How to Format Lyrics:

  • Type out all lyrics, even repeating song parts like the chorus
  • Lyrics should be broken down into individual lines
  • Use section headers above different song parts like [Verse], [Chorus], etc.
  • Use italics (<i>lyric</i>) and bold (<b>lyric</b>) to distinguish between different vocalists in the same song part
  • If you don’t understand a lyric, use [?]

To learn more, check out our transcription guide or visit our transcribers forum

About

Genius Annotation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGIr7fGdo6o

In his preface to The Dream Songs Berryman clarifies (or obscures) his aim by writing that the book “is essentially about an imaginary character (not the poet, not me) named Henry, a white American in early middle age sometimes in blackface, who has suffered an irreversible loss and talks about himself sometimes in the first person, sometimes in the third, sometimes even in the second; he has a friend, never named, who addresses him as Mr Bones and variants thereof.”

All the same, this “irreversible loss” corresponds in many ways with the suicide of Berryman’s father and recurs throughout the Songs with varying degrees of explicitness. See for instance Dream Song 384

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

Comments