Re: kafka and rilke

Robbie,

You write:

"But the idea of a song -- the form of which almost all modern music takes --
as a relatively brief coupling of lyrics and melody, to be played repeatedly,
year after year, in essentially the same form, has perhaps had occasional
emergences into daylight but only really came into its own, I believe, in the
last few hundred years."

I assume you are not including South America, then? Or Africa? I think this
claim might be a bit overstated and I also suspect the definition offered
might be a bit limited. I can think of other forms of "songs" than the one you
mention, even today, such as the long, improvisational pieces from *Nighthawks
at the Diner* I mentioned earlier, like "Nighthawk Postcards" or "Putnam
County" or "Spare Parts I: A Nocturnal Emission," all of which are "songs" on a
Waits album, but none of which fit your above definition in any way.

But it really doesn't matter all that much, since I think Tina's right about
the poetry to be found even in at least some of our current form of "songs."

Now, while we're defining, anyone want to talk about hip-hop, and the spoken
word stuff on Def Poetry Jam?

Livin large,

--John

-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
Received on Sat Jun 28 07:29:46 2003