Music Poetry!

Joys of Jell-o

How neglected is the dessert Jell-o?
Though it’s lost popularity since its inception in 1897
Jell-o will always be around for you tomorrow

Those simple box instructions that wreck your flow
Bring back memories from when you were eleven
Oh how neglected were those cups of Jell-o.

I cannot argue like the great orator Cicero
But a spoonful of gelatin is truly from heaven.
Heavenly Jell-o is always around tomorrow

To be arranged, perhaps, into the many colors of the rainbow.
Warning: only attempt if you are truly driven
To see how useful is the neglected dessert Jell-o.

Jell-o will never let you ride solo
It can help those with arthritis or clinical depression
For, Jell-o will always be there for you tomorrow

Although this may seem a simple and hollow
Poem, just one long unnecessary digression
About the neglected dessert Jell-o
It is here to inform you: steadfast Jell-o will always be there for you tomorrow.

Music Poetry

Poetry is used to convey experiences that one would not normally have in their life. Some songs fulfill the same function as poetry. One song that I believe could be defended as poetry is "The Kids Aren't Alright" by The Offspring. The main experience that this song is trying to convey is that of poverty and the hopelessness that it can instill in those in it. In the beginning of the song it says

When we were young the future was so bright
 The old neighborhood was so alive

 This is meant to show the initial hopefulness of the people living their. In addition, the portrayal of the neighborhood as "alive" further shows the initial hope of those living in such awful conditions. Later in the song they say

Now the neighborhood is cracked and torn
The kids are grown up but their lives are worn

This is mean to show the hopelessness that living in poverty can cause a person to feel towards life. This song is trying to illuminate the very big problem in the US: the problem of people living in poverty who can't escape no matter what.

Poetry by Nas

As Pareen says, poetry conveys experience. The music of hip hop artists and rappers from the 1980's and 1990's without a doubt discuss the troubles and experiences of these artists as well as uses multidimensional language show a destructive cycle that exists in the artist's neighborhood. In Nas's song Affirmative Action he discusses what it means to be a black man during this time in his neighborhood of Crown Heights, New York City. Throughout the song he uses effective imagery to describe the different staples apart of his neighborhood. He writes, "let's all wash this money through the laundry mat," which has both a literal and figurative meaning. Nas discusses the drug trade in New York and how this life style is a cycle much like the cycle that occurs in washing machines. The majority of the song discusses how being a part of this lifestyle is required in order to survive. However, he also notes that the cycle is destructive. Overall Affirmative Action is an incredible poem that relates the surroundings in Crown Heights, New York City to the lifestyle many young African American males lead in this neighborhood.

Chronic Pain

Every day your mouth opens and receives the kiss the world offers, which seals you shut though you are feeling sick to your stomach about the beginning of the feeling that was born from understanding and now stumbles around in you-the go-along-to-get-along tongue pushing your tongue aside. Yes, and your mouth is full up and the feeling is still tottering-

The passage begins on a positive note. The reader imagines a friendly, kissing world. The feeling is abruptly swept away as Claudia Rankine describes the nature of the kiss. It comes from a sick place. The sickness is so deeply rooted that the receiver feels defenseless to what is going on inside of them (their natural reaction to the sickness). Clearly the sickness is racism; it spreads quickly and easily through the world and through the bodies and minds of it's targets. The last part of the passage gives a helpless feeling without any resolution from the text. It describes a choking feeling.The end of the passage is not the end, she leaves the reader on that choking feeling with the words "still tottering-"

Front Porch Swordfish Sleepy Man a Mushroom

Woody Guthrie was an American singer-songwriter from Oklahoma. His musical legacy mainly consists of political/traditional/and children’s songs. For those of you who feel you’ve never heard of Guthrie, have no fear, you have most likely had a song of his humming through your head at some point in time. You can attribute Mr. Guthrie to being responsible for one of United States’ most famous folk songs of the 1940s, “This Land is Your Land”. Guthrie has famously influenced artists such as: Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Bruce Springsteen, Joe Strummer, and the obvious Billy Bragg and Wilco.

It seems slightly unjust, and also a little unnecessary to be the one defending the great Woody Guthrie’s lyrics as poetry. However, if there would be any one of his songs to find its way under potential scrutiny for poetic content, this song might just make the list. "HooDoo Voodoo" is a song written by Woody Guthrie and performed by Billy Bragg & Wilco. This song appears on disc 01 of a three part series, titled Mermaid Avenue. This album was lead into fruition at the request of the remaining Guthrie Estate. The Guthrie’s asked Billy Bragg to take on the responsibility of adopting Woody’s left behind lyrics and poems and make them his own. Bragg then asked Wilco for some assistance and together they turned Guthrie's stories into the intended foot stompin’, tear jerkin’, and politically lambasted tunes we hear on this album.

In relation to discussing the song and dissecting it for poetic meaninng, it can look a bit intimidating. After all, this piece is full of complete nonsensical terms and words that seem oddly enough, complex. It's almost as if the listener would have to speak an entirely different language just to get some comprehensible syntax out of the thing--let alone the writer’s intended tone and meaning! Look at the lyrics here for example, how do you even begin to dissect this? What is there to even try to make sense of?

Jinga jangler, tinga lingle, picture on a bricky wall
Hot and scamper, foamy lather, huggle me close
Hot breeze, old cheese, slicky slacky fishy tails
Brush my hair, kissle me some more

Ahh but don’t let the crazy words distract from this song's relatively simple message. It can be somewhat inferred by the childish rhyme scheme combined with the goofy phrases, that this song was written by Guthrie as a lullaby for his eight children. Because this song is intended for a youthful audience there is a humor aspect to the song w/both the lyrics and the rhythms, that when combined with Tweedy's whooping shrill-y vocals creates great dynamic.

While this song may be just simple child's rhyme, Guthrie does in fact have a pretty compelling story to share. This song can be seen as commentary on the world’s overabundance of nonsensical hub-ub, the unpredictability of a single day of life. Guthrie could be saying to his children that: while you might be exposed to some of the world’s (for lack of a better word) "ugly" things like, /Trash Sack/ or /Hot breeze, old cheese, slicky slakcy fish tails/ or effected by the less significant things in life /sidewalk, streetcar/ --know at the end of the day you can always have me here to love you.

Just look at the last few words of all of the stanzas:

--Grasshopper greensnake, hold my hand
--True blue, how true, kissle me now
--I'll be yours, you'll be mine
--True blue, how true, kissle me now
--Brush my hair, kissle me some more
--True blue, how true, kissle me now
--And kissle me some more
--Kissle me some more
--Kissle me some more

So yes, the words are ridiculous and random, but for a reason. The stomping thrill of the music matched against the lyrics’ childish rhyme patterns creates a quite interesting song as well.

If you like the song-watch this amazing live version that I just found, where Nels and Sansone duke it out w/ an epic guitar battle and Yo La Tengo (and some other special guests) join the band on stage.

See the full lyrics to Woody Guthrie's "Hoodoo Voodoo" HERE.

Who is the Most Underrepresented Mario Character?

The song that I chose to defend as poetry is the final song on the Black Pear Tree EP by The Mountain Goats and Kaki King, Thank You Mario but Our Princess Is in Another Castle. It is very simple on the surface; it is from the perspective of Toad who is trapped in a castle after being kidnapped and he's just kind of describing his surroundings and feelings. The "one thing [he] know[s] how to say" is the title of the song which he repeats when Mario arrives thinking he is saving the princess. This performance has a good explanation of the story behind the song.

But how can a song about Toad be considered poetry? On first listen you really feel for this inconsequential character as he sits alone in his dark sulfury room. He pretty much decides he’s going to die because no one is looking for him. The songwriter, John Darnielle, is known for giving seemingly small, shallow people their own story, exposing their depth, and that is just what he has done with Toad. In a review of The Mountain Goats’ newest album, Joseph Fink (Welcome to Nightvale) encapsulates this idea perfectly.

[Beat the Champ, The Mountain Goats’ latest album] is an album about, as the chorus of one of its tracks puts it, “nameless bodies in unremembered rooms.” I think that the entire career of the Mountain Goats has been about giving names to nameless bodies, and remembering unremembered rooms. I can’t think of a more worthy cause. (Source)

Toad is not nameless and he is very much remembered but he has no thought process until he is given one by his song. For once it is not a plot-driven story of Mario and Peach but a character-driven story of Toad. Revenge of Toad may not be the most worthy cause but the deeper meaning is. Darnielle, also the lead singer, is a poet specifically for the nameless and unremembered. He is finest at this when discussing a lighthearted topic in a seemingly light hearted manner. But he is a poet and his pieces most often hold deeper meanings. 

As a child Darnielle and his family experienced abuse at the hand of his stepfather and there are hidden references to his traumatic childhood in many of his songs. He represents Toad hiding from the screams reaching him from other parts of the castle. Poetry is meaningful when it comes from someplace real and there is no reality like John Darnielle’s. Also if a song about a minor character in a video game can make you emotional or even feel something then it has accomplished some level of poetry. You can picture the speaker helpless when he says "felt pretty sure my life was over." Trapped inside a castle or trapped inside an abusive relationship, everyone needs a Mario to come and save them; save them from their "solitude" and allow them to "breathe again." The soft piano and maracas are comforting in a somber way but it is not until the end when King joins Darnielle in singing the chorus that you feel safe from the foreboding castle. She symbolizes either the music that saved him (also discussed in other songs), or the physical presence of another person (like Mario or a family member) that keeps them from harm.

I don't know if this addresses the poetry of the song completely but it boils down to this: I think the song is poetry so it is and I don't really care if you disagree.

Citizen and Poetry

At first glance, both on the inside and the outside, Citizen, by Claudia Rankine, doesn't seem like poetry. But, once you start reading, it is clear that it couldn't, and shouldn't, be anything else. She is trying to tackle one of the biggest problems in America right now, and poetry is certainly the right way to do so. Poetry allows an author to embed a multitude of different and complex messages within a few short, but powerful, lines. This allows the reader to fully experience life through the eyes of someone else, not just as a passive, indifferent observer. With an issue like race and racism, it is extremely important to remember that real people are affected by it every day and Claudia Rankine does an amazing job preserving the human aspect of this problem while still making a commentary about the issue on a more broad level.

Protesting the Easy Way Out

Poetry serves to evoke a meaning or emotion in the reader. The song "Slip" by Elliot Moss from his album, Highspeeds has a clear meaning and seems very poetic to me. I believe the song addresses loved ones that may begin to change as time goes on and lose their way. The central meaning of this song is when you begin to lose the happiness and fire inside of you, if you let go of the hope of reclaiming your own life, there is no chance of getting it back unless you hold on. This loss is emphasized in the opening lines.

I won't keep watching you

dance around in your smoke

and flicker out

you're not the light I used to know

These lines display the dissapointment of the speaker through metaphors. They compare the person to a flame that has gone out. It is obvious that it was an actual flame rather than some type of lightbulb because of the smoke that has replaced this light. The line, "dance around in your smoke" evokes an image that implies a wild personality. This person that used to be so familiar, is now hazy and unknown. The speaker no longer can feel connected to this person that has changed. 

I don't believe in safety nets

strung below to make it alright

to let go

you gotta hold on

The speaker does not believe in giving up and relying on something else to catch you, this is represented by the "safety net". They do not believe in a safety net, if there is nothing to catch you there is no way to fix your life once you let go. The easy way out may be just to change or turn quiet. The speaker urges that the only way to enjoy life is work through a difficult time that challenges you. If you want something, you have to work for it and be strong. Without the work, they cannot have their full life.

Or it's gonna 

slip,slip,slip through your 

slip, slip, slip through your hands

The "it" in these lines refers to happiness and the way you live. If you let yourself change and don't fight for how it is, you risk losing it. It's so easy to lose it but harder to keep it. 

This song could be addressing many different situations. there's the possibility that the person that the speaker is addressing is falling into destructive habits involving substance abuse or simply the pair is growing apart. Either way, this song serves as a letter to the person who has changed as a final effort to communicate the speaker's opinion and worries. 

Was it your mother?

Discussing poetry is weird. If the correct way to read a poem is to experience it in it's full form, it feels false to build a conversation from it. It feels self-serving, inarticulate, and a little over-exposing. It feels like it should be left alone.

That being said, discussing poetry (or music, or art, or literature...) is a means of communication. If you have the ability to articulate the way a poem or song touches you, you are more connected to that poem or song. You are more connected to the speaker, the audience, and the person across the room. There is a lot of music out there, which is why we feel a specific closeness with people who share our taste in music, and why it's good to talk about it.

During her performance at Bowery Ballroom in New York, Angel Olsen tried out a new song that does not appear in any of her albums. She offers her perspective on someone she once felt close to. She uses the song as a departure from that person, but does a good job of avoiding a normal "break up" song. Although she connects herself to the situation, she doesn't bash the other person too badly, and she doesn't claim a victim's role. She uses the song for closure, and manages to keep her cool and stay true to her feelings at the same time. In the attached video, the audience's reactions to her emphasize her power in the room.

Angel Olsen knows the subject of the song very well, maybe even too well. She claims that she's seen them change over time, and wonders if she's been misread due to the limitations of the other person:

Was it me you were thinking of
all the times when you thought of me
was it your mother?
was it your shelter?
Was it another with a heart-shaped face?

These lines are both playful and real. "Was it your mother" not only gets a great reaction from the audience in the video, but it also pokes at gender roles, the binary between mothers and sons, and Freudian ideas about that binary. 'Heart-shaped face' not only refers to the actual shape of her face, but serves as a quirky alternative to the label of someone who "wears their heart on their sleeve." Later in the song, she continues to prove her closeness with this person by singing about the severity of their independence, and how it ends up isolating rather than liberating them:

You've never needed anyone
to expose you to the sun
you've never needed anyone
to raise your hell up outta your mind

The person doesn't need anyone to bring them joy or pain, because they produce both in extremes.
A multi-dimensional line from the song is

All the truth never really lies in a series of words we say

She plays on the solidity of the word 'truth' by including the word 'lies' in the same sentence, providing a nice contrast. 'Lies' also provides a visual foundation for the line, especially coupled with 'series' in reference to something that cannot be seen. 

Soul Meets Body

I have known the song Soul Meets Body from Death Cab for Cutie's fifth album, Plans, for as long as I can remember, but until now I had not fully realized the poetic nature of its lyrics. Though the song has a bit of a somber tone, which usually leaves me feeling sad, it is thought-provoking and multidimensional.

The speaker sets up the conflict of the song in the first lines: "I want to live where soul meets body/ And let the sun wrap its arms around me and/ Bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing and feel/ Feel what it's like to be new". The speaker seems to be unsatisfied or unhappy with life and wants to make a fresh start, and feels like the best place to do so is in the theoretical place between "soul" and "body". The experiences of feeling water and sunlight on the skin are purely physical, but the ambiguous use of the word "new" suggests that he wants to cleanse both his body and soul. He goes on to describe the extent of his detachment from his own mind: "'Cause in my head there's a Greyhound station/ Where I send my thoughts to far off destinations/ So they may have a chance of finding a place where they're/ Far more suited than here". These lines reference the experience of taking a journey on a bus, which, in a sense, personify his thoughts, suggesting that each of his thoughts has a unique personality and past. Perhaps he feels like his thoughts are not his own, or that they contradict each other. Thoughts that stem from our physical being and those that stem from our spiritual being may only be able to peacefully coexist in the place where "soul meets body".

The speaker addresses another person near the end of the song with the lines "So brown eyes I'll hold you near/ 'Cause you're the only song I want to hear/ A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere/ Where soul meets body". The audience is a mysterious person with brown eyes whose "song", which is likely a metaphor for the person's presence, he wants to listen to in the place where soul meets body. It is left unclear whether they would be together where the speaker's soul meets his body or where the brown-eyed person's soul meets their body, possibly suggesting that the meeting points of all of our souls and bodies are the same.

I feel that the song's ultimate meaning and purpose is to leave the listener with questions. Are the soul and the body separate entities? How are they different? And, most importantly, how and where do they meet?

That Power by Childish Gambino

That Power is an incredibly unique song for its two-toned nature that makes it sound like two completely different songs. The first part that consists of chorus and rap describes how he overcame the difficulties of being biracial in a society that pushes a black and white binary. There are a couple lines that are common in rap songs that may distract the listener and cause him or her to immediate profile this piece as “just another rap song” but further listening, perhaps listening again, will reveal deeper meaning of the piece.


Lovin' white dudes who call me white and then try to hate

When I wasn’t white enough to use your pool when I was 8


In this first couplet he uses the repetition of the word “white” which shows the prevalence of racial identity in social situations. His example of this issue is not being “white enough” to have been invited to swim in a classmate's pool when he was younger, yet white men call him “white” because he does not act “black”. He furthers this point in the following tercet when he says:


I’m just a kid who blowing up with my father’s name

And every black "you're not black enough"

Is a white "you're all the same"


In this tercet, he brings up the racial binary in a different light. In these lines he talks about how his biraciality causes him not to be able to please either part of him. He doesn’t fit in with his black ethnicity because he is too light for them, but despite his 50% white genetics, white people consider him black because any color darker than white is just black. Hence “you’re all the same.”

When the Spoken Word-like monologue starts, his persona changes to an awkward, thirteen year old boy- no longer the famous, rich rapper. Again, the listener may get caught up in the sentimentality and cuteness of the piece, and may be too distracted to catch recurring theme of race in social situations. While sitting on the bus back from camp, he contemplates telling the girl he befriended this summer how he feels because of the reality that they will never see each other again.

"Back in the real world we don’t go to the same school, and unless one of our families moves to a dramatically different neighborhood, we won’t go to the same high school. So, this is kind of it for us."

Back in the real world, their different socioeconomic statuses will cause them to go to different high schools. On a more meaningful level, the high schools represent their social situations. He will go to a high school in his neighborhood and she will go to one in her neighborhood and they will never be in the same social situation again. Through the metaphor of school he again demonstrates how he as been unable to join white social situations throughout his life.

I defend That Power as poetry, not just for it’s spoken-word qualities at the end, but for its ability to convey deeper and deeper meanings every time one listens to it again.

Lastly it is poetry because the last lines of the song he speaks leaves the reader/listener thinking--

"I wish I could say this was a story about how I got on the bus a boy and got off a man more cynical, hardened, and mature and shit. But that’s not true. The truth is I got on the bus a boy. And I never got off the bus. I still haven’t."

--contemplating all that he has said, all that he means, and what the heck the bus is.

Link to the song is here

White Cedar

White Cedar is a song by The Mountain Goats from the album Transcendental Youth. The entire album is a journey, and "White Cedar," which is right in the middle of the album, is arguably the darkest and saddest part of that journey. It is a story from the perspective of a person who is involuntarily hospitalized for mental illness, but the song, in a broader sense, is about being stuck in a situation you can't control and learning to accept that.

The song begins with the narrator standing at the bus stop when they find out that they are going to be hospitalized. They still hold out hope that one day they will be well enough to move past their current situation in the line "I will be made a new creature/ One bright day," which transitions right into the first line of the chorus, "I don't have to be afraid."

During the second part of the song, the narrator is in the hospital and it is a difficult time. They say how they wake up on lock down and their visions won't ever learn. At the end of the verse, the line "My spirit sings loud and clear/ Even in here," brings to mind both the helplessness of being trapped in a place like a hospital and the power one has to stay themselves in a bad situation.

When I first heard this song freshman year, it really struck a chord with me, partly because of the meaning of the song, but also because the language is so powerful. I think that if a song and its lyrics stick with you all the way through high school, it can't be anything but poetry.

Taking Chances

When asked to choose a song I would defend as poetry I was not sure what to think. I mainly felt that poetry and music differed greatly, but Mr. Heidkamp seemed to feel that some songs could most definitely be considered poetry. I did a bit of research and stumbled upon this article. The author states that sometimes poetry is just meant to be seen, rather than heard (like music), but they are often the same in their complexity. Poetry always has a deeper meaning than meets the eye, and I would argue that the song "Chances" by Five For Fighting is the same.

The opening of the song isn't what totally hooks me. As the listener gets deeper into the songs the lyrics become much more complex and meaningful. The lyrics say Chances are the fascinations/ Chances won't escape from me/ Chances are only what we make them and all I need/. These lyrics are especially poetic to me because the songwriter is describing that there are so many chances in one's life and people should take these chances. The lyrics go on to say Still chances are more than expectations/. The author continues to describe that chances should be taken because they are much more exciting and you will get much more out of chances than doing what is normally expected.

The use of repetition with the word "chances" also further proves that this song is poetry. Many poets use repetition, whether it be a word or word phrase, to emphasize something. The songwriter wants to emphasize the word "chances" and uses repetition to do this.

Although many songs are not deemed poetry by people, they are no less difficult to write than poetry, and no less complex and therefore should often be considered poetry. I still feel as though there is some differences between poetry and music lyrics, but there are much more similarities than I thought.

Do you feel that all songs are poetry?

The Hymn of Acxiom

I came across this song a few weeks ago while I was working. As soon as the song started, I put down whatever I was doing and just listened. Then I played it again. And again. And again, until I had memorized every word.

The song is about surveillance and lack of privacy in the age of the internet. Vienna Teng writes about how our lives are reduced to facts, and how those facts no longer belong to us. I googled "Acxiom" and found that it's actually the name of an online database that collects information through private computers using "cookies" and sells that information to corporations to use for advertising purposes.

(At this point I should mention a wonderful irony - as I went over to the tab where I have the lyrics open, I was immediately faced with a huge pop-up ad from Amazon featuring a product I'd searched on their website only minutes before.)

The song is from the perspective of the software that controls us. The first lines establish the creepiness of the song: "Somebody hears you. You know that, you know that. / Somebody hears you. You know that inside." In the first line, it seems like reassurance. However, when she adds the word "inside," all of a sudden it seems like a threat to me. The fact that somebody hears you is something that you suspect, and not in a pleasant way.

That's the way the whole song is - at first it seems comforting, but then starts becoming more and more threatening. Especially when the last verse begins with a ton of voices screaming, "NOW WE POSSESS YOU!"

My favorite line in the song is, "Now we will build you an endlessly upward world / Reach in your pocket, embrace you for all you're worth." The words like "endlessly upward" and "embrace" sound like positive ideas, but when you realize that "all you're worth" is referring to how much you're worth as a consumer (reaching in your pocket!) the line becomes frightening.

The lyrics maintain a delicate balance between being comforting and unsettling, which reflects the nature of the topic matter. We live in a world that's endlessly interconnected, where the bounds of privacy are no longer so strictly defined. It's interesting, comforting, and scary all at the same time.

"Fly Like an Eagle"

When you get past the psychedelic aspect of The Steve Miller Band's "Fly Like an Eagle," it's obvious why it could be considered poetry.  The song itself is actually quite lyrical after you get passed the typical 70s background track.  The opening lines when Miller sing, "Time keeps on slippin',...into the future" provides the listener with a simple philosophical viewpoint on the world.  According to Perrine, “Poets, from their own store of felt, observed, or imagined experiences, select, combine, and reorganize."  All of this is done in order to form an environment is which the reader, or listener in this case, can participate in and gain a greater understanding of their world.  This is exactly what Miller is doing with his lyrics in this song.  He speaks of freedom and revolution as time moves forward.  The artist does this by using, as most artists do, symbolism and imagery in his lyrics.  The most notable example of symbolism in this song is the line, "Fly like an eagle."  Of course, this line is referencing the freedom and revolution that I referenced early, but in a way that is almost appealing to the listener's sense of patriotism.  In the end, the meaning of the song is one of self-discovery and exploration of the surrounding world.  To show the meaning of the song, Miller incorporated intellectual elements, another component of Perrine's definition of poetry, while also showing his mastery of multidimensional language, strengthening the argument that "Fly Like an Eagle" is poetry.

For lyrics click here.

I've Seen Footage

"I've Seen Footage" is a track off of Death Grip's (comprised of vocalist MC Ride and drummer Zac Hill and keyboardist Andy Morin) first studio album The Money Store. The song is a collection of thoughts and observations that give cryptic details about the speaker's (MC Ride) troubled life and how it has ultimately left him paranoid and numb to violence and suffering. The song begins with the lines "Get up/Beats bout waist deep/Swallowed by beats" which refers to how Ride feels consumed by the music that he makes. The experience of making and listening to music is cathartic and an escape from the deep thought that he is susceptible to. The way the song progresses from this point suggests that the lyrics may be just be taken from a single train of thought. Beginning where Ride feels most comfortable, gradually his paranoia builds until it overcomes him and draws him out of this musical boundary that he has formed around himself.

The next lines, "What's that/Can't tell/ Handheld dream/Shot in hell/Deep space ghetto streets/Show me something/I ain't seen before" are where his paranoia and memory kicks in. He senses a presence and cannot pinpoint it, but it triggers something in his mind. He starts to recall parts of his life like it's footage "shot in hell". The violent nature of his upbringing in the ghetto has deeply disturbed him and as he reviews this violence, he asks to be shown something he hasn't seen before. This allegory continues throughout the song as he runs through his life from a removed perspective as if it were footage (hence the title).

Later, the paranoia continues when he says, "Creeps up behind me/Over my shoulder/Turn around try to see/But it's nowhere/Noided, noided/Static on my blindside." He senses the presence return, but he doesn't have time to catch a glimpse. In other words, he's still "noided" or paranoid, and somethings preventing him from having total recall of his past, it's too staticky. After these lines, the chorus burst in with Ride simply repeating "I've seen footage/I stay noided." These words are Ride remarking, to himself, on all of the horrible things he's seen.

Ride then spends the next few stanzas talking about his fear of other people viewing this life footage the same way he is. He mentions the feeling that satellites are monitoring him and not being able to shake the feeling of other people following him. He just wishes that he could "delete" the footage, because he feels that he is prisoner to it.

The final section of the song is Ride describing disturbing footage that he has stumbled upon on the internet and how it fails to really make him feel anything. The first video is described, "Armored cop open fire Glock/On some kid who stepped so/Fast was hard to grasp/What even happened til you seen dat head blow/Off his shoulders in slow mo/Rewind that, is so cold/Rewind that, is so cold." These lines are at the same time a politically charged statement against police brutality, and a condemnation of himself for not being moved by the unsettling content. He continues to talk about two other videos, one of a child soldier shooting someone and another of a horrific car crash. His lack of emotion doesn't imply a total lack of sympathy. He does comment that watching the other footage makes "his jaw drop", but again, he's lived it so it's not making his eyes well up.

Though the loud and abrasive style of this song might suggest that the content is mindless babble, it's really a very powerful an brutally honest assessment of life and society. There's no frilly language or extravagant wordplay, but if there were, it would detract from the message.

Here's a link to the song since it didn't seem to make it on the playlist. And here's the lyrics because it's hard to understand what he's saying.

"American Pie" is Poetry

It's hard for me to not like a certain genre or type of music. My favorite is classic rock, one of my favorite songs being "American Pie" by Don McLean. I've been around a plethora of classic songs like this one within my family, but this one has always been one I loved. The rhythm. McLean's gentle, passionate voice. The vibe. However, it wasn't until recently that I paid close attention to the lyrics and the larger meaning of the song. After reading What is Poetry? by Perrine, this was one of the first songs to pop in my head as an example of poetry.

Aside from delivering an exceptional piece of music, McLean is doing much more than just writing a song. Rather, every word has a purpose and he talks about a pivotal time in American society. American Pie covers the time period of 1959-1970. This was a time in America, after World War 2 and The Great Depression, when people enjoyed life and the music it had to offer. The music industry was booming with stars, including Buddy Holly. The song is based on Holly and other big names who were killed in a plane crash. The three legends and the last rock and roll stars killed were Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper.

The repeating line, "The day the music died," not only is powerful due to its repetition, but it also symbolizes this tragic occasion that took place. What does McLean mean by this song? What's his message? Music truly did die when those guys went down. The American Dream was no more in a music sense. Don McLean's hero was Buddy Holly and his death left a mark on McLean and inspired him to write "American Pie."

The 1960's were rough in America. Yes, some music was reborn, but it never was the same. Moreover, the protests that were going on failed and the nation never found that freedom or American dream. In Verse 4, it says, "The players tried for a forward pass." McLean is revealing that there were constant attempts at freedom and happiness but there was failure again and again. Ultimately, the larger theme he is getting at throughout his song is that, as humans, we must accept the tragedies that occur. We must recognize that we can't try to be the people we once were. Be something we haven't been. Or bring back something that was heroic. "Bye bye, Miss American Pie." Through each word and verse, McClean develops this larger, complex idea. "American Pie" is more than just a song. It represents years of the high and low points of society and music.

Perrine argues that poetry creates significant new experiences for the reader and that it causes them to gain an awareness or understanding of their current or previous world. Poetry isn't just the language we communicate with. It communicates experience and because of this, it is multidimensional.

Don McLean impacts my senses, emotions, intelligence, and imagination every time I listen to his song. The poem's opening verse has, "And I knew if I had my chance/That I could make those people dance/And maybe they'd be happy for awhile./" I felt I was taken through his thought process when listening to this attentively. His language here allows us to understand what his music influences meant to him. Also, this is followed up with, "But February made me shiver/With every paper I'd deliver/Bad news on the doorstep./" He was a paperboy and he had to find out the hard way what had happened to Buddy and the other guys. The diction of shiver and February illustrates the cold, dark physical nature of the situation as well as the dark place he was in mentally. Later in the poem, he refers back to the fact, "Now for ten years we've been on our own." He suggests all these opportunities to dance and fight back but how they never succeeded as a country who hoped for a safe, productive place. This line is multidimensional because ten years makes me imagine the type of struggles he went through individually and it allows me to understand his theme that there was always adversity that stands in the way of a potential opportunity.

It wasn't just the music that died. Society died. And Don McLean died a little inside. He shows this through every part of his song, that is also a poem because of its deeper meaning, rare use of language, and ability to show experience.

"American Pie" Lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/donmclean/americanpie.html

I Am Crying In The Bathroom...

The song I've chosen to defend as poetry is Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens. The song, off the album Illinois, is one that never fails to make me feel a little sad, but in a weirdly happy way, after listening to it. (Here is a video if you want to see the song performed.)

The song, told in a story-like format, centers around a guy and his friend who discovers she has bone cancer. It begins with the lines, "Goldenrod and the 4H stone / The things I brought when I found out you had cancer of the bone." 4H is a youth development organization with a four-leaf clover symbol. Paired with goldenrod, a yellow flower native to North America, one can imagine that the boy brought his friend flowers when he heard about her awful news. A later verse talks about religion, hinting at a shred faith between the pair, "All the glory that the Lord has made / And the complications you could do without / When I kissed you on the mouth." Now the listener can infer that their relationship is becoming more than just platonic. The "complications" mentioned are not just her sickness anymore, they now include the future problems that may come with getting close to someone who's very sick. (We've all seen The Fault In Our Stars.) The boy Sufjan is singing about starts to question his faith, after seeing no improvement in his friend, with the lines, "Tuesday night at the Bible study / We lift our hands and pray over your body / But nothing ever happens." It's not so uncommon for one to question God while experiencing something really painful. After all, if God is so great, why would he put anyone (with remotely decent faith) through something as horrible as losing someone to cancer?

Soon it becomes more obvious the pain that the two of them are in. Their frazzled mental states start to show in both their physical appearances and actions, described by the verse, "All the glory when you ran outside / With your shirt tucked in and your shoes untied / And you told me not to follow you." The girl's tucked in shirt shows that although she still is trying to look nice and put-together, her untied shoes are a clear giveaway to how she's really doing. Sufjan later mentions "the great divide" which could be a reference to the overhanging fear of his friend dying. Similar to repeated lines and themes in a poem, now the boy's shirt is tucked while his shoes are still untied and we see his declining mental health with the line, "I am crying in the bathroom." Finally, towards the end of the song, the girl passes away. This is never explicitly stated, but instead we are told that "In the morning when you finally go / And the nurse runs in with her head hung low / And the cardinal hits the window." I really love that last line- the cardinal hits the window as abruptly as the news of the death hits everyone waiting in the hospital room.

At the end of the song, Sufjan's voice fades away with another melancholy complaint about God, "And He takes and He takes and He takes..."

Your Song

Every song has the power to be a poem. Despite the lack of rhyme or stanza in most songs, each contains a beat and powerful lyric that tell a story. My song, Your Song, by Elton John if written down without a soundtrack, could most easily be a poem. Even though there is no distinct rhyming pattern or stanza in it there are almost rhymes and almost patterns. Each verse roughly has four lines, and each line has 10-12 syllables, this doesn't exactly make it a sonnet though. I did find a couple rhymes as well, moss and cross, song and turned on, mean and seen, do and blue.... These usually follow one another in a verse... I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss/Well, a few of the verses, well, they've got me quite cross/But the sun's been quite kind while I wrote this song/It's for people like you that keep it turned on. But poems do not have to rhyme; they only must contain language that is different from every day literature and tell a story. John's song is speaking from the heart to his lover, he is simply saying "if I had any other skill set, or any other job I would give you the greatest piece of work I could create. But, because I am only an artist this song, our song, will have to do." It is an incredibly beautiful piece and has the loveliest accompaniment, which Elton plays by himself in concert, a talent many modern artists lack. Simply the fact that it is a beautiful song with an even more beautiful meaning does it for me; Your Song is poetry.