05-05-2010 - 9:02 a.m.
In thinking about the 'sweet and low' aspects of poetry, which appears to be captured in most lyrics that have to do with this subject, the tug-of-war of love, I was thinking about the music behind those words.
I watch American Idol, and see these mentors giving advice to young people who love to sing. "It's in the words", they tell them...."feel the words", is their advice, although this point is argued at times. With the mentor Harry Connick Jr, he said to one guy, “It can be just the music that moves you, let it happen”.
As a novice to writing poetry, most of what I write just happens with feeling an emotion at that moment, and can happen within a split second. Something triggers it.....It can sustain itself, or go away just as it happens.
It can be music that gives me a beat in my head, nothing to do with the words that accompany any particular song....my feelings always seem to echo some kind of beat, whether it's in my head or in my heart, and that's why I think reading lyrics can be a lot more difficult to read as poetry, unless there is music to accompany them.
Emphasis on the beat, emphasis on the note, or the rising or lowering of the sounds of an instrument attached to that word. It feels like a heartbeat. There are all different tonalities of voices, and when these words are written they have to reflect a voice. As Harry said, he wanted to know the hidden meaning within the words of the song that Crystal was singing, what it meant to her, without her actually telling him who she was singing about, or for, he wanted to hear those beats, those tones.
Poetry seems to be all sorts of things to all sorts of people, and interpreting those meanings can be precarious at times. We don't always know what's in the heart or the mind of the person who writes them. We can guess, or feel what we want, or compelled to feel.
With music, I can let that lead me to the meaning of words. It's glorious to feel those high notes and have them sustained - and it can be sweet to feel those low notes, but at the same time they can break your heart in the process.
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