Other great poems set to good music: "Drink to me only with Thine Eyes" and "Believe Me if all those Endearing Young Charms."
Two more recent examples of love songs that almost make it as poems, but show flaws we overlook because of the music, as Carol mentions, are: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,( from Roberta, music by J. Kern,lyric by Otto Harbach) and this one from the 1950's:
In the still of the night as I gaze from my window
at the moon in its flight, my thoughts all stray to you.
Do you love me as I love you?
Are you my life to be, my dream come true?
Or will this love of ours fade out of sight
Like the moon growing dim
On the rim of a hill
In the chill, still of the night?
Pretty nice verse, except for the horrible cliche in L4, or so it seems to me, but the long-line melody may have influenced my opinion of the lyric proper. Words and music are (surprise, surprise) by Cole Porter, but on the net they are ignorantly attributed to half a dozen others from Frank Parris to Ashley Judd. I like the absence of musical repetition in both Smoke and The Still of the Night, and I love Dinah Shore's voice for both songs.
G.
[This message has been edited by Golias (edited May 02, 2006).]
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