Datura (Tori Amos)


Get out of my garden

Passsion vine
Texas sage
Indigo spires salvia
Conferderate jasmine
Royal cape plumbago
Arica palm
Pygmy date palm
Snow-on-the-mountain
Pink Powderpuff
Datura
Crinum lily
St. Christopher's lily
Silver dollar eucalytus
White african iris
Katie's cham ruella
Variegated shell finger
Florida coontie
Datura
Ming fern
Sword fern
Dianella
Walking iris
Chocolate cherries allamanda
Awabuki viburnum

Is there room in my heart
For you to follow your heart
And not need more blood
From the tip of your star

Walking iris
Chocolate cherries allamanda
Awabuki viburnun
Natal plum
Black magic ti
Mexican bush sage
Gumbo limbo
Golden shrimp
Belize shrimp
Senna
Weeping sabicu
Golden shower tree
Golden trumpet tree
Bird of paradise
Come in
Variegated shell ginger
Datura
Lonicera
Red velvet costus
Xanadu philodendron
Snow queen hibiscus
Frangipani
Frangipani
Bleeding heart
Persian shield
Cat's whiskers
Royal palm
Sweet alyssum
Petting bamboo
Orange jasmine
Clitoria blue pea
Downy jasmine
Datura
Frangipani
Frangipani

Dividing Canaan
Piece by piece

Here’s another one for our Janet. It was popular with the immigrant Irish soldiers from New York during the American Civil War.

<u>The Minstrel Boy</u>

Thomas Moore
1779-1852

The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone
In the ranks of death you will find him;
His father's sword he hath girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him;
"Land of Song!" said the warrior bard,
"Tho' all the world betrays thee,
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,
One faithful harp shall praise thee!"

The Minstrel fell! But the foeman's chain
Could not bring that proud soul under;
The harp he lov'd ne'er spoke again,
For he tore its chords asunder;
And said "No chains shall sully thee,
Thou soul of love and brav'ry!
Thy songs were made for the pure and free,
They shall never sound in slavery!"

Bobby, and don't think I haven't sung it ;)
Janet

Bob,

"Minstrel Boy" is great, as are the others, all of which read more like poems than most lyrics for me. They have none of the sing-song elements that disqualify most popular lyrics as poems (my own criteria): no excessive internal rhyming; no excessively repeated refrains.

I wonder about the composition process of Thomas Moore's poems. They seem as if they were written as poems first, then set to music?

On another note, it's interesting that the blues form of terza rima (2 repeated lines, followed by a third line tying the bundle up semantically) has passed into usage as a form for modernist poets.

Anyway, here's my offering. It's got a repeated refrain, but in an 8-line stanza it doesn't stick out so much. Maybe it's sing-songy--but some good images.


John


Boxcars
© 1977 Butch Hancock


Well I gave all my money to the banker this month
Now I got no more money to spend
She smiled when she saw me comin' through that door
When I left she said, "Come back again."
I watched them lonesome boxcar wheels
Turnin' down the tracks out of town
And it's on that lonesome railroad track
I'm gonna lay my burden down.


I was raised on a farm the first years of my life
Life was pretty good they say
I'll probably live to be some ripe ol' age
If death'll stay out of my way
This world can take my money and time
But it sure can't take my soul
I'm goin' down to the railroad tracks
Watch them lonesome boxcars roll.


There's some big ol' Buicks at the Baptist church
Caddilacs at the Church of Christ
I parked my camel by an ol' haystack
I'll be lookin for that needle all night
There ain't gonna be no radial tires
Turnin' down the streets of gold
I'm goin down to the railroad tracks
And watch them lonesome boxcars roll.


Now if you ever heard the whistle on a fast freight train
Beatin' out a beautiful tune
If you ever seen the cold blue railroad tracks
Shinin' by the light of the moon
If you ever felt the locomotive shake the ground
I know you don't have to be told
Why I'm goin down to the railroad tracks
And watch them lonesome boxcars roll.


John


[This message has been edited by J.A. Crider (edited January 23, 2005).]

Hi Bobby et al.

I think we do need to distinguish between works that are written as poems and that are later set to music, which is the case with the Thomas Moore poems that have been posted, or Francis Scott Key's "The Star-Spangled Banner" or, a couple of more recent examples, Housman's "A Shropshire Lad" set to music by George Butterworth, or Hardy's "Winter Words" set to music by Benjamin Britten. A work expressly written to serve as the lyrics of a song is a different animal. Moore's lyrics read as poetry because even if the poet wrote them be sung, they are poems not just songs.

All the best

Chris

[This message has been edited by ChrisGeorge (edited January 22, 2005).]

Here's a Dylan song that gains immeasurably from its music and performance. From "Time Out Of Mind," I think the peformance is perfection. I'm wondering if anyone who is unfamiliar with the song will agree, from the lyrics alone, that it is incredibly moving and beautiful. I particularly love the refrain, and the "sugar town" line practically knocked me down the first time I heard it.

Tryin' To Get To Heaven Before They Close The Door

The air is getting hotter
There's a rumbling in the skies
I've been wading through the high muddy water
With the heat rising in my eyes
Every day your memory grows dimmer
It doesn't haunt me like it did before
I've been walking through the middle of nowhere
Trying to get to heaven before they close the door

When I was in Missouri
They would not let me be
I had to leave there in a hurry
I only saw what they let me see
You broke a heart that loved you
Now you can seal up the book and not write anymore
I've been walking that lonesome valley
Trying to get to heaven before they close the door

People on the platforms
Waiting for the trains
I can hear their hearts a-beatin'
Like pendulums swinging on chains
When you think that you lost everything
You find out you can always lose a little more
I'm just going down the road feeling bad
Trying to get to heaven before they close the door

I'm going down the river
Down to New Orleans
They tell me everything is gonna be all right
But I don't know what "all right" even means
I was riding in a buggy with Miss Mary-Jane
Miss Mary-Jane got a house in Baltimore
I been all around the world, boys
Now I'm trying to get to heaven before they close the door

Gonna sleep down in the parlor
And relive my dreams
I'll close my eyes and I wonder
If everything is as hollow as it seems
Some trains don't pull no gamblers
No midnight ramblers, like they did before
I been to Sugar Town, I shook the sugar down
Now I'm trying to get to heaven before they close the door

Highlands

by Bob Dylan


Well my heart's in the Highlands gentle and fair.
Honeysuckle blooming in the wildwood air.
Bluebelles blazing, where the Aberdeen waters flow.
Well my heart's in the Highlands,
I'm gonna go there when I feel good enough to go.

Windows were shakin' all night in my dreams.
Everything was exactly the way that it seems.
Woke up this morning and I looked at the same old page
Same ol' rat race
Life in the same ol' cage.

I don't want nothing from anyone, ain't that much to take.
Wouldn't know the difference between a real blonde and a fake.
Feel like a prisoner in a world of mystery
I wish someone would come
And push back the clock for me

Well my heart's in the Highlands wherever I roam.
That's where I'll be when I get called home.
The wind, it whispers to the buckeyed trees in rhyme.
Well my heart's in the Highland,
I can only get there one step at a time.

I'm listening to Neil Young, I gotta turn up the sound,
Someone's always yelling turn it down.
Feel like I'm drifting
Drifting from scene the scene,
I'm wondering what in the devil could it all possibly mean?

Insanity is smashing up against my soul,
You can say I was on anything but a roll.
If I had a conscience, well I just might blow my top,
What would I do with it anyway
Maybe take it to the pawn shop.

My heart's in the Highlands at the break of dawn.
By the beautiful lake of the Black Swan,
Big white clouds, like chariots that swing down low.
Well my heart's in the Highlands
Only place left to go.

I'm in Boston town, in some restaurant
I got no idea what I want.
Well, maybe I do but I'm just really not sure
Waitress comes over,
Nobody in the place but me and her

It must be a holiday, there's nobody around,
She studies me closely as I sit down,
She got a pretty face and long white shiny legs,
She says, "What'll it be?"
I say, "I don't know, you got any soft boiled eggs?"

She looks at me, Says "I'd bring you some,
but we're out of 'm, you picked the wrong time to come."
Then she says, "I know you're an artist, draw a picture of me!"
I say, "I would if I could, but,
I don't do sketches from memory."

"Well", she says, "I'm right here in front of you, or haven't you looked?"
I say," all right, I know, but I don't have my drawing book!"
She gives me a napkin, she says, "you can do it on that"
I say, "yes I could but,
I don't know where my pencil is at!"

She pulls one out from behind her ear
She says "all right now, go ahead, draw me, I'm standing right here"
I make a few lines, and I show it for her to see.
Well she takes a napkin and throws it back
And says "that don't look a thing like me!"

I said, "Oh, kind miss, it most certainly does"
She says, "you must be jokin.'" I say, "I wish I was!"
Then she says, "you don't read women authors, do you?"
Least that's what I think I hear her say,
"Well", I say, "how would you know and what would it matter anyway?"

"Well", she says, "you just don't seem like you do!"
I said, "you're way wrong."
She says, "which ones have you read then?" I say, "I read Erica Jong!"
She goes away for a minute and I slide up out of my chair
I step outside back to the busy street, but nobody's going anywhere.

Well my heart's in the Highlands, with the horses and hounds
Way up in the border country, far from the towns.
With the twang of the arrow and a snap of the bow
My heart's in the Highlands
Can't see any other way to go.

Every day is the same thing out the door,
Feel further away then ever before.
Some things in life, it gets too late to learn,
Well, I'm lost somewhere
I must have made a few bad turns

I see people in the park forgetting their troubles and woes,
They're drinking and dancing, wearing bright colored clothes.
All the young men with their young women looking so good,
Well, I'd trade places with any of them
In a minute, if I could.

I'm crossing the street to get away from a mangy dog,
Talking to myself in a monologue.
I think what I need might be a full length leather coat.
Somebody just asked me
If I registered to vote.

The sun is beginning to shine on me
But it's not like the sun that used to be.
The party's over, and there's less and less to say,
I got new eyes
Everything looks far away.

Well, my heart's in the Highlands at the break of day,
Over the hills and far away.
There's a way to get there, and I'll figure it out somehow,
But I'm already there in my mind
And that's good enough for now.

The thing that bothers me in this thread is that there are hundreds of even better poetic songs with which nobody here seems to be acquainted.

I speak, among others of Thomas Campian, John Dowland, Thomas Morley, Claudio Monteverdi, Henry Purcell, Johannes Brahms, Stephen C. Foster , Henri Duparc, Franz Schubert, Claude Debussy, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Manuel De Falla, Benjamin Britten and a myriad of others.

I feel that the thread should be retitled, poetic songs the popular media lets us hear.

Obviously posters here don't just mean contemporary poetic songs because there are some fine old ones here. The fact that James Joyce was devoted to songs should not be overlooked by poets.

We recognise the need to know something of the history of poetry. I think poets would benefit from some knowledge of the history of song since it is intimately related to the history of poetry.

Janet


[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited January 23, 2005).]

Quite right, Janet.

Here's a pop song of an earlier age.


Song

Goe and catche a falling starre,
Get with child a mandrake roote,
Tell me, where all past yeares are,
Or who cleft the Divels foot,
Teach me to hear mermaides singing,
Or to keep off envyies stinging,
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Serves to advance an honest minde.

If thou beest borne to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou retorn'st, wilt tell mee,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
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Lives a woman true, and faire.

If thou findst one, let me know,
Such a Pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet doe not, I would not goe,
Though at next doore wee might meet,
Though shee were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
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False, ere I come, to two, or three.

Desperado (Eagles)

Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
You been out ridin’ fences for so long now
Oh, you’re a hard one
I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasin’ you
Can hurt you somehow

Don’ you draw the queen of diamonds, boy
She’ll beat you if she’s able
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet

Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can’t get

Desperado, oh, you ain’t gettin’ no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they’re drivin’ you home
And freedom, oh freedom well, that’s just some people talkin’
Your prison is walking through this world all alone

Don’t your feet get cold in the winter time?
The sky won’t snow and the sun won’t shine
It’s hard to tell the night time from the day
You’re loosin’ all your highs and lows
Ain’t it funny how the feeling goes away?

Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate
It may be rainin’, but there’s a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you, before it’s too late