Blog for the Early Curfew: Poetry in Music of the Rock and Roll Generation

For years I taught literature classes in the high schools of four Midwestern states as I coached basketball. Poetry was never a favorite topic probably the result of a creative writing class at Cornell taught by Robert Dana, a fairly well know poet in American literary circles. I was way over my head and because of that my creative attempts were for decades limited to the occasional limerick.

An Irish lad name of Danny
Patted a young thing on the fanny
But to his surprise
When he opened his eyes
The young thing was really his Granny  

You now understand why I choose short stories as an outlet for my creative juices. Like most of you, I have watched more television during the lockdown than I normally would. Recently I watched an interview with 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature Kazuo Ishiguro. During a segment he saluted a previous Nobel winner, Bob Dylan who was honored for ‘having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.’ I had forgotten that Dylan was so honored and it initiated thinking on a topic which has long fascinated me, the poetry within modern music, especially rock and roll.

What first brought the concept to mind was a quote from former US poet laureate Maya Angelou. In discussing the Beatles hit Eleanor Rigby she said, ”Now you take Eleanor Rigby, that is poetry.” Several lines are truly poetic. The third verse is my favorite,

“Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name.
Nobody came.
Father Mackenzie brushing the dirt from his hands o’er the grave
No one was saved.”

The refrain reiterates the theme, “All the lonely people, where do they all come from?”

Let’s get to Bob Dylan and the reason he was chosen for the prestigious Nobel in Literature. His songs set the standard of using music to identify social and cultural issues in the age of rock and roll. Musically, he blended folk ballads with rock to break through barriers previously not spanned. His Blowin’ in the Wind might just be the all-time greatest song. It brings to light a variety of social concerns from war to slavery. The refrain “The answer my friend is blowin in the wind” implies that all the questions remain unresolved.

“How many times must the cannonballs fly before they’re forever banned?” obviously refers to mankind’s penchant for war. A favorite meaningful quote comes from the German philosopher Georg Hegel “the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” Mankind continues to rewrite its story with the same mistakes. Russia became bogged down in a war with Afghanistan which was a contributing factor in the collapse of Soviet power. Not many years later the US entered a conflict there which has lasted over twenty years. Our son Christopher served a seven month deployment there while in the US Navy, but refuses to comment on the futility involved. Check out The Shuttlecock Wars in my latest collection for a bit of satire on this topic.   

“How many years can some people exist before they’re allowed to be free?” I am presently reading Accidental Presidents by Cohan. It chronicles the struggle for legislation to free the slaves. The end result of course was the Civil War. That struggle continues today not only in America, but in many countries around the world. Ethnic cleansing is a cruel practice. In China today, in the old Yugoslavia, in African countries, in the concentration camps of WWII and many other situations around the globe millions of human beings died only because they were different, not because of anything specific they had done. 

“How many times can a man turn his head pretending he just doesn’t see?” This to me is the most powerful thought in the lyrics. I plead guilty to doing nothing when I have witnessed wrongs being inflicted on others. Too often it’s not ‘convenient’ to intercede. My guess is that I am not the only one. In America at present, Asian American citizens are being targeted only because they are not white. Apparently this has been going on for many years, probably since their forefathers were interred during the Second World War. There have been stories about white Americans interceding but this should not be the type of behavior which warrants media coverage…it should be the norm not the exception.

For Americans one verse of Dylan’s song The Times They Are a Changin’ should be especially meaningful. No explanation is needed and my personal political leanings have little to do with that.  

Come senators, congressmen please heed the call
Don’t block up the doorway don’t stand in the hall
For he that gets hurts will be he who has stalled
The battle outside is ragin
Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a changin

And now to my own poetry. Let’s all hope the curfew doesn’t last.

An eccentric young man from Cork
Who was widely considered a dork
Bayed at the moon
Ate his peas with a spoon
And spread butter on bread with his fork