First, although any word can be written into a song (such as a quotation song during the Cultural Revolution), it is far from suitable for all poems to sing together. The time division between poetry and music constitutes the basic outline of the history of any national poetry and music. For a long time in ancient times, every poem was a song. However, China culture quickly evolved into the most serious tendency of writing in the world, which separated most literati's poems and songs very early, so the lyrics became a special poetic style.
Not all songs are suitable for singing and performing: in ancient times, only a few written records about singing were left, and music was easily lost. Only a few singers ("King of Songs" such as Li Yannian) left their names. In any cultural tradition, in the artistic category of songs, the status of singers is extremely low; In modern and contemporary society, on the contrary, the rapid development of audio-visual recording and communication technology has made singers occupy a central position and songs become star songs.
Not all songs that are sung and spread can be popular: pop songs have a selection procedure, which can only be guided by the state, market, art circles and media, but it cannot completely replace this procedure. So far, this program has not been carefully studied, and its regularity is still an unsolved mystery. After the popularity of songs, the connection of various symbolic elements was completed, and its social ideographic mechanism was really started.
Although this paper focuses on the lyrics, it always puts the other three links in the field of vision. For example, the popularity of the lyrics selected and analyzed in this paper has been considered. To discuss the cultural constraints of lyrics, we have to consider the participation of institutions and the creative characteristics of lyrics, and we have to consider the decision-making power of singers.