Earworms And Rain

[poliphilo]

Binge-listening to variant versions of Matty Groves/Little Musgrave means I now have it as an ear worm. It could be worse; it could be the Birdy Song.

My friend David Kettle once set the words of Ezra Pound's poem "The Ballad of the Goodly Fere" to the Matty Groves tune and it fitted rather well- so now when the tune starts circling through my head it's a toss up whether the words I hear will be "A holiday, a holiday" or "I have seen him drive a hundred men". I'd much prefer the former but as often as not I get the latter. "The Goodly Fere" is a chunk of mock medievalism that counts among Pound's juvenilia. He wrote it in protest against the Sunday School vision of Jesus as a faintly masculinised pre-Raphaelite "stunner"- but went too far in the beefcake direction. "Goodly Fere" is a terrible poem- but catchy- and I could wish I'd never caught it...

Storm Christoph is passing through. I was expecting really fierce weather but thus far we've only had rain...

Comments

[shewhomust]

There's a reason why it's called 'common measure' - so many ballads are in that form, and the result is that they can be swapped round each other's tunes (which leads to a degree of variety in the earworms, but also a degree of insistence).

[cmcmck]

'Pinball wizard' fits really well to 'Adieu sweet lovely Nancy' (as does 'my old man's a dustman')

Even worse, the also work well in reverse.

Sorry if I just earwormed you again!

[poliphilo]

I love the folk tradition- how great works of art emerge from the matrix without anyone being identifiable as their creator.

[poliphilo]

No worries, I need to move on from Little Matty. :)