Expecto A Poem: Upper School of Witchcraft and Poetry

I can't do it all
I'm not good enough
Six feet under screams, no one seems to hear a thing
My head's about to blow

They tell me all these things
"Do a little dance"
I don't feel like dancing, but I do it anyway
All I want to do is scream, but they can't read my poker face
I'm dancing all alone

But as the days turn into weeks
Now I know the truth
When I look into the mirror
I don't have to be ashamed
And at last I see the light

Who says you're not perfect?
Who says you're not worth it?
Who says you're the only one that's heard it?
It doesn't really matter
We are who we are

Rhyming is commonplace in poetry, nobody can deny that. Although find primarily in children's poetry, it's nonetheless a regular sight in poetic literature as a whole. Rhyme can add a variety of emotions to a poem, but it's usually used in a light-hearted manner (again, children's poetry), or to add a macabre sense of conflicting viewpoints in a poem to highlight one or the other (for example, "Résumé," by Dorothy Parker, rhymes in a sing-song way. It's about the various ways to commit suicide).

But what happens when you change the rhyme? What if you lead the reader on and have them believe you're going to say one word, and then suddenly insert something else entirely? Wikipedia calls this a "mind rhyme." This can end in myriad ways, ranging from humorous, to frustrating, to sickening. Oftentimes a mind rhyme is used as a censor bypass.

Humorous rhyme subversions are the most obvious and most easily-found type. The infamous Alanis Morissette song "Ironic" gives us this:

It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife,

It's like meeting the man of my dreams and meeting his beautiful husband

There's plenty of other examples of humorous mind rhymes, but mind rhymes for the purpose of censoring are just as easy to find. One of the most famous examples comes from the classic song by The Killers, "Mr. Brightside."

Now they're going to bed
And my stomach is sick
And it's all in my head
But she's touching his chest

This isn't even a new thing concept, this idea of subverting rhymes. There's even an example found in Hamlet!

Hamlet: For thou dost know, O Damon dear,

This realm dismantled was

Of Jove himself; and now reigns here

A very, very—pajock.

(note that in this case "was" is pronounced similar to "ass")

Finally, the ultimate example of a mind rhyme comes in the form of the infamous "Assumption Song:"

So, the other day, I discovered an Lady Gaga song that I'd never heard before: Fashion(not to be confused with one of the songs on her new album, Fashion of His Love). As a huge Gaga fan, I was actually really confused at first; how could I have missed this one? Did I accidentally delete it from my computer? Why didn't I remember this at all?

After poking around for a bit, I found it was actually never released on an album, but was actually written in 2007 for Sex and the City(I've never watched SatC but I'm going to assume this is par for the course). Since it was written in 2007, right before Lady Gaga exploded onto the pop music scene with Just Dance, its style was much closer to the dance-pop music Gaga was known for, rather than the 80's disco inspirational pop ballads (is that even a genre?) of today, in songs like Bad Kids, Hair, and of course, Born This Way.

This got me thinking about how Lady Gaga has evolved over her three years in the mainstream. There's no denying she's a media superstar: Bad Romance is the second-most viewed video in YouTube history, and she's the most-followed user on Twitter, beating out people like Justin Bieber, Oprah Winfrey, and Barack Obama. But how has this all affected the Lady's image and music?

Modern-day Lady Gaga music, while just as loud and synth-pop as before, mixes and matches genres like a musical thrift shop rack. Gaga describes her album, Born This Way, as

"...an avant-garde techno-rock record that is really really heavy and industrial on one end and really joyful and pop on the other. So it is pop music with a very very very strong message and a very uncomfortable message, it intended to give you a sugar high and a terrible stomach ache."

Compare this to her earlier albums, The Fame and The Fame Monster:

"Songs like "Poker Face", "Just Dance" and "LoveGame" are uptempo dance songs, with "Poker Face" carrying a dark sound with clear vocals on the chorus and a pop hook."

"[The Fame Monster] is a pop experimentation with industrial/Goth beats, 90's dance melodies, an obsession with the lyrical genius of 80's melancholic pop, and the runway."

And it's clear that her style has changed dramatically, going from a combination of Madonna and Britney Spears to...a combination of Madonna and more Madonna. Still great either way! In addition, her lyrics have evolved from sexually-charged, late-night club fodder to emotional, heartfelt messages on everything from gay marriage in America to how to style your hair. And while I personally prefer her old style of music, I can appreciate the new direction she's taken.

It's too bad the same can't be said for her fashion sense.

So, lately, I've been listening to a lot of The Baseballs. For those who don't know, The Baseballs are a group of three German men with 70s haircuts who make rock covers of popular American songs. In just two albums, they've covered everything from Rihanna, to Katy Perry, to Plain White Tees, and all the way back to Ke$ha. Whether their take on the songs is an improvement is up to the listener (I personally think their version of Hot 'n' Cold is a thousand times better than the original), it's odd to see how different the same lyrics can sound when performed in another style.

This got me thinking about different interpretations of songs. What about a song gives it a certain feel, a certain ethos (thanks, Creative Spirit!)?

Obviously, the instrumentation plays a big part in it. My god, look what orchestration did for Rebecca Black. Even without vocals, they've turned "Friday" from an unintentionally-hilarious Auto-Tuned mess to an inspirational, swelling ballad.
I'd say that the rhythm of the song can also play a big part in it as well. For example, Justin Bieber slowed down 800% produces an amazing, ambient masterpiece.
The imagery accompanying a song can also influence how you view it, but there are obvious exceptions: even Lord of the Rings won't stop Yakety Sax from making things hilarious.

To illustrate just how far you can take a song, I'm going to show the greatest cover of any song ever. It's so amazing I'm not even going to link it; I'm gonna EMBED this bad boy:

That is, in fact, Alanis Morissette turning The Black-Eyed Peas' song "My Humps" into a soulful, emotional ballad that just speaks of lost love and ruined lives. You can just feel the sheer pain in Morissette's voice as she belts out the truth about what she gon' do with all that junk.

I guess one thing you can take away from all this is that you can't really say you dislike a song, you can only dislike that performance. Some people may hate Super Bass, but hey, throw some adorable British girls and you've got yourself ten million listeners.

My poetry class was recently assigned to read Bob Dylan's song "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll." The song shocked me, because it wasn't the normal everyday song that you can hear on the radio.

Over the weekend, I took the SAT for the second and final time. For those of you who haven't taken it yet (or have just forgotten how it works), the SAT is broken down into ten sections in total: three of mathematics, three of critical reading, three of writing, and one variable, experimental section. One of the writing sections is also the 25-minute essay, meaning 60% (potentially even 70%!) of the SAT revolves around your skill with words...but all in prose.

I began to wonder why a test so heavily steeped in the English language didn't include a single instance of poetry, but rather paragraphs and paragraphs of prose. Surely, understanding poetry is all about critical reading?

Then I got to wondering about what it actually requires to understand poetry. Obviously, critical reading skills are important, but that can't be all. I scored fairly high on my critical reading section and I still have difficulty fully understanding lots of poems. So I began to investigate: The official SAT information video describes the SAT as a test where "all students from all backgrounds have an equal chance to succeed." Does that mean that not all students can read poetry equally as well?

Well, frankly, not really. Poetry is something that, I believe, needs to be taught. There are certainly instances of genius poets who were self-taught, such as Dorothy Parker or Elizabeth Bartlett, but these are very rare, like a four-leaf clover, or a Red Sox fan who isn't currently foaming at the mouth. In most cases, people have to be taught how to read/write poetry. There are entire guides to understanding poetry, even textbooks!

Poetry needs to understood, examined, scrutinized. It's nearly impossible to glean everything a poem has to offer within one reading, which is why I believe the SAT does not test a student's ability to read poetry: as a test designed to provide equal opportunity to all students, not everyone has the ability or skill to read what a poem has to offer.

After reading cummings' poem, "may i feel said he,"