Eik’s lyrics face a new test on the page

ERR published this review by Saara Liisa Jõerand, which originally appeared in Sirp. It examines Eik’s debut poetry collection, “What comes next will only become clear,” a book containing mostly lyrics from songs that have already been set to music, recorded and released.

Eik, “What comes next will only become clear”
Edited by Helena Läks
Designed by Triinu Kööba
Published by Puänt
85 pages

Several literary figures who promote contemporary literature in schools have told me how a sudden spark appears in students’ otherwise dull eyes when they explain that song lyrics are a form of poetry. Rap, too. There are not many books to use as an example, but recent ones include the collection of Reket’s song lyrics, “Eeden,” which was nominated for the Betti Alver Literary Prize in 2024, and Eik’s debut poetry collection, published this summer.

The expansion of poetry into printed form is valuable. It draws attention to carefully and skilfully written lyrics and can show new readers where the poetry shelf is in a bookshop.

Despite its value, transferring lyrics from sound to paper is a complicated operation. Unlike a poem read in black and white from a book, a rap song is a Gesamtkunstwerk, with rhythm, instrumental passages, melody, vocal intonation and tone combining into an elusive tangle of interactions. This does not even include the artist’s stage presence or the image associated with it.

Within all this, the lyrics tend to receive uneven attention, at least in my experience. Some passages stand out because of factors beyond the text and therefore acquire a powerful emotional meaning. For example, when I hear the line “a new beautiful day is coming” in the song “Happy,” it creates a strongly melancholic yet hopeful feeling in me. On paper, however, it is easy to read past the simple sentence neutrally.

Other passages go unnoticed each time they are heard or remain unclear, which, strangely enough, is not a problem for me. In written form, however, the hierarchies between words are much more level, making my critical eye more demanding of each specific choice.

What was previously something that rhymed with the phrase “white darkness” and could be sung along to in roughly the same way is now unambiguously “languid dreaminess,” prompting the question of what exactly that means. In my view, not all of Eik’s wordplay withstands this close examination.

Time is another important difference between oral and written mediums. Spoken text moves linearly, favouring repetitions and memorable individual phrases, while written text is presented as a whole from the beginning. A poem can be read from left to right or right to left, from top to bottom or bottom to top. The first line can be compared with the last, and any word with any other word.

I assume this difference was considered when selecting the texts for the collection, and that the poems included are those that work better as a synchronous whole. For the most part, however, the logic of spoken language remains visible. Several poems primarily come across as collections of interesting, resonant images gathered around a particular theme, feeling or keyword. They undoubtedly have the potential to be memorable individually, but rereading them several times does not always give them additional quality.