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Surely this is the night for Van the man and:

Van Morrison - In The Days Before Rock n Roll

co-written and performed with Irish poet Paul Durcan.

Van also beat the Waterboys to it with a version of Yeats Crazy Jane On God and also performed William Blakes poem The Price of experience in the song Let The Slave.

John Hegley - 'I Need You'

Home thoughts from abroad / Clifford t ward

Namechecks keats browning wordsworth et al

Leonard Cohen's 'Take this Waltz' is an adaptation of a poem by Frederico Garcia Lorca.

She used to be someone you could depend on
To brighten up your coldest winter's day,
But the one she leaned upon,
Let her down
Now has moved on,
And morning brings another empty day

She used to be a girl of simple pleasures,
A breath of spring to chase the blues away
But now she bears the cross,
Of the love
That she has lost,
No sunshine in her eyes, just clouds of grey.


Enough to make any poet laureate feel incompetent.

Broken Down Angel - Nazareth


DC

10,000 Maniacs - Hey Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac / Steve Allen - Bowery Blues

The The - The Beat(en) Generation

keep it Beat Generation

Beasley Street - John Cooper Clarke

Song I've always found strangely poetic and very haunting

Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime - The Korgis

Al.

Hope nobody asks for Mary had a little lamb by Wings 'caus that would start the bloggers off on their own versions of that sweet rhyme

True popery...

The Jam - Pop Art Poem

I'm sure I got this as a flexi - disc

Just do the steps that you've been shown
By everyone you've ever known
Until the dance becomes your very own
No matter how close to yours
Another's steps have grown
In the end there is one dance you'll do alone


Jackson Browne - For A Dancer

Yo! Rupert EP!

Where do I start....

Well why not with the BARD of Barking at his very finest:
Days Like These: Billy Bragg

...and pretty much everything else he ever wrote...

America: Paul Simon (and Art of course)

Before The Deluge: Jackson Browne

Working Class Hero: John Lennon (needs a mention, though obviously won't get a play).

Motherland: Natalie Merchant

Is It Like Today? World Party

a night for the 'Godmother of Punk'
... or so I thunk ...

although it weighs in a 5'54", it's surely worth a GIO jury huddle ...

'Gloria' ~~ Patti Smith

('Free Money' is equally glorious if time is at a premium)

Can we have some Yeats please? Any of the below would do the trick:

* Shane MacGowan - An Irish Airman Forsees His Death
* Van Morrison - Before The World Was Made
* Mike Scott & Sharon Shannon - A Song of the Rosy-Cross
* Sinead Lohan - The Fish
* Christy Moore - The Song of the Wandering Aengus
* Nervous - He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
* The Waterboys - The Stolen Child
* The Cranberries - Yeats' Grave

lets hear it from the best

poets who can rock..................

'redondo beach'.....................patti smith

'people are strange'.................jim morrison

rockers who can do poets...............

'the stolen child'........................mike scott

'king of may'....................natalie merchant


cheers frae the dale

( aside....it was interesting to find out that ms B knows the whereabouts of all the 'cash'.......i think i'm due considerable back payments re previously on the blog 'caption compos'.......so it will be 'cash' in future and i don't come cheap)

Also backing up Mike From Shropshire

Cos if this isn't poetry, I don't know what is:
She said it was just a figment of speech
And I said "You mean figure?" And she said "No, figment."
Because she could never imagine it happening. But it did

When we first met I played the Shy boy
When she spoke to me for the first time my nose began to bleed
She guessed the rest

The next day we went on a bus ride to the ferry
And when nobody came to collect our fares
Well I knew then this was something special
I couldn't stop thinking about her
And every time I switched on the radio
There was somebody else singing a song about the two of us
* Billy Bragg - Walk Away Renee (version)
which is essentially spoken poetry (the above lines) over an instrumental of the classic Motown track.

Mother of Pearl - Roxy Music
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues - Bob Dylan
In Your Mind - Bryan Ferry
A Salty Dog - Procol Harum

All of these have great lyrics.

And if I may be allowed a Gweedore moment - Edwin Morgan was my wife's tutor.

Though the wheat fields and the clothes lines
And the junkyards and the highways come between us
And some other woman's cryin' to her mother
'cause she turned and I was gone
I still might run in silence
Tears of joy might stain my face
And the summer sun might burn me till I'm blind
But not to where I cannot see
You walkin' on the back roads
By the rivers flowin' gentle on my mind

Gentle on my mind. ---- Glen Campbell



Not been in for a wee while. Sorry about that I'll try to show up a bit more

F

I must say I've never previously considered both Bob Dylan and Morrissey at one and the same time when I think about poetic lyrics but if our hero can make the intellectual leap, then I feel I must join him. I shall purchase the Smith's Box set for £220:00 and set to it.

Dylan is a great wordsmith or lyricist, in that the words work well with the music though it is quite often the case that that key skill is at the expense of anything that is meaningful or intelligible - he flatters to deceive, sometimes. He is also a great story teller ( Lilly, Rosemary etc) but strong emotion is his specialty: Positively 4th Street contains the greatest closing line ever, imho.

Postively 4th Street - Bob Dylan

If we're talking about musicians working with poets then it's impossible to go past Jack Bruce's collaborations with Pete Brown. Pete Brown's lyrics are similar to Dylan's in that they contain surreal wordplay and yet, you somehow 'know' what they mean.One is tempted to suggest 'Theme From an Imaginary Western', but GIO won't play it, no doubt, but here's a jaunty amusing jazzy drive-time friendly ditty about the suffocating atmosphere of office life in the 60's:

The Ministry Of Bag - Jack Bruce/Pete Brown

It's all blues and no dinner
at the Ministry of Bag
The steaks are getting thinner
the office is a drag
It's all hills and no mountain
in the cupboard of the Few
The soda has no fountain
the coal gets in the dew

It's all chief and no father
down the avenue of lane
The soap has lost its lather
the loves gone down the drain
It's all time and no future
at the Department of Breath
The clothes ain't made to suit you
the peas are boiled to death...

and so it goes on. Good fun, worth some airtime.

However, what I'd really like to hear is ...The Leisure Society, but a different post for that, I think.

regardez - youse

henri

Phil Lynott was a poet. He had two volumes of his lyrics published as poetry.

Poetry-wise there may be better choices but I'll go with my oft-requested:


Southbound (Live N Dangerous version if poss) - Thin Lizzy

Wish I Didn't Know Now (What I Didn't Know Then) - Toby Keith

Van The Man - Rave On John Donne

This is just a test, pay no attention please.

Ah... and now.. The Leisure Society.. quite seriously, I think Nick Hemming of The Leisure Society is the greatest lyricist of his times. I'm completely spoiled for choice but after some reflection, think the following demonstrates his skill.

This is an unusual song in that it reflects on the possibility of the end of the affair rather than the affair ending. It's reflective, vulnerable, filled with self-doubt but ends positively with hope for a better future, based on trust.In other words, it encapsulates what zillions of us really go through before we reach the 'I Will Survive' moment.

Our Hearts Burn Like Damp Matches - The Leisure Society

Take a walk through scattered trees
To the place where no one dreams
Serve my sentence and be done
All human life here is scarred
Posture slipped and ill-attired
We should all be redesigned

Hollow words sit silent in my mouth
Reasoned voices idle on the ground

Our hears burn like damp matches
Turn then attack us, burst and then break
Embers plucked from the ashes
Glow to attract us, lure us away

Every day arrives too late
Every morning seems the same
Stale regrets and dull routine
Know at last your weathered soul
Know your tethers clung with soil
And the reasons for it all

Trust in me and I will trust in you
Hold me close and I will hold you too.

Check out the charming video of

regardez youse

henri

#25 #26

Aw naw, there's two of 'em*.

* Non-Mike and Bernie Winters fan, Glasgow Empire.

The lyrics quoted so far make Wonderwall seem like Shakespeare.

Talkin of Shakespeare

Midnight Summer Dream - The Stranglers

Romeo & Juliet - Dire Straits

Oh and

My Immortal - Evanescence

Al.

#27

It's hard to tell they are related,faither,one is much less verbose than the other.

#28

Yep, That's because they are song lyrics: Wonderwall is surprisingly like Shakespeare.

regardez youse

henri

#29

Or To Be Or Not To Be by my old school chum Brian Robertson

#30

We'll see.

Like Shakespeare inasmuch as they both use words.

Mike Scott setting Yeats to music is not a new idea.

I like Love & Death - The Waterboys from the 'Dream Harder' album.

Also, we cannot let the evening pass without Laughing Lenny. Either of these are fabby,imho:

The Captain - Leonard Cohen a tale of wrestling the devil alone, and losing.This is a really cheery C&W number, great piano. Seriously.

The Night Comes On - Leonard Cohen great ghost story about a disappointed man, considering ending it all. It's more fun than you think.People often mistake dark humour for melancholic mentality in laughing Lenny's work.

regardez youse

henri

was a gifted painter

My Brother Jake - Free

and, I can't let the opportunity pass without promoting Nitin Sawhney.

Days Of Fire ( feat Natty) - Nitin Sawhney from 'London Undersound' - reflections on the changing atmosphere in London after the July 7 bombings and the Mendes shooting. It's a cheery number, clever, radio friendly - and poetic - check it out.

... and not forgetting the greatest piece of rock n roll poetry:

Rama Lama Ding Dong - The Edsels

regardez youse

henri

seconds for the Jackson Browne suggestions

Tortoise Regrets Hare - James Yorkston

The Old Boys - Runrig

and if you just give me a rough idea when Eddi Reader doing Burns will be coming on I'll take a run around the block then, minus headphones

You suggested it in your lead but I would like to request it anyway as I feel it's a lovely song and would be poignant considering Edward Morgan sadly passed away last year. The other thing is I feel that the poetry interjected into the song just fits perfectly which doesn't alwasy happen when you get songs like that.

"It isn't in the mirror, it isn't on the page
It's a red hearted vibration
Pushing through the walls of dark imagination
Finding no equation
There's a red road rage,
But it's not road rage
It's asylum seekers engulfed by a grudge

Scottish friction, Scottish fiction

It isn't in the castle, it isn't in the mist
It's a calling of the waters as they break to show
The new black death with reactors aglow
Do you think your security can keep you in purity?
You will not shake us off
Above or below

Scottish friction, Scottish fiction"

In Remote Part/Scottish Fiction - Idlewild

...and if you could just tell us when Mozza's coming on...

Second thoughts, I'll just play some CDs on the way home. I'm not prepared to take the chance.

But soft! Yonder approaches, as though being sick
An eloquent wordsmith - 'tis Elgin's Eric
Who understand's lyrics, so Bryan, gonnae please he,
Play him BA's To be or not to be


DC

Suzanne Vega: Language, Calypso or Gypsy - in fact anything from the Solitude Standing album

Nick Drake: Northern Sky or From the Morning

Elvis Costello: again, so many options - maybe something from the Juliet Letters for a change

Where's Scotch been all day???

Do you think yon kipper didnae agree with him?

Now here's an idea, I'm not a fan of Cohen
But some say his lyrics are good as a poem
Bird on a Wire played by Joe Bonamassa
You'll not hear a song all night that's classier

Now Al's red card has been rescinded
He's torn it up and gone and binned it
Slow Train never made it last night
C'mon, Al second this and make it right

Away you go Gaie, joggy bottoms on. Bit cold and damp and dark to be runnin round Greenock if you ask me but.

Is Scotch with you Gaie?. Only askin like cos usually if stuff disnae agree with ye it makes ye run.

No Lenny on poet night. Shocking!

Hardly a blog mention
To release our tension
I'm away for a bath,
Get It On?
Get It Aff...........

Actually I'm at work but it didnae rhyme

and aff rhymes with bath?

OK,


I'm away fer a baff

Ìý
Tak yer baffies aff!


{:-{)}

There's a new thread on the go but this one is more exciting. At least we're discussing baffies here