ShiningIdeal
10-09-2008, 10:11 AM
When I was young, seven or eight and was only just starting to develop a musical identity separate from my parents, I found a lot of great things in my parents extensive vinyl collections. One that I happened across was this amazing woman with a beautiful voice, I was in love even if I didn't comprehend what it meant at the time and I dug for more. In one I found, there were liner notes by this guy who could write. I mean really write. I remembered his name though I had never heard of him, yet.
Jump forward a few years and I am really branching out. Blues, jazz. Learning, reading about the Harlem Renaissance and the name came up again. A poet, an amazing man. Writing with passion that I thought I could emulate even if I was an idiot for it. It wasn't long till I had a recording of his poetry, books. Langston Hughes was shaping a lot of my lyrical understandings at a young age and even now that I've wandered so far it still draws me back over and over.
Can a white kid in the suburban south really grasp Hughes? Maybe, maybe not. But it was the most amazing thing I had read up until that point. Even now he is amongst my three favorite 'modern' poets and I am still consumed by interest. But what it did most importantly was make me think about the link between poetry and lyrics, but even beyond that with beats of speaking and beats of music.
Lyrical and ballad poetry are - by their very nature and names - linked to music. Blues poetry is much the same. Poets have been sampled and used and taken from and inspired. The words of the greatest are songs without music attached.
On the other side, many lyricists are poets of their own right. Certainly many lack the gravitas that the greatest poets have but some do - and it is unfair to compare the entire arena against only just those who have been preserved in memory through history.
Between the Lost Generation and the Beat Poets, the ties of it through the development of the music that would become popular music is impossible to deny. Even stretching further in both directions - the ties are less direct, less cases of actually knowing the poets, but still so tied. So many of our titans of popular music can list the poets who inspire them - but many you would not need to ask - as it can ring out in their music.
A few years ago, one of my favorite people in the world converted the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe into music. It was pretty poorly received but I ate it up. I was sold on concept and the first track. Of course I'm a sucker for certain things. But it did get me thinking about whether the crossover should be worked in a straight sense or inspirational. I do think that the album would have been stronger if it hadn't been so dogmatically tied to the work and more liberties were taken.
A number of songwriters have attempted to write books of poetry to greater - but usually lesser - success. In many cases their writing suffers from the lack of the music, they write with a beat not in the words but given externally through them. It is not a fault in music. It, however, does not lend itself well to print.
Anyway - my thanks if you've read all of that but here are the real discussion points, just with a long preface.
What songwriters do you consider to be poets, in a classical sense versus lyricists?
What poetry do you feel has influenced or tied musical interests to you?
Really I'd adore the conversation on any level - especially your personal experiences in the split and ties between them.
(I go sort of.. longwinded when I only sleep a couple hours).
Jump forward a few years and I am really branching out. Blues, jazz. Learning, reading about the Harlem Renaissance and the name came up again. A poet, an amazing man. Writing with passion that I thought I could emulate even if I was an idiot for it. It wasn't long till I had a recording of his poetry, books. Langston Hughes was shaping a lot of my lyrical understandings at a young age and even now that I've wandered so far it still draws me back over and over.
Can a white kid in the suburban south really grasp Hughes? Maybe, maybe not. But it was the most amazing thing I had read up until that point. Even now he is amongst my three favorite 'modern' poets and I am still consumed by interest. But what it did most importantly was make me think about the link between poetry and lyrics, but even beyond that with beats of speaking and beats of music.
Lyrical and ballad poetry are - by their very nature and names - linked to music. Blues poetry is much the same. Poets have been sampled and used and taken from and inspired. The words of the greatest are songs without music attached.
On the other side, many lyricists are poets of their own right. Certainly many lack the gravitas that the greatest poets have but some do - and it is unfair to compare the entire arena against only just those who have been preserved in memory through history.
Between the Lost Generation and the Beat Poets, the ties of it through the development of the music that would become popular music is impossible to deny. Even stretching further in both directions - the ties are less direct, less cases of actually knowing the poets, but still so tied. So many of our titans of popular music can list the poets who inspire them - but many you would not need to ask - as it can ring out in their music.
A few years ago, one of my favorite people in the world converted the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe into music. It was pretty poorly received but I ate it up. I was sold on concept and the first track. Of course I'm a sucker for certain things. But it did get me thinking about whether the crossover should be worked in a straight sense or inspirational. I do think that the album would have been stronger if it hadn't been so dogmatically tied to the work and more liberties were taken.
A number of songwriters have attempted to write books of poetry to greater - but usually lesser - success. In many cases their writing suffers from the lack of the music, they write with a beat not in the words but given externally through them. It is not a fault in music. It, however, does not lend itself well to print.
Anyway - my thanks if you've read all of that but here are the real discussion points, just with a long preface.
What songwriters do you consider to be poets, in a classical sense versus lyricists?
What poetry do you feel has influenced or tied musical interests to you?
Really I'd adore the conversation on any level - especially your personal experiences in the split and ties between them.
(I go sort of.. longwinded when I only sleep a couple hours).
