As opposed to some people who listen to music for the overall sound, I’ve found that I focus on the lyrics. I often find the songs more satisfying than written poetry, because it’s as if the poet is reading his or her own work, with accompanying music to provide further entertainment and meaning. Most artists I would not consider poets (I don’t consider songs explicitly referring to sex, drugs, and rock & roll poetry), but occasionally there are a few meaningful and entertaining songs (those two adjectives rarely cross paths). I’ll mention Lucy in the “Sky with Diamonds” by the Beatles as an example because it seems everyone in our class is desperate for poetry that describes a drug trip (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/beatles/lucy+in+the+sky+with+diamonds_10026681.html).
The subject of this blog post, however, is a much less famous song by Leonard Cohen, “Democracy.” The lyrics are too long to include, so I’ll just give a link: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/leonardcohen/democracy.html (Also the source for all the quotes). I’ve always pondered the meaning of this song, so I figured I would analyze it for my blog post. Here goes:
The song argues that democracy in the USA doesn’t actually exist. Cohen describes the country through homophobia, and class, gender, and racial inequalities (stanza 1 & 2), suggesting that America isn’t exactly they home of freedom and equality it’s played out to be. He mentions Tiananmen Square and “wars against disorder,” (stanza 1) which brings to mind tyrannical governments. Also, he repeats the line “Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.” to indicate that democracy isn’t yet present. He makes several religious allusions that possibly hint at America’s religious roots, and he states: “It’s coming through a crack in the wall;/ on a visionary flood of alcohol;/ from the staggering account/ of the Sermon on the Mount.” It seems as if Cohen might also be questioning the judgment of our founding fathers by introducing the idea of alcohol into the creation of the constitution.
The majority of the poem serves as a description of America’s current state of affairs from Cohen’s perspective, but the last stanza represents his opinion. He says “I love the country but I can’t stand the scene/…I’m junk but I’m still holding up/ this little wild bouquet:/ Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.” Even though he recognizes the turmoil within his country, he’s still patriotic and hopeful for the future.
The one downside I’ve noticed with artists like Leonard Cohen can be paralleled with that of Marianne Moore. While Moore’s originality and depth inhibits the clarity of her work, Cohen’s relative poetic abilities (with respect to other musical artists) hinders the catchiness of his music. For example, I don’t think this song could ever be as popular or catchy as Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl,” but I still prefer Cohen to that mind-numbing garbage!
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3 comments:
Oh yes. I definitely agree. Music can be very poetic. I think I read somewhere or heard something about poetry becoming a dying art form, but I still believe that it's very much alive in music, just not the mainstream crap they put out on the radio. But still!
I agree with both of you guys. I think music is just another form of poetry. Well music of the past is definitely more poetic than what we hear in the radio now a days. Just comparing the lyrics of Tupac Shakur to (hmm what's an artist that is always on radio.. AH HA AKON) Akon's music, Tupac's songs were so meaningful, and was actually poetic. But Akon, if you listen to his songs, all he talks about is doing a girl, and spending his money (basically 95% of rap and hip hop music talks about that). But back to the main point, i thin music is just a form of poetry that is always out for people to enjoy and think about what it is trying to say. But the people in return have to decide what kind of message from the music they want to take.
I think it all depends on how we define poetry. What we are talking about here is the distinction between popular music and a kind of "high art" lyricism. But that's just it: why is some music more "popular"? Maybe it's because simple, direct lyrics are more accessible to the masses: None of these finely veiled metaphors we find everywhere in poetry or in "high art" music. Sometimes, simplicity is just a little more attractive to people: a child will often prefer listening to a nursery rhyme rather than a complex orchestrated piece.
On an unrelated note, something interesting that struck me as I was reading this post was your reference to Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds. Although lots of people thought that the title as an acronym for LSD, and it really seemed like the song would be about drugs, the Beatles explained that this was only a coincidence (although they did admit that they took the drug at the time...haha). I think that sometimes, we look a little too hard at poems in search for profundity of meaning, and we end up finding stuff that the author didn't even put there.
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