songs are usually composed for voice and piano and sung

by professional or trained voices.

Art song is not like popular song. Words to popular songs
or musical theater songs are properly called “lyrics” and
are the products of a collaborative process between a
lyricist and a composer working as a team. The song is
usually created with a specific subject or an existing story
upon which both words and music are based. Some
examples of collaborative teams that created popular songs
—now considered “classics” in the field—are Richard
Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers and Oscar
Hammerstein II, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern
and Oscar Hammerstein II plus other lyricists, and
numerous others. Some composers write their own lyrics;
among them are Stephen Sondheim, Cole Porter, Irving
Berlin, and Frank Loesser. Many of these songs belonged to
musical scores of musical productions which have long
since disappeared from performance, but the quality of the
lyrics and melody have kept the songs alive.
Distinguished art song composer Ned Rorem
differentiates poetry from lyrics this way: “Poetry is self-
contained, while lyrics are made to be sung, and don’t
necessarily lead a life of their own. The best lyricists are
collaborative craftsmen.”3
Irving Berlin, considered one of the greatest American
popular songwriters in history, had this to say when asked
when asked whether he ever studied lyrical writing: I never
have, because if I don’t know them, I do not have to
observe any rules and can do as I like, which is much better
for me than if I allowed myself to be governed by the rules
of versification. In following my own method I can make my
jingles fit my music or vice versa with no qualms as to their
correctness. Usually I compose my tunes and then fit words
to them, though sometimes it’s the other way about. 4
Notice that Berlin uses the word “jingles” for the words
he writes. In later years he still emphasized his ignorance