Saturday, February 25, 2012

Poetry Corner.

Back in the day, my daily round-trip commute was 100 miles. On a motorcycle.

Stuck inside a helmet for that amount of time every day, you tend to invent ways to amuse yourself; mine was reciting Kipling poetry.

That's right, as that pink-and-blue Suzuki crotch rocket was peg-scraping down side roads or weaving through interstate traffic, inside my helmet there was a steady monologue of The Gods Of The Copybook Headings and The Young British Soldier...

...but I never thought to sing it!

11 comments:

  1. The Infamous Oregon Lawhobbit10:09 PM, February 25, 2012

    Never heard the Jim Croce abridged version, then, I take it?

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  2. I've been on a Kipling kick lately. Sounds pretty good aloud, in contrast to most of this modern higgerty piggerty. Not too bad sung, for that matter.

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  3. Leslie Fish has put a number of Kipling pieces to music...

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  4. Ms Tam... we ought'a have drink to Rudyard someday. I kept doing the Explorer on my trips to work and still do... another "born 200 too early - or 200 too late" kind'a guys I'm afraid.

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  5. Jim Croce version is up on Youtube. My version of this was on 8 Track.

    Actually, I wonder if mounting an 9 Track on a motorcycle would count as "retro chic" ...

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  6. Hell, one of my favorite mashups is the Kipling poem (whose title I have forgotten and cannot find) set to Beethoven's Ode to Joy...

    Let us now be up and doing
    With a heart for any fate
    Still achieving, still pursuing
    Learn to [da-dah] and to wait.

    (Well, if you can only remember it so poorly, it can hardly be a favorite, now...)

    Point taken.

    M

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  7. One of my favorites is still, "The Heathen":

    "Getting clear of dirtiness, getting done with mess,
    Getting shut of doing things rather-more-or-less;
    Not so fond of abby-nay, kul, nor hazar-ho,
    Learns to keep his rifle and himself just so!"

    (Fortunately my edition of Unabridged Kipling included notes for stuff like "abby-nay", "kul" and "hazar-ho", otherwise in the pre-'Net days I wouldn't have found them in any dictionary.)

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  8. And who can forget Dudley Dooright's version of "Tommy", "...chuck him out, the brute."

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  9. Yeah, what Ian said.

    Here's Leslie Fish and Julia Ecklar doing "Hymn to Breaking Strain".

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  10. Somehow the Kipling approximation of how "Tommies" talked doesn't go well with rolled "Rs".

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  11. Well, the collection is "Barrack Room Ballads" after all.

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