Tuesday 2 September 2008

Name that tune

Flushed with the excitement of winning Ken Armstrong's race to the song lyric the other day I then started fiddling about with a poem full of song lyrics. I use song lyrics in poems a lot (songs being almost my main point of reference) but I don't think I've tried to write a poem quite so tightly packed full of them before. So, here it is...hot off the press (I was just refiddling it this morning!). It's kind of different to any of my usual styles I think (apart from the rhyming, I suppose). I'll be reading it at the folk club here tonight most likely. The guest tonight is Kris Drever (guitarist/singer/Orcadian) and he is brilliant so I'm looking forward to a night out. You see...the beat goes on...



No sense unsung

Reach out and touch
The sound of silence
Some kind of wonderful
So hard to find
If you're alone now
Feel for the look of love
All the songs know it
Love can be blind

Beware a touch too much
Likewise the hardest word
You hear a symphony
But life's off key
Smells like... another time
How tastes... the air tonight?
What's going on here?
Young hearts run free


RF 2008

15 comments:

Rachel Fox said...

Childish I know but I was particularly pleased to get AC/DC in there. There's something about poetry and heavy rock...to me they go together so unexpectedly well! And we can't all be Leonard Cohen fans...
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hope said...

What a cool way to start off Monday morning here. Thanks!

Rachel Fox said...

I didn't think the time difference was that big, Hope! It's Tuesday here...
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Anonymous said...

Time after time...
I'll come running back to you...
you raise me up...


(Damn... have to run to the Post Office!!)

:)

k

hope said...

Some of us should not be given a day off at the beginning of the week. :)

You are correct, it is Tuesday and only a 5 hours difference, 29 hours. Still liked your work though.

hope said...

Dang, I can't even type!

"5 hour difference, not 29 hours".

Rachel Fox said...

You should have seen the state of the comment I put on Dave King's blog today! Literate...I think not! Must be something...to do with the planets or something...
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Dave King said...

I find that really impressive. I am full of admiration. Excellent.

Dave King said...

And Rachel's comment on my blog was fine!

hope said...

You know what's going to happen, don't you? {After the planets realign and get our words back in order...although you made sense to me on Dave's blog.} :)

You're going to end up starting a new poem and everyone is going to chime in with a lyric. After all, you got KEN waxing poetic. ;)

Rachel Fox said...

Ok - give me one of your favourite bits of song lyrics then. See what we can come up with...

It's Wednesday now..read the poem last night (plus 'About the thing' and 'Weirdo'). Lovely big friendly audience...and no wonder as Kris Drever was absolutely excellent. He plays in a duo and a couple of trios (all good) but I really like him as a solo performer.

Dave King said...

I had to come back to read it again. In fact, I've copied it - hope that's okay with you. The only bit I'd question is the title: I think it makes a lot of sense unsung - though I see where you are coming from with it.
It's almost a poem of found things... well, I suppose it is, but they work together unbelievably well - not by accident, of course, but by your artifice. There are some superb details: in the third line wonderful used as anoun, for example - at least, that's how I read it. Great!

Rachel Fox said...

Yes..I was thinking only this morning whether I should rename it 'Name that tune' like the post. The 'no sense' bit was about trying to think of song lyrics that referred to senses but then changing them round...and then also the fact that the poem might actually make 'no sense' (and I do more often than not write poems that have a fairly clear sense...). Still undecided!
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hope said...

Never encourage me when it comes to stuff like this. :)

Here are some song titles, in no particular order, with singer in parenthesis. Remember, you asked. :)

Starry, starry night [Josh Groban]
I feel the Earth move [Carole King]
Only the Lonely [Chris Isaac]
Life in the fast lane [The Eagles]
And so it goes [Billy Joel]
I like it like that [Tito Nieves]
Slow dancing in a burning room [John Mayer]
That's all [cover by Michael Buble]

Rachel Fox said...

Interesting bunch! Some of these I've sneaked into poems already...'starry starry night' is in 'Just the one song' and 'and so it goes' is the title of a little poem (that was a coincidence though - not done on purpose).
As for 'I like it like that'...when I was a DJ (with a friend) one of our BIG tunes was a cover of that by (I think) an artist called The Blackout Allstars. My, we had some fine moments with that one! We partied like it was 1999 in fact.
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