Shakespeare and relevance

There’s a very annoying current song, “Grenade” by Bruno Mars. (Don’t click on that link if you don’t want to be earwormed. It goes to a video of the song, which is so bothers me precisely because the lyrics are so annoying, while the tune is very catchy. It’s a lethal combination.) It occurred to me this morning that Shakespeare perfectly encapsulated why I find the sone so annoying. It’s the first scene in King Lear, where Goneril and Regan speak extravagant words of love to their father, while Cordelia, who loves most, speaks least and is duly punished for it. The song strieks me as the same sort of ting; the speaker is so unbelivably extravagant that he strieks me as aan untrustworthy narrator and I begin to suspect that he’s better loved than his own overstated love deserves.

That got me thinking on what Shakespeare might have to say about other current situations. ROmeo and Juliet springs to mind, in a much more serious way; the forbidden marriages of our times are not forbidden by roval families but by reason of sex. I’d say there are two stark lessons there: that lovers forbidden by their authorities to marry are going to find sympathizers and a way to do it nonetheless – and a warning about what happens when teenagers are forbidden to love whom they will. (I suspect there’s stuff relevant to SSM in the sonnets, too, particularly the ‘fair youth” ones, but I’m not sorting through all of them now.

I have the feeling that I’ve snagged on the really obvious stuff and am missing a whole lot of other bits and pieces of current relevance. (Claiming that Twelfth Night reflects transgender issues is too farfetched even for me, though the idea from Twelfth Night of a man with not much to offer believing that he somehow deserves the most gifted anad attractive woman is certainly current.

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

The Glory of Repetition

Step by step the longest march can be won, can be won;
Many stones may build an arch, singly none, singly none.

Dip your blades deep in the shining water,
pull, uncurling like a metered spring.
Feel the boat beneath you taking wing;
The river holds you where your oars have caught her.
Do it again – repeat the stroke you’ve wrought, a
hundred times, a thousand, as you wring
perfection from a frail and faltering thing –
your body, focused tight on what you’ve taught her.

One perfect stroke scarce qualifies as rowing:
ten meters of smooth movement flow behind,
a thousand lie in wait along the stream.
If you can feed perfection, keep it growing,
repeat that perfect stroke a hundred times,
you’ve paid in pain and sweat – you own that dream.

Gosh, another rowing poem from me. What a surprise. The fourth line came to me as part of another poem, that I later realized was awful; the rest of this was pretty much built to give that line a home, and because I wanted to explore the idea that real value lies not in doing a thing right once, but in keeping on even when it hurts. (Quoted lines in the beginning are borrowed from Waldemar Hills and Pete Seeger; I actually know them from Sweet Honey in the Rock’s beautiful rendition.)

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

This is the way we Rise Up

^^^ Gratuitous Pratchett quote. That song would definitely be included in the Discworld version of Rise Up Singing.

This guy has a project – and has had since 2008, to record and and post every song from the Rise Up Singing songbook. With commentary.

Given my deep and fiery love for that book, and the many times I have ranted about how we need room for all levels of singers, just as we say that it’s worth doing sports even if you’re not great at them, I am somehow surprised that I’ve never come across this before.

The thing is, this guy is not actually all that great as either a singer or a guitar player. His voice suits some songs better than others (I do actually like his cover of Joni Mitchell’s Urge for Going) and he clearly knows some songs better than others. I don’t mean not knowing the words; I mean that you have to feel your way around inside a song for a bit before you can really do it justice. He sings all of them at least well enough to learn from, though, and it’s really fascinating to see which ones he knows enough to sing well – including Gordon Bok’s Turning Toward the Morning, which is one of my favorite songs in the whole world and all time ever, and Bread and Roses, which is lovely to hear from a guy (especially his intro line, “Kids, do you know what a feminist is? It’s you – if you’re smart). He plays guitar about as well as I do – or rather, as well as I did before I went for 5 or 6 years without playing – which is to say not all that well, and it would really help if his guitar were always in tune.

No one is going to be dragging him up on a stage and throwing gobs of money at him, is what I’m saying, but that isn’t what this is about. This is about loving the music. This is about perseverence – this is exactly what I was writing about in my poem in the last entry, in fact, because this guy has been doing the best he can and putting himself out there for four years and nearly 800 songs now. Maybe I shouldn’t have used the word “perfection” in that poem; I was talking more about striving for perfection than achieving it. These is glory in this mediocrity.

Also, it’s a great resource that I’m going to use next time I fall in love with a set of lyrics in Rise Up Singing and don’t know how the tune goes. There are some bonus songs too, and sometimes some of his friends peek in, which is how I learned that “Blister in the Sun” works better than you’d think on accordion.

(Note to Rise Up Singing dude, in case he ever sees this: Thanks.)

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.