Poetry, Jingles, Doggerel and Song Lyrics

Which other authors do you enjoy? Discuss them here.
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Spitfire
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Re: Poetry, Jingles, Doggerel and Song Lyrics

Post by Spitfire »

Glad that you've revived this old thread, Aurélien!

I'm finding that poetry is something that I've started to truly appreciate as I get older (currently hanging onto the young age of 32). I feel a bit ashamed to admit it, but when I was a child I would often skip poetry or rhymes when they occurred in stories - too lazy to put my mind to reading them I think! (Major exception being Roald Dahl and only sometimes Enid Blyton!)

Anyway, this thread contains some real gems and lots of poets that are new to me - many of them posted by you...

:)
Sarah
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Re: Poetry, Jingles, Doggerel and Song Lyrics

Post by Aurélien »

Wish that I could also revive my old carcase, Spitfire.... :lol: :lol:

'Aurélien Arkadiusz'
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Re: Poetry, Jingles, Doggerel and Song Lyrics

Post by Katharine »

I've only just discovered these pages. They look great.

I'm looking forward to dipping into them and reading it all. The Poems especially, as I've always loved poems.
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Re: Poetry, Jingles, Doggerel and Song Lyrics

Post by Moonraker »

I found a really funny set of alternative lyrics to My Favourite Things, but probably not suitable for these forums! :twisted:
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Re: Poetry, Jingles, Doggerel and Song Lyrics

Post by Spitfire »

As part of a literature course I'm studying, I'm absorbed in 1920s Harlem this week and therefore some poetry by Langston Hughes and Claude McKay. I love the delicious, rhythmic melancholy of this, and couldn't resist posting it here - and a link to hear it recited:

The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."

Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more--
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied--
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyqwvC5s4n8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

:)
Sarah
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Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. Psalm 139
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Re: Poetry, Jingles, Doggerel and Song Lyrics

Post by Aurélien »

Very good contribution, Spitfire. Hope for more from you.

'Aurélien Arkadiusz' :)
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Re: Poetry, Jingles, Doggerel and Song Lyrics

Post by Spitfire »

More Langston Hughes if nobody minds... :)

Juke Box Love Song

I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you,
Take the neon lights and make a crown,
Take the Lenox Avenue buses,
Taxis, subways,
And for your love song tone their rumble down.

Take Harlem's heartbeat,
Make a drumbeat,
Put it on a record, let it whirl,
And while we listen to it play,
Dance with you till day--
Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.


Lenox Avenue: Midnight

The rhythm of life
Is a jazz rhythm,
Honey.
The gods are laughing at us.

The broken heart of love,
The weary, weary heart of pain,—
Overtones,
Undertones,
To the rumble of street cars,
To the swish of rain.

Lenox Avenue,
Honey.
Midnight,
And the gods are laughing at us.
Sarah
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Re: Poetry, Jingles, Doggerel and Song Lyrics

Post by Spitfire »

The Ladybird book Bedtime Rhymes contained the majority of my encounters with poetry until I reached my teens! Here are two old favourites from it:

Mud by Polly Chase Boyden

Mud is very nice to feel
All squishy-squash between the toes!
I'd rather wade in wiggly mud
Than smell a yellow rose.
Nobody else but the rosebush knows
How nice mud feels
Between the toes.


I always enjoyed the note of glee that it contains. And I also think that wiggly mud, or squidgy sand, or cool grass are very nice to feel under bare feet!

This is another well-remembered favourite:

Waves by Eleanor Farjeon

There are big waves and little waves,
Green waves and blue,
Waves you can jump over,
Waves you dive through,
Waves that rise up
Like a great water wall,
Waves that swell softly
And don't break at all,
Waves that can whisper,
Waves that can roar,
And tiny waves that run at you
Running on the shore.
Sarah
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Re: Poetry, Jingles, Doggerel and Song Lyrics

Post by Aurélien »

Loved the mud poem, Spitfire. Reminds one of those lines from 'The Hippopotamus Song' that (from memory) go:
  • Mud, mud, glorious mud,
    There's nothing quite like it
    For cooling the blood
    .
'Aurélien Arkadiusz' :D
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Re: Poetry, Jingles, Doggerel and Song Lyrics

Post by poddys »

Aurélien wrote:Reminds one of those lines from 'The Hippopotamus Song' that (from memory) go:
  • Mud, mud, glorious mud,
    There's nothing quite like it
    For cooling the blood
    .
Flanders and Swan, still a brilliantly funny song.
I went on some great adventures reading the Famous Five books.
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Re: Poetry, Jingles, Doggerel and Song Lyrics

Post by Aurélien »

Ah.....I never knew who wrote it.....thanks for the info. :D

There's also the short poem, again (mis-)quoted from memory that went something vaguely like:
  • I shoot the hippopotamus,
    With bullets made of platinum,
    'Cos if I use leaden ones,
    His hide is sure to flatten-em!

Plus the longer poem about a chap's hippopotamaical companion - 'just good friends' - wot is brutally done in by his jealous wife. Perhaps someone 'ere can quote the full thing.....all I can remember are the lines which go (more or less):
  • She borrowed a machine gun from her soldier nephew, Percy,
    And showed my hippopotamus, no hippapotamercy.

    Time takes, alas, our joys from us, and robs us of our blisses,
    ************* my hippopotamus, might have been, a hippopotamissus.
'Aurélien Arkadiusz' :lol:

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Re: Poetry, Jingles, Doggerel and Song Lyrics

Post by Spitfire »

Aurélien wrote:Loved the mud poem, Spitfire. Reminds one of those lines from 'The Hippopotamus Song' that (from memory) go:
Mud, mud, glorious mud,
There's nothing quite like it
For cooling the blood.
:D
poddys wrote:Flanders and Swan, still a brilliantly funny song.
And here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjnOj9O16_I" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Sarah
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Re: Poetry, Jingles, Doggerel and Song Lyrics

Post by Spitfire »

Aurélien wrote:There's also the short poem, again (mis-)quoted from memory that went something vaguely like:
I shoot the hippopotamus,
With bullets made of platinum,
'Cos if I use leaden ones,
His hide is sure to flatten-em!
The Hippopotamus by Hilaire Belloc. According to the internet, your memory is faultless!

A quick Google search gave me this for the other poem you part-quoted. It's the first time I've read it, and I found it hilarious, very witty - but also a little sad:


I Had a Hippopotamus, by Patrick Barrington

I had a Hippopotamus, I kept him in a shed
And fed him upon vitamins and vegetable bread
I made him my companion on many cheery walks
And had his portrait done by a celebrity in chalk

His charming eccentricities were known on every side
The creatures' popularity was wonderfully wide
He frolocked with the Rector in a dozen friendly tussles
Who could not but remark on his hippopotamuscles

If he should be affected by depression or the dumps
By hippopotameasles or the hippopotamumps
I never knew a particle of peace 'till it was plain
He was hippopotamasticating properly again

I had a Hippopotamus, I loved him as a friend
But beautiful relationships are bound to have an end
Time takes alas! our joys from us and rids us of our blisses
My hippopotamus turned out to be a hippopotamisses

My house keeper regarded him with jaundice in her eye
She did not want a colony of hippotami
She borrowed a machine gun from from her soldier nephew, Percy
And showed my hippopotamus no hippopotamercy

My house now lacks that glamour that the charming creature gave
The garage where I kept him is now as silent as the grave
No longer he displays among the motor tyres and spanners
His hippopomastery of hippopotamanners

No longer now he gambols in the orchards in the spring
No longer do I lead him through the village on a string
No longer in the morning does the neighbourhood rejoice
To his hippopotamusically-meditated voice

I had a hippopotamus but nothing upon earth
Is constant in its happines or lasting in its mirth
No joy that life can give me can be strong enough to smother
My sorrow for that might-have-been-a-hippopota-mother

:D
Sarah
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Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. Psalm 139
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Re: Poetry, Jingles, Doggerel and Song Lyrics

Post by Aurélien »

Well done, Spitfire. :D

I enjoyed re-reading the Barrington poem once more.

‘Aurélien Arkadiusz’ :D
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Re: Poetry, Jingles, Doggerel and Song Lyrics

Post by Aurélien »

:) Found this little ditty on the web recently:
  • A Bank may fail, and Savings go
    And Stocks may melt like drifts of snow,
    But when you have a little Land,
    The Deed to it within your hand,
    It cannot disappear or melt - you know.
Quite possibly written by an American real-estate agent? :)

'Aurélien Arkadiusz'
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