he was saying. Only, he wasn't so much saying as singing:

"Since my baby left me, I've found a new place to dwell - it's down at the end of Lonely Street . . ."

I soon found myself joining in with his version of Heartbreak Hotel (not out loud, of course, this was almost Newington after all). By the time he disappeared into the Meadows, his pace had quickened and his voice had taken on a vibrancy and loudness that was unexpectedly bracing. Soon, his Elvis swagger could be seen striding past the empty tennis courts, belting out the depths of human misery grand style! At ever-increasing volume, he shared his lowness of spirits with the world and, I'm quite sure, the sundry dog-walkers and strollers, were also drawn in as a soundless chorus. Even if only for a few seconds, we shared, we were united.

And that, surely, is the unique power of song lyrics - a few hackneyed words expressing straightforward emotions, and set to a three-chord tune with an easy-to-follow chorus. Something accessible to us all and expressing, more or less, our current mood - a protest song, lovelorn, even the cry of greed from The Spice Girls, who said it loud and clear for Thatcher's Children: "I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want."

Sometimes a lyric achieves the refreshing anarchy of genuine nonsense - Jumping Jack Flash is a gas, gas gas - and then they take on the universality of nursery rhymes. No mean feat that. Though there are plenty of exceptions - from Kate Bush to Bjork, Chuck Berry to some of the better rappers - in general, the banality of song lyrics is their strength.

Heartbreak Hotel is hardly profound poetry, but it certainly hits the spot - and that's what matters. Forget the pseudo-serious critics who keep trying to claim that pop lyrics should be judged as poetry. These well-meaning souls are simply missing the point.

Okay, some lyrics actually do read, and indeed sound like, real poems - Bob Dylan, after all, took more than just his stage name from Dylan Thomas, the poet and writer he most admired - but, really, who cares?

Song lyrics express all the transience and depth of the passing moment better than any ode or sonnet. At best, they are a shared experience allowing us to share a fleeting identity, emotion, attitude as we sway/dance/join in the chorus. And, in the ever-accelerating clutter of our modern world, that's surely enough to be going on with.

Every now and again, let's have something we can all sing.

Ron Butlin is Edinburgh's Makar. or poet laureate.

THE WORD ON THE STREET

LET'S Get Lyrical is a month-long celebration of song lyrics.

Throughout this month, the UK's finest writers, musicians and songwriters are sharing their favourite lyrics and the story of why the words in the songs mean so much to them on www.letsgetlyrical.com

There are more than 80 events in Edinburgh and Glasgow, including live music, workshops, songwriting, storytelling, poetry, debates and film.

Residents are also being asked to share the lyrics they love on cards and bookmarks being distributed in arts centres, libraries, cafes and schools.

It is the fifth reading campaign created and run by Edinburgh Unesco City of Literature, in partnership with Glasgow Unesco City of Music.

Organisers picked song lyrics because they believe they are the "most universal form of the written word".

Author Ian Rankin is a campaign ambassador.