Hidden Poetry

A rose on an old book.

Most of us are unaware of the amount of poetry that surrounds us everywhere, every day. In fact, some of us even listen to poetry for hours, on purpose. Sometimes we even pay for it! Yes, this even includes those who claim to have no idea about poetry, or to have no interest in it whatsoever. Guess where you’re receiving your hidden poetry from?

That’s right! It comes from the lyrics of your favorite songs. True, some mainstream songs can’t really be considered poetry—at least not good poetry—but a great song needs good lyrics. I mean, the music can be just as important, but if the lyrics are bad, then we only have half of what makes a good song. Sometimes, these songs would have been better without any lyrics at all. You can even make a song sound amazing with made-up lyrics that don’t really mean anything or belong to a real language, such as artists like Enya, Sigur Ros, or Gladiator with their song “Now We Are Free”. Although, technically, some of these songs might not count as poetry either. 

However, most of us are used to listening to songs with real lyrics that we can identify and those are literature. We memorise them, sing along to them, or sing them to ourselves, either out loud or within our minds. Those poems—we all know dozens, even hundreds of them— are engraved deeply inside of us. We remember them. They even have a life of their own, playing inside our heads unexpectedly. We live among poetry. It’s just that most people don’t realise this.

To discover a good and interesting sample of poetry in songs, it’s always good to take a nice trip back in time, to the 60’s and 70’s, and listen to some songs by Donovan, Simon&Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, and many others. For good and ingenious rhymes, however, you might travel back a bit further and explore the musicals of the 30’s, Fred Astaire’s films in particular. They used to weave their words in a funny and entertaining way back then.

But as we said in the first article of this series, poetry is the expression of things—any kind of things—in a beautiful way but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s always about “beautiful topics”. Here’s an example about this, by Simon&Garfunkel. It’s the story of two people who got so lost into the intellectual/philosophical side of their relationship—a trend back then and in their circles—that they have become strangers to each other and have lost the connection between their hearts. Without poetry, this song would sound quite harsh, painful and probably not pretty, but as you will see, that is not the case at all. So once again, poetry makes miracles, by transforming the coldest scenes into beauty.

 

The Dangling Conversation by Simon&Garfunkel

It’s a still life watercolor

Of a now-late afternoon

As the sun shines through the curtained lace

And shadows wash the room

And we sit and drink our coffee

Couched in our indifference, like shells upon the shore

You can hear the ocean roar

In the dangling conversation

And the superficial sighs

The borders of our lives

And you read your Emily Dickinson

And I my Robert Frost

And we note our place with book markers

That measure what we’ve lost

Like a poem poorly written

We are verses out of rhythm

Couplets out of rhyme

In syncopated time

And the dangled conversation

And the superficial sighs

Are the borders of our lives

Yes, we speak of things that matter

With words that must be said

“Can analysis be worthwhile?”

“Is the theater really dead?”

And how the room is softly faded

And I only kiss your shadow, I cannot feel your hand

You’re a stranger now unto me

Lost in the dangling conversation

And the superficial sighs

In the borders of our lives…

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