Langston Hughes (in song)

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.
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My melody to Kaminsky's words: 2-3
https://www.ilyakaminsky.com
Pic by Henn Kim
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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. 

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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 
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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)

Beat the drums of tragedy for me.
Beat the drums of tragedy and death.
And let the choir sing a stormy song
To drown the rattle of my dying breath.

Beat the drums of tragedy for me,
And let the white violins whir thin and slow,
But blow one blaring trumpet note of sun
To go with me
             to the darkness
                            where I go.

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My melody to Hughes' words
stuaug4 p24 x21sc
Image from pinterest
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First the title - what fantasy… why purple? For Alice Walker, purple was an often ‘overlooked’ colour. ‘Purple prose’ has an opposite meaning of something exaggerated. Personally I find purple an exciting, interesting mix of colours. What was it for Hughes?

Still, this colour describes the ‘fantasy’ of the poem. It is not just a fantasy - maybe something good never or not yet put into action - but a purple fantasy. For me, this sounds like a double superlative.

However, in the poem the writer is dying, and he or she feels their death is a ‘tragedy’. But it is not a tragic death they want to go unnoticed - certainly not without drums, violins, trumpet and choir to play a fanfare [“short ceremonial tune or flourish played on brass instruments, typically to introduce something or someone important”] for their death.

The ‘white violins’ whiring [“something rapidly rotating or moving to and fro to make a low, continuous, regular sound] ‘thin and slow’ seem to be associated with the tragic death drums and ‘stormy song’ of the choir.

All this build up is interrupted by the word ‘But’, which starts the penultimate line and introduces the contrasting ‘one blaring trumpet note of sun’ to accompany the writer/reader into the darkness of death. What had seemed a total tragedy darkness and death is redeemed/transformed with the trumpet’s blare of sunshine, so that there will be light in the darkness.

The last line breaks up into three segments, a number which may refer both to the break up of the body in death and at the same time carry the number’s symbolic significance of completeness and eternity. They might also represent the steps leading down into the earth and/or up into heaven.

Certainly the writer calls for and believes in the strong, loud sound of the trumpet with its optimistic note of sunshine in darkness to accompany the tragedy of death.

Or does the poem say all this is just a purple fantasy?

Fantasy In Purple [Beat the drums] - Langston Hughes (in song)

Novo Começo

SOLEDAD
A Cuban Portrait

The shadows  
Of too many nights of love  
Have fallen beneath your eyes.  
Your eyes, 
So full of pain and passion, 
So full of lies.  
So full of pain and passion,  
Soledad,  
So deeply scarred,  
So still with silent cries.

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My melody to Hughes' words
LHp59 stujul28 5-8cl
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soledad
Soledad means solitude in Spanish, also loneliness and desolation; it is the name of persons and places and of many songs. 

It is also a name for the ‘Chalon people or Soledad, a Native American people and language of Salinas Valley, California’. Tato Laviera says ‘there is no English translation’.


Soledad-A Cuban Portrait - Langston Hughes (in song)

Be Free

God having a hemorrhage,
 Blood coughed across the sky, 
Staining the dark sea red,  
That is sunset in the Caribbean.

———————————
My melody to Hughes’ words 
LH Bpk 15-23ed2
Painting by Julian Bakkenpaint


Caribbean Sunset - Langston Hughes (in song)

[FREE] Warm - (Piano Only Instrumental)

She stands  In the quiet darkness, 
This troubled woman, 
Bowed by 
Weariness and pain, 
 Like an Autumn flower
 In the frozen rain. 
 Like a  Wind-blown autumn flower 
That never lifts its head  
Again. 
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My melody to Hughes’ words
stumay31 x10

Troubled Woman - Langston Hughes (in song)

She
Who searched for lovers
In the night
Has gone the quiet way
Into the still,
Dark land of death
Beyond the rim of day.

Now like a little lonely waif
She walks
An endless street
And gives her kiss to 
nothingness.
Would God his lips were sweet!

—————
My melody to Hughes’ words
LH p11 x14

To A Little Lover-Lass, Dead - Langston Hughes (in song)

Hey! Hey!
That’s what the
Blues singers say.
Singing minor melodies
They laugh,
Hey! Hey!

My man’s done left me,
Chile, he’s gone away.
My good man’s left me,
Babe, he’s gone away.
Now the cryin’ blues
Haunts me night and day.

Hey! . . . Hey!

Weary,
Weary,
Trouble, pain.
Sun’s gonna shine
Somewhere
Again.

I got a railroad ticket,
Pack my trunk and ride.

Sing ’em, sister!

Got a railroad ticket,
Pack my trunk and ride.
And when I get on the train
I’ll cast my blues aside.

Laughing,
Hey! . . . Hey!
Laugh a loud,
Hey! Hey!

————
My melody to Hughes’ words

Blues Fantasy - Langston Hughes (in song)

This song carries a strange and beautiful feeling that touches the heart 💝
Every beat and lyric hides a sweet vibe of love 🥰
Give it a listen — it might just become your new favorite love track 💫

There’s a Strange Feeling in This Song 💝🥰🩹 | ft. Jesmin Jahan| Bengali Romantic Song

John Milton - On His Blindness - Poem

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

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.

Fantasy In Purple [Beat the drums] - Langston Hughes (in song)

Ian

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