MD5313 – Song Writing and Context – Poem Rework

Source a Pre 1920 poem.

The poem I found I couldn’t find the exact date of the poem when published but the authors dates indicate that it was definitely written pre 1920. With his dates being 1819-1892.

I Chose the poem Glimpse by Walt Whitman

A glimpse through an interstice caught,

Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark’d seated in a corner,

Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,

A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest,

There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.

Below is the poem written out and analysed through looking at each line and word individually.

Through analysis of the poem i have come to conclude that the poem is written through one persons perception and their  single view, this shown through the first line, ‘A glimpse through an interstice’. A glimpse being a ‘momentary or partial view’ and Interstice meaning ‘A small intervening space’.

The poem moves on to share his perception of the ‘bar-room’ and then linking his outside views with his inside thoughts.

This inside thought runs coinciding with the idea that his lover and him are almost a secret, not drawing any attention to one another just ‘speaking little, perhaps not a word’ and we are previously told that the speaker is sat ‘unremarked in a corner’.

Through further research it is thought that the poem touches on homosexuality. What indicates this is the perception of the ‘workmen and drivers’ (masculine perceived jobs) alongside with ‘drinking and oath and smutty jest’ this line giving a sense of sexually charged masculinity. This feeling is also felt from the speaker and lover but in a romantic way.

• Re-work the content as a workable lyric and song structure

 

Late on a winters night

A crowd of workmen gather

In a bar room around the stove

Me, unremarked in the corner

 

A glimpse, A glimpse

Through the interstice caught

A glimpse, A glimpse

Through the interstice caught

 

A youth who loves me

And whom I love

Approaches me silently

And sits near to hold my hand

 

A glimpse, A glimpse

Through the interstice caught

A glimpse, A glimpse

Through the interstice caught

 

Amid the noise of coming and going

Of drinking and smutty jest

There we two content and happy

Speaking little, perhaps not a word

 

A glimpse, A glimpse

Through the interstice caught

A glimpse, A glimpse

Through the interstice caught

 

 

• Outline how you have achieved this to make the lyric relatable and your reasons for the structure related to the context of the song

I approached the song with a folk song sense, Folk songs convey a story and this is exactly what the poem did and what I wanted to keep.

Each verse tells the story with the chorus taking the starting line from the poem, ‘A glimpse through an interstice caught’. I chose to use this line as the line indicates clearly the idea that this is the singers perception so is of importance, therefore it becoming my chorus.

In the first verse I set the scene, chopping out words to make the lines fit in a melodic and structural format for a song. Then headed straight into the chorus, this harnessing this typical folk genre structure.

The second verse introduces the ‘Lover’ which is the next step of the story and then carrying on to the thirds verse where the ‘lover’ scene and ‘workmen’ scene are joined together.

Structurally I split the poem verse up into three song verses by taking two lines from the poem for each verse. You can see what words I chose to cut out and which I used in this annotation below…

A lot of the time i decided to leave the word ‘Of’ out as they made the poem dated, which obviously it is a poem from the 1800s but I found just leaving this use of the word ‘Of’ out instantly modernised it.

Most of the other words I left out because melodically they just didn’t work or didn’t make sense into how I reworked the structure and lyric. There wasn’t any deeper meaning behind that.

 

 

 

 

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