Song title poetry challenge September

Sad song suffering

Sep 05, 2024

For September’s song title poetry I want you to sing along the tunes that are so depressing that you either cry or turn off the radio when they come on because they connect you to a sad event or because they’re so well written they break your heart.

Make a collection of song titles expressing pain best, according to you. Then arrange them in a way that you get a poem out of using the song titles only. You can repeat a song title as much as you want. After you’ve arranged them into a poem, if you want include a link and list the artists behind the songs.

If you want to do songs in another language you can. May I suggest you also put the artists’ names in your comments at the end so it’s clear who the songs belong to.

We dedicate the first Friday of the month to a themed song title poetry. We covered a lot of artists and genres in May and we also left out certain types of music. Those posts and poems are available to read and comment on as they aren’t paywalled.

Post your song title poem in the comments below and share it on notes and maybe even do your own post about it. Up to you! And do post the link in comments if you do post on your site. Always, keep a copy for your own record.

During NaPoWriMo one of the prompts made me write a tribute to The Cardigans, fronted by the lovely Nina Persson. I took some of their song titles, rearranged them into a poem and so my first song title poem was born. I started with a song I could remember first and continued building the poem by adding titles that fitted in the story I wanted to tell. You can read that poem and some of the comments here on my publication. The song title poetry evolved to something more than random titles thrown together. In May a group of us wrote a poem designated to a letter a day until the whole alphabet was over.

My understanding is titles are not copyright issue. As the lines of song title poetry are all quotes from titles and as song titles they are not copyright material we are ok. I would ask that you in your posts, comments Notes etc make clear that the work is based on song titles and whose they are. We’re not adding any words of our own, I know some of you are… but you know - I’m not judging! Be very very clear to what part is yours and what part is the song title, use “quotation” marks to be on the safe side if you mix words which are yours in. Ideally, try to leave your words out and see what you come up with.

Don’t change the titles in anyway and don’t talk badly about the band/song if you wish to stay out of trouble.

Be obscure, be pop, be punk, be random. Let us know which songs we should sing walking down the streets of your town or village.

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