Poetry in Song

- and its loss

I’ve got to be careful here. I have even been told by my consultant surgeon boss when I was training to be a surgeon that if I didn’t like the music and lyrics of the Beatles (which he grew up with) - I couldn’t really be a surgeon!

I didn’t really mind. A year earlier, another consultant surgeon had told me that if I didn’t smoke - I couldn’t really be a surgeon either! This was the era when patronizing comments like that were regularly thrown at us - and we didn’t melt or turn into vapour.

So I ask for indulgence and perhaps a little forgiveness from my readers as I draw contrasts and comparisons between the poetry of classic country and folk/rock music - and the vapid emptiness of most of modern music and much of (hard) rock.  And please make your views known to me and to the world by your comments.

A certain very successful lady who is now a billionaire had a hit song recently, which seemed tailored to swiftly make me want to take a shower. It was supposed to speak of a break-up (or breakdown) and went like this:

Now I'm down bad, cryin' at the gym

Everything comes out teenage petulance

"Fuck it if I can't have him"

"I might just die, it would make no difference"

Down bad, wakin' up in blood

Starin' at the sky, come back and pick me up

Fuck it if I can't have us

I might just not get up, I might stay

For those who say that classic country spoke too much of heartbreak and loss - wouldn’t you rather listen to the actual poetry of loss (an all too common human experience) as in this country classic?:

I remember your leather boots

Pointing up into the sky

We fell down to our knees

Over there where the grass grew high

Love hunters in the night

Our faces turned into the wind

Blackhawk, where are you now?

Blackhawk and the white winged dove

We were - Blackhawk and the white winged dove

We were Blackhawk and the white winged dove

The evidence indicates that at one time, rock musicians sometimes succeeded in writing real and abiding poetry into their own lyrics. This seems like a very long time ago now - but at the risk of making more familiar this familiarly loved song and in the sure belief that familiarity in this case will never breed contempt, here is Bryan Adams’ soft rock poem:

Look into my eyes

You will see, what you mean to me

Search your heart, search your soul

When you find me there, you'll search no more

Don't tell me it's not worth trying for

You can't tell me it's not worth dying for

You know it's true (you know it's true)

Everything I do

I do it for you

Yeah, yeah

And with that one stroke of fond remembrance, I hope I have demolished the criticism that I am some kind of country music freak who cannot applaud poetry outside that mournful genre!

Or that the best poetry must always speak of loss!

Loss and longing however, do inform some of the best poems ever written - and I do not believe that Keats’ famous Ode to the Nightingale would have survived and enthralled its readers for two hundred years had it begun (my alteration of Keats’ words):

My heart is joyous and a happy numbness sparks

My sense as though of champagne I had drunk!

- Instead of the actual, immortal words of Keats’ Ode:

“My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense as though of hemlock I had drunk.”

That should be the only reason I need for recalling once again, the poetry of loss in country music.

But lest my readers should believe that country music cannot match Bryan Adams’ anthem of love, here is another country classic - this too is immortal in its celebration of love, timeless in its appeal to our hope for the present and the future with those we love:

Together again

My tears have stopped falling

The long lonely nights

Are now at an end

The key to my heart

You hold in your hand

And nothing else matters

We're together again

Together again

The gray skies are gone

Your back in my arms

Now where you belong

The love that we knew

Is living again

And nothing else matters

'Cause we're together again

Together again

My tears have stopped falling

The long lonely nights

Are now at an end

The love that we knew

Is living again

And nothing else matters

'Cause we're together again

No nothing else matters

'Cause we're together again

My purpose in this essay was never to bore my readers with several, repeated and obvious comparisons between the attempted murder of poetry in most modern lyrics and the beautiful songs that speak of love or loss or joy or sorrow in classic country and rock and folk music.

Rather, by showcasing the beautiful and the immortal, I hope to set a benchmark for comparison.

And I should also ask the other obvious question - why is it that religious music’s lyrics nowadays are often desperately shallow and superficial, with their lack of poetry screaming at us for redress?

I don’t doubt in any manner at all the sincerity with which these modern songs and religious choruses are sung. But the “dumbing down” of life should not extend to that which speaks deeply to our souls.

Consider the words of this classic hymn, for example, which consists of the cry of a lost and fumbling soul - and its hope and assurance of refuge in the Arms of Him (Jesus, the Lamb of God)  who bled and died for her:

Just as I am, without one plea,

But that Thy blood was shed for me,

And that Thou bid’st me come to Thee,

O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

Just as I am, though tossed about

With many a conflict, many a doubt;

Fightings within, and fears without,

O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind;

Sight, riches, healing of the mind;

Yes, all I need, in Thee to find,

O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

Just as I am, Thy love unknown

Has broken every barrier down;

Now, to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,

O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

Compare now, the incomparable beauty of the poetry of “Just As I Am” with virtually any modern, popular hymn or chorus - and once more, I shall use that example merely as a benchmark of poetry, of beauty, that should inform all our song-writing, especially the songs that speak of the journey of the soul.

It is not that we are incapable of producing poetry in our songs again. But we must rediscovery the spirit of beauty in song-writing, or else risk becoming barbarians again.

After all, the root of the word “lyric” is in Greek mythology, in the word λύρα (“lura,” lyre) and in the golden lyre that was bequeathed to Orpheus - who was in turn, both poet and musician in equal measure.