The Poetry of Lyrics: An interview with Mike Cooley

Today, we have something a bit different: an interview with Mike Cooley about his poetry/lyrics collection End Of The World Love Songs.

1) Tell us a little about your collection.

My poetry collection is called End Of The World Love Songs. The poems themselves were all originally songs I wrote and recorded for a variety of one-man-bands from 2004 to 2010. I’ve written about 300 songs over that time period, and the book contains 93 of the most poetic. The title comes from the themes I explore, which cover a lot of different areas but often focus on love and loss.

2) While lyrics are poetry, they are poetry meant to be paired with music. Are you worried that the lyrics will lose any of their impact without the music? I noticed you've made much of the music that goes with the lyrics available.


Great question! Yes, I was very worried about that. For one thing, the syntax and punctuation of the original lyrics was set up to allow me to sing the songs properly (often with hyphenated words for phrasing and the like). And since I remember the songs, I can kind of hear the music as I read the words. I went through and tried to change the punctuation to make the words flow better for readers that have never heard the music (which was a challenge). I also eliminated some of the repetition that occurs in the actual songs when I transcribed them into poetry.

I came up with the idea to post the music for all the poems by accident. But since I had all the music already recorded I figured it would be a good bonus for people reading the book to be able to listen to the song behind any poem that they were particularly fond of. However, I did run into a problem finding all of those songs, so I’m not done posting all 93 yet. Soon I hope to have all of them posted on my blog. Once all of them are up I plan to also post a ZIP file that contains the entire soundtrack (in order of appearance in the book).

3) Is there a general thematic thread that links the collection?

In a way, the theme that links the collection is my life. I was writing a couple of songs a week during those years, and they were often reflective of my emotions at the time. Those were challenging years for me, so many of the songs have a dark edge to them. And since the songs come from different bands, they have different levels of intensity. The poems that came from Divergent Future (my first band) for instance are different than the ones from Gotham Steel (my Metal Band).

Within the collection some of the poems comprise an album, and the album would often have a story arc or theme. The most obvious example of that is my album Robots of Dawn. That album has a complete story arc. I didn’t choose to put the poems in the book in the order that they appear on albums, but for that album, the poems would be: Robots of Dawn, If You Want To Live, Machine Dreams, Dust, New Skin, She Stands At The Precipice, Resurrection, I Will Find You, So We Meet Again, and Brave New World.

I have considered putting those poems, in particular, in that order for the next revision. Or, perhaps, explaining how the poems fit together in an appendix.

4) Why did you open with "She Stands With the Precipice"?

I opened with that one because I think it’s one of the best poems in the collection. And I love the song. It means a lot to me.

I can’t really listen to the song without getting emotional.

5) Why did you close with Crystalized?

Because it’s about hope, and transcending the troubles of life, and becoming something greater.

6) What does music mean to you?
Music is part of me. Without music I have no doubt I would not be here today. It saved my life. I’ve met so many friends through music. So many geniuses that lay their heart and souls on the line. It’s a lot like writing. It is writing really. Just a different channel. A different toolset.

7) What does poetry mean to you?

I’ve always loved poetry and short form writing. Saying something powerful in just a few words fascinates me. Even in my fiction I think *the words I don’t say* can be just as important as the words I do say. I WANT the reader to have to imagine, and to have to interpret, and to have feelings that are unique to themselves when they read my words.

-----

Thanks for sharing, Mike.

End of the World Love Songs is available at Amazon.

Idle Musings about Music in Writing

So, I'm sitting here watching Top Chef: Masters. I'm not much for most reality shows, but I adore cooking and fashion-related reality shows (so obviously they need to make a combined fashion/cooking show for me--Project Top Fashion Chef Show).

A fashion-based reality show is a pretty simple affair for television. Fashion is primarily a visual artistic medium. It translates easily and well to television.

Cooking is, in some ways, a bit of an odd choice for your typical reality show. Sure, we've had cooking shows for decades, but watching something like Top Chef: Masters (or any of its other iterations) is a different thing, entirely. They aren't explicitly didactic in nature.

Food, unlike, is primarily a multi-sensory experience. Taste and smell are arguably the most important elements, but visuals play a key role. Depending on the type of cuisine, feel, via texture may be a very important component as well. When you're watching food on television, though, all you really get is the visual. 

A cooking show relies partially on familiarity with the flavors on the part of the viewer and also on explanation to communicate the experience. While a viewer will never truly taste the food, an evocative description can do a lot of making the viewer's mouth water.

A novel (well, a non-graphic novel, at least), must rely purely on words to engage the senses. Unfortunately,  there are certain sensory experiences that can be harder to communicate. Music plays a major role in several key scenes in my YA urban fantasy WIP, Osland. While I feel I decent job of using evocative language to at least communicate the feeling of the music in question, I still find myself dissatisfied. Readers will never really hear a lot of the music (with the exception of a couple of classical pieces I reference).

Despite my limited talent in the area, I love music so much that I often find it sneaking into my writing. It plays a key role even in my inspiration process. I spend a lot of time listening to music that fits in thematically with my WIPs. When I'm writing certain scenes, I can hear the music, whether it is or not it is diegetic. 

In the end, music is such a different experience than the written word that it can never truly be translated from the one medium to another. The closest thing we have (other than the music itself) to directly communicating what music sounds like is musical notation. I doubt the average reader (or even the average musician) wants a bunch of sheet music in the middle of their novel.  One strategy sometimes employed is to use music that people are likely familiar with. All of these challenges, don't mean that one shouldn't try to include musical elements, but just that they present a particular challenge. 

Is the lack of specificity even that important? Is it just the feeling of music that is important? If a writer is describing the appearance of something or the taste of something, although they may use metaphor and what not to enhance it, often there is a tendency to specificity (albeit evocative specificity).

Any of my readers out there have any thoughts on this issue? Just idle musings after watching some reality TV.