I have to say that I certainly prefer song lyrics that are also poetic, and because there are many folk songs (trad and contemporary) that manage to be that, as examples mentioned above, I have always been more drawn to that particular genre. My point was that songs of any genre don’t have to be poetic though, and some of the most memorable ones certainly are not

I’m not sure why broadening a thread out is a wild goose chase, although I know thread creep can be irritating, but haven’t there been enough inconclusive debates about Dylan? Someone above here got me thinking rather about the difference between lyrics and poetry, which I though might be a more productive diversion, but obviously not then.

So, back to the well worn track. To my mind, Dylan’s vast catalogue includes a whole range of material from poetic to simple nonsense lyrics, again as demonstrated above in this thread. Is that not his prerogative though? It’s only the music media that chose to call him a poet; in his own words, he was never more than ‘just a song and dance man’. Leonard Cohen was a published poet before turning songwriter, and most of his songs do work as poetry as well, in my view, but even he recorded some non-poetic throwaway stuff as well.

As for Farewell Angelina, I see it as pseudo poetry, probably written ‘under the influence’, using some rich imagery but not making a lot of sense to the listener, other than as a wistful, meandering love song. Ballad in Plain D was a rewrite of the traditional I Once Loved a Girl, but done in a hurry I imagine, because the lady in question was about to walk out of his life. Wiggle Wiggle is just a glorified nursery rhyme, and probably a hasty album filler at a guess. But then, so what? Haven’t we all written some poor stuff at some time?