Songs vs. Poems

For me the difference between a song and a poem is simple: a song comes with a melody, a poem doesn’t.  I’ve never written a poem and then set it to music.  I’ve started to put some of my songs here, without the tunes, which is a little like posting blind, as I always hear the music when I write or think them, and don’t know what they sound like without music.

The tunes haven’t gone far beyond my own head.  My brother Geoff took to singing one of my songs, so it has a music life.  My other songs remain trapped, due to my aborted music training, my lack of drive to pursue it, and my lack of courage to perform.  Plus if they were going to be performed, they’d probably have to be altered to fit the format of popular songs.

Sometimes songs don’t come whole, as did Vineyard Haven Kite Song.  Sometimes a first line, with its melody, calls for another.  In those cases I have enjoyed playing with the words, the rhymes.  In the following song, I enjoyed making not just end rhymes but internal rhymes, with some lines nearly completely rhyming with each other.  

That mid-college period of my life was a prolific time for songs - I don’t know why.  I shared some of them again with my brother Geoff recently, and he said they were probably not songs he would sing, as they bore that unmistakable stamp of college age sensitivities.  He may be right.  What do you think?

In the gentle wind a leaf flutters

And my stirring heart utters echoes

Murmurings of fear are forgotten

As the joyful rhythm beckons

Come, let us dance, oh let us sing, let us be merry

Some are set on chance but we on things less arbitrary

I could shout and still keep a secret

It would speak to him that would hear it

This I send my song out to seek for

Someone who has sung with its spirit

Let it be known - the word is clear, it has been spoken

What is coming must appear - its truth cannot be broken.

©Wendy Mulhern
Fall 1978