One argument I've made while working on this project is that some lyrics are poetry set to music. In his book Mystery Train, David Wojahn presents a collection of poems inspired by music and musicians. Many of the poems he includes here are not particularly musical or lyrical - finding these qualities takes some hard looking - but the musical inspiration is clearly seen in that all of the following poems are about musicians and their stories.
Depending on which musician/band Wojahn mentioned in a particular piece, I found myself reading the poem with their signature rhythm and voice in mind. I'm not sure if this was Wojahn's intention, but I couldn't help it with certain pieces. Take for example "Homage: Light from the Hall," the first poem in the "Mystery Train" series. In the first two lines Wojahn writes, "It is Soul Brother Number One, James Brown, / Chanting, 'It would be nothing, noth-iiiiinnnnnggg...'" (ll. 1-2) and I can hear Brown screeching the line as though he's on stage leaning into the microphone stand. Because the poem begins with the voice of James Brown the rest of the poem continues naturally in the same way, even though he doesn't remain the focus. The central focus of the poem is a time in musical history when soul music was reaching the masses, and Wojahn illustrates the scene of a kid with a transistor radio tucked under his pillow so he can listen late into the night (ll. 5-13).
Another song that caused me to read it in the singing voice of the musician mentioned is the eleventh in the series, "'Mystery Train': Janis Joplin Leaves Port Arthur for Points West, 1964." The poem captures Janis Joplin traveling on a train - some journey to some place new or a general need for change - and reads early on,
All night until the misty break of day.
Dark train,
dark train, sixteen coaches long.
Girl's looked out her window all night long,
Bad dreams:
couldn't sleep her thoughts away.
The wheels click, mournful, dream along (ll. 6-12).
There is obvious reference to "Train Kept A-Rollin'" which immediately set up the lyrical quality and rhythm of a train on tracks for me. But then the constant repetition of the word "long" and the rhymes that use it slow down the rhythm a bit, so it's not so much the sound of the train that continues throughout the song, but the impression of the landscape lilting by as it travels. Where Joplin's voice really came in was the lines,
A half-pint of Four Roses,
then she hums a Woody song,
"I Ain't Got No Home."
The whistle brays.
The Mystery Train is sixteen coaches long (ll. 22-26).
At the mention of Four Roses I can hear Joplin's dusty voice, and when "I Ain't Got No Home" is alluded to I see her eyes close and the notes come wailing from her chest in her signature bluesy growl. I think what Wojahn does is capture Joplin's spirit in the poem's story, so I can't help but hear her in it.
There is one poem in Wojahn's series that is completely unique from the rest in that he employs some musical sounds, specifically vocal techniques, in the composition. It is the thirty-first poem in the series and is called "Bo Diddley at Rick's Cafe Americain: Long Beach Island, New Jersey, 1985."
From the beginning of the poem Wojahn uses certain techniques to give the impression of prolonged notes, for example, "He walks forty thousand miles of barbed wire........... / He wears a cobra snake for a necktie...........etc." (ll. 1-2). The stretched ellipses are representative of the extended notes from George Thorogood's "47 Miles of Barbed Wire Fence" and Wojahn quotes the following two lines
I GOT A BRAN' NEW HOUSE ON THE RO........AD........SIDE
MADE OUT A' RATTLESNAKE HIDE..... (ll. 8-9),
as well. Wojahn "illustrates" them here in this way to give the impression of how they were actually sung.
Wojahn also inserts his own vocal fillers into the poem, which is more "musician" than "poet." He writes, "And plays to a crowd of twenty tonight, oo-wah" (l. 4). The "oo-wah" is a filler or small exclamation Bo Diddley (and many other musicians, blues and others) often injected into their songs but were generally not planned. By using methods used by the musician about whom he's writing, Wojahn is allowing his work to become more musical.
Finally, there is another poem in the series which coincides with my previous entry about legitimacy. The third poem in the group, called "W.C.W. Watching Presley's Second Appearance on 'The Ed Sullivan Show': Mercy Hospital, Newark, 1956" is somewhat comedic but makes a good point about what a legitimate poet actually is. Wojahn writes the poem in a trailing sonnet style, which harkens to William Carlos Williams' style of trickling his words down the page. Wojahn then humorously states in the first three lines, "The tube / like the sonnet, / is a fascist form." Odd considering the poem is written in sonnet form. But I digress.
In terms of the legitimacy argument, Wojahn refers to Elvis's "Don't Be Cruel" saying,
Kid, forget it.
You don't know
a fucking thing
about cruelty yet (ll. 40-43).
In other words, Wojahn, or in this case Williams, doesn't take Elvis seriously because he believes that if a musician/poet hasn't experienced something yet, then he/she can't possibly sing/write about it. Because of this, the speaker, whether it's Wojahn or Williams, can't fully connect with the lyrics - he doesn't believe the singer and can't connect with the emotion of the song.
What I learned from Wojahn's books is that poetry, lyrics and music really can inspire each other and propel each other forward. Though Wojahn's work has very few lyrical expressions, it is no doubt inspired by certain musicians and the stories their lyrics tell.
Neat observations about the musical elements in Wojahn's poetry. It's probably worth noting that the poems are formal poems, too, set in a certain form much like many lyrics are. Most are sonnets, the Joplin poem is a villanelle.
ReplyDeleteSince you've been looking at albums that have an overarching theme or narrative, it's worth noting that these rock and roll sonnets seems to want to tell a kind of story overall, too. Note that they are in chronological order. One might argue that they tell the history of rock. If this is the case, it's a story of great energy that becomes lost, mired in drugs, glitz, showmanship, money. Think of the final poem, in which John Lennon's death is being used in a tawdry way to make money--and how his song "Imagine," is made grotesque by being played over the scene of his death.
Ah, yes, and back to legitimacy--You identify a key moment; Williams doesn't believe Presley has it. However, what does the poem (and Wojahn) seem to think? He writes a few poems about the king, and he seems to poke fun at Williams a bit, writing a sonnet about him who hates sonnets.
The definition of legitimacy Williams (and you) are putting forward here has to do with authenticity, another important yet tricky word in literature.
How does a writer establish authenticity? Does life experience matter? Does it matter what the lives of the artists in The Low Album have been like? What if they are all trust-fund babies who haven't had to work a day in their lives? Would that affect how you feel about their songs? What if they had no friends or relatives who actually went to war?