Class, whats your opinion on the following lines? Is this poetry or music lyrics? Were these to be lyrics, would you say that they stand on their own or require music? Would you rip them apart in a workshop?
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity
First thing you see.
A vast radiant beach in a cool jeweled moon
Couples naked race down by it's quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the wooly cotton brains of infancy
The music and voices are all around us.
Choose they croon the Ancient Ones
The time has come again
Choose now, they croon
Beneath the moon
Beside an ancient lake
Enter again the sweet forest
Enter the hot dream
Come with us
Everything is broken up and dances.
I think they can stand on their own...but then again, I defended Dylan to the death on Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteCheers.
J.
I don't think anyone mentioned Morrison when we were talking about this, right? Anyway, what do you think about your own questions, Reed -- how would you make the case? It's good stuff, certainly (and I, too, am firmly in the camp of Dylan as a poetic & sophisticated literary artist). I wonder if we're still creating trouble for ourselves, though, by creating a kind of litmus test & by wanting clear, unambiguous equivalencies: i.e., asking if a song lyric can be deemed a poem, per se ...
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