Poetry in Song Lyrics

I heard Paul Kelly being interviewed on radio the other day and he was talking about the link between song lyrics and traditional poetry.  Of course, being brought up on the music of the 1960s, I don't have much of an appreciation of song lyrics which could be regarded as poetic (where's the poetry in I Wanna Hold Your Hand?), until I started to think about popular music which was more avant garde than The Beatles.

I though first of Simon and Garfunkel's and Eric Bogle but perhaps one of the most poetic of modern popular music lyrics is Killing Me Softly, lyrics by Norman Gimbal, sung by Roberta Flack.  I've stripped the lyrics back, removing some of the repetition.

I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style
And so I came to see him, to listen for a while
And there he was, this young boy, a stranger to my eyes
Strumming my pain with his fingers 
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

I felt all flushed with fever, embarrassed by the crowd
I felt he'd found my letters and read each one out loud
I prayed that he would finish, but he just kept right on
Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his word
Killing me softly with his song

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