Music and Lyrics

 
I am very fond of music, mainly music one can sit down and listen to, listen to both the music and the lyrics. On these pages I would like to share some of my thoughts about music, songs and poems with you.
Let me start by telling you who my two most favourite artists are:

 

Sarah Brightman       and       Loreena McKennitt

Sarah Brightman
has a voice that can "match the angels' in
its glory" [from: "Meadowlark"],
so beautiful is it in many songs.
 
 
I sometimes wish my heart could speak and say
What my poor lips can never tell
Of all the beauty God has sent my way
And some that man has made as well
 
           [from: Silent heart]
Loreena McKennitt
makes a unique kind of songs, each with
its own compelling atmosphere, inspired
by many different cultures, and she sings
and plays the harp excellently.
 
Wherein the deep night sky
The stars lie in its embrace
The courtyard still in its sleep
Peace comes over your face
 
           [from: "Courtyard lullaby"]

 
Another artist with a great voice I like to listen to is:

Vicki Brown (1940-1991)

 
And of course there are several other artists I like very much, but Sarah and Loreena are by far my most favourite artists.

 

Songs vs. poems

I must say that I am not very fond of poems, since I generally do not understand them.
There are, however, some exceptions, such as: But what is the difference between a poem and a good song text? I mean, just look at some of the songs I refer to at these pages.  
Yet, a song is more than just its lyrics: the music can make it more enchanting, inspiring, mysterious or overwhelming. And that is, I think, why I prefer songs. Especially those songs that are sung with a clear and good voice, supported - not: dominated - by melodious music. An excellent example of this is Loreena McKennitt, who even sings some poems (Tennyson, Yeats, Blake, Scott). Not that I then suddenly understand the texts completely, of course.
On the other hand, even quite simple lyrics can become wonderful if they are sang with an excellent voice, like for instance Sarah Brightman.

If you'd like to know more about what music can feel like and what effects it can have on you, I suggest you read Diane Ackerman's wonderful and interesting book A Natural History of Senses (Random House, Inc., New York, 1990), which is translated in Dutch as Reis door het rijk der zinnen (Het Spectrum, Utrecht, 1990).

===> What is poetry? (from Merrian Webster's Encyclopaedia of Literature) plus list of (parts of) poems on my Web pages.

 

Fons Jansen

Ik ben een grote fan van de (inmiddels overleden) conferencier Fons Jansen (1925-1991), en ik geef van hem de volgende dingen: Jammer genoeg kan ik niet meer teksten van Fons Jansen geven. Maar er is een uitgebreide collectie teksten te vinden op http://www.tigch.nl/fonsjansen/ [met dank aan Paul Jansen].

 

Lyrics of other songs

Here are the lyrics of some other songs I like and typed for some reason or other:

 

Citations

On my Home Page I have a citation; the citations previously on that page are on a separate page.

When I wrote my Ph.D. thesis, I decided to add some citations between the chapters, as personal notes. I included:

I collected also citations of other songs in English, but could not include them in my thesis as well due to lack of space.

Alphabetic lists of:
===> full song and poem texts on my pages
===> cited song texts on my pages
===> several artists and groups I like

 
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last modified: 17 December 2006