Song Lyrics: due Thursday, 2/27

As we talked about last week, song lyrics are essentially poems with a refrain, set to music.  In fact, most cultures did, or do, set their poetry to music.

Your task will be to rewrite lyrics to a song of your choice, that is written with poetic devices.  You must match the song's stanza structure, rhyme scheme and rhythm as closely as possible.  Change the content entirely.

You may record you reading, playing and reading, or singing the music.  You do not have to sing it, but that would certainly help your presentation mark.  If you sing, but only if you sing, you may work with a partner, but you must work on two songs then.  Otherwise work alone on one song.

Written Work (the cake)
This is the most important and must be finished for Thursday.  You will print it (Times New Roman 12, black, double-spaced), post it, and present it as before, but try to memorize!  Due Thursday, 2/27.  If you do not have any music to sing or play, you may have to present on Thursday, and if everything is not ready you will get late marks.

Music (the icing)
If you sing, or play and read, this will certainly help your presentation mark; however, the writing is more important.  If you do this, you have until Friday to prepare.


Here's an example of a song and lyrics.

Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit Lyrics

Load up on guns, bring your friends 
It's fun to lose and to pretend 
She's overbored and self-assured 
Oh, no, I know a dirty word 

Hello, Hello, Hello, How Low (x3) 
Hello, Hello, Hello 

With the lights out, it's less dangerous 
Here we are now, entertain us 
I feel stupid and contagious 
Here we are now, entertain us 

A mulatto 
An albino 
A mosquito 
My libido 
Yeah 

Hey... Yay 

I'm worse at what I do best 
And for this gift I feel blessed 
Our little group (tribe) has always been 
And always will until the end 

Hello, Hello, Hello, How Low (x3) 
Hello, Hello, Hello 

With the lights out, it's less dangerous 
Here we are now, entertain us 
I feel stupid and contagious 
Here we are now, entertain us 

A mulatto 
An albino 
A mosquito 
My libido 
Yeah 

Hey... Yay 

(Guitar solo) 

And I forget just why I taste 
Oh, yeah, I guess it makes me smile 
I found it hard, it's hard to find 
Oh well, whatever, nevermind 

Hello, Hello, Hello, How Low (x3) 
Hello, Hello, Hello 

With the lights out, it's less dangerous 
Here we are now, entertain us 
I feel stupid and contagious 
Here we are now, entertain us 

A mulatto 
An albino 
A mosquito 
My libido 

Yeah a denial 
A denial! (x9)


Here is a parody of the same song.

Weird Al Yankovic – Smells Like Nirvana

What is this song all about?
Can't figure any lyrics out
How do the words to it go?
I wish you'd tell me, I don't know
Don't know, don't know, don't know, I don't know!
Don't know, don't know, don't know...

Now I'm mumblin' and I'm screamin'
And I don't know what I'm singin'
Crank the volume, ears are bleedin'
I still don't know what I'm singin'
We're so loud and incoherent
Boy, this oughta bug your parents
Yeah!

*belch*

Hing!

It's unintelligible
I just can't get it through my skull
It's hard to bargle nawdle zouss 
With all these marbles in my mouth
Don't know, don't know, don't know, I don't know!
Don't know, don't know, don't know...

Well, we don't sound like Madonna
Here we are now, we're Nirvana
Sing distinctly? We don't wanna
Buy our album, we're Nirvana
A garage band from Seattle
Well it sure beats raisin' cattle
Yeah!

Moo..

Baa...

And I forgot the next verse
Oh well, I guess it pays to rehearse
The lyric sheet's so hard to find
What are the words, oh nevermind
Don't know, don't know, don't know, I don't know!
Don't know, don't know, don't know...

Well, I'm yellin' and we're playin'
But I don't know what I'm sayin'
What's the message I'm conveyin'?
Can you tell me what I'm sayin'?
So have you got some idea?
Didn't think so 
Well, I'll see ya
Sayonara, sayonawa
Ayonawa, hodinawa
Odinaya, yodinaya
Yaddayadda, yaaahyaaah
Ayiyaaaaaah!

Descriptive Poetry: adjectives and adverbs, simile and metaphor

Your task is to write a poem of over one-hundred words (less than 150) that describes somewhere you have been in the last week, outside.  It should include adjectives and adverbs, simile and metaphor in order to better describe the place, the weather, et cetera.  Try describe with all five senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste.

You will print it, post it, and present it as before, but try to memorize!  Due Friday, 2/21.


Find the adjectives and adverbs.

The Shark

He seemed to know the harbour,
So leisurely he swam;
His fin,
Like a piece of sheet-iron,
Three-cornered,
And with knife-edge,
Stirred not a bubble
As it moved
With its base-line on the water.

His body was tubular
And tapered
And smoke-blue,
And as he passed the wharf
He turned,
And snapped at a flat-fish
That was dead and floating.
And I saw the flash of a white throat,
And a double row of white teeth,
And eyes of metallic grey,
Hard and narrow and slit.

Then out of the harbour,
With that three-cornered fin
Shearing without a bubble the water
Lithely,
Leisurely,
He swam—
That strange fish,
Tubular, tapered, smoke-blue,
Part vulture, part wolf,
Part neither—for his blood was cold.

Simile and metaphor:

The Sea

The sea is a hungry dog,
Giant and grey.
He rolls on the beach all day.
With his clashing teeth and shaggy jaws
Hour upon hour he gnaws
The rumbling, tumbling stones,
And 'Bones, bones, bones, bones! '
The giant sea-dog moans,
Licking his greasy paws.

And when the night wind roars
And the moon rocks in the stormy cloud,
He bounds to his feet and snuffs and sniffs,
Shaking his wet sides over the cliffs,
And howls and hollos long and loud.

But on quiet days in May or June,
When even the grasses on the dune
Play no more their reedy tune,
With his head between his paws
He lies on the sandy shores,
So quiet, so quiet, he scarcely snores. 

James Reeves

 O my Luve's like a red, red rose,  

That's newly sprung in June: 
O my Luve's like the melodie, 
That's sweetly play'd in tune.  

As fair art thou, my bonie lass, 
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear, 
Till a' the seas gang dry.  

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, 
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
 And I will luve thee still, my dear, 
While the sands o' life shall run. And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!
 And fare-thee-weel, a while! 
And I will come again, my Luve, 
Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile!
- Robert Burns

Sonnet 18, Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed,

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,   

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,   

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Poetry assignment delayed (one hour, Monday) due to snow!

Your poetry assignment will be due Monday; however, not at the start of class: 7.1 will post before the afternoon and read in the afternoon; 7.2 will post before the end of the day, Monday, and read on Tuesday. Monday we will be editing and practising, so do not post yet.

Enjoy your snow-day!

Three syllable meter: Anapest and Dactyl

This is the last set of metrical foot I'll make you do: Anapest and Dactyl.

This is anapest: ˘ ˘ ¯

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house

The Destruction of Sennacherib
by
Lord Byron

  The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

This is dactyl: ¯ ˘ ˘

Just for a handful of silver he left us

Just for a riband to stick in his coat - Robert Browning

The Charge of the Light Brigade
by
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.


Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,

Noble six hundred. 

Here is a great page of notes for different meters.

Your job is eight to sixteen lines (two to four quatrains, if quatrains; but you can do stanzas of a different number than four lines, if you wish): Dactyl and/or Anapest.  You do not need to do both types.  Rhyme doesn't matter, but is a bonus; any rhyme pattern should match the rhythm pattern.  You can mix rhythms within a stanza, but label clearly.

Done by Monday before school, posted here and printed onto paper.  Labelled clearly, double spaced for marking.

Trochaic/Iambic round two!

For Wednesday, read four lines of each and get a percentage mark!

You can choose from the poems I have on this blog, or find others of your own.  If you are smart, Google for versions with stress marks.

Post Foreign-Language Poems (and translation to English) here, by Wednesday.

Post them as a comment to this post.  

Do so only with your initials!  Keep your online privacy.  Make sure you are not signed into Gmail, etc.

Copy and paste the original poem, and a translation into English.  You do not need to print anything for me.

Rhythm in two syllables: Trochaic and Iambic

You've put rhythm in your quatrains and couplets.  Now it is time to put in rhythmical patterns.  First, the examples.

Trochaic Foot (closest to modern English speech):

Earth, receive an honoured guest;
William Yeats is laid to rest:
Let this Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.  -  W.M. Auden

Iambic Foot (most of Shakespeare):

If music be the food of love, play on; 
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, 
The appetite may sicken, and so die. 
That strain again! it had a dying fall: 
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound, 
That breathes upon a bank of violets, 
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more: 
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.   -   Twelfth Night, Shakespeare

Jabberwocky

BY LEWIS CARROLL

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

      The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

      The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;

      Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree

      And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

      The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

      And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

      The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

      He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

      Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

      He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe. 

Your job is two quatrains of each, Trochaic and Iambic.  Rhyme doesn't matter, but is a bonus.  Done by Friday before school, posted here and printed onto paper.  Labelled clearly, double spaced for marking.

Post Couplets and Quatrains here, today.

Post them as a comment to this post. 

Do so only with your initials!  Keep your online privacy.  Make sure you are not signed into Gmail, etc.

Copy and paste all sixteen lines, formatted as couplets or as quatrains.  Title them if you wish.

Print a copy of all sixteen lines for me.