Music and Lyrics

My high school English teacher played Loreena McKennit's version of Alfred Noyes' poem, The Highwayman. She (McKennit, not my teacher, who was a man) had removed a few verses, but I still remember his enthusiasm about the poem: the narrative, the rhythm, and the onomatopoeia. I also remember the gentle shower of spray that burst from his lips as he reveled in the alliteration of the phrase "the barrel beneath her breast." 

Simon and Garfunkel change the words to a greater degree, but their song "Richard Cory" comes from the poem of the same name by Edwin Arlington Robinson. Though they depart from Arlington's phrasing, they convey the shock of Richard Cory's suicide through the abruptness of the music in a way that evokes the suddenness of the last line of his poem. 

One of my favorites, however, is Natalie Merchant and Susan McKeown's recording of Emily Dickinson's poem "Because I Could Not Stop for Death." (Incidentally, if you are familiar with Dickinson's poetry, you may enjoy this poem.) Both the Robinson and the Dickinson poems were ones that I would play for my students back when I was actually teaching literature. I never did teach "The Highwayman," perhaps because I have not been able to shake the mental images of my teacher's enthusiasm for it. 

So, it's obviously been done. Musicians have taken poems, dropped a few verses or even retained only the concept, and have turned them into songs. You can probably think of even more examples. But, what is it about a certain poem that makes it a good choice for this transformation? Why some and not others?

A musician at church has asked me to find a few poems that I think would do well set to music. He's looking for musical inspiration, so now I am looking for words. He's interested in Christian themes and ideas, but not in a heavy-handed, didactic sort of way. Now, for an English major and teacher, I really haven't read or studied much poetry. I like novels, but I don't suppose he is any more interested in setting Jane Eyre or East of Eden to music that anyone else is in listening to it. John Donne came to mind, but you should also know that this musician's style is progressive rock. I'm not picturing metaphysical sonnets working too well with this, though Donne was avant-garde in his own seventeenth century way . So, I've been exploring George Herbert, Rainer Maria Rilke, and a few others. I've been reading T.S. Eliot's The Four Quartets recently, and I can see portions of this working. (You may recall that this has been done with Eliot before, the result of which was the musical Cats- quite unlike what we're up to.)

In conclusion, two points. First, I ask for your suggestions. What poems have you read that could become songs? And, as Easter approaches, here is a bit from Eliot:

The wounded surgeon plies the steel

That questions the distempered part;

Beneath the bleeding hands we feel

The sharp compassion of the healer's art

Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease

If we obey the dying nurse

Whose constant care is not to please

But to remind us of our, and Adam's curse,

And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital

Endowed by the ruined millionaire,

Wherein, if we do well, we shall 

Die of the absolute paternal care

That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,

The fever sings in mental wires.

If to be warmed, then I must freeze

And quake in frigid purgatorial fires

Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,

The bloody flesh our only food:

In spite of which we like to think

That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood-

Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.