Poetry, Music or Both?
dd December 15th, 2005
I have never understood how my wife could not LOVE really good folk music. After all, the good stuff is terrific poetry set to great music. And in an epiphany it came to me yesterday. Her brain shuts out the words—she’s lyric-blind, or, more appropriately lyric-deaf! “Too much work” she says. Of course that explains everything. For me, music without words is like watching a silent movie—boring and lifeless. Or, like looking at paintings in only 1 color. Perhaps wordless music is good for background noise when your brain really has to fully concentrate. Or, it can be used as background to a good massage, when your brain likes to shut down anyway. That’s about it for me.
My brain soaks up lyrics. To me, the best folk music—e.g. Bob Dylan, Stan Rogers, Steve Goodman, John Gorka, Peter Yarrow and Beth Nielsen Chapman—is poetry set to hauntingly beautiful melodies and harmonies. Can you imagine “Puff the Magic Dragon” without Puff? Or, “Forever Young”, “Where Have all the flowers Gone” or “Give Yourself to Love” with no words? Unimaginable! The poetry in such songs moves me powerfully; it makes me think and question things. It hits me in the face with ponderings about the basics: love, hate, death, life, sorrow, joy, fear, etc. Yet, I appreciate and am moved by this poetry so much more when it’s set to music than when it’s just spoken. My wife, however, likes her poetry without the music and her music without the poetry.
My wife likes classical music – in no small part because it’s just music and no words. I OTOH fall asleep in any classical music concert within 5 minutes. My brain is not engaged; it’s not asked to think or ponder life’s mysteries. I think this is one reason that classical music has such a miniscule audience these days. It’s BORING for most of us who like our music with words.
But, I’m still a little mystified. How come she likes the Beatles or the oldie music in the movie, “Big Chill”? Last time I looked, there were lyrics. Guess I haven’t totally solved this mystery.
Anyway, I just discovered this next amazing and wonderful music. But, please get and listen to the actual song with the beautiful music. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
“Sand and Water”, by Beth Nielsen Chapman. Do yourself a favor and check out her music.
All alone I didn’t like the feeling
All alone I sat and cried
All alone I had to find some meaning
In the center of the pain I felt inside.
All alone I came into this world
All alone I will someday die
Solid stone is just sand and water, baby
Sand and water, and a million years gone by
CHORUS:
I will see you in the light of a thousand suns
I will hear you in the sound of the waves
I will know you when I come, as we all will come
Through the doors beyond the grave
All alone I heal this heart of sorrow
All alone I raise this child
Flesh and bone, he’s just
Bursting toward tomorrow
And his laughter fills my world and wears your smile
CHORUS
All alone I came into this world
All alone I will someday die
Solid stone is just sand and water, baby
Sand and water, and a million years gone by
I never thought about it this way, but I do have a couple of ideas. First of all, I really do like the words when I know them. I just don’t like to have to make the effort to understand the words when I don’t know them. Secondly, music often serves as a catalyst for my mind — sort of a jumping off point — and the words just get in the way when I really want to think about something else. I can easily imagine good poetry and background music — without words, of course. BRAVO to you for posting again!
xx,
B
I’m gonna have to agree with your wife here; It’s too much work. Music is the sountrack for whatever I’m thinking about while it’s playing. (And for what it’s worth, I’m a musician.) Paying attention to the lyrics only distracts me. Do you think the difference is a male/female thing?
I didn’t used to think it was a male/female thing, but now you’ve got me thinking. There are quite a few women songwriters - e.g Joni Mitchell and Beth Nielsen Chapman whose song lyrics I featured in my post.
Are you a classical musician? That may be the correlation. Maybe some other females will weigh in here.
Not a huge fan of folk music myself, but I could listen to Gordon Lightfoot all day long. I have a weakness for Canadians…
Then, you should definitely check out Leonard Cohen (if you haven’t already). He’s in the same rarified league as Dylan and is a better poet.
[…] P.S. Also, see “Sand and Water” by Beth Nielsen Chapman below […]
I enjoy Barbara’s blog very much…and her comments…she says one day we will all do a little cooking together ( I am a retired Chef) and I look forward to it…I can tell that we will have some good music playing as we cook…I have not heard of Beth but Will check her out… i am a big Dylan and Cohen fan and truly admire the singer/songwriters that have ammassed a body of work over the years while staying relatively unknown…one of my favorites that plays in your area frequently is Chris Smither…he was in Fort Worth for the first time in 5 years a few months back..I would bet you are familiar with him, but if not I highly recommend.
good to meet you…”Love minus Zero”, I can dig it! Steve
hi Steve,
It’s nice to meet and hear from you. Looking forward to cooking and sharing music together! I do have a couple of Chris Smither songs in my iTunes library. Have you checked out Richard Shnindell or Cindy Kallett? You might like their stuff. I also invited you to be a “friend” on iLike, a very cool plug-in for iTunes. It’s a plug-in that gives you a list of similar kinds of music (some are free) to the song you are currently playing. Also, let’s you see what your friends like to listen to.
I get a lot of new song ideas from wumb.org - a 24/7 folk music station out of Boston.
David
P.S. I think you’re the first to figure out where my blog name comes from!
Another thought came to mind concerning poor Barbara…there are some Dylan songs that I am STILL NOT SURE WHAT THE HECK he is saying…the beauty of it is that a thought or feeling so plain should be sung a little in disguise, dont you thinK?
I have two Shindell CD’s, a very good writer he is. probably my latest (last ten years) is greg Brown out of Iowa…we have no FM folk station down hwere…people wouldnt know good music, mostly, if it bit ‘em on the behind.
you’re definitely right about some Dylan songs, including the one from which my title is taken. the cool thing about the internet is we don’t need to rely on fm stations any more. DC doesn’t have an folk station either (used to have a few programs, but they’re all gone). Enter internet radio or stations like wumb that stream their stuff. definitely check out www.wumb.org and also iTunes radio channels - under Americana.
i have to check out Greg Brown some more. Thanks.
[…] Generally, I fall asleep after about 5 minutes when I (infrequently) attend a classical music concert. More about this topic can be found in an earlier post. […]
[…] managed to stay awake - I refer you to this post - longer than my wife despite her penchant for this kind of “Bachian” music. However, […]