Sinéad, Sinéad, Sinéad, Sinéad, Sinéad. Ooooooof. So sad. At this very moment, I only want to respond with - Sinéad. I could only listen to her all week, and listening to each song, I found myself back in a memory (playing "Troy" over and over again in my HS days - connecting with rage, identifying with the phoenix from that very time, later to discover it's association with my zodiac sign.
You will rise / You'll return / The Phoenix from the flame / You will learn / You will rise / You'll return/ Being what you are .... l return / The Phoenix from the flame / I have learned / I will rise / And you'll see me return / Being what I am ...
And unsure what "Drink Before the War" did in me, but something like going to the depths of the ocean that it touched into, like reaching in and touching a combination of keys on a piano, a chord, that created such a sound of beauty and depth and melancholy and comfort too, that I didn't even realize was there in me. I suppose this is what her songs, the lyrics, and my god, my god, her voice, did in me).
From "Black Boys on Mopeds" - Remember what I told you / If they hated me they will hate you... / These are dangerous days / To say what you feel is to dig your own grave," I felt validated. When the "Gulf War" started, I was in HS, conservative, flag-waving, largely ignorant of the world outside, and I began to speak out against the war and was called a "commie bitch." When I refused to stand up for or say the pledge of allegiance, which was a ritual at the start of each day, I was called down to the principal's office to be questioned, I took comfort and felt kinship with Sinéad - even if my HS classmates couldn't tolerate or understand my views, Sinéad helped me feel part of something larger.
So many many of her songs... the lyrics, but also the movement of her voice, all poetry!
I don't know no pain / I feel no shame, from "Mandinka"
Help me to help you to behold you, from "Feel So Different"
And later - I have a universe inside me / Where I can go and spirit guides me / There I can ask oh any question / I get the answers if I listen / I have a healing room inside me / The loving healers there they feed me / They make me happy with their laughter / They kiss and tell me I'm their daughter / I'm their daughter, from "Healing Room"
All the pain that you have known / All the violence in your soul / All the wrong things you have done / I will take from you when I come / All mistakes made in distress / All your unhappiness / I will take away with my kiss, yes / I will give you tenderness / For child I am so glad I found you / Although my arms have always been around you / Sweet bird although you did not see me / I saw you / And / I'm here to mother you, from "This is to Mother You"
And - I wanted to change the world / But I could not even change my underwear, from "Queen of Denmark."
Ohh, Sinéad O'Connor. Brave, brilliant, tender, fierce. Thank you thank you thank you thank you... for through your music, "thank you for loving me... thank you for hearing me... thank you for seeing me... thank you for helping me." May you be held in the arms of boundless love and compassion as you journey on... I am imagining you now dancing and singing with kindred spirits who have loved you, admired you, stood with you - who were not afraid to say so - all along.
-
Thank you so much Pádraig for both poems this week, and for this incredible podcast. I will mention one more songwriter poet. When my dad was taken to the emergency room on June 11th of this year, with a life threatening heart rate, and I was with him in the hospital, by day 3, losing my own mind due to lack of sleep and the circumstances, I decided to see if maybe there was an interview or talk by you, that might soothe me as I tried to get a little sleep but also still be alert, on the chair beside my Dad's hospital bed. And I guess angels exist, as I found this song, and these words - yours - from your song, "Maranatha" and this literally, literally became the soothing balm that helped keep me going that night, and in the following days. The first time I listened, I sobbed, full body sobs, a needed catharsis. And then a balm, more release, a balm again, and release, a 'real sea'... a balm.
Sinead Sinead Sinead is right!....her death illuminating her life and spirit is a salve for me with all this ridiculous Barbie hype taking up air space in the US
Fitting that I would yet again effusively state how meaningful words someone wrote and in this case also sang were and then go on and misquote them!!! And as the gods would have it I can’t seem to edit my posts despite many people’s kind and patient instructions. So, the correction:
I don't know no shame / I feel no pain, from "Mandinka".
I had mixed up the pain and shame. I think the order was / is significant! It cd go either way... but each says something different, I believe.
I’m responding from my hotel bed after two days of the Newport Folk Festival (and have the aching legs and back to show for it). I so appreciate you asking this and Maya’s reflection that so many writers turn to music. That certainly is true for me.
I love so many of the artists you mention. To your list of brilliance, I would add: Joni Mitchell, Laura Marling, Patty Griffin, John Prine, Joy Oladokun (a young addition, wonderful), The Indigo Girls, Hurray for the Riff Raff/Alynda Segarra, and must double-click on Joan Armatrading and Tracy Chapman from your list. I feel like I could go on for days, so that’s merely a sampling. I am generally most appreciative of the poetic lyricism of women, which I don’t realize until I write out a list like this. I’m looking forward to reading others’ responses and am wishing you a beautiful Sunday.
Thanks for another great season of poetry Padraig. There have been so many over the many years and phases of my life, for all the ups and downs. Today there as many as always but there is one I keep going back to, John Prine.
“And I got no hate, and I got no pride, well, I got so much love that I cannot hide“
For lyrical inspiration: Ani Defranco, Sting, BNL, DMB, Paul Simon, Serena Ryder, Matt Gilman & Cory Asbury (specifically the album "Holy"), Miranda Stone, U2, Angels and Airwaves (album "Love"), John Mark Mcmillan (album "The Medicine"), Andrew and Zach Smith, Feist, Hayden Wiebe, Angie Hilts and many others.
For musical inspiration: Keith Jarrett, Dave Young, Oscar Peterson, Weather Report, and so, so, many more.
John Denver, Sting, Enya, Edie Brickell, Marty Haugen, Pete Seeger, Peter Paul and Mary, James Weldon Johnson and his brother John, Friedrich Schiller and Beethoven.
What a fascinating question, Padraig. I am realizing as I ponder this that what I truly respond to is the sauce created by a mix of words and music/sound. There is a feeling that a song evokes that touches me. It is not the words alone. Not the music, alone. When I took a class in “Introduction to Poetry”, way back when, I was taken in by this: my teacher, Tess Gallagher, closed the window blinds and sang Irish ballads. It was her voice, the emotive qualities of her singing, the words, the darkened room, our student ears daring to listen, this mix moved me. I don’t remember names or words(though a few burn into me). What consumes me is this mysterious mix. A year later I found my way to Trinity College in Dublin. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I am not well suited for the academic life. I left Trinity. What truly moved me was the elder conductor on the bus who pegged me as a foreigner and when I was asked what I was up to, and replying studying Anglo-Irish literature, the conductor began reciting from James Joyce and pointing out where the story “The Dead” was based on. This was truly why I came to Ireland: to taste the oral tradition on the streets and in the pubs. In Dublin there was a pub that offered something special Friday nights. Upstairs people gathered to drink and talk, until someone stood to recite a poem, sing a song, tell a story. I was amazed how quiet people would become. It seemed they were actually listening! My understanding of an oral tradition is there needs to be true engaged listeners. Again that mysterious mix of voice and listening created an air of, dare I say, sacred moments. Here’s to all poets and singers who live deeply into their gifts and share with such blessed vulnerability. Best, David 🏮
David, thank you for transporting me to your classroom of yester-year - "this mysterious mix." Something that we can't quite put our finger upon; however, your description helped me to get a small taste of what you were experiencing. Tess Gallagher sounds like a beautiful soul. You grabbed my attention.
Your Trinity experience: It sounds like you thought you were going to Ireland to go to school and found out that you were there to get an education by another means. I am curious, how long did you stay in Dublin after you left Trinity?
The poets whom I turn to for inspiration are Mary Oliver and Emily Dickinson. Every year my husband and I take a trip from Falmouth to Provincetown to look up at the skies and to breath the ocean smells, its sounds and calling, so beautifully described in Mary’s poems. Emily’s is an interior journey, soul work and wonder.
As for music, I love the poetry of the psalms and the lyrics of Cat Stevens!
Some of the musicians I like to listen to whose songs or singing reach my soul: Brandi Carlile, John Prine, Emmylou Harris, Iris Dement, Leonard Cohen, Lucinda Williams, Mavis Staples, Rufus Wainwright to name a few.
As strange as this sounds, although I am a cantor, a singer and long time lover of poetry and liturgy, I have always paid way more attention to the music than the lyrics of songwriters. The music itself must grab me first and foremost and for my favorites it's less the lyrics and more the pervasive sense and effect of sensation and vibration of music. So from Samuel Barber to Gabriel Faure to Massenet to Lazar Weiner to Leonard Cohen's final album to the cantors who croon and plea to God in liturgies of living color without a shred of ego, to David Bowie to Jason Robert Brown Ricky Ian Gordon to John Bocchino to John Martyn to Greg Brown to John Doyle to Nina Simone to Judy Collins to the very first time I heard Sinead O'Connor to James Taylor's One Man Band Concert to oh so much more.....the penetration of sound and vibration itself must lock into my heart and body more than the lyrics to stick.
For now Chris Cornell, Bon Scott, Kurt Cobain, Martin Gore, Robert Smith, Morrissey, Jonathan Davis, Emmy Lou Harris, David Bowie, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Peter Gabriel, Max Richter, Marvin Gay, Sting, Stevie Wonder, Jim Morrison and Hannah Peel.
The late Nanci Griffith, (a Texas poet and songwriter with a deep connection to Ireland). "These days, my life is an open book/ Missing pages I cannot seem to find."
Billy Joel's music & lyrics provided the soundtrack of my adolescence, but growing up in a conservative, evangelical home, I also was impacted by the songs & lyrics of Cynthia Clawson. Allison Kraus is another singer songwriter who meant a lot to me as a young woman, as well as music by Susan Ashton & Tracy Chapman, Sting & Phil Collins. There are many songs in the genres of Appalachian bluegrass & various Celtic artists with words which capture my soul's longing, but of which the authors - like so many cathedral artists - are unknown to me. But they are not unknown to Beauty's Maker.
Music, such an important part of many of our lives. I have found shared love of the prairie with Chuck Suchy, state troubadour of North Dakota; appreciation of feelings from Gordon Lightfoot; insights on life from Mary Chapin Carpenter and Roseann Cash. Also really glad Paul Simon released more verse set to music. Thank you for the prompt to help me to remember.
Sinéad, Sinéad, Sinéad, Sinéad, Sinéad. Ooooooof. So sad. At this very moment, I only want to respond with - Sinéad. I could only listen to her all week, and listening to each song, I found myself back in a memory (playing "Troy" over and over again in my HS days - connecting with rage, identifying with the phoenix from that very time, later to discover it's association with my zodiac sign.
You will rise / You'll return / The Phoenix from the flame / You will learn / You will rise / You'll return/ Being what you are .... l return / The Phoenix from the flame / I have learned / I will rise / And you'll see me return / Being what I am ...
And unsure what "Drink Before the War" did in me, but something like going to the depths of the ocean that it touched into, like reaching in and touching a combination of keys on a piano, a chord, that created such a sound of beauty and depth and melancholy and comfort too, that I didn't even realize was there in me. I suppose this is what her songs, the lyrics, and my god, my god, her voice, did in me).
From "Black Boys on Mopeds" - Remember what I told you / If they hated me they will hate you... / These are dangerous days / To say what you feel is to dig your own grave," I felt validated. When the "Gulf War" started, I was in HS, conservative, flag-waving, largely ignorant of the world outside, and I began to speak out against the war and was called a "commie bitch." When I refused to stand up for or say the pledge of allegiance, which was a ritual at the start of each day, I was called down to the principal's office to be questioned, I took comfort and felt kinship with Sinéad - even if my HS classmates couldn't tolerate or understand my views, Sinéad helped me feel part of something larger.
So many many of her songs... the lyrics, but also the movement of her voice, all poetry!
I don't know no pain / I feel no shame, from "Mandinka"
Help me to help you to behold you, from "Feel So Different"
And later - I have a universe inside me / Where I can go and spirit guides me / There I can ask oh any question / I get the answers if I listen / I have a healing room inside me / The loving healers there they feed me / They make me happy with their laughter / They kiss and tell me I'm their daughter / I'm their daughter, from "Healing Room"
All the pain that you have known / All the violence in your soul / All the wrong things you have done / I will take from you when I come / All mistakes made in distress / All your unhappiness / I will take away with my kiss, yes / I will give you tenderness / For child I am so glad I found you / Although my arms have always been around you / Sweet bird although you did not see me / I saw you / And / I'm here to mother you, from "This is to Mother You"
And - I wanted to change the world / But I could not even change my underwear, from "Queen of Denmark."
Ohh, Sinéad O'Connor. Brave, brilliant, tender, fierce. Thank you thank you thank you thank you... for through your music, "thank you for loving me... thank you for hearing me... thank you for seeing me... thank you for helping me." May you be held in the arms of boundless love and compassion as you journey on... I am imagining you now dancing and singing with kindred spirits who have loved you, admired you, stood with you - who were not afraid to say so - all along.
-
Thank you so much Pádraig for both poems this week, and for this incredible podcast. I will mention one more songwriter poet. When my dad was taken to the emergency room on June 11th of this year, with a life threatening heart rate, and I was with him in the hospital, by day 3, losing my own mind due to lack of sleep and the circumstances, I decided to see if maybe there was an interview or talk by you, that might soothe me as I tried to get a little sleep but also still be alert, on the chair beside my Dad's hospital bed. And I guess angels exist, as I found this song, and these words - yours - from your song, "Maranatha" and this literally, literally became the soothing balm that helped keep me going that night, and in the following days. The first time I listened, I sobbed, full body sobs, a needed catharsis. And then a balm, more release, a balm again, and release, a 'real sea'... a balm.
"You are my strength and I am weak.
Maranatha.
I've given up sometimes when I've been tired.
Does it move you?
I've fucked it up so many times.
Alleluia. "
Sinead Sinead Sinead is right!....her death illuminating her life and spirit is a salve for me with all this ridiculous Barbie hype taking up air space in the US
Fitting that I would yet again effusively state how meaningful words someone wrote and in this case also sang were and then go on and misquote them!!! And as the gods would have it I can’t seem to edit my posts despite many people’s kind and patient instructions. So, the correction:
I don't know no shame / I feel no pain, from "Mandinka".
I had mixed up the pain and shame. I think the order was / is significant! It cd go either way... but each says something different, I believe.
I’m responding from my hotel bed after two days of the Newport Folk Festival (and have the aching legs and back to show for it). I so appreciate you asking this and Maya’s reflection that so many writers turn to music. That certainly is true for me.
I love so many of the artists you mention. To your list of brilliance, I would add: Joni Mitchell, Laura Marling, Patty Griffin, John Prine, Joy Oladokun (a young addition, wonderful), The Indigo Girls, Hurray for the Riff Raff/Alynda Segarra, and must double-click on Joan Armatrading and Tracy Chapman from your list. I feel like I could go on for days, so that’s merely a sampling. I am generally most appreciative of the poetic lyricism of women, which I don’t realize until I write out a list like this. I’m looking forward to reading others’ responses and am wishing you a beautiful Sunday.
Thanks for another great season of poetry Padraig. There have been so many over the many years and phases of my life, for all the ups and downs. Today there as many as always but there is one I keep going back to, John Prine.
“And I got no hate, and I got no pride, well, I got so much love that I cannot hide“
I'm a big fan of Joanna Newsom, Joni Mitchell, and Kate Bush, all of whom have very poetic lyrics. These women kind of mothered me with their music.
I'll add Taylor Swift to make it four.
Love the mothering ❤️
Indigo Girls! They recently performed with our local symphony and it was nothing short of magical🎻.
How wonderful! They are amazing! They speak about writing music as transcendence. Poetry is like that too. I was so moved by their words, I wrote this. https://pocketfulofprose.substack.com/p/a-path-to-transcendence
I love this, Mary❤️. Transcendence is such a glorious word.
Three come imediately to mind:
From songs that you probably all know :
Springsteen
The screen door slams, Mary's dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely....
John Prine:
If dreams were thunder, lightnin was desire
This old house would have burned down a long time ago
And my fellow Texan, Willie Nelson:
Whiskey river take my mind
Don't let her memory torture me
Nice- that brought back memories of listening to my Dad belt out those lyrics - Txs
What a great idea to quote some lyrics too.
Yes! Bruce!!
For lyrical inspiration: Ani Defranco, Sting, BNL, DMB, Paul Simon, Serena Ryder, Matt Gilman & Cory Asbury (specifically the album "Holy"), Miranda Stone, U2, Angels and Airwaves (album "Love"), John Mark Mcmillan (album "The Medicine"), Andrew and Zach Smith, Feist, Hayden Wiebe, Angie Hilts and many others.
For musical inspiration: Keith Jarrett, Dave Young, Oscar Peterson, Weather Report, and so, so, many more.
Angry Anymore is one of my favorite pieces of writing. I love Ani.
John Denver, Sting, Enya, Edie Brickell, Marty Haugen, Pete Seeger, Peter Paul and Mary, James Weldon Johnson and his brother John, Friedrich Schiller and Beethoven.
One of my favorite memories is of my son playing with his trains when he is about two years old, he is totally naked and singing Country Roads.
Beethoven!!! Yes! Thank you, Tara!
What a fascinating question, Padraig. I am realizing as I ponder this that what I truly respond to is the sauce created by a mix of words and music/sound. There is a feeling that a song evokes that touches me. It is not the words alone. Not the music, alone. When I took a class in “Introduction to Poetry”, way back when, I was taken in by this: my teacher, Tess Gallagher, closed the window blinds and sang Irish ballads. It was her voice, the emotive qualities of her singing, the words, the darkened room, our student ears daring to listen, this mix moved me. I don’t remember names or words(though a few burn into me). What consumes me is this mysterious mix. A year later I found my way to Trinity College in Dublin. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I am not well suited for the academic life. I left Trinity. What truly moved me was the elder conductor on the bus who pegged me as a foreigner and when I was asked what I was up to, and replying studying Anglo-Irish literature, the conductor began reciting from James Joyce and pointing out where the story “The Dead” was based on. This was truly why I came to Ireland: to taste the oral tradition on the streets and in the pubs. In Dublin there was a pub that offered something special Friday nights. Upstairs people gathered to drink and talk, until someone stood to recite a poem, sing a song, tell a story. I was amazed how quiet people would become. It seemed they were actually listening! My understanding of an oral tradition is there needs to be true engaged listeners. Again that mysterious mix of voice and listening created an air of, dare I say, sacred moments. Here’s to all poets and singers who live deeply into their gifts and share with such blessed vulnerability. Best, David 🏮
David, thank you for transporting me to your classroom of yester-year - "this mysterious mix." Something that we can't quite put our finger upon; however, your description helped me to get a small taste of what you were experiencing. Tess Gallagher sounds like a beautiful soul. You grabbed my attention.
Your Trinity experience: It sounds like you thought you were going to Ireland to go to school and found out that you were there to get an education by another means. I am curious, how long did you stay in Dublin after you left Trinity?
Thanks for this.
Hi, Catherine,
Thanks for responding. I lived in Ireland for a full year. Traveled west to Galway, north to Giant’s Causeway. What a country!🏮
The poets whom I turn to for inspiration are Mary Oliver and Emily Dickinson. Every year my husband and I take a trip from Falmouth to Provincetown to look up at the skies and to breath the ocean smells, its sounds and calling, so beautifully described in Mary’s poems. Emily’s is an interior journey, soul work and wonder.
As for music, I love the poetry of the psalms and the lyrics of Cat Stevens!
I love Mary Oliver and Cat Stevens too. You might like this. https://pocketfulofprose.substack.com/p/to-be-loved
Some of the musicians I like to listen to whose songs or singing reach my soul: Brandi Carlile, John Prine, Emmylou Harris, Iris Dement, Leonard Cohen, Lucinda Williams, Mavis Staples, Rufus Wainwright to name a few.
Oh John Prine! Lake Marie
‘Hello in there’
As strange as this sounds, although I am a cantor, a singer and long time lover of poetry and liturgy, I have always paid way more attention to the music than the lyrics of songwriters. The music itself must grab me first and foremost and for my favorites it's less the lyrics and more the pervasive sense and effect of sensation and vibration of music. So from Samuel Barber to Gabriel Faure to Massenet to Lazar Weiner to Leonard Cohen's final album to the cantors who croon and plea to God in liturgies of living color without a shred of ego, to David Bowie to Jason Robert Brown Ricky Ian Gordon to John Bocchino to John Martyn to Greg Brown to John Doyle to Nina Simone to Judy Collins to the very first time I heard Sinead O'Connor to James Taylor's One Man Band Concert to oh so much more.....the penetration of sound and vibration itself must lock into my heart and body more than the lyrics to stick.
Greg Brown, “you bet!”
Yes!
For now Chris Cornell, Bon Scott, Kurt Cobain, Martin Gore, Robert Smith, Morrissey, Jonathan Davis, Emmy Lou Harris, David Bowie, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Peter Gabriel, Max Richter, Marvin Gay, Sting, Stevie Wonder, Jim Morrison and Hannah Peel.
The late Nanci Griffith, (a Texas poet and songwriter with a deep connection to Ireland). "These days, my life is an open book/ Missing pages I cannot seem to find."
I just listened to Across the Great Divide...beautiful lyrics and music.
YES! Speed of the Sound of Loneliness has always been a favorite of mine.
Billy Joel's music & lyrics provided the soundtrack of my adolescence, but growing up in a conservative, evangelical home, I also was impacted by the songs & lyrics of Cynthia Clawson. Allison Kraus is another singer songwriter who meant a lot to me as a young woman, as well as music by Susan Ashton & Tracy Chapman, Sting & Phil Collins. There are many songs in the genres of Appalachian bluegrass & various Celtic artists with words which capture my soul's longing, but of which the authors - like so many cathedral artists - are unknown to me. But they are not unknown to Beauty's Maker.
Music, such an important part of many of our lives. I have found shared love of the prairie with Chuck Suchy, state troubadour of North Dakota; appreciation of feelings from Gordon Lightfoot; insights on life from Mary Chapin Carpenter and Roseann Cash. Also really glad Paul Simon released more verse set to music. Thank you for the prompt to help me to remember.
Oh, and also during COVID, I listened to dark music like, “Dido’s Lament” recorded by Annie Lennox and a cast of hundreds.