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)

De railroad bridge’s
A sad song in de air. 
 De railroad bridge’s  
A sad song in de air. 
 Ever time de trains pass  
I wants to go somewhere.

   I went down to de station. 
Ma heart was in ma mouth. 
Went down to da station. 
Heart was in ma mouth.  
Lookin’ for a box car 
To roll me to de South.   

Homesick blues, Lawd, 
 ’S a terrible thing to have.  
Homesick blues is  
A terrible thing to have.  
To keep from cryin’
 I opens my mouth an’ laughs. 

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My melody to Hughes' words
x4
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https://bbkingmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/L.-Hughes-and-the-Blues.pdf
Source: Smithsonian Institution: http://www.folkways.si.edu/explore_folkways/poetry.aspx

What makes a poem sound pleasing to the ear? A solid rhythm for one thing—something we know a good song also depends on. There are two poetic forms that began as song forms: the ballad stanza of British and American literature and the blues stanzas of Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes.

A recognizable song structure in popular music is the African American blues stanza. The intention of the lyrics is to express an emotion. The blues rhythm originated in African American field hollers and work songs, and some trace it to centuries-old songs by griots [storytellers] of West Africa...

The first to recognize the potential of the blues as written poetry was Langston Hughes, who was born in Joplin, Missouri, in 1902. When he was eleven years old, he heard the blues coming from an orchestra of blind musicians on Independence Avenue in Kansas City. Hughes moved to the
East Coast in 1921 and heard the music again, in clubs on Lenox Avenue in Harlem, New York, and 7th Street in Washington, D.C. “I tried to write poems like the songs they sang on 7th Street,” he remembered in his autobiography The Big Sea. Those songs “had the pulse beat of the people who keep on going.” The blues stanza allowed Hughes to convey the African American experience in people’s own vernacular language.

The song structure of the blues seems to have originated in the Mississippi Delta in the late nineteenth century. The term the blues, as in “having the blues,” comes from a centuries-old term for a state of melancholy. Blues lyrics usually tell of some trouble, but often in a comical way...

Langston Hughes’ biographer describes the poet’s early description of the blues in this quote, “The music seemed to cry, but the words somehow laughed...
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Also here by Hughes - The Weary Blues: https://soundcloud.com/user-734457954/the-weary-blues-langston-hughes-in-song?si=a4aa9c1cfce048adb1fa83db8de88b49&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Homesick Blues - Langston Hughes (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)

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.

——————————
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. 
————————
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.

Homesick Blues - Langston Hughes (in song)

Ian

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