He leaves his dishes in the sink, thinking leprechauns put them in the dishwasher. She wants to talk during the football game and stalks off when clearly that play is more important to him than listening to her.
Imagine if couples 鈥渟ang鈥� their arguments rather than actually fighting. Such is the theme of the hilarious film Band-Aid, which premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. A squabbling couple create a band, invite their neighbor to be the drummer, and proceed to sing their irritations and frustrations to each other.
While strumming their guitars, the couple have to dig deep and really think in order to convert their frustrations into poetry and song. In doing so, they de-escalate and temper their anger while at the same time creating music that others can relate to and enjoy.
In a to Frank Sinatra, who could not read music, George Will wrote, 鈥淏efore a song was music, it was words alone. He studied lyrics, internalized them, then sang, making music from poems.鈥� So, for Frank Sinatra, the words mattered first, not the music. Will continues that Sinatra sang songs from the 鈥淕reat American Songbook,鈥� a compilation of songs written by Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Johnny Mercer, and others. He compared the lyrics of Mercer鈥檚 鈥� (鈥淭hen softer than a piper man, one day it called to you; I lost you, I lost you to the summer wind鈥�) to the Rolling Stones鈥� 鈥�(.鈥� I would argue a better comparison would be Procol Harum鈥檚 (鈥淎s the miller told his tale/that her face, at first just ghostly/turned a whiter shade of pale鈥�) or Simon and Garfunkel鈥檚 鈥� (鈥淩emember me to one who lives there/She once was a true love of mine.鈥�)
Poetry has a natural musical cadence and demands to be read aloud, particularly :
鈥淲hat鈥檚 in a name? That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet.鈥�
Does that phrase stand alone in its beauty? Does it need music? Or is the human voice, with its own modulated tones, sufficient? Music, however, enhances poetry and words and add a new dimension.
So, on this Valentine鈥檚 Day of sonnets and roses and crooning club singers, let us remember the power of words and lyrics and song and how important they are to each other. Or not.