Calling it Quits -- Aimee Mann

Guest poem submitted by J. Goard:

(Poem #1871) Calling it Quits He's a serious Mister; shake his hand and he'll twist your arm. With monopoly money we'll be buying the funny farm. So I'll do flips, and get paid in chips from a diamond as big as the Ritz - then I'm calling it quits. Eyes the color of candy, lies to cover the handicap - though your slippers are ruby, you'll be led to the booby trap. And there's no prize, just a smaller size, so I'm wearing the shoe 'til it fits - then I'm calling it quits. Now he's numbering himself among the masterminds, cause he's hit upon the leverage of valentines, lifting dialogue from Judy Garland storylines where get-tough girls turn into goldmines. But oh, those polaroid babies, taking chances with rabies, happy to tear me to bits - well, I'm calling it quits, yes, I'm calling it quits. -- Aimee Mann

I've been wanting to post an Aimee Mann lyric for some time now, and what's
been holding me back has really been the choice of song.  Her list is chock
full of masterfully depressing poems, sometimes oddly spliced with jangly
pop or ultra-mellow Bacharach kinds of sounds, with an abundance of
interestingly mangled idioms that can't be anything but deliberate.  Some of
her songs ("Save Me", "Little Bombs") move me deeply.  But I finally settled
on "Calling it Quits" for being a concentrated example of her particularly
*poetic* sense: the use of sonics, the wordplay, and, most especially, the
way in which her lyrics mesh with the melodic rhythm.

This song has a particularly autobiographic basis. After leaving the band
"Til Tuesday" and releasing two solo albums on a major label, Mann was
basically on the outs with the industry, and dropped away for several years
before coming back big with her 1999 soundtrack to the film "Magnolia", and
with her independently released 2000 album "Bachelor No. 2".  Since then,
she has released two more albums independently.  While the theme of "Calling
it Quits" may not be mindblowingly original, the way in which she puts it
together reveals a truly rare lyrical talent.

The first thing you notice upon hearing a song like this, if you're me ;-),
is consistency in the rhythm of the lines, between parallel musical lines
and between verses.  Just shy of my thirtieth birthday, I risk sounding like
a fogey, but: this is just something all of the great songwriters and
songwriting duos were able to do a few generations ago, except when they had
a reason to want not to.  Compare Cole Porter and Dorothy Fields and Oscar
Hammerstein with today's rock and pop hits, and for the most part the common
denominator is that today's poetics are much crappier.  The lyrical content
might be interesting, the musical craft might be top-notch, and the song
ultimately moving, but the lyrics typically come across as a barely-edited
cocktail napkin draft, with lines of erratic lengths and rhythms basically
crammed onto the vocal melody.  Not to name names.  Moreover, the critical
establishment in popular music seems oblivious to this aspect of the craft
which is so visceral for me, such that when exceptions like Billy Joel or
Elvis Costello or Linford Detweiler (Over the Rhine) get a lot of ink, it
still misses a big part of their talents as songwriters.

Take, for example, the bridge lyrics to "Calling it Quits" ("now he's
numbering...").  The first three lines are sung in eighth notes, except for
the antepenultimate syllables which get a whole beat, and then the fourth
line is highly punctuated poetically and musically, stressed more or less
like this:

  - - - ' - - - ' - ' - * - '
  - - - ' - - - ' - - - * - '
  - - - ' - - - ' - ' - * - '
    - * * * - * - * *

And the natural linguistic cadence of the lyrics fits this scheme perfectly:
big words creating unstressed or weakly stressed syllables in the first
three lines, and chunky compounds in the fourth.

Another aspect of this song's craft is alliteration and complex internal
rhyme.  In each of the first two verses, the first four lines have a
parallel rhythm, with an AABB rhyme scheme - except that an extra syllable
connects lines 2 and 4 as well.  The effect of having all of this rhyme
expectation collide at the end of lines 4 in expressions that also serve as
punchlines of sorts, is remarkable.

Some of the alliteration is obvious (color-candy-cover-cap) or not original
(funny farm), but some is more subtle, as the abundance of sibilants in the
first line and a half.  Most interesting is the movement of consonants in
the bridge verse.  Line 1 is full of [m]s, with one [b].  Line 2 creates a
clever expression "leverage of valentines" that plays off a reversal of [l]
and [v], and then line 3 moves into a lot more [l]s.  The weighty line 4
picks up on the [g] of "Garland" and bashes us with it.  And look at how the
last half-verse, which (relative to the first two verses) is already gaining
momentum by not having the syllable at the end of line 2, keeps the [b]s
going with "bits".

Finally, there isn't just phonetic but semantic fun going on here.
"Monopoly" isn't capitalized in the online lyrics sites I checked, and I'll
run with that, since the sense of economic monopoly among music producers
relative to artists seems to be as relevant as the sense of the popular
game's fake money (many empty promises of wealth).  "Buying the farm" means
dying, of course, "funny farm" means madness, and merging the two is classic
Aimee Mann idiom mangling.  "Lies to cover the handicap" is a striking line,
drawing out double senses of "cover" and "handicap": that is to say, it can
mean "obscure the disability" or "compensate for the skill differential".
"Smaller size" evokes the pressure on female stars to be very thin while
also fitting the shoe reference.

All in all, there is just so much craft in this song (as in so many of her
others) that could easily escape a first or twentieth listen.  But if you
get to the point of appreciating what Mann does with words, and if you
respond to this style of tightly crafted pop, it can be truly engrossing.

J. Goard

Aimee Mann official site: https://www.aimeemann.com

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A Terrible Infant -- Frederick Locker-Lampson

(Poem #1870) A Terrible Infant I recollect a nurse called Ann, Who carried me about the grass, And one fine day a fine young man Came up, and kissed the pretty lass: She did not make the least objection! Thinks I, "Aha! When I can talk I'll tell Mamma" - And that's my earliest recollection. -- Frederick Locker-Lampson

A fun little piece to brighten up a dull moment - again, the humour is
mostly in the tone of voice, coupled with a perfect sense of timing. I don't
think this would have been nearly as good were it either longer or shorter.

Locker-Lampson (who I discovered when leafing through Burton Stevenson's
"Home Book of Verse" on Gutenberg) is a rather "odd" poet - odd in that I
can seldom quite decide whether I like any given poem of his. He has written
some very nice stuff ("polished and witty", as the anonymous biographer ove
at Wikipedia described it), but his longer poems seem to stagger back
and forth across the fine line between fluent and mechanical; there is
always the temptation to skim, counterbalanced by the feeling that I'll miss
some passing gem if I do.  Today's poem is definitely a winner, though -
short, crisp and funny, with not a word or a beat out of place.

martin

[Links]

Biography:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Locker-Lampson

Home Book of Verse:
  http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2619
  http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2620
  http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2621
  http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2622

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Refugee Blues -- W H Auden

Guest poem submitted by David Croll:

(Poem #1869) Refugee Blues Say this city has ten million souls Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes: Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us. Once we had a country and we thought it fair, Look in the atlas and you'll find it there: We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now. In the village churchyard there grows an old yew, Every spring it blossoms anew: Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that. The consul banged the table and said, "If you've got no passport you're officially dead": But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive. Went to a committee; they offered me a chair; Asked me politely to return next year: But where whall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day? Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said; "If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread": He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me. Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky; It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die": O we were in is mind, my dear, O we were in his mind. Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin, Saw a door opened and a cat let in: But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews. Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay, Saw the fish swimming if they were free: Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away. Walked through a wood, saw birds in the trees; They had no politicians and sang at their ease: They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race. Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors, A thousand windows and a thousand doors: Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours. Stood on a great plain in the falling snow; Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro: Looking for you and me, my dears, looking for you and me. -- W H Auden

This poem first struck my attention in the fall of 2003, when I was engaged
in preparation for the university-entrance diploma exams. Second, I was
getting to know my girlfriend then, for whom I translated it into German. A
few people said I was fallen in love when they read the translation, and
they were right.

What Auden conveys so convincingly is the apparent futileness of intellect
in face of circumstances like the mass extermination of Jews during the
Second World War; and because most of the killed Jews have not been
intellectual masterminds like Auden was, he correctly puts the words on the
tongue of laymen: They can't understand anything about their doom, because
doom just waits for them. They resort to analogies they understand (birds,
fishes, the lameness of bureaucracy) and know how to use them - but they use
them with striking efficacy.

David Croll.

[thomas adds]

Vikram Doctor's commentary on Poem #427, "The Two", is worth reproducing
here:

        The other Auden poems we've had so far show his lyrical
        side or his questioning intelligence. But this poem has
        another aspect of Auden's - the ability to create a
        picture of nightmarish fear, of being hunted and pursued,
        of having 'them' after you. Not for nothing is Auden the
        dominant poet of the Thirties, the worst, most frightening
        and disturbed decade of our century. The Depression, the
        rise of fascism and other tyrannies, all the cowardices
        and compromises of what he called 'a low dishonest decade',
        it all seeps into Auden's verse, and what he does with it
        is unforgettable.

        -- http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/427.html

See also:
        Poem #371, "O What Is That Sound?"
        Poem #386, "The Unknown Citizen"
        Poem #889, "September 1, 1939"
        Poem #1508, "O Where Are You Going?"
for more examples of Auden's reaction to the nightmare of WWII.

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The Talented Man -- Winthrop Mackworth Praed

(Poem #1868) The Talented Man Dear Alice! you'll laugh when you know it, -- Last week, at the Duchess's ball, I danced with the clever new poet, -- You've heard of him, -- Tully St. Paul. Miss Jonquil was perfectly frantic; I wish you had seen Lady Anne! It really was very romantic, He *is* such a talanted man! He came up from Brazenose College, Just caught, as they call it, this spring; And his head, love, is stuffed full of knowledge Of every conceivable thing. Of science and logic he chatters, As fine and as fast as he can; Though I am no judge of such matters, I'm sure he's a talented man. His stories and jests are delightful; -- Not stories or jests, dear, for you; The jests are exceedingly spiteful, The stories not always *quite* true. Perhaps to be kind and veracious May do pretty well at Lausanne; But it never would answer, -- good gracious! Chez nous -- in a talented man. He sneers, -- how my Alice would scold him! -- At the bliss of a sigh or a tear; He laughed -- only think! -- when I told him How we cried o'er Trevelyan last year; I vow I was quite in a passion; I broke all the sticks of my fan; But sentiment's quite out of fashion, It seems, in a talented man. Lady Bab, who is terribly moral, Has told me that Tully is vain, And apt -- which is silly -- to quarrel, And fond -- which is sad -- of champagne. I listened, and doubted, dear Alice, For I saw, when my Lady began, It was only the Dowager's malice; -- She *does* hate a talented man! He's hideous, I own it. But fame, love, Is all that these eyes can adore; He's lame, -- but Lord Byron was lame, love, And dumpy, -- but so is Tom Moore. Then his voice, -- *such* a voice! my sweet creature, It's like your Aunt Lucy's toucan: But oh! what's a tone or a feature, When once one's a talented man? My mother, you know, all the season, Has talked of Sir Geoffrey's estate; And truly, to do the fool reason, He *has* been less horrid of late. But today, when we drive in the carriage, I'll tell her to lay down her plan; -- If ever I venture on marriage, It must be a talented man! P.S. -- I have found, on reflection, One fault in my friend, -- entre nous; Without it, he'd just be perfection; -- Poor fellow, he has not a sou! And so, when he comes in September To shoot with my uncle, Sir Dan, I've promised mamma to remember He's only a talented man! -- Winthrop Mackworth Praed

This is an unexpectedly funny poem - I started off smiling, but had to laugh
out loud before I was done. It's hard to write a humorous poem where the
intent is that the reader laugh at the narrator; it's even harder when the
main element of the poem's humour is that indefinable quality, "tone of
voice". But Praed not only manages to thread the poem through with a
delightful vein of sly humour, he makes the whole thing look wonderfully
effortless - indeed, I was almost tempted to dismiss this as a funny but
essentially trivial poem, until I started to think about just how chancy a
thing humour can be. It's still a trivial poem, mind you, but it's also an
impressive one.

That humour of this sort is indeed tricky to handle is unfortunately
revealed with a jar in the last verse, which has a definite "I have no idea
how to end this" feel to it. The supplied punchline is superficially funny,
but it is a tired, cliched sort of humour, and one inconsistent in tone with
the rest of the poem. Happily, it doesn't detract from the rest of the poem -
there is a slight sense of letdown at the end, but, at least for me, the
lingering impression is entirely positive.

martin

Wikipedia entry:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winthrop_Mackworth_Praed
  [Praed seems to have led an interesting and active life]

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Childhood -- Frances Cornford

Guest poem submitted by Jaideep Krishnan:

(Poem #1867) Childhood I used to think that grown-up people chose To have stiff backs and wrinkles round their nose, And veins like small fat snakes on either hand, On purpose to be grand. Till through the banister I watched one day My great-aunt Etty's friend who was going away, And how her onyx beads had come unstrung. I saw her grope to find them as they rolled; And then I knew that she was helplessly old, As I was helplessly young. -- Frances Cornford

I love this poem because of its simplicity of expression. The narrative
point of view is that of a child who grows up in an instant of realisation.

Jaideep.

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The Atavist -- Robert Service

(Poem #1866) The Atavist What are you doing here, Tom Thorne, on the white top-knot o' the world, Where the wind has the cut of a naked knife and the stars are rapier keen? Hugging a smudgy willow fire, deep in a lynx robe curled, You that's a lord's own son, Tom Thorne -- what does your madness mean? Go home, go home to your clubs, Tom Thorne! home to your evening dress! Home to your place of power and pride, and the feast that waits for you! Why do you linger all alone in the splendid emptiness, Scouring the Land of the Little Sticks on the trail of the caribou? Why did you fall off the Earth, Tom Thorne, out of our social ken? What did your deep damnation prove? What was your dark despair? Oh with the width of a world between, and years to the count of ten, If they cut out your heart to-night, Tom Thorne, *her* name would be graven there! And you fled afar for the thing called Peace, and you thought you would find it here, In the purple tundras vastly spread, and the mountains whitely piled; It's a weary quest and a dreary quest, but I think that the end is near; For they say that the Lord has hidden it in the secret heart of the Wild. And you know that heart as few men know, and your eyes are fey and deep, With a "something lost" come welling back from the raw, red dawn of life: With woe and pain have you greatly lain, till out of abysmal sleep The soul of the Stone Age leaps in you, alert for the ancient strife. And if you came to our feast again, with its pomp and glee and glow, I think you would sit stone-still, Tom Thorne, and see in a daze of dream, A mad sun goading to frenzied flame the glittering gems of the snow, And a monster musk-ox bulking black against the blood-red gleam. I think you would see berg-battling shores, and stammer and halt and stare, With a sudden sense of the frozen void, serene and vast and still; And the aching gleam and the hush of dream, and the track of a great white bear, And the primal lust that surged in you as you sprang to make your kill. I think you would hear the bull-moose call, and the glutted river roar; And spy the hosts of the caribou shadow the shining plain; And feel the pulse of the Silences, and stand elate once more On the verge of the yawning vastitudes that call to you in vain. For I think you are one with the stars and the sun, and the wind and the wave and the dew; And the peaks untrod that yearn to God, and the valleys undefiled; Men soar with wings, and they bridle kings, but what is it all to you, Wise in the ways of the wilderness, and strong with the strength of the Wild? You have spent your life, you have waged your strife where never we play a part; You have held the throne of the Great Unknown, you have ruled a kingdom vast: . . . . . But to-night there's a strange, new trail for you, and you go, o weary heart! To the peace and rest of the Great Unguessed ... at last, Tom Thorne, at last. -- Robert Service

Today's poem is Service doing what he does best - a searing, highly coloured
narrative of a larger-than-life character in a vivider-than-life setting,
the images far more evocative than original, and none the worse for that.
Sadly, this seems to be a form of poetry that is dying out today - the
oversaturated imagery gives it a definite dated feel - and yet, for sheer
romance, it is a style that has no substitute. It may not be "literary", it
may not unfold with layer upon layer of meaning, but all that counts for
nothing as we are caught up in the magnificent sweep and flow of the words
and images.

Speaking of Service, every time I read his poetry I realise anew just how
strongly it is defined and shaped by the Land. Service has (perhaps
inevitably) been called the Canadian Kipling, and in an earlier commentary
[Poem #781] I expanded a bit upon the similarities between their poetry; on
the other hand, if I had to put my finger on the primary difference between
them, it would be this geocentricity of Service's. Kipling's poems, while
they shared much of the same style and feel as Service's, were far more
human-focused, the foreground was almost always the People, and the Land
defined by their relationship to it. In contrast, in today's typically
Service poem, Tom Thorne has a nominal lead role, but for much of the poem
he serves merely as a device for Service to speak of his beloved Yukon
wilderness, and only thereby of the men who love and brave it.

martin

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Song of a Nightclub Proprietress -- John Betjeman

(Poem #1865) Song of a Nightclub Proprietress I walked into the nightclub in the morning, there was Kummel on the handle of the door, the ashtrays were unemptied, The cleaning unattempted, And a squashed tomato sandwich on the floor. I pulled aside the thick magenta curtains So Regency, so Regency, my dear And a host of little spiders Ran a race across the ciders To a box of baby 'pollies by the beer. Oh sun upon the summergoing bypass Where ev'rything is speeding to the sea, And wonder beyond wonder that here where lorries thunder The sun should ever percolate to me. When Boris used to call in his Sedanca, When Teddy took me down to his estate, When my nose excited passions, And my clothes were in the fashion, When my beaux were never cross if I was late, There was sun enough for lazing upon beaches There was fun enough for far into the night; But I'm dying now and done for, What on earth was all the fun for? I am ill and old and terrified and tight. -- John Betjeman

Notes:
  Kümmel: a sweet, colorless liqueur flavored with caraway seed, cumin, and
  fennel

  The "box of baby 'pollies" appears to be a bit of a mystery:
    http://www.antimoon.com/forum/2004/5409.htm

This is one of Betjeman's bleaker pieces, and, I think, one of his most
memorable. Nearly all Betjeman's poems show a keen insight into humanity,
and an enviable ability to share that insight with his readers, but it is in
his 'serious' poems that that gift shows up to its best advantage, and
today's poem is an exquisite illustration of that fact.

Another thing I really like about Betjeman is the way he handles
first-person poetry - he paints extremely sympathetic, engaging characters,
and gives them powerful, haunting voices. Even a poem as superficially
lighthearted as "Indoor Games Near Newbury" [Poem #1098] is poignant and
moving; today's poem, with its theme of explicit despair, is far more so.

martin

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