Famous poems that have become songs by popular artists
Although I taught English in high school, the subject of literature rarely came up when I met my main friends there. Being soccer coaches, most of our discussions were about that particular sport or others that are popular in our culture.
One of the two PE teachers on our coaching staff glanced at a stack of papers he’d placed on the desk in the football office. The content was poems that my students had been assigned to write, so the obviously bored gym teacher decided to read the first one out loud.
We laughed a little at his exaggerated elocution, and after two or three poems he left the company. Her later confession of hers wouldn’t have surprised me now, but my idealistic younger self back then found it almost unbelievable.
“The only poem I can recite even one line from is the one they use in that song,” he said. “That one from the Moody Blues.”
He hadn’t needed to say the first words, “Take a deep breath of the gathering gloom,” for me to know he was talking about satin white nights. Had he been a more avid fan of that band, he might have used painted smilea lesser known song of his long distance travel album.
The Moody Blues successfully accomplished the feat twice, but other artists have also managed to insert original poems into their songs. The most famous example is Jim Morrison, who wrote and recited an american prayer on the Doors album of the same title.
Bassist Joe Puerta from Ambrosia wrote a poem that he recites to introduce his song. star cowboy in the album A place I have never traveledand Ricky Wilson of the Kasiser Chiefs wrote a two-verse piece in 2014 to close cannons from the Education, Education, Education and War album.
Occasionally, artists have decided to take a poem that is already part of our literary history and translate it into song. Here are four classic poems that have been recorded as songs by popular artists.
the highwayman
Folk singer Phil Ochs put an acoustic twist on this poem by Alfred Noyes, resulting in a theme from the I’m not going to go anymore album.
The bells
This eerie epic poem by Edgar Allan Poe was made more joyous by the jingling rhythm of Ochs’s guitar in a song by All the news that’s fit to sing.
Nice Nice Very Nice
Progressive rock quartet Ambrosia turned a few verses from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. into the opening track of their debut album, adding a catchy chorus and a chaotic but delicious musical bridge.
Under the greenwood tree
Shakespeare has been an obvious influence on writers of all genres, and folk rock singer Donovan transformed this Bard sonnet into a beautiful song about the use your love like the sky album.