Words that can make the world a better place

[JUDO]

I had a song running through my head, an old song, "Woodstock" written by Joni Mitchell. I looked up the song's lyrics on the net because I couldn't really remember them, I just remembered that I liked them. After looking at the old lyrics with new eyes, I noticed that there were several things that appealed to me leaping from the page.

The opening line "I came upon a child of God..." makes me think of someone relating a personal story to another as though sharing a secret with them. The listener chooses to join with the person and walkt "beside" them on their journey.

The joined traveller describes getting closer to the "land" in order to "get my soul free" at a "farm."

The person talks of feeling like they are part of something larger "like a cog" "in something turning" at a personal pace "the time of year" or possibly larger "the time of Man." And the middle set of stanzas ends with a great truth "Life is for learning."

In the third set of stanzas (not counting the repeating chorus here,) a huge celebration unfolds that the listener is now a part of, then dreams of peace blossoming in a bit of magical analogy at the end.

And always with the repeating chorus gathering all living things in a common bond together.

Here are the full lyrics:

---------------------------------------------------
Woodstock

by Joni Mitchell (1969)

I came upon a child of God.
He was walking along the road.
When I asked him, "where are you going?"
This he told me.

I'm going down to Yasgur's farm.
Gonna join in a rock and roll band.
I'm going to camp out on the land
And try and get my soul free.

We are stardust.
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden.

Then can I walk beside you?
I have come here to lose the smog.
I feel just like a cog
In something turning.

Well, maybe it's the time of year
Or maybe it's the time of Man.
I don't know who I am,
But life is for learning

We are stardust.
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

By the time I got to Woodstock,
We were half-a-million strong.
Everywhere there was song
And celebration.

I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky,
Turning into butterflies
Above our nation.

We are stardust.
We are golden.
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden.

We are stardust.
We are golden.
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden.

---------------------------------------------------
I started thinking about the breadth, the reach of these words and began looking for the themes, elements, whatever you wish to call them that makes a poem have an almost epic message.

She takes the reader from an enticing beginning on a personal journey of discovery, outlining how their journey might help the world in which they live. A story which affects the world in which one lives, in my mind, is an epic story.

There are unifying words, bonding the reader with others, there is celebration, there are dreams to be pursued, there are universal concepts that might make us all better and in a better place.

* * *

If you had to try and outline the characteristics of what might make a poem affect the world in which we live in a positive manner, what would those characteristics be?

And, how might you go about writing it? Approaches? Methods? Forms?

I don't have any answers here, but I was thinking that as a community, we might find some.


- Judo

 

[Angeline]

Simply Put

I can be awfully cynical but, as Joni Mitchell points out in some other song, cynics are dreamers at heart. Anyway, I wrote this a while ago--and you commented on it at the time JUDO. It is simple and terse (well for me, lol), but I can't think of any way to decorate the message. For me, it says everything I want to communicate about how I want to be (or at least strive to be) in the world. (I try to remember this on my bitchy days.)

Simply Put
by Angeline ©

There is only one purpose:
it is love.

There need not be confusion;
love is easily understood.

My love has no condition.
It has no expectation.

You exist in order to love.
All creatures do.

All beings exist in love.
If they but look, they see:

It surrounds us.

You need only reach out;
love is always there for you.

When you most need love,
it will find and save you

Take what you need.
The supply is endless.

Give what you can,
but take what you need.

Abstract I know, but over the years I've come to realize that at least for me that's what everything boils down to...
______________________________

I love Woodstock, too (well I love Joni's lyrics in general (The Circle Game is another great one; she is a poet ). There are two other lyrics by others that I can think of though, and y'all can laugh and call me trite all you want, but they do it for me, so tough noogies!



Imagine by John Lennon

Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today...

Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

Imagine no possessions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Teach Your Children Well
by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young

You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good bye.

Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The ones they pick, the ones you'll know by.

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.

And you, of tender years,
Can't know the fears that your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth,
They seek the truth before they can die.

Teach your parents well,
Their children's hell will slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The ones they pick, the ones you'll know by.

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.


P.S. My son, who turns 15 in a few weeks, is letting his hair grow and wants an electric guitar for his birthday. I have to go back and read those above lyrics a few more times!

 

[Rybka]

Songs

There are two other lyrics by others that I can think of though, and y'all can laugh and call me trite all you want, but they do it for me, so tough noogies!

May I add two that do it for me to the list: "Turn, Turn,T urn" by the Bryds, and Dylan's "Blowing In The Wind".

Turn! Turn! Turn!
The Byrds

To everything (turn! turn! turn!)
there is a season (turn! turn! turn!),
and a time to every purpose under heaven.

A time to be born,
a time to die,
a time to plant,
a time to reap,
a time to kill,
a time to heal,
a time to laugh,
a time to weep.

To everything (turn! turn! turn!)
there is a season (turn! turn! turn!),
and a time to every purpose under heaven.

A time to build up,
a time to break down,
a time do dance,
a time to mourn,
a time to cast away stones,
a time to gather stones together.

To everything (turn! turn! turn!)
there is a season (turn! turn! turn!) ,
and a time to every purpose under heaven.

A time of love,
a time of hate,
a time of war,
a time of peace,
a time when you may embrace,
a time to refrain from embracing.

To everything (turn! turn! turn!)
there is a season (turn! turn! turn!),
and a time to every purpose under heaven.

A time to gain,
a time to lose,
a time to rend,
a time to sew,
a time for love,
a time for hate,
a time for peace,
I swear it's not too late!

**********************

Blowin' In The Wind
Bob Dylan

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.





Regards,                       Rybka

 

[Angeline]

Great Thread

I forgot those songs Rybka; Turn, Turn, Turn especially is a favorite!

 

[karmadog]

A poet can do much more for his country than the proprietor of a nail factory

Theodore Roosevelt

 

[HomerPindar]

You hippies

Although, it shows an interesting point, or, as Dylan would say, the times, they are a change'n. The tranisition from the sixties/seventies to today is marked, if by nothing else, by a distancing from the belief that we're all related towards the belief in individual greed.

Love means never having to say you're sorry.
Now, for most folks that would mean they'd never have to appologize for doing something wrong, because there's love there and no need to appologize. Most folks have it wrong. Love means never having to say you're sorry. Love means never doing something for which you would have to appologize for. Each thought, each action, is first and foremost about those you love. Love means never having to say you're sorry.
My appologies for not explaining that earlier.

HomerPindar

 

[Star At Sunrise]

yummy yummy yummy

Very cool idea for a thread. I'm looking forward to reading the responses. Thanks, Judo.

I think the way a poem can affect the world and make it a better place, is when they take the personal and make it universal. "Woodstock" is a great example of that. Joni also did it in one line in "Big Yellow Taxi" and she did it in reverse, too. "They paved Paradise, and put up a parking lot."

There was a poem here on Lit called "Passing Me By" and I guess it was taken down because I can't find it anywhere now. I should have cut and pasted it and saved it when I had a chance.

Anyway, at first read, it was just okay. But at the end of it, I realized it was about homelessness, and I read it again and it affected me deeply. Poems can make you look at things through different eyes, and, of course, change the way you see, and I think that's where their power lies.

So any time a poem can make you stop and think, because it first hit you at a gut level, I it has a better chance of lasting inside someones head and heart.

 

[karmadog]

I quote a Republican president from a hundred years ago and Homer lumps me in with a bunch of dirty, hairy hippies.

Are my tie dye boxers showing?

 

[JUDO]

Well, let's not dissolve into politics or other potential walls of division. My whole point for beginning this thread was to look for the characteristics of poems, works of art, prose, lyrics, whatever... That convey hope for a better world.

Several good examples have been listed although unfortunately, they seem to come from a very specific time window before I was born. Surely, others have come since.

Aside from that sidetrack, what are the elements of these examples listed that take you or make you believe in the hope of the world getting better?

Starfish mentioned "something personal" is contained within them. I think the messages all ask us to "dream" of positive imagery.

What do you think are the necessary "characteristics?"


- Judo

PS - Maybe if we can analyze the methods that work, we can use them to create our own. That's my hope.

 

[HomerPindar]

Ok, first off..my appologies Kdog, perhaps I shoulda picked on the ladies in particular.

But, JUDO points out, as I was intending to, that these are older songs. Today's music is shaped by todays society, or if you rather, todays music (and by extention what passes for popular poetry) shapes todays society. Today's society is about greed, and the popular American ideology supports that in a number of ways. One way is in the popular music....

Consider,

Loser by Beck

In the time of chimpanzees
I was a monkey
Butane in my veins like my anus
So I'm out to cut the junkie
With the plastic eyeballs,
Spray-paint the vegetables
Dog food stalls with the beefcake pantyhose
Kill the headlights
And put it in neutral
Stock car flamin' with a loser
And the cruise control
Baby's in Reno with the vitamin D
Got a couple of couches,
Sleep on the love-seat
Someone keeps sayin'
I'm insane to complain
About a shotgun wedding
And a stain on my shirt
Don't believe everything that you breathe
You get a parking violation
And a maggot on your sleeve
So shave your face
With some mace in the dark
Savin' all your food stamps
And burnin' down the trailer park

(Yo. Cut it.)

Soy un perdedor*
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?

(Double-barrel buckshot)

Soy un perdedor*
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?

Forces of evil in a bozo nightmare
Banned all the music with a phony gas chamber
'Cuz one's got a weasel
And the other's got a flag
One's on the pole, shove the other in a bag
With the rerun shows
And the cocaine nose-job
The daytime crap of the folksinger slop
He hung himself with a guitar string
Slap the turkey-neck
And it's hangin' from a pigeon wing
You can't write if you can't relate
Trade the cash for the beef
For the body for the hate
And my time is a piece of wax
Fallin' on a termite
Who's chokin' on the splinters

Soy un perdedor*
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Get crazy with the cheeze whiz)
Soy un perdedor*
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Drive-by body-pierce)
(Yo, bring it on down)
Soooooooyy....
[chorus backwards]
(I'm a driver, I'm the winner;
Things are gonna change
I can feel it)

Soy un perdedor*
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(I can't believe you)
Soy un perdedor*
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
Soy un perdedor*
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
[repeat]
(Sprechen sie Deutches, baby?)
Soy un perdedor*
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Know what I'm sayin'?)
*[Translation: "I'm a loser"]


Oh, I suppose someone could find Beck's comments on his meaning here, something that would turn this whole song around in your mind and make it's words sound quite uplifting... so go ahead, I dare ya. In the meantime, no none needs to do that for Turn Turn Turn, or Woodstock.

So, perhaps my first suggestion is the target of the song. The element missing here is in the answer, "Who would want to feel this?" Personally, not me, but damned if I hadn't sung along with this song when if first came out. damn catchy beat that it has... But again, today we know, he's singing about himself, so that's ok, he's expressing some personal pain or somesuch. Again, me,me,me,me,me

And, when someone does sing to someone else...?

Rape Me by Nirvana

Rape me, Rape me my friend
Rape me, Rape me again

Am I the only one ohh
Am I the only one ohh
Am I the only one ohh
Am I the only one

Hate me.. do it and do it again
Waste me, Rape me my friend

Am I the only one ohh
Am I the only one ohh
am I the only one ohh
Am I the only one

My favourite inside source
I'll kiss your open sores
Appreciate your concern
You'll always stink and burn

Rape me, rape me my friend
Rape me, rape me again

Am I the only one ohh
Am I the only one ohh
Am I the only one ohh
Am I the only one

Rape me (Rape me)
Rape me (Rape me)
Rape me (Rape me)
Rape me (Rape me)
Rape me (Rape me)
Rape me (Rape me)
Rape me (Rape me)
Rape me (Rape me)
Rape me

I heard this song on the radio today..and the first thing I thought of was this thread.

The answer might be just too obvious, what's the message? Today, the fascist State of America would call a pacifist unpatriotic, never mind not giving Joni Mitchell or CSN the radio play...

Sorry JUDO, its hard for me not to talk about this topic without talking about society, because it's a topic I've given plenty of thought to.

HomerPindar

 

[HomerPindar]

As I am sitting here writing a report on the legitimation of the dominate ideology (blah blah blah blah) I've realized I have a rather cynical view (SA-prise). Once again, this thread popped into my head, but in this case, I had to wonder if I didn't sound a bit too sour in my earlier post. With that thought, a song did pop into my head that is modern, positive, and a personal favorite...consider the universal perspective of the potential listener as a further support that the target of the words has alot to do with affect.

Just Wait by Blues Traveler

If ever you are feeling like you're tired
And all your uphill struggles leave you headed downhill
If you realize your wildest dreams can hurt you
And your appetite for pain has drinken its fill

I ask you a very simple question
Did you think for one minute that you are alone
And your suffering a privilege you share only
Or did you feel that everybody else feels completely at home

If you think I've given up on you you're crazy
And if you think I don't love you well then you're just wrong
In time you just might take to feeling better
Time is the beauty of the road being long

I know that now you feel no consolation
But maybe if I told you and informed you out loud
I say this without fear of hesitation
I can honestly tell you that you make me proud

Just wait
Just wait
Just wait
And it will come
Just wait
Just wait
Just wait
And it will come

If anything I might have just said has helped you
If anything I might have just said helped you just carry on
Your rise uphill may no longer seem a struggle
And you appetite for pain may all but be gone

I hope for you and cannot stop hoping
Until that smile has once again returned to your face
There's no such thing as a failure who keeps trying
Coasting to the bottom is the only disgrace

Just wait
Just wait
Just wait
And it will come
Just wait
Just wait
Just wait
And it will come

HomerPidnar

 

[Route66Girl]

I can think of a few semi-modern songs that aren't cynical and bitter. I could probably think of more if I devoted more time to it, but these sprang to mind immediately while I read this thread.

Bobby McFerrin suggested that an upbeat attitude is always good. "Don't Worry, Be Happy" is so ridiculously simple that the hope lying within isn't hidden at all. It just basically states that nothing is gained from making yourself miserable, and that when you do that, it rubs off on others. Therefore, learning to shrug off your worries will have a sort of good karma to it, making everyone else around you a little happier.




Here's a little song I wrote
You might want to sing it note for note
Don't worry, be happy

In every life we have some trouble
When you worry you make it double
Don't worry, be happy

Ain't got no place to lay your head
Somebody came and took your bed
Don't worry, be happy

The landlord say your rent is late
He may have to litigate
Don't worry, be happy

Look at me
I'm happy
Don't worry, be happy
Here, I give you my phone number
When you worry, call me
I make you happy
Don't worry, be happy

Ain't got no cash, ain't got no style
Ain't got not girl to make you smile
But don't worry, be happy

Cause when you worry
Your face will frown
And that will bring everybody down
So don't worry, be happy, now

Now there, this song I wrote
I hope you learned it note for note
Like good little children

Don't worry, be happy
Listen to what I say
In your life expect some trouble
But when you worry
You make it double
Don't worry, be happy

Be happy now!

Don't worry, don't do it
Be happy
Put a smile on your face
Don't bring everybody down like this
Don't worry
It will soon pass, whatever it is
Don't worry, be happy


Addressing the ills of society in a much less lighthearted way is Billy Joel's, "We Didn't Start the Fire." While it doesn't necessarily contain any lofty messages about hope, it doesn't condemn the world to hopelessness, either. Listed alongside the horrors are the triumphs. It recognizes the vicious cycle we seem to be caught up in, but points out that we're always trying to break out of it.

We Didn't Start the Fire
Billy Joel

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye"

Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we're tryin' to fight it

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser aand Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc

Roy hn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland

Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez

CHORUS

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"

Lebanon, Charlse de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide

Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go

U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo

CHORUS

Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion

"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say

CHORUS

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore

CHORUS
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we're tryin' to fight it

We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on...



Anyways, I hope that's the kind of examples you're looking for, JUDO

 

[OT]

sometmes simple is profound

"don't worry, be happy".

worry just happens to be one of the more worthless things we do.

 

[karmadog]

I think that hopeful poetry is becoming more rare. Why? Who knows? I'm not even sure that analyzing what made another poem inspiring is a good way to write it. Perhaps it's best to actually feel hopeful and then use whatever techniques you normally use to express it. Cynicism seems more popular today.

Anyhow, I came across this poem today and thought of this thread. I hadn't read this one before, but I like it.

A child said, What is the grass?
Walt Whitman

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full
hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it
is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful
green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we
may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe
of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the
same, I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and
from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps,
And here you are the mother's laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old
mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths
for nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men
and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring
taken soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and
children?

They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait
at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
luckier.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not sure if this was written before or after the Civil War, but I prefer to think that it was after, that Whitman still felt this way about death after seeing far too much of it, or perhaps, because he saw so much of it.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

One would get the impression, from what has been said here, that Judo's quest is unattainable. I took some time thinking about this, and came out blank, but I don't want to believe that epic poetry with the power to make us feel better and in a better place, to actually make a change, are a product of the 60s and it's over. Truly great poetry is timeless and will effectively change the world. You need to decide what's the position of Art, of Poetry, in the world. Does Art imitates Life, follows and depicts it? Or is it the other way around? Are poets leaders and shapers of dreams, or biographers?

Creating an epic poem, can't be a matter of replicating the conditions and enviroment that surrounded Joni Mitchell's Woodstock, John Lennon's Imagine or The Byrds' Turn! Turn! Turn!. But...

It's said that today people are cynical, selfcentred, egoist. Emotionally void, almost. It's everywhere. This state of dettachment is even considered fashionable. Here's a theory for you. Most artists, poets, leaders today are old, sophisticated, world-weary. They saw wars and witnessed rebirth and hope and its death. They are empty and cynical because they became biographers. People seek inclusion. And art IS a guide to inclusion. Today, the people is united in weary cynicism. The problem is, this weary cynicism does have an objective. It's worse than an unattainable quest. It's questless.

I think that there are two major characteristics in all epic, positive poems:

1. Universality. It HAS to be inclusive. It's not enough to reach each individual on a personal level. I can't believe the message is directed to me and me only. It needs to reach everybody as a group. Each person must feel part of a universal whole.
2. An Objective. Give them a dream. Something to reach for. To hope.[/list=1]
   
   
   
   PS: I'm too sleepy. I can't understand or remember what I was trying to say, but if anyone did, explain it again, please.