To try and speed up my music making process and getting more things to completion, I made this track on a one hour timer. Hope you enjoy!

Pond on the Hilltop

A cover of this great song, played by Cavendish - Peter Rechsteiner and Rob Noordeloos.

James Taylor - You've Got A Friend

We lived north of the future, days opened
letters with a child’s signature, a raspberry, a page of sky. 

My grandmother threw tomatoes
from her balcony, she pulled imagination like a blanket            
over my head. I painted
my mother’s face. She understood
loneliness, hid the dead in the earth like partisans.
 
The night undressed us (I counted
its pulse) my mother danced, she filled the past
with peaches, casseroles. At this, my doctor laughed,
    his granddaughter
touched my eyelid – I kissed  
                                                            
the back of her knee. The city trembled,
a ghost-ship setting sail.
And my classmate invented twenty names for Jew.
He was an angel, he had no name,
we wrestled, yes. My grandfathers fought

the German tanks on tractors, I kept a suitcase full
of Brodsky’s poems. The city trembled,
a ghost-ship setting sail. 
At night, I woke to whisper: yes, we lived. 
We lived, yes, don’t say it was a dream. 

At the local factory, my father
took a handful of snow, put it in my mouth.
The sun began a routine narration,
whitening their bodies: mother, father dancing, moving
as the darkness spoke behind them.
It was April. The sun washed the balconies, April. 

I retell the story the light etches
into my hand: Little book, go to the city without me.
-----------
My melody to Kaminsky's words: 2-3
https://www.ilyakaminsky.com
Pic by Henn Kim
------------
This sung-poem had an unusual start, perhaps synchronistic, wu wei, ‘in tune’. 

I wandered into the book shop with no clear aim, except to stop by the poetry corner. Felt tired. One book, longer than the others, its black spine standing out, insisted on being read. I objected to wasting time and energy; it wasn't for me, but it insisted: ‘Starry Night, Blurry Dreams’ by HENN KIM (in capitals). As I opened it, a new song started over the shop speakers: ‘Starry Starry Night’. I was…gobsmacked. What could it mean? A line of poetry on one page accompanied a drawing on the other. Good - but still, not for me. I looked either side of the book. One had Milk and Honey by poet Rupi Kaur I'd been recommended just a few days before. The other had a slim book I didn't know: Dancing in Odessa. It might work with song. I had to do something with this synch. 

On the way to the cashier, another song began over the shop speakers: Do you want to know a secret? Of course I do. An early Beatles song, but with an ethereal quality moving it to another zone. The cashier shazammed and said it was Fairground Attraction. Following her brought me to the music section, where three books called and were answered.

With all this magic in the air, I looked forward to the poems. Oh but where was there anything to put into song? The critics all raved about its musicality, but I saw only musical phrases, not verses. So I just spoke a poem in the train. Then as certain rhythms of words and phrases arose so did the idea of song without verses. It was evening; the platform was empty, and I recorded.

Dancing In Odessa - Ilya Kaminsky (in song)

Bring me all of your dreams,  
You dreamers. 
 Bring me all of your 
 Heart melodies 
That I may wrap them 
 In a blue cloud-cloth 
Away from the too rough fingers 
Of the world. 

------------
My melody to Hughes' words
p64 8-14sc
From The Weary Blues (Alfred A. Knopf, 1926) by Langston Hughes.
Dreams - https://soundcloud.com/user-734457954/dreams-langston-hughes-in-song?si=761e8412f6864530aa6f67783c5242e8&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing 
------------
Langston often takes the part of another in his poems, and I am wondering who The Dream Keeper is here. In his poem ‘Dreams’, he says ‘Hold fast to your dreams’, while here he says give them to the dream keeper to stay safe from the too rough fingers of the world. The first says stay true to your dreams despite all the knocks you suffer, while this seems to say give me your dreams to avoid the hard knocks. 

Did he change his mind? Is he testing two viewpoints? Or is there some place where the opposites meet? If the Dream Keeper is God or the Poet, the message might be - put your dreams into their safekeeping, so they remain untarnished, unbroken and potent while you fight for them, like, perhaps, the flag that flies high while the battle rages all around it. 

What would this mean in practice? I suppose do not let setbacks destroy your dream. 'Dream' links to 'Heart melodies' - so perhaps connected with love.  If the dream is valid, its day may yet come. In this respect, it relates to Whittier’s Don’t Quit.

The Dream Keeper - Langston Hughes (in song)

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-----------------
My melody to Thomas' words
bpkstup1sc
Soundtrack by Jack Always https://soundcloud.com/jackalwaysmusic 
First recording - https://soundcloud.com/user-734457954/do-not-go-gentle-into-that-goodnight-dylan-thomas-in-song?si=190215e59a504b45821029da8df2e57a&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
--------------
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villanelle
"Do not go gentle into that good night" is a poem in the form of a villanelle by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914–1953), and is one of his best-known works. 

Though first published in the journal Botteghe Oscure in 1951, the poem was written in 1947 while Thomas visited Florence with his family. The poem was subsequently included, alongside other works by Thomas, in In Country Sleep, and Other Poems (New Directions, 1952)…

Music
"Do not go gentle into that good night" was used as the text for Igor Stravinsky's In Memoriam Dylan Thomas (Dirge-Canons and Song) for tenor and chamber ensemble, which was written soon after Thomas's death and first performed in 1954.

Other composers who set the poem to music include Vincent Persichetti (1976), Elliot del Borgo (1979), John Cale (1989, on Words for the Dying), and Janet Owen Thomas (1999, in the final movement of her Under the Skin). Additionally, the poem is read in full on Iggy Pop's album Free (2019)…

Hear Dylan Thomas Recite His Classic Poem, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” (posted at Open Culture, September 19, 2018).

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight - Dylan Thomas (in song)

Angelia D. Angel - Millions Of Years Still Love You

Lara St. John (Violine), Anna Prohaska (Sopran), Ludwig Quandt (Cello) and Marie-Pierre Langlamet (Harfe) present new CD with chamber music by Schubert. CD release is on March 13th. Also live on April 29th at the Berlin Philharmonic.

Schubert "Gretchen Am Spinnrade"

Novo Começo

Warm - (Piano Only Instrumental)

1 Treaty 
2 Going Home 
3 Famous Blue Raincoat 
4 Dance Me to the End of Love (Live) 
5 If I Didn't Have Your Love 
6 Never Any Good 
7 You Want It Darker 
8 It Seemed the Better Way 
9 On That Day 
10 Everybody Knows 
11 Suzanne 
12 Darkness 
13 Tower of Song 
14 Closing Time 
15 Anthem 
16 So Long, Marianne 
17 If It Be Your Will 
18 Steer Your Way 
19 Hallelujah 
20 In My Secret Life 
21 Lullaby 
22 Leaving the Table 
23 The Future 
24 I'm Your Man 
25 Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye 
26 Take This Waltz

Leonard Cohen

Produced by Bertrand Belin and Fiodor Dream Dog 
Music : Fiodor Dream Dog / Lyrics : Poem by Henry James Leigh Hunt 
Record by Nicolas Delbart (except personal music recorded by Ludovic Palabaud) at Le Snark
Mixed by Eric Spring at Le Snark 
Master by Chab at Translab

Art direction by Fiodor Dream Dog
Publishing by Fabrice Absil 

© La Gosse Productions / Fiodor Dream Dog 

Fiodor Dream Dog — Jenny Kissed Me

For the best experience, 
-  Click on the song's picture for words and notes.
-  in Album/Playlist/Spotlight, first click on the big picture to the left, then on the new page click the track title. Really, it's worth the effort :) 

With Blake you will see his painting too. Each picture is in dialogue with the words (not just illustrating them).

Bards have combined music & poetry from earliest times. Many poets continue the connection, not least William Blake. But often their melodies are lost or neglected.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight - Dylan Thomas (in song)

Ian

Related tracks