Rockin’ Poetry: Wouldn’t it be great if…
…young Rockers loved great poetry enough to compose music to it…this might just address the concerns of those who lament the passing of learning poetry by heart. Ted Hughes writes in his Letters about how beneficial such memorizing was to his grasping of various new languages. Others have written of how life enriching it is to be able to carry beautiful lines around in their heads as constant companions.
I raise the rockers because last night I took one of my daughters to see Metro Station, Good Charlotte and Boys Like Girls in Montreal. They performed at Metropolis: great venue for watching bands close up. Production values were good. Metro Station was energetic and exciting. The other bands as far as I could tell were self indulgent airheads whose music lacked melody, complexity, and any genuine emotion. One thing that struck me about the evening: it seemed like every member of the audience knew all the lyrics to every song these bands played. The moment the lead singers stopped and thrust their microphones out toward this undulating mass of cellphone-waving-16 year olds, the words to their songs came rushing back to them, without the loss of even so much as a syllable.
These kids know how to memorize. Wouldn’t it be great if someone could feed their brains with something really good to dance to.
(Here endeth the old fart’s sermon).
