Modern Poets

I know. It's a total cop-out to keep blogging song lyrics. But they are the only thing that is genuinely resonating with me lately.

I think about this - how listening to a single song often moves me far more than watching a play or movie. Is it because a song, being a purely aural experience, better allows us to make our own associations? In a play or a movie, we are given much more direction about what we are supposed to think. In those mediums, the story is about the lives on stage. When listening to a song it inevitably becomes about our lives, our experiences.

The songs that move me most somehow combine lyrics and melody into a bittersweet cocktail. There are songs that, within the first three bars, have me in tears. And not necessarily because of associations they carry, or memories they conjure, but simply because they have found the perfect formula to reach in deep and twist my insides.

I wish I could harness that power in my work.

Today's Lyrics:

Foolish Love
by Rufus Wainwright

I don't want to hold you and feel so helpless
I don't want to smell you and lose my senses
And smile in slow motion
With eyes in love

I twist like a corkscrew
The sweetness rising
I drink from the bottle, weeping
Why won't you last?
Why can't you last

So I will walk without care
Beat my snare
Look like a man who means business
Go to all the poshest places
With their familiar faces
Terminate all signs of weakness
Oh, all for the sake of a foolish love

I will take my coffee black
Never snack
Hang with the wolves who are sheepish
Flow through the veins of town
Always frown
Me and my mistress, the princess
Oh, all for the sake of a foolish love

So the day noah's ark floats down park
My eyes will be simply glazed over
Or better yet
I'll wear shades on sunless days
And when the sun's out, I'll stay in and slumber
Oh, all for the sake of a foolish love
All for the sake of a foolish love

Cause I don't want to hold you and feel so helpless
I don't want to smell you and lose my senses
And smile in slow motion
With eyes in love

I've written about this song before. I love the way it makes a complete journey through loving, losing, denying, missing, and still - loving. Melodically it shifts from plaintive to jaunty and back to plaintive again. It doesn't dwell in one place. It cycles though.

Just like life. We cycle through. We go through the rough spots, and later we strive to remember them so that we can better appreciate the happy times.

The lyrics are surprising. The metaphors are unexpected. And yet - the story he tells is one we can relate to. One that is extremely familiar.

Go to all the poshest places
With their familiar faces
Terminate all signs of weakness
Oh, all for the sake of a foolish love

God - I mean who hasn't tried to shut down, close out, hide the weaknesses, squelch the vulnerability?

Hang with the wolves who are sheepish

Clever, without being too heady.

I drink from the bottle, weeping. Why won't you last? Why can't you last?

Simple. Honest. Effective.