Poetry and Lyrics

[Angeline]

Yes, music is a great inspiration for poems, but since I am not an expert on poems, the terms or other things, it does help vent feelings and that. Anyway, one song I will always like is...

"Ordinary World"
Duran Duran © 1993

Came in from a rainy Thursday
On the avenue
Thought I heard you talking softly

I turned on the lights, the TV
And the radio
Still I can't escape the ghost of you

What has happened to it all?
Crazy, some are saying
Where is the life that I recognize?
Gone away

But I won't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive

Passion or coincidence
Once prompted you to say
"Pride will tear us both apart"
Well now pride's gone out the window
Cross the rooftops
Run away
Left me in the vacuum of my heart

What is happening to me?
Crazy, some'd say
Where is my friend when I need you most?
Gone away

But I won't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive

Papers in the roadside
Tell of suffering and greed
Here today, forgot tomorrow
Ooh, here besides the news
Of holy war and holy need
Ours is just a little sorrowed talk

And I don't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive

Every one
Is my world, I will learn to survive
Any one
Is my world, I will learn to survive
Any one
Is my world
Every one
Is my world

Thank you for the lyric.

Here's one I love that I was listening to last night.

Free Man in Paris
Joni Mitchell

The way I see it, he said
You just can’t win it
Everybody’s in it for their own gain
You can’t please ’em all
There’s always somebody calling you down
I do my best
And I do good business
There’s a lot of people asking for my time
They’re trying to get ahead
They’re trying to be a good friend of mine

I was a free man in paris
I felt unfettered and alive
There was nobody calling me up for favors
And no one’s future to decide
You know I’d go back there tomorrow
But for the work I’ve taken on
Stoking the star maker machinery
Behind the popular song

I deal in dreamers
And telephone screamers
Lately I wonder what I do it for
If l had my way
I’d just walk through those doors
And wander
Down the champs elysees
Going cafe to cabaret
Thinking how I’ll feel when I find
That very good friend of mine

I was a free man in paris
I felt unfettered and alive
Nobody was calling me up for favors
No one’s future to decide
You know I’d go back there tomorrow
But for the work I’ve taken on
Stoking the star maker machinery
Behind the popular song.

 

[Jennifer C]

Foolish Lyrics - Ashanti

See my days are cold without you
But I'm hurtin while im with you
And though my heart can't take no more
I keep on running back to you
See my days are cold without you
But I'm hurtin while im with you
And though my heart can't take no more
I keep on running back to you

Baby I don't know why ya treatin me so bad
You said you love me, no one above me
And I was all you had
And though my heart is eating for ya
I can't stop crying
I don't know how
I allow you to treat me this way and still i stay

See my days are cold without you
But I'm hurtin while im with you
And though my heart can't take no more
I keep on running back to you
See my days are cold without you
But I'm hurtin while im with you
And though my heart can't take no more
I keep on running back to you

Baby I don't know why ya wanna do me wrong
See when I'm home, I'm all alone
And you are always gone
And boy, you kno I really love you
I can't deny
I can't see how you could bring me to so many tears
after all these years

See my days are cold without you
But I'm hurtin while im with you
And though my heart can't take no more
I keep on running back to you
See my days are cold without you
But I'm hurtin while im with you
And though my heart can't take no more
I keep on running back to you
Oohhhhh
I trusted you, I trusted you
So sad, so sad
what love will make you do
all the things that we accept
be the things that we regret
too all of my ladies (ladies) feel me
c'mon sing wit me
See, when I get the strength to leave
You always tell me that you need me
And I'm weak cause I believe you
And I'm mad because I love you
So I stop and think that maybe
You can learn to appreciate me
Then it all remains the same that
You ain't never gonna change
(never gonna change, never gonna change)
See my days are cold without you
But I'm hurtin while im with you
And though my heart can't take no more
I keep on running back to you
See my days are cold without you
Butm hurtin while im with you
And though my heart can't take no more
I keep on running back to you

Baby why you hurt me leave me and desert me
Boy I gave you all my heart
And all you do is tear it up
Looking out my window
Knowing that I should go
Even when I pack my bags
This something always hold me back

 

[Du Lac]

True to the Blues........Keb Mo

A Better Man
soundclip
KEB MO


by Kevin Moore / O. Osbourne
recording of 1998
from Slow Down (OKeh/550/Epic/Sony 491613 9), copyright notice

Sittin' here in my problem
What am I gonna do now
Am I gonna make it
Someway, somehow

Maybe I'm not supposed to know
Maybe I'm supposed to cry
And if nobody ever knows
The way I feel
It's all right
And it'll be ok

(Chorus
I'm gonna make my world a better place
I'm gonna keep that smile on my face
I'm gonna teach myself how to understand
I'm gonna make myself a better man

Climbing out of the window
Climbing up the wall
Is anybody gonna save me
Or are they gonna let me fall
Well I don't really wanna know
I´ll just hold on the best I can
And if I fall down
I´ll just get back up
It'll be alright
It'll be ok

(Chorus 2x)

Maybe I'm not supposed to know
Maybe I'm supposed to cry
And if nobody ever knows
The way I feel
That's all right
It'll be ok

(Chorus 2x)

 

[Angeline]

My favorite Joan Baez song

which she wrote about (and for) Bob Dylan, but it always reminds me of my first love.

Joan Baez

Well I'll be damned
Here comes your ghost again
But that's not unusual
It's just that the moon is full
And you happened to call
And here I sit
Hand on the telephone
Hearing a voice I'd known
A couple of light years ago
Heading straight for a fall

As I remember your eyes
Were bluer than robin's eggs
My poetry was lousy you said
Where are you calling from?
A booth in the midwest
Ten years ago
I bought you some cufflinks
You brought me something
We both know what memories can bring
They bring diamonds and rust

Well you burst on the scene
Already a legend
The unwashed phenomenon
The original vagabond
You strayed into my arms
And there you stayed
Temporarily lost at sea
The Madonna was yours for free
Yes the girl on the half-shell
Would keep you unharmed

Now I see you standing
With brown leaves falling around
And snow in your hair
Now you're smiling out the window
Of that crummy hotel
Over Washington Square
Our breath comes out white clouds
Mingles and hangs in the air
Speaking strictly for me
We both could have died then and there

Now you're telling me
You're not nostalgic
Then give me another word for it
You who are so good with words
And at keeping things vague
Because I need some of that vagueness now
It's all come back too clearly
Yes I loved you dearly
And if you're offering me diamonds and rust
I've already paid

 

[tungtied2u]

I was listening to Moody Blues

and this one resonated.....

The Story In Your Eyes

I've been thinking about our fortune
And I've decided that we're really not to blame
For the love that's deep inside us now
Is still the same.
And the sound we make together
Is the music to the story in your eyes
It's been shining down upon me now
I realise.

Listen to the tide slowly turning,
Wash all our heartaches away.
We're part of the fire that is burning
And from the ashes we can build for another day

But I'm frightened for your children
And the life that we are living is in vain
And the sunshine we've been waiting for
Will turn to rain.

When the final line is over
And it's certain that the curtain's gonna fall
I can hide inside your sweet innocent love
For evermore

Listen to the tide slowly turning,
Wash all our heartaches away.
We're part of the fire that is burning
And from the ashes we can build for another day

But I'm frightened for your children
And the life that we are living is in vain
And the sunshine we've been waiting for
Will turn to rain.

 

[tungtied2u]

More Moodies

Isn't Life Strange

Isn't life strange,
A turn of the page
Can read like before,
Can we ask for more?
Each day passes by,
How hard will man try?
The sea will not wait
You know it makes me want to cry, cry, cry.

Wished I could be in your heart
To be one with your love.
Wished I could be in your eyes;
Looking back there you were, and here we are.

Isn't life strange,
A word we arrange
With no thought or care,
Maker of despair?
Each breath that we breathe
With love we must weave
To make us as one;
You know it makes me want to cry, cry, cry.

Wished I could be in your heart
To be one with your love.
Wished I could be in your eyes;
Looking back there you were, and here we are.

Isn't life strange?
A turn of the page,
A book without light
Unless with love we write.
To throw it away,
To lose just a day,
The quicksand of time,
You know it makes me want to cry, cry, cry.

Wished I could be in your heart
To be one with your love.
Wished I could be in your eyes;
Looking back there you were, and here we are.

 

[RhymeFairy]

Artist: Sarah Brightman
Album: Songs That Got Away
Title: Away From You


Away from you
There is no music,
There is no sunlight,
The world is gray.
Away from you
The clocks are frozen,
And time's a traveller
Who's lost his way.

The people i meet
Might as well be statues,
The words we exchange
Might as well be greek.
The room that i'm in
May be bright and cheerful
But to me
It's dim and bleak.


I'm half alive
Until the moment
The door swings open
And you walk through.
Now my world starts to glow
Like a stained-glass window
And what was old and cold
Is warm and new.
And so you see
Why i can never be
Away from you.


Away from you
The world is lifeless
As though creation
Has gone awry.
The trees are bare,


There are no flowers,
The fields are thirsty,
The streams are dry.


We live, you and i,
For a breath of sunlight,
So brief an escape
From a world of gray.
Our moments of warmth
Have been touch and go, love,
But tonight, we'll touch
And stay.


The people i meet
Might as well be statues,
The words we exchange
Might as well be greek.
The room that i'm in
May be bright and cheerful
But to me
It's dim and bleak.


I'm half alive
Until the moment
The door swings open
And you walk through.
Now my soul is afloat
On a wave of music
That i could feel such joy
I never knew.
And so you see
Why i can never be
Away from you.

 

[RhymeFairy]

Artist: Norah Jones
Album: Come Away with Me
Title: The Nearness of You


why do i just wither and forget all resistance
when you and your magic pass by
my heart's in a dither dear
when you're at a distance
but when you are near, oh my...

Its not the pale moon that excites me
That thrills and delights me,
oh no
Its just the nearness of you

It isn't your sweet conversation
That brings this sensation,
oh no
Its just the nearness of you

When you're in my arms
and I feel you so close to me
All my wildest dreams
came true

I need no soft lights to enchant me
If you'll only grant me
the right
To hold you ever so tight
And to feel in the night
the nearness of you.

 

[Angeline]

Artist: Norah Jones
Album: Come Away with Me
Title: The Nearness of You


why do i just wither and forget all resistance
when you and your magic pass by
my heart's in a dither dear
when you're at a distance
but when you are near, oh my...

Its not the pale moon that excites me
That thrills and delights me,
oh no
Its just the nearness of you

It isn't your sweet conversation
That brings this sensation,
oh no
Its just the nearness of you

When you're in my arms
and I feel you so close to me
All my wildest dreams
came true

I need no soft lights to enchant me
If you'll only grant me
the right
To hold you ever so tight
And to feel in the night
the nearness of you.

That's a great old jazz standard. I have a version of Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald singing/playing it that's especially lovely.

 

[CharleyH]

who shone under Tom Waits' tutelage.

Rikki was awesome, so was Tom Waits, so was Kate Bush. I used to have their albums, but in a moment of desperate poverty, sold them all, lol , so am left with the likes of a lot of music no one wanted to buy (those they wanted)

What is the most powerful aspect of music to me is not simply the words, but the whole package. A piece of music is, in word, meaningful to a time in your life, whatever you decide to read into it ... but the music transcends time, all times. It conjures a smell, sound, taste, memory, sensation or feeling that ... almost mesmerically traps you.

Can lyrics do the same? In other words, do words in poety or lyric have the same awesome power over us as does beat, melody and rhythm? (ie I bet we forget the words, but never forget the sound of the music, Julie Andrews aside - lol. )

 

[Angeline]

Rikki was awesome, so was Tom Waits, so was Kate Bush. I used to have their albums, but in a moment of desperate poverty, sold them all, lol , so am left with the likes of a lot of music no one wanted to buy (those they wanted)

What is the most powerful aspect of music to me is not simply the words, but the whole package. A piece of music is, in word, meaningful to a time in your life, whatever you decide to read into it ... but the music transcends time, all times. It conjures a smell, sound, taste, memory, sensation or feeling that ... almost mesmerically traps you.

Can lyrics do the same? In other words, do words in poety or lyric have the same awesome power over us as does beat, melody and rhythm? (ie I bet we forget the words, but never forget the sound of the music, Julie Andrews aside - lol. )

Hiya sweetie.

Sometimes lyrics alone are very powerful--Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits are poets without the music, to name a few imo...but I know what you mean. It's generally the whole package. On the other hand, I am currently listening to the Marion McPartland Trio do an incredible version of Mood Indigo; it's lovely and moving and jazzy/lyrical and not a word is sung.

 

[CharleyH]

Hiya sweetie.

Sometimes lyrics alone are very powerful--Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits are poets without the music, to name a few imo...but I know what you mean. It's generally the whole package. On the other hand, I am currently listening to the Marion McPartland Trio do an incredible version of Mood Indigo; it's lovely and moving and jazzy/lyrical and not a word is sung.

Well, describe how it moves you? I am reading your words. listening to traffic, and the fan, and my fingers on the keyboard. Imagine, for a moment ... a world without music, not just for that one moment ... but always. We need words certainly, but would we 'remember' as powerfully without music?

 

[Du Lac]

Wallace Stevens

THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A BLACKBIRD

by: Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the black bird.

II

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI

Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X

At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI

He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII

The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" is reprinted from Others: A Magazine of the New Verse, December 1917.

 

[Du Lac]

Wally again........can you tell I really like this style?

The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm

Wallace Stevens

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom the book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

 

[Angeline]

Well, describe how it moves you? I am reading your words. listening to traffic, and the fan, and my fingers on the keyboard. Imagine, for a moment ... a world without music, not just for that one moment ... but always. We need words certainly, but would we 'remember' as powerfully without music?

I can not imagine a world without music. Well I can, but it's not a world in which I'd want to reside.

One of the songs on this Marion McPartland cd I'm listening to now is called "I Hear Music." The lyric (to summarize) says that there's music in every sound, and certainly there is in the spoken word--even if spoken silently to onseself when reading. I think your point is well taken because I usually have music running through my head, my dreams almost always have a "soundtrack," and when I read poetry I love I can hear the rhythm of it in a musical sense. When I feel I'm writing well, the lines take on a musical quality to me.

How does that feel? Specifically, it's no different from that butterflies in the tummy, heartswelling reaction I have when I fall in love, what I feel when I look at you-know-who and think about what he means to me.

I feel that listening to jazz tonight.

 

[Angeline]

THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A BLACKBIRD

by: Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the black bird.

II

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI

Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X

At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI

He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII

The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" is reprinted from Others: A Magazine of the New Verse, December 1917.

Now that's a poem I love. I wrote a poem called Ten Ways of Falling, using the same concept--taking an idea and writing strophes centered on the images it conjures for me.

 

[bluerains]

agreed to du...

would now like to add
http://www.irisdement.com/
as a vision of the big easy...

 

[Angeline]

Under African Skies
Paul Simon

Joseph's face was black as the night
The pale yellow moon shone in his eyes
His path was marked
By the stars in the Southern Hemisphere
And he walked his days
Under African skies
This is the story of how we begin to remember
This is the powerful pulsing of love in the vein
After the dream of falling and calling your name out
These are the roots of rhythm
And the roots of rhythm remain

In early memory
Mission music
Was ringing 'round my nursery door
I said take this child, Lord
From Tucson Arizona
Give her the wings to fly through harmony
And she won't bother you no more

This is the story of how we begin to remember
This is the powerful pulsing of love in the vein
After the dream of falling and calling your name out
These are the roots of rhythm
And the roots of rhythm remain

Joseph's face was as black as the night
And the pale yellow moon shone in his eyes
His path was marked
By the stars in the Southern Hemisphere
And he walked the length of his days
Under African skies

 

[CharleyH]

I can not imagine a world without music. Well I can, but it's not a world in which I'd want to reside.

One of the songs on this Marion McPartland cd I'm listening to now is called "I Hear Music." The lyric (to summarize) says that there's music in every sound, and certainly there is in the spoken word--even if spoken silently to onseself when reading. I think your point is well taken because I usually have music running through my head, my dreams almost always have a "soundtrack," and when I read poetry I love I can hear the rhythm of it in a musical sense. When I feel I'm writing well, the lines take on a musical quality to me.

How does that feel? Specifically, it's no different from that butterflies in the tummy, heartswelling reaction I have when I fall in love, what I feel when I look at you-know-who and think about what he means to me.

I feel that listening to jazz tonight.

well I know you can come up with more words than that, and I am confidant in this. Music, again tonight, as I have heard much on the radio, is barely as inspiring as your conversation. I thank you for that. Did you ever do an audio? I DEFINATELY have to listen to it!

 

[Angeline]

well I know you can come up with more words than that, and I am confidant in this. Music, again tonight, as I have heard much on the radio, is barely as inspiring as your conversation. I thank you for that. Did you ever do an audio? I DEFINATELY have to listen to it!

I have an audio file on Lauren's site, but I'm not sure the link still works.

Eve has a few of my audio poems, too, which I think she may put on her site again when it's up.

Conversation with you is always welcome and appreciated.

 

[CharleyH]

I have an audio file on Lauren's site, but I'm not sure the link still works.

Eve has a few of my audio poems, too, which I think she may put on her site again when it's up.

Conversation with you is always welcome and appreciated.

Laurens site is up? If not I will hassle her Only to listen to you and Eve

 

[BooMerengue]

I have an audio file on Lauren's site, but I'm not sure the link still works.

Eve has a few of my audio poems, too, which I think she may put on her site again when it's up.

Conversation with you is always welcome and appreciated.

But wait til you hear her, Charley!! She's so "New Joisy!" (you have to say that through your nose to get the full affect!

*fallin over w/ glee... wish I was a fly on the wall when Ange gets back!!

 

[CharleyH]

But wait til you hear her, Charley!! She's so "New Joisy!" (you have to say that through your nose to get the full affect!

*fallin over w/ glee... wish I was a fly on the wall when Ange gets back!!

I had a NewOrk, GF, I used to go alot. I can hear the diff from Manhatten to Brooklyn, and even Park Slope! I know the sexy nasel accent! Can't wait for Lauren to wake up so I can hear it again!

 

[BooMerengue]

I had a NewOrk, GF, I used to go alot. I can hear the diff from Manhatten to Brooklyn, and even Park Slope! I know the sexy nasel accent! Can't wait for Lauren to wake up so I can hear it again!

Lauren has a sexy nasal accent????? Where did she get it??

 

[CharleyH]

Lauren has a sexy nasal accent????? Where did she get it??

I doubt it LOL but if she has your sorry ass accent? Or Angelines? I am hitting her up!

What is your song tonight? I only hear alternative music at the moment.