I thought I'd take this opportunity to shed a back-story spotlight on the E.E.Cummings poem songs I am releasing on the EP's SEA & INFINITY.
My poetic journey started when I was asked to contribute some songs to an ongoing project that reimagines the works of American poet E.E.Cummings. It was started by my friends Lij Shaw and Chris King - you may know Lij from ‘Recording Studio Rockstars’ if you are into music production.
The project brief was to turn poems from E.E.Cummings into song form. The song could be in any style, but from hearing other works by Lij and Chris I felt an indie folk/rock style would go down best. Perfect, I thought. So I started flicking through the poems from the chosen publication TULIPS AND CHIMNEYS. It was suggested to me by Chris that I start at the Chansons Innocentes section and work down. I can see why! The ‘songs’ that kick off the book are REALLY heavy going!
E.E.Cummings was a new name to me in poetry, although an immense name in American verse from the early 20th century, this was my first sight of his poems, and instantly songs jumped out at me.
I count myself as really lucky to be able to create songs as I do. I can look at a lyric or poem and, as of the first reading, hear the melodies and arrangements that will likely be the final song. Key words jump out at me and scream for my attention as I grab verse, chorus and bridge sections from the text. I can't explain how I do it, it just happens for me - I feel truly blessed.
The first E.E.Cummings poem song I wrote was called SEA using the poem AMORES-III. Check it out and see how I've grabbed bits from here and there to make a modern song format. I felt the lines ‘Stars flutter into dust - your soul is on my lips’ would be an amazing chorus hook, a line that could appear in any contemporary song of the moment, yet written over a hundred years ago! It just goes to show you, love never ages, passion never dulls, and words that capture the moment when your heart flutters and sings will always have a place in a song.
Well, SEA went down really well with my friends across the ocean, so out of that moment and methodology another eight songs came flooding through almost instantly. I would read each poem and hear a melody and see the parts and have a full demonstration song within a few hours.
But, as you will know if you create music yourself, it takes as much of an effort, if not more, to take a quick demo and transform it into a musical work that is fit for human consumption! The E.E.Cummings songs sat on my hard drive for some considerable time with a familiar ‘work in progress’ label which gets attached to many ideas, until by chance one day I meet a producer called James Livett on a songwriting website. Well, James is an excellent musician, this is immediately clear from seeing and hearing his back catalogue and links, so I try to get him to produce my new album for free (it didn't work - he didn't go for it!) But he messaged me back saying he could offer me his paid services, as you would expect of him (it didn't work - I didn't go for it!) But somehow, from that shaky beginning we found that we had loads of musical tastes and ideas in common and started collaborating, bringing the E.E.Cummings songs to life. James also wrote and sings lead vocals on ‘Night’, the fourth song on INFINTY.
James and I have now had so much fun working on the Cummings poem songs that we plan to do some more collaboration songs in the future. I hope you have, and will continue to enjoy the songs and will appreciate them a little more knowing how they came about. Please read the original poems and then listen to the songs - how would you have written them?
Here is the complete list (with links) of my songs in capital letters, followed by the original E.E.Cummings poem in italics:-
SEA EP
INFINITY EP
Thanks for listening!