Bring Back the Poetry, Please!

I’m a child of the 50’s, 60’s,and early 70’s when poets like Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, Arlo Guthrie, Lennon and McCartney, and so many more wrote songs that were pure poetry; that actually meant something. The songs talked about change, but didn’t propose bashing heads or preach exclusion. They spoke instead of cooperation, understanding, and most of all, hope.

People wrote about life, about love, and about being happy with what we had. But they didn’t live in a bubble. In some ways, I believe they looked at life so deeply they were able to foretell the future.

Take Simon and Garfunkle’s Sounds of Silence. They wrote about “talking without speaking” and “hearing without listening”. Today, our lives revolve around cell phones, computers, and electronics in general. How often do we have conversations without the essential elements of body language and voice inflection. If you ask me, we’re only half communicating.

They Sang the Feelings We Could Relate To

Or how about the Beatles’ Nowhere Man? Or Eleanor Rigby? Or Fool on the Hill? All talk about people living out their lives alone where nobody listens, nobody cares, and their passing doesn’t even cause a ripple. Yet suicide rates are on the rise, and a major factor in suicide is feeling like it doesn’t matter to anyone if you live or die.

The poet/songwriters of the 60’s could even write a protest song so poignant, it brought tears to your eyes (Where Have All The Flowers Gone?), or so subtle, you barely noticed it was a protest song at all (Scarborough Fair/Canticle) utilizing subliminal messaging before movies like The Exorcist made us aware of its presence in our lives.

I listen to these songs today and it amazes me how much the writers seemed to pen prophecies of what our lives would become decades later. They were to life on Earth what Science Fiction has been to things like space travel and video chatting. They predicted our future yet at the time, we were merely moved and entertained.

Music Changes the World, So Why Not Change it For the Better?

Those same songs were also responsible for subtle, yet massive changes in our society and outlook. And those changes were mainly for the good.

Today, rap and other genres have had a large influence on our culture, not much of it positive. Songs protesting social ills suggest violence as the only sure-fire antidote. How far has that gotten us? Hate crimes are in the news daily, and you’re no longer guaranteed a safe trip to the mall, a concert, or even on the train that takes you there.

Music can and does change our world, our attitude, even our mood. So why do we have so many songs encouraging us to hate? Why do we have so much repetitive, meaningless nonsense that could have been cranked out by 1980’s era computer?

I have to believe the poets are still out there, maybe, as Simon and Garfunkle said so long ago “writing songs that voices never heard”. I don’t know about you, but I want to hear those songs, whether they are predictive of where we’re now heading if we don’t take a sharp left turn and get out of our own way, or of the sadness of loss, or better still, of the hope that truly does spring eternal.

We need more Imagine  and less rap songs glorifying violence and hate. Take a look at what Complex deemed the best rap verses of 2017. If the lines they consider good are a true picture of our society, I, for one am very afraid. Sure, it gives a pretty fair idea of where our society is going, what people are thinking, and how frustrated they are with it all, but if it’s making a difference, it isn’t the kind of difference that will have a positive, globally life-improving outcome.

Creativity is Losing Ground to Marketing and Madness

And don’t get me started on cranked out pop which treats women like we exist only to be sex objects with lines like “put your body on me” or “I’m in love with the shape of you”. Really??? Have we come so far since earning the right to vote that we’re still objectified in song? And songs which would have the true poets rolling over in their graves?

We’re being pushed and pulled in so many directions by ready (and often unasked for) access to the latest words and actions of this celebrity or that politician. It makes me want to put my hands over my years and scream “STOP THE MADNESS!!!”

Instead, I put my headphones in my ears and plug into my Blood, Sweat, and Tears Pandora station. It takes me back to a time when the words and music had meaning. A time when people actually cared about other people, at least sometimes and somewhere. And where musicians and poets worked together to create beautiful symmetry that sometimes moved us emotionally, sometimes, made us more aware of those around us who needed a helping hand, and oftentimes, both.

If Reality is Endless Repetition, Don’t Wake Me Up

I remember my parents joking about how the Beatles were all “yah, yah, yah”. If they could only hear the nonsense emanating from radios, YouTube, Pandora, and Spotify today! They, like me would look back on the incredible talent of writing teams like Lennon and McCartney (not to mention Harrison), Simon and Garfunkle, Ashford and Simpson, Coffin and King, Bacharach and David, and the Gershwin brothers with a deep sense of longing.

I may be a dreamer, and I know I look for the good in most people. I’ll continue to take heat for believing even murderers deserve compassion, and that they do the horrific things they do because their lives are missing a vital component many of us take for granted. I’ll keep interspersing my country music with the songs from my youth because without those songs of hope and goodness, without the songs which helped change our world for the better, at least a little, my own ability to make a positive impact on the world would wither and die.

The Timelessness of Song

I’ll leave you with one of the most beautiful songs of hope from days gone by, even if Coke ultimately used it for a commercial (and even with that, gave us a memorable message of hope and inclusion). Here is I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing by the New Seekers.

You can see more on this in my March 10th Facebook Live here

About the Author

Sheri Conaway is a writer, blogger, Virtual Assistant and advocate for cats. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. She is available for article writing and ghostwriting to help your website and the business it supports grow and thrive. Her specialties are finding and expressing your authentic self. If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author.

Be sure to watch this space for news of the upcoming release of “Forgotten Victims: Healing and Forgiving After Suicide”.