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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (86393)	8/25/2000 10:57:36 AM
From: jbe	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 108807

Gotcha, ha-ha! :-) I am at an advantage,, not a disadvantage! I am the one with a full-fledged, professional, rock-jazz-blues-Cajun-whatever musician in the home! See: kicksville.com My son, Conrad, is the curly-headed one in glasses, not the blond one. And he is the one who does all the composing/recording, the one who used his grandfather's (my father's) poetry in some of his techno pieces, the one who wrote all the copy for the site. AND -- he agrees with me about most pop/rock/pseudo-folk music lyrics. So there! <g> (His favorite group, Kings-X, writes great lyrics. It is possible.) I have plenty of acquaintance with opera and lieder. Do you? I ask because lieder generally set well-known poems, by well-known poets, to music. The poems, in other words, were written before anyone thought of setting them to music, so just how does your dictum ("music permits a license that poetry does not have") apply? Or, for example, to Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov, the libretto for which is drawn from Pushkin's great verse drama? Getting back to the point. Scanning is not just a question of having the right number of beats to a measure. It is perfectly okay to use free verse for lyrics. It's when you employ rhyme along with your clumsy rhythm that you produce doggerel. It is particularly bad when you have to drag in inappropriate words or lousy metaphors to make your lyrics "rhyme." Are you familiar with folk music? I mean, real folk music? The lyrics tend to be simple, but powerful. And they usually scan. Take, for example, Barbara Allen: In Scarlet town where I was born, There was a fair maid dwellin' Made every youth cry Well-a-day, Her name was Barb'ra Allen. All in the merry month of May, When green buds they were swellin' Young Willie Grove on his death-bed lay, For love of Barb'ra Allen. He sent his servant to her door To the town where he was dwellin' Haste ye come, to my master's call, If your name be be Barb'ra Allen. So slowly, slowly got she up, And slowly she drew nigh him, And all she said when there she came: "Young man, I think you're dying!" He turned his face unto the wall And death was drawing nigh him. Good bye, Good bye to dear friends all, Be kind to Bar'bra Allen When he was dead and laid in grave, She heard the death bell knelling. And every note, did seem to say Oh, cruel Barb'ra Allen "Oh mother, mother, make my bed Make it soft and narrow Sweet William died, for love of me, And I shall die of sorrow." They buried her in the old churchyard Sweet William's grave was nigh hers And from his grave grew a red, red rose From hers a cruel briar. They grew and grew up the old church spire Until they could grow no higher And there they twined, in a true love knot, The red, red rose and the briar.