Sound Study: French music sounds nice.

Howdy.

So in my personal writing recently I've been very interested in the effect of sound.  It's one thing to write every right word at just the right time, but I'm starting to find if you can do this and make the sounds work in tandem with the meaning, however sub textually or obvious that meaning should be, a new level of intimacy between poet, reader, and words is reached.  I think by understanding the sounds a poet enjoys, it is like hearing the tuning fork of their very being.

The new found attention to sound has got me remembering my favorite French artists from the 1960s.  I speak a tiny bit of French, you know, as much as someone with two semesters of college French would know (i.e. none).  The point here is that even without understanding what the artists are actually saying, the sounds of their writing come through and let us in on their emotional resonance.

Here's Jacques Brel.  Sorry for not embedding, apparently every user on youtube that uploaded this video suggested that embedding be disabled... for whatever reason.

http://youtu.be/Vvy7kdziHYQ

Here's another favorite: Francoise Hardy.  It's a much cheerier song, and the sounds of the verses themselves have a strolling quality about them.  If you're interested, go to the youtube page where they have the lyrics in the description and read them line by line.  It's good stuff sound-wise... not to mention Francoise Hardy was super pretty.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/w1Y_7XjkJ0g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Enjoy.

Suggested viewing: William S. Burroughs: A Man Within

Hello all.  While stumbling around Netflix last night, I tripped over this documentary on William S. Burroughs.  While Burroughs was more known for his fiction, I think he was integral to the path of creative energy as we know it.  It features interviews with some of Burroughs' closest friends and colleagues including Allen Ginsberg, Patti Smith, and Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) speckled with footage of Burroughs along his insanely active life.  It's a tragic, wonderful story.  It's worth a watch.  It's stream instant on Netflix.  Here's the trailer.