While catching up on newspaper reading, I ran across an article about movie soundtracks and how uneven they can be. The article’s author offered praise for some for adding atmosphere, while opining that the soundtrack took away from other movies.
But what about books? Do song lyrics offer atmosphere, or add to characterization?
In my opinion, song lyrics are more problematic than they’re worth, even when you observe copyright rules so you don’t have to pay a usage fee. Here’s why:
Let’s say you ask the reader to think about lyrics, sung to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat:
Now I have to think about that song’s tune.
I’ve stopped the story much to my reading rhythm’s ruin.
The reader has been taken out of the story, and for what?
An audience watching a movie doesn’t have to think about a background song. It just seems to happen. But forcing readers to recall a song, even one as familiar as Amazing Grace, stops their reading beat.
If your characters sing, perhaps, “After the hymn sing, Joseph and Miriam ventured to the ice cream parlor.”
I feel the same about mentioning books. I remember reading a story where the author noted a current Christian author and book by name. While a nice gesture, I didn’t think it added to the story and caused me to pause to think about another author. It also felt like product placement. I have a similar view of mentioning a classic. If a character is reading Bleak House, I’m thinking I should be spending time with classics. Maybe I should ditch the book in hand for a Dickens tome.
If your character is a reader, note, “Amanda shut her textbook/Bible/novel to focus on the task at hand.”
As you read my blog post, did my mentions of other works cause your mind to wander? If so, perhaps you see what I mean.
Your turn:
Do you like to see song lyrics in books?
What is the best use of lyrics you’ve seen in a book? The worst?
Do you like movie soundtracks?
Glad to Join the Fun
I have read that if a song was written before 1923, it is okay to use the lyrics. Is that true? In my manuscript, two characters sing “It Is Well With My Soul” by a gravestone. I also use song titles in dialogue but to me it is organic because the main characters are singers. Thanks Tamela for this information, I will consider revising.
US copyright law sets a limit of 90 years, assuming the copyright wasn’t renewed (which it very well may have been, especially on early 1900’s work). Different countries have different laws and expiration dates.
Carol,
Actually, the copyright law changed in 1978. So the renewal mechanism is no longer applicable.
For music lyrics here are the parameters:
Musical Works (meaning the lyrics) published with a valid Copyright Notice of 1922 or Earlier are in the public domain in the United States.
Essentially all SOUND Recordings are under copyright protection until 2067 in the United States.
Copyright protection outside the USA is determined by the laws of the country where you wish to use a work. Copyright protection may be 50 to 70 years after the death of the last surviving author, 95 years from publication date, or other copyright protection term.
If anyone wants to read a comprehensive article on whether song lyrics are under copyright please find this one at thelaw.com
https://www.thelaw.com/law/are-song-titles-lyrics-protected-by-copyright-or-trademark-law.317/
Many thanks for the updated info, Steve!
Question: if a copyright was renewed before the law change in 1978, say in 1975, when would that copyright expire?
That depends on a whole ridiculous host of variables. Pretty much have to figure it out on a case by case basis.
This site shows all the variations.
https://copyright.cornell.edu/publicdomain
And there is talk of changing the copyright law again due to the explosion of technological developments. (Like gaming for example. Or computer coding…who owns the rights to the code…or to its appearance in the non-code world?)
Plus there are certain large corporations that don’t want their iconic materials to fall into public domain. (Think Mickey Mouse which was created in 1928…which means the clock is ticking for it to become fair game for anyone to use.)
Since it has been 40 years since the copyright law was changed it is being discussed in the halls of congress.
They did create the DMCA in 1996 to help regulate the internet but there are calls to get that changed too.
https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/1/11344832/music-industry-copyright-law-change-christina-aguilera-katy-perry
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act
That 1922 date does not always hold. I’ve been doing a lot of research on old hymns and I’ve found some dated earlier that are copyrighted. I use CCLI to confirm it’s in the public domain.
Sometimes the lyrics are public domain, but the tune is copyrighted.
While I don’t find either lyrics or book titles distracting, they easily could be for my readers who live outside the US and Canada. Once a book is for sale digitally (trad pub as well as indie), you’ll probably have international readers. On the order of 10% of my sales are international now, and a person in Hungary or Nigeria may never have heard a song that’s well known in the US.
I must confess that I have referred to a specific book in my latest release. I did report that my heroine consulted scroll VII of Celsus, published during the reign of Tiberius Caesar, on battle wounds and scroll VIII on how to treat a broken skull when she was treating the ax wound to the male protagonist’s head. I have the English translation, so I consulted it, too, but I’m pretty sure that isn’t going to distract most readers into thinking they ought to be reading that book instead of mine. However, if you’d find the instructions for cataract surgery the way the Romans did it entertaining, you might want to read Aulus Cornelius Celsus sometime. It’s fascinating stuff, and I’m planning several articles for my Roman history website based on what Celsus teaches.
Carol, I do think you’ve chosen a book that’s not distracting! Thanks for the info.
I agree with you. I’ve been distracted while reading for the reasons you mentioned. That’s why when I wrote Early Birds, I was tentitive on using lyrics in it. I did use lyrics to On the Road Again by Willie Nelson in my novel (permission asked for and granted) and I’m SO glad I did. Yes it cost a chunk of change, but worth every bit. My novel is Christian comedy and I felt the song fit well and didn’t stop the movement of the story.
Sounds like a fun book, Janetta!
Tamela, I agree with you that song lyrics really interrupt my reading when enjoying a novel. If they are in the book, I end up unable to get the lyrics out of my mind……that can be a real pain in the ….neck. I enjoy having a soundtrack in a movie and have come to expect it (think Runaway Bride here, and all the popular songs that took up from one scene to another), but it is merely a distraction in a book.
Agreed, Sheri! I’ll admit that if I see a movie and hear a song in the background, I expect a soundtrack. Movie soundtracks can sometimes offer the best of the best in music.
I don’t find these kinds of mentions and references distracting, for the most part. Human beings are cultural creatures — we react and respond to the cultural influences of our time. Even Christians who “never” listen to secular music will know about things from the culture around us (unless they live under a rock). I will often stop reading to google a location or piece of artwork or some other reference that I don’t know about, and it doesn’t hurt my reading, but often enhances it. Maybe that’s just a different way of reading than we’re used to. I think a lot of the issue may be with how the author does it. If the references are constant and intrusive, yeah, that’s not good. But woven in tactfully cultural references can really add to a story.
Another issues is this: Are we as readers going to limit ourselves to reading about only those cultural experiences we are familiar with? I hope not! Reading can expand our horizons, can teach us about places and times and peoples we’re not familiar with. I love reading books set in other countries than the U.S., and I’m disappointed when they “Americanize” the local characters for fear of U.S. readers not understanding. Now, if you’re writing a YA novel and you have your teenager reference something that was huge when YOU were a teen, rather than something more current, that’s a problem. But in general, the wider the range of cultural references, the more we learn about our world.
Stacy, I agree it’s good to broaden your horizons through reading. As readers wanting to glorify and not to offend the Lord, we must discern which books to choose! That not only applies to negative influences, but to the quality of story and prose as well. Thanks for making an excellent point.
Perhaps i need to rein it in some because i do get specific in naming a story or book a character might be reading. most recently i named the musical piece my character played – banged out – as she flailed herself at the keyboard (Chopin Polonaise in A minor, op 40, no 1, “Military”) for those who are familiar or want to look it up, they can hear (as i did in writing) Ava’s mood
I imagine a lot of your readers will search YouTube to find that song since not everyone will immediately be able to bring it to mind. However, the “Military” reference in the title will help show her mood, so that title is a good choice!
Dear Tamela,
I read your blog w/ mixed feelings–agreeing w/ you about much, but thinking sadly of my small series of novels ( and a stage play) about a singer-songwriter-bandleader, in which the characters frequently converse w/ each other via quotes from well known songs. e.g. When Norma has a new contract & goes into Katie’s house to tell her the news, she starts out, “Blue skies, smilin’ at me; nothin’ but blue skies do I see.”
Katie responds, “The sun’s gonna shine in my back door someday.” Then a third person in the room adds a third quote–and so on thru that scene & others.
I know there will need to be many permissions sought–but the crux of the plot relies on these folks viewing their world thru the lens of song lyrics.
The plot turns are reflected in these lyrics.
Help!
Sounds as though you have a unique set of characters to me. I’m sure you’ll find a publisher who’ll be happy to work with you to see this project come to fruition. 🙂
I’m laughing…yes, I was distracted by thinking about the time I was in a Tom Stoppard play, and there was a reference to a lyric. This was before the internet, and no one was sure what the reference meant, or quite how it should sound (was I to sing it?) in that scene.
Using known lyrics to set a mood, risks the reader not knowing the lyric and getting bent out of shape.
Other times I’ve read passages where the author “cites” “published” material that the author created for the novel. This always drives me to distraction if the author hasn’t put a note in the front or back alerting the reader that the citations are part of the universe in the novel, not extant in our world.
Oh, I’ve wasted time trying to find a “book” that an author made up for their novel, and I guess thought it was more authentic to not mention it was all made up for the novel.
Titles of songs are not copyrighted, so can be used, but what about when the title is the same as some of the lyrics? I love the line, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need.” Referring to it that way, in a comment, probably falls into fair use. Using it to set a scene in a book, probably not.
Excellent point about the confines of a book’s universe. I can see how that can be frustrating!
The Rolling Stones never pretend to be proverbial choir boys but I imagine most readers will know that reference!
I know a short story that made brilliant use of a song lyric. The story revolved around an astronaut who flew experimental rockets, and he kept humming part of a popular song: “I had a true wife but I left her.” You would have to read it to understand, but thematically, emotionally, it was powerful.
Now, this was pulp sci-fi, from the ’50s/’60s. I have never heard the song, and I tried to find it on Google. I’m not even sure it’s real. But it proved a marvelous way to introduce that idea – “I had a true wife but I left her” – and create natural repetition (song stuck in your head).
Intriguing! Maybe one of our blog readers will know the song if it’s real.
Personally, if I don’t know the tune to a section that quotes more than a couple lines of lyrics, I skip the whole quote. It ends up being wasted space to this reader. If I do know the tune, it still slows me down.
Yes, indeed, Angela!
As a musician, I’ve always got an ear/eye out for musical references. I’ve found that in books that focus on classical music (Tamera Alexander’s “A Note Yet Unsung” being just one recent example), the references add to the book for those of us who know the pieces. For those who don’t, the mention neither helps nor hinders the reader’s understanding. But I think with contemporary songs, be they sacred or secular, I find mentions of groups, song titles, or even lyrics distracting, plus they can date a story very quickly.
As I write, I develop a soundtrack for each project, and I find certain songs corresponding to certain scenes, but I can only draw my soundtrack from songs I’ve heard and am familiar with. Readers do the same, and I like to let them have the freedom to use their mental musical database to come up with the songs they feel fit the scenes. Or none at all. Their choice.
Interesting take, Amanda. Thanks.
Tamela,
I have to agree. I really, really wanted to use a quote from To Kill a Mockingbird – the character who was to quote it was a bibliophile who was constantly reading beyond her age level and quoting what she read, but especially in light of Harper Lee’s passing and all the questions about how to even get permission to use it, I decided to cut it and just make reference to her quoting her favorite authors without specifying.
I also had a scene where a particular praise song was so perfect…I really wanted them to sing it…but settled for a reference that the reader may interpret as whatever song comes to their mind when the beauty of God’s creation overwhelms them.
Thanks for sharing your wisdom!
I think I would have made the same decisions, Felicia. Appreciate you for sharing.
In my own Science Fiction MS the main character remembers quite long bits from Rodriguez’s songs. I’ll be cheeky and reproduce a short extract here:
It was the following morning. The rover moved slowly over the dusty russet ground at a steady eight kilometres an hour. Behind it the second rover was attached with the towing bar which had been included for just this purpose, in the event of one rover breaking down away from the Hab.
As I sat, eyes scanning the ground for rocks that might damage its wheels, my mind gradually drifted into a quiet space between thought and will, where the heart moved where it would and brief flickers of old half-forgotten memories surfaced and faded. Childhood memories from a time when joy was a birthright and sorrow a passing mood. How had Fitzgerald put it? So we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past. Old faces, old games, old reassurances, old tunes.
I never knew why
My dreams had to die,
At the end of the street
Where I first met you now
Let it go.
Can’t bring back the past,
Why it didn’t last
Is one of those questions
The answer I’ll never know.
I’ll just bury the day
And be on my way,
The past’s in the past
Only one thing to do,
Let it go.
Poor man’s wisdom, written when Rodriguez was young and thirty years of failure lay ahead of him, but wisdom nonetheless. When the answer is that there is no answer, one can do nothing but bow one’s head and accept what cannot be changed, what is written in stone, in rock, twenty miles of it. I looked up at the yellow sky. Ganymed would fly past Mars in twenty days, so close the planet’s gravity would alter its trajectory, sending it like a slingshot straight towards the Earth. The god of war would live up to his name in a way the myths could never have imagined.
Quoting three verses like that would get my pants sued off – if Rodriguez had actually written them. Fortunately I made them up myself, imitating his style.
There’s also the one-liner from Fitzgerald, but that falls under fair use. I’m covered. 🙂
I enjoy song lyrics and movie titles when I’m reading a period piece because it helps me understand the times better.
All this was most relevant to what I’m working on right now so it was good to read. But I don’t understand — why do other people get hung up on things so easily? If an author goes off on an historical event that glazes my eyes I skip it and if there’s a poem insert that I don’t like I skip it. As the reader that’s my prerogative and the author’s is to offer what she/he believes contributes to the story. If readers use something like song lyrics to justify putting a book down or “lose the story” I don’t think they cared about it to begin with.
I’ve taken to simply composing my own melodies. It’s very fun, really, significantly more fun than legitimate difficulty!