I was brought back to the Narratives Writers meeting by this phrase from Reflections in D Minor regarding all-time worst songs:
“This will probably sound sort of strange but I often don’t pay any attention to the lyrics and sometimes I can actually hear and understand the lyrics without thinking about their meaning at all.”
One of our esteemed professors who teaches art and new media at the college is also luckily a member of our group. Now I don’t quite recall who started the “read your own poem first” rule at this meeting, but for Professor Timmons, it gave him a different perspective as a musician to hear them read in the manner the authors had intended them to be read–sounding out the intonations and inflections, pauses, drama, etc. had him listening in a way that many of us were overlooking. He also admitted to not listening to lyrics of tunes but instead focusing on the musical background to get what he needs from a piece. He was indeed listening to poetry being read, and listening for a musical quality within it for its mood and rhythm.
Kinda neat to have another perspective, and even though poetry readings are common, I did not realize that the audience hears it in different ways as well as taking any message within under interpretation.
For some of us, the world is only getting bigger and bigger.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
I’ve noticed that song lyrics often make far less sense when you see them written out on paper instead of hearing them sung (although occasionally the reverse is also true). It’s all in the inflection. Similarly, the meaning of a poem often seems altered when you remove the stanzas and line breaks and write it out as prose.