tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9617011.post4757065509793547769..comments2024-03-27T23:45:06.093+01:00Comments on Renewable Music: Them wordsDaniel Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093101325234464791noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9617011.post-20276769646978121622010-04-28T10:19:43.241+02:002010-04-28T10:19:43.241+02:00I'm tempted to suggest John Lennon here. And N...I'm tempted to suggest John Lennon here. And Noel Coward. What an unlikely pair!<br /><br />Otherwise, popular song — I mean <i>real</i> song, the kind they wrote in the '30s and early '40s — is almost invariably the product of a two-man team, one smithing the words, the other the music. No?Charles Sherehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10480432901356490235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9617011.post-18794103349696407962010-04-18T05:49:37.698+02:002010-04-18T05:49:37.698+02:00"I think that this principle holds less for p..."I think that this principle holds less for popular music"<br /><br />Leonard Cohen is a decent pop musician who also has always had an excellent reputation as a poet; he has published several volumes of poetry that got good critical mention, and his albums have sold pretty well. I note that Cohen is a Canadian, and it does seem to be a feature of the Canadian creative world that one is allowed to succeed in more than one narrow area of artistic endeavor (e.g., Margaret Atwood is both one of the best Canadian poets and novelists, something that really doesn't happen in the States or the U.K.). Cohen's poetry is pretty good, but he is not a composer at the level of, say, Machaut.<br /><br />Aside from Cohen, who else? Recently, some literary critics have tried to portray Bob Dylan as a serious poet, but other critics strongly disagree (I would agree with "strongly disagree"!). I'm not as current with pop music as with poetry, but I just can't think of any other pop musician whom I would take seriously as a poet -- maybe I'm forgetting someone?Dan Harperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03250484049882575283noreply@blogger.com