100 Best-Loved Poems: "Lord Randal"
I've assigned the Dover paperback 100 Best-Loved Poems, edited by Philip Smith, for my creative writing classes because it's only $1.50 and has a hundred poems in it, most of which I consider essential reading for any student of poetry. It has a hideously ugly cover, so I tore mine off.
I thought I'd go through it poem by poem in order, posting each poem with a short commentary, because, oh I don't know, I don't have enough pressing projects breathing down my neck.
The first poem is the anonymous early modern ballad, "Lord Randal."
LORD RANDAL
"O where hae ye been, Lord Randal, my son?
O where hae ye been, my handsome young man?"
"I hae been to the wild wood; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down."
"Where gat ye your dinner, Lord Randal, my son?
Where gat ye your dinner, my handsome young man?"
"I dined wi' my true-love; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down."
"What gat ye to your dinner, Lord Randal, my son?
What gat ye to your dinner, my handsome young man?"
"I gat eels boil'd in broo'; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down."
"What became of your bloodhounds, Lord Randal, my son?
What became of your bloodhounds, my handsome young man?"
"O they swell'd and they died; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down."
"O I fear ye are poison'd, Lord Randal, my son!
O I fear ye are poison'd, my handsome young man!"
"O yes! I am poison'd; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wald lie down."
I used to think that most of the old ballads included in poetry anthologies were interesting more as historical examples of the development of a form than as actual reading material. I still sort of think that sometimes, and "Lord Randal" might be a case in point: this is clearly a text that is meant to be sung and heard, not just read on the page. Also, Dover reproduces the short version, which doesn't serve up the same closure as the longer version in which the last thing the young man says, when asked what he wants to leave his true love, is "hell-fire."
Nevertheless, all it takes is to read it aloud once or twice, and phrases like "I gat eels boil'd in broo' [broth]" implant themselves in your literary memory as richly evocative sound bites. (Let's pass over the observation that the prospect of eating anything called "eels boil'd in broo'" ought to raise a red flag vis-à-vis poisoning.) Actually, most of the lyrical energy of the song is in the repeated parts: "Lord Randal, my son," "my handsome young man," "mother, make my bed soon," "For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down." Whether it's the repetition that makes them so resonant, or any phrase repeated often enough becomes resonant, you could attach these tags to anything and it would sound good:
"O grasshopper sno-cones, Lord Randal, my son,
Aluminum siding, my handsome young man."
"Free-market ammonia; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down."
Also, I can't help picturing Tony Randall as the young man. So the poem's got that going for it.
8 comments:
How much of the lyrical effect do you think comes from the fact that it's also a Bob Dylan song? (i.e. "Hard Rain's Gonna Fall)--It's hard to escape the resonance from "Where have you been my blue-eyed son, Where have you been my darling young one"
Good point. Viva la intertext!
Feh, I wanted to post about the Dylan connection. Back when I was (even?) more earnest and folksy, I used to sing this song (either with Dylan's melody or making one up, since the actual melodies of these old ballads were either unavailable or uninteresting -- maybe I wasn't all that earnest after all). I recommend singing it.
Except it's NOT a Bob Dylan song; it's an old song that Dylan sang back when even he was still singing "real" "folk" songs. And in the context of the times, that was a big difference.
In the earliest phases of the folk scare of the '60s, the most respected performers (Dave Van Ronk, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, etc) were the ones who did the best versions of traditional songs. Originality wasn't particularly highly valued and in most cases, the old traditional songs had a kind of resonance that many original "folk" songs lacked.
Of course, this changed eventually, but the origins of the folk scene were largely about reviving traditional songs and playing techniques, and far less about "self-expression." This is why there were so many people searching the back woods of Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta for surviving musicians working inthe traditioanl ways.
That cover reminds me of couch fabric for some reason.
See you soon!
Perhaps reviving folk songs was about self-expression after all. It seems like it could be a way of connecting one's self-expression to "something larger", to tradition, to history, and often to a bunch of people who couldn't disagree that you were speaking for/with them. The folkies were showing a solidarity of expression, and validated whatever they would self-express by connecting and mapping it to what had been expressed before.
(I mean, Billie Holliday, for instance, mostly also sang other people's songs, but most of the time she did it as an act of self-expression.)
Dylan's method of appropriating and integrating elements of ballads like "Lord Randal" into his original songs might have been a more subtle or insinuating way of tying in with that "something larger".
I once saw Tony Randal perform outlandish memory tricks. He could site memorize an entire phone book
and then an audience member would call out a name and he could say the page number, the telephone number, etc! I think this is right?
GET ME MAH GRASSHOPPER SNOWCONES!
i'm excited to read your thoughts on all 100. but if you don't make it, as another commenter suggested, i'll do my damndest not to hold it against you.
the folky playing of others' songs is so far removed from the modern "cover" tradition; it's either a gimmick or an attempt to lay claim to some sort of subcultural capital, or both, and either way it's considered disingenuous. for some reason, that makes me want to read "Lord Randal" at a poetry slam.
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