I'm coming in late to say that I am so ancient, I was a full-on young professional classical singer in London at the height of the Beatles' dominance. From the point of view of a working musician I found the group to be a PR contrivance manipulating the public at a very naive level--from the haircuts on. I attributed the better elements of their music to the serious classically-trained professionals who orchestrated the music.

Then I listened to the words and they genuinely reached me. "She's Leaving Home" usually reduced me to tears because it reflected part of my own story. But I came to the conclusion that the real strength of the appeal of the Beatles was in their lyrics, not the nice tunes which still seem pretty hohum to me despite the grand treatment many have received.

Runs for cover ;)

On another level. For me, one of the greatest setters of great poems, in such a way as to fortify but not distort, was the French composer, Henri Duparc. His settings of Baudelaire and other poets always fills me with fresh astonishment, every time I hear them.
Listen to the frustratingly short excerpts of "L'Invitation au Voyage" (Baudelaire)and "Phydilé" (Leconte De Lisle). At the bottom of this site:
Duparc

Henry Purcell's setting of "Music For a While"
I am used to Michael Tippet's setting of Purcell's ground bass (map of harmonic progress of accompaniment which musicians used to fill out) but there is a good sample snatch of the song in this rather interesting article:
Purcell and Dryden

Kate, that was Robbie Robertson's song and it was first recorded on The Band's first album, <u>Music From Big Pink</u> (1968). Robertson was the lead guitarist and principle songwriter of the group. They were the backing band for Bob Dylan (especially for touring in 1965-66, before Dylan's motorcycle accident in mid 1966).

"Big Pink" was Dylan's house (painted pink) in Woodstock, NY; and its basement was fitted out as a small recording studio. While recuperating, Dylan wrote a bunch of songs so he and The Band recorded them to demo to other acts (The Byrds, Manfred Mann, Joan Baez, The Hollies, Earl Scruggs, etc) who recorded their own versions of the songs (two of them were featured on The Byrds' album <u>Sweetheart Of The Rodeo</u>) and three of those songs were re-recorded for <u>Music From Big Pink</u> (minus Dylan himself, of course). Dylan's demo tape (or a copy of a copy of a copy...) ended up in some anonymous bootlegger's hands to become known as the <u>Basement Tapes</u> album, and several of the songs were on the famous (or infamous) 2 disc bootleg called <u>The Great White Wonder</u> (disc 1 was all a coffee-house concert from 1961, folk standards with no original material, although there is a point when Dylan tries a bit of stand-up comedy with a joke about a coffee-house that uses chess pieces as currency).

One of the reasons why the Woodstock Festival was held near there (Woodstock, NY) was the vain hope that they could coax Dylan on stage (of course, it never happened).

Robert Meyer


[This message has been edited by Robert Meyer (edited May 04, 2006).]

In response to Chris's post--all the elements you mention, Chris, as potential drawbacks to the Cohen's song being taken as poetry, are, in fact, part and parcel of the genre of the ballad genre(as repeated lines are part of literary epics, though they originate in oral tradition). The allegory, the dialogue, the occasional cliche (hearts that burn like coal--not far from milk-white horse, etc.), and the metrical "glitches" if you will, are all part of ballad tradition, and argue as much for the self-conscious literariness of this lyric as for its folk roots. Enjoyed.

[P.S. If you've ever wanted to rewrite song lyrics, come over to FunXcise.]

Good points all, Alicia, & I have to admit I was stretching to find things not to like. I guess the issue in my mind evaluating that as poetry would be, that it's a fine line navigating between the conventions of a form, particularly one with as archaic a patina as the ballad, and of contemporary verse and language. I only meant that I would probably have been a little bit uncomfortable with that song as a contemporary poem, but that might just be an unfair double standard of my own.

Here's another one by Leonard Cohen that I think is beautiful. I don't know if the short lines will work so well on the page, or if they have to be said at as slow a pace as he sings them for full effect.

If It Be Your Will

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before,
I will speak no more;
I shall abide until
I am spoken for,
If it be your will.

If it be your will
That a voice be true,
From this broken hill
I will sing to you.
From this broken hill
All your praises, they shall ring,
If it be your will
To let me sing.

If it be your will,
If there is a choice,
Let the rivers fill;
Let the hills rejoice.
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell,
If it be your will
To make us well.

And draw us near,
And bind us tight,
All your children here
In their rags of light,
In their rags of light
All dressed to kill,
And end this night,
If it be your will,
If it be your will.

It seems this discussion is limited to popular commercial recordings. In that light I think that Janis Ian's At Seventeen is a fine poem (or could be with a little editing) as well as a very good song.

I learned the truth at seventeen
That love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear skinned smiles
Who married young and then retired.
The valentines I never knew
The Friday night charades of youth
Were spent on one more beautiful
At seventeen I learned the truth.
And those of us with ravaged faces
Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home
Inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say come dance with me
and murmured vague obscenities
It isn't all it seems
At seventeen.
A brown eyed girl in hand me downs
Whose name I never could pronounce
said, Pity please the ones who serve
They only get what they deserve.
The rich relationed hometown queen
Married into what she needs
A guarantee of company
And haven for the elderly.
Remember those who win the game
Lose the love they sought to gain
Indebentures of quality
And dubious integrity.
Their small town eyes will gape at you
in dull surprise when payment due
Exceeds accounts received
At seventeen.

To those of us who know the pain
Of valentines that never came,
And those whose names were never called
When choosing sides for basketball.
It was long ago and far away
The world was younger than today
And dreams were all they gave for free
To ugly duckling girls like me.
We all play the game and when we dare
To cheat ourselves at solitaire
Inventing lovers on the phone
Repenting other lives unknown
That call and say, come dance with me
and murmur vague obscenities
At ugly girls like me
At seventeen

I am intrigued by the lack of rapport most poets exhibit towards the historical closeness of song and poetry. Above all I am fascinated by the different levels of their musical and literary tastes. I have always wondered whether for some people poetry is a substitute for music?



[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited May 04, 2006).]

Charles Simic says, in his introduction to THE ESSENTIAL CAMPION, "Campion's poems are printed here without his music as is now mostly the case. With most songwriters this would be disastrous. The music is usually --- and it is --- an integral part of the whole. For example, only a few of the most heartbreaking blues song texts can stand alone as poems. Campion is an exception. His lyrics are some of the best poems in the language."

What a snob.

Bob

I don't know, Janet. The lyrics are very fine, and of the highest caliber. But on the page without the music, they come across as slightly self-pitying. The music--and indeed the performance in this case--makes all the difference in how we perceive the voice of the speaker.

Alicia,
You mean the Janis Ian songs? (The Beatles?) I agree. I was discussing Dylan (Bob) today (because of this thread) and the consensus was that the menace and anarchy of his delivery in "The times they are a changing" was what drove the song and that in the hands of any other performer it wouldn't have gripped our imaginations as it did when he sang it.

When we read poems we are the performers. Unless we "perform" the poem in our heads in a sympathetic way the poem eludes us. That's why I believe the author owns the poem, not the reader. A reader may make something personally satisfying, different from the author's intention, of a poem but that is a bit like using the poem rather than experiencing it.

I guess I'm used to poems which are already a success being subjected to musical interpretation by trained composers who may not have the necessary respect or insight. Schubert is one of my very favourite composers and his treatment of repeated stanzas is a contradiction of all that I consciously believe about setting of words. He had a gift of summing up the spirit of a poem and not losing the inner strength even when the same repeated melody dealt with an utterly different aspect within the same poem. He did set a lot of second rate poetry and raised it beyond its natural level but when he set fine poetry he hardly ever failed the original. Inexplicable.
And Schubert survives really bad performances.
Janet



[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited May 05, 2006).]