Three for Friday
Some weekend reading with music in mind
The world of readers is divided into those people who like music in the background while they read and those who prefer silence. Ditto writers. I’m a silence reader and writer but I know plenty of people who can concentrate regardless of the background sounds. I think I prefer silence because it helps me to hear the rhythm of the words and voices of characters as I develop a story.
I’ve chosen readings this week that in one way or another celebrate voice, whether singing or chanting, for the effect it has on listeners.
To start here’s a poem by Leonard Cohen on a classical subject for poetry, many a schoolkid has memorised lines from Keats’ ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, and Cohen calls up that mythical quality in his longing to live beside the bird but turns it to a melancholy account of lost love.
NIGHTINGALE I built my house beside the wood So I could hear you singing And it was sweet and it was good And love was all beginning Fare thee well my nightingale 'Twas long ago I found you Now all your songs of beauty fail The forest closes 'round you The sun goes down behind a veil 'Tis now that you would call me So rest in peace my nightingale Beneath your branch of holly Fare thee well my nightingale I lived but to be near you Though you are singing somewhere still I can no longer hear you
In his story ‘The Clown’ Alberto Moravia points to the perils of not taking songs seriously. This translation is by Angus Davidson.
Finally, a wonderful essay, titled Inner Music, by poet Ted Hughes on the power of the voice to bring new meaning and depth to poetry.
Share your comments, thoughts and suggestions here
So far subscribers have suggested a song that tells a story, ‘The Ballad of Lucy Jordan’, as sung by Marianne Faithfull, and stories by Donald Barthelme, influenced by Glenn Miller, ‘How I Write My Songs’, ‘The King of Jazz’. There is also a vital verbal rendition of jazz music by Eudora Welty, ‘Powerhouse’. Lots of examples to play with, read or tune into!
Balm for the soul - thank you!