The most primitive poems of all ethnic groups are written orally in the form of songs, which are produced as a part of labor itself in people's collective labor and used to adjust the rhythm or unify the pace because of the needs of some kind of labor. For example, the "hey, hey, hey, hey, hey" labor horn commonly used by many people when carrying large items at the same time leads the crowd or sings in chorus when pulling fibers. Later, with the appearance of words, there appeared poems that could express the complete meaning. These poems are active among the people through word of mouth and become the spiritual wealth of people's labor and entertainment. In other words, poetry (lyrics) originated from labor, produced with the appearance of human language, and developed with the development of writing.
In ancient times (before the Tang Dynasty), lyrics and poetry were inseparable. Poetry is a word, and a word is a poem-"Poetry is a lyric poem". They exist and develop in parallel, influence each other and change constantly. As far as their relationship with music is concerned, all poems composed into songs are called "song poems", which are used for singing, while poems without composition are called "poems about objects", which are used for reading, that is, "taking pleasure as words and making fun as poems". For example, the brilliant chapters in The Book of Songs and Songs of the South, and the poetry collections of more than 500 years from the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period, are both poems and songs. For example, in the article "Cutting Tan" in the Book of Songs, a group of workers who were chopping wood sang songs to express their strong dissatisfaction with unreasonable social phenomena: "When cutting Tan, the river dried up and the water was clear and blue. No crops, no crops, no crops, no crops. Don't hunt, don't hunt, is the court of Hu Zhan going to hang? He is a gentleman, not a vegetarian! " At the end of the Warring States Period, the works of Qu Yuan, the first great poet in China, were closely related to the unique music and lively folk songs of Chu at that time. His masterpieces, such as Li Sao, Jiu Ge and Tian Wen, were not only readable poems and songs at that time, but also had a far-reaching influence in the history of China literature.
The prosperity of folk songs began in the Han Dynasty. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty set up a music official office to collect folk songs from all over the country. These collected folk songs have great artistic appeal. For example, this song "Evil": "Evil! I want to know you and live a long life. There is no mausoleum in the mountains, the river is exhausted, there is Lei Zhen in winter, and there is rain and snow in summer. It is a unique feeling that heaven and earth are one! " In this folk love song, a persistent and firm female image who pursues sincere love is strongly shocked and moved by generate in simple language. In the TV series Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao even expressed his persistent ambition in the form of singing and dancing-"writing poems horizontally": "What is life like when drinking? It's hard to go to Japan with arms like morning dew ... the mountains will never be too high and the water will never be too deep. Duke Zhou vomited, and the world returned to the heart! " (short song by Cao Cao). Even today, these works are still very readable and can be sung.
During the Wei, Jin and Six Dynasties, the lyrics of Yuefu began to divide, and the literati gradually developed Yuefu into a five-character poem. Their approach is to use the old Yuefu songs as new words, but in fact they gradually moved away from Yuefu spirit and moved closer to poetry. After the separation of Jian 'an literati, Yuefu Ci developed into the Tang Dynasty, which completely became a new poetic style that could not be sung, such as Li Bai's "Going into wine", "Difficult to travel in Sichuan" and Du Fu's "Going out of the mountain first". Being far away from music, the life of Yuefu lyrics is gradually transformed into the life of poetry.
After the Tang and Song Dynasties, poetry and words gradually separated, and some of them were long and short sentences that could be sung by music, that is, lyrics; The other part is poetry for reading. Influenced by "poets", early ci can compose, sing or write independently. Poems written by poets are not only independent poems, but also can be composed and sung. For example, the Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wei wrote "Send Yuan 20 An Xi": "Weicheng is rainy and dusty, and the guest room is light and new; Advise you to drink one more glass of wine. There is no reason to go out to Yangguan in the west. " Because there is a sentence in the poem that "people have no reason to leave Yangguan in the west", it is repeated three times, so it is also called "Yangguan three floors". Since the Tang and Song Dynasties, there have been many singing methods, and there are more than 30 existing versions of piano music, which has become a famous song that has been sung for a long time. Song ci developed from Tang poetry and became a leap in the history of lyrics. Before Tang poetry, there were words before music. Since Liu Yuxi, Bai Juyi, Wen and Liu Yong established the tradition of "writing words by sound", many words have been filled in the same tune repeatedly. Although there are strict requirements on the number of words and the level of words sung by people, words have gradually separated from music because of their inherent literariness, and have made great progress in an independent style. This also shows that the lyrics have their own unique charm and independent character since ancient times. Nowadays, there are still many people who are fascinated by the research and creation of ancient poetry, but few people care about their original music. But it is precisely because of the popularity and aestheticism of Song Ci that many composers are keen to re-create it now. There are many successful examples in this regard. The most famous is the solo album "Light Love" composed by Taiwan Province famous songwriters Gu Yue, Liu Jiachang, Weng Qingxi and Yang Chen, and sung by Teresa Teng. The album contains the classic works of many famous poets in the Song Dynasty, including Li Yu's Silent Meeting, Alone in the West Building, Night Song Xie Chunhong, When is the Autumn Moon in Spring? When will there be a bright moon (that is, Faye Wong's later cover "I hope people will live for a long time"), Fan Zhongyan's Su Curtain Covers the Blue Sky, Memories of Old Friends in Taoyuan, and Nie Shengqiong's Partridge and Jade Flowers Worry Out of Fengcheng. In addition, composing music for Untitled Time was long before I met her, but it was longer than Li Shangyin's "We parted" in Tang Dynasty (Paula Tsui sang in A Dream of Red Mansions), Wang Liping composed music for poems in The Romance of Three Kingdoms, and many other Tang poems selected for children became excellent works, all of which showed the fusion of classical poetry and music. However, the form and rhythm of lyrics and poems are still hard to give up. The beauty of this form and rhythm will constantly inspire composers' hearts, arouse their artistic inspiration and give them another wing to fly. There are countless examples of a good poem as a good lyric abroad. For example, Goethe's Wild Rose was composed by Schubert and others for more than 100 times, Goethe's Nocturne was composed by Liszt and Schubert for more than 200 times, and Heine's You Are Like a Flower has more than 160 different melodies ... The English word "lyric" refers to both lyrics, which can be seen in west Renye Fang.
At the end of Jin and Yuan Dynasties, due to the mixed ethnic groups, the music absorbed more tunes and harmonies of different ethnic groups, and was full of the sound of Jin Ge Tiema and a strong desolate taste. The words sung by Han people are soft and euphemistic, and it is difficult to match with music, so they gradually evolved from words to songs. As a new form of lyrics, Yuanqu has replaced Song Ci, which is closer to the people and more vital in terms of content and form. Compared with Song Ci, the sentence pattern of Qu Style and even the change of words can better meet the needs of new music, thus being accepted by the general public. The Northern and Southern Qu in Yuan Dynasty formed the unification of North and South in Ming Dynasty. Whether it is the Northern Song Dynasty or the Southern Song Dynasty, there are differences between Sanqu and Opera. Sanqu is still a poem, which is also divided into a poem and a suite, which is equivalent to today's solo and chorus. Until later, Yuan Qu paid more attention to carving words and making sentences, colorful words and beautiful algae, divorced from real life in content, pursued the realm of elegance and elegance in style, and gradually approached poetry in sentence pattern, which finally brought a generation of poets to an end.
Until the 20th century, the rise of free-style new poetry, which was divorced from music, made modern lyrics unique for their popularity and colloquialism. This is mainly because there are more differences between the two.