One of my greatest fears is that our society someday will forget the latent power of words. Literary works are remembered because they preserve the integrity of language -- their words touch and reflect society.

Lyrics are the musician's voice -- a vein through which society can be influenced and enlightened.

When literature and music merge, the effect on society is both lasting and powerful.

The Doors derived their name from the poet William Blake, who once wrote, "When the doors of perception are cleansed, man will see things as they truly are, infinite."

The group's lead singer, the complex Jimmy Morrison, shunned the Utopian opiate images of "tangerine trees" and "marshmallow pies," produced by the Beatles. Instead, he delved deeper into human psychology; the Oedipus legend fascinated him.

In a warped and hostile interpretation of Sophocles' masterpiece, Morrison sang in "The End": "Father? -- Yes, son?/I want to kill you!/Mother? I want to ---- you!"

Jefferson Airplane performed a song called "Rejoyce," in which Grace Slick colorfully paraphrased portions of James Joyce's novel Ulysses. "Molly's gone to Blazes/Boylan's crotch amazes/Any woman whose husband sleeps/With the pillow buried down at the foot of his bed."

And Paul Simon, a masterful lyricist, wrote his own version of E. A. Robinson's poem, "Richard Cory."

Simon's song of the same name offers a more detailed interpretation of the original, but concludes the same as Robinson's. "He freely gave to charity, he had the common touch,/And they were grateful for his patronage, and they thanked him very much,/So my mind was filled with wonder when the evening headlines read:/'Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head.' "

The rock group Rush has paid tribute to various literary legacies, from whom they have derived ideas. Their song "Anthem" was written for Ayn Rand's objectivist novel of the same name.

And their song "Xanadu" is a fresh reworking of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's drug-induced dream-poem, "Xanadu." Drummer Neal Peart wrote, "To stand within the Pleasure Dome decreed by Kubla Khan,/To taste anew the fruits of life, the last immortal man./To find the sacred River Alph, to walk the caves of ice,/Oh I will dine on honeydew and drink the milk of Paradise."

The concept of popular singer as social prophet probably was begun by one Robert Zimmerman, more popularly known as Bob Dylan. He successfully utilized the genre of popular music as a sounding board -- his lyrics projected his views of a transitory, turbulent time in history.

In "The Times They Are A-Changin'," Dylan warns The Establishment -- and in this stanza, parents -- of the inevitability of societal change: "And mothers and fathers throughout the land,/Don't criticize what you can't understand./Your sons and daughters are beyond your command,/Your old road is rapidly aging,/Please get out a new one if you can't lend a hand/For the times they are a-changin'."

In 1976, an androgynous David Bowie also championed young people everywhere, in their perpetual Battle of the Generation Gap. In "Changes," Bowie explains to parents, "And these children that you spit on/As they try to change their worlds/Are immune to your consultations,/They're quite aware what they're going through."

Although literary lyrics aren't seen as frequently as they were 15 years ago, some recent performers still maintain the strength of words. Their songs convey the many shortcomings of our planet, including everything from war to nuclear bombs to the Third World and overpopulation.

In the Pretenders' 1983 hit, "Middle of the Road," Chrissy Hynde frankly sums up the situation in any of a number of impoverished nations: "And I don't need a Hampstead Nursery/When you own a big chunk of the bloody Third World,/The babies just come with the scenery."

Pink Floyd took a swipe at the inhuman idiocy of war and its politics in last year's "The Dogs of War." "Dogs of war and men of hate/With no cause we don't discriminate/Discovery is to be disowned/Our currency is flesh and bone/Hell opened up and put on sale/Gather round and haggle."

The most powerful, yet hauntingly discreet, anti-nuclear plea comes at the end of Prince's "1999." A chilling child-like voice asks, "Mommy, why does everybody have a bomb?"

Tracy Chapman makes a hopeful prediction that the poor will rise up someday in the dolefully realistic "Talkin' Bout a Revolution." "While they're standing in the welfare lines/Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation/Wasting time in the unemployment lines/Sitting around waiting for a promotion."

XTC is less optimistic in its controversial and smugly irreverent "Dear God." The group sings, "But all the people that you made in your image,/See them starvin' on their feet/'Cause they can't get enough to eat/From God . . . can't believe in you."

The power of words is irrepressible. I hope we never witness the extinction of the prophets and poets of that mighty medium called rock music, and the lyrics that are their literature.