I Could Be Dreaming
And the heart is hard to translate
It has a language of its own.
It talks in tongues and quiet sighs
In prayers and proclamations,
In the grand deeds of great men
And the smallest of gestures,
In short, shallow gasps.
Wow. Today I’m going to share some of my thoughts on lyrics, and by extension poetry, and the picture that they can paint.
I really love song lyrics. I’ve written about this before on this blog: about how important they can be and how sometimes you don’t need them at all, and about how easy they are to mistake for something completely different, and about how sometimes it’s just as if you’ve lived the story being told.
The aspect of lyrics that I most enjoy, though, is that (with a few exceptions) it’s all over inside of four minutes. This means that there isn’t time to fill in a long and detailed story and plot: the trick to lyric writing, as well as poetry, lies in being able to paint with broad brushstrokes and still imbue your words with real feeling and significance.
In writing, this is poetry. In painting, this is Impressionism. I don’t think it’s any coincidence at all that my favourite songs are the ones with intricate lyrics and my favourite artist is Van Gogh.
And yes, I did just compare Florence + The Machine to Vincent Van Gogh.
But my point is, they both do something wonderful. I can’t do it myself, which I think just adds to my wonder and admiration, but I can describe it. The artists I love can produce a representation of a place or a person or a situation, a representation that doesn’t look or sound like the real thing looks or sounds, but that instead looks or sounds like what it really is.
Which is beautiful.
This is from the