(image; Lissadel)
I am taking a break from Homer for a day, for it is one of those days where it just seems silly to be almost 30 and to be studying again from scratch but be it 20,30 or even 50 Homer never seizes to inspire, as art and literature throughout the ages has taught us. What I am learning this time round is there is no age limit where that which we love and value will ever stop to inspire us. And this semester I was thrilled when I discovered that one of my assignments was to be based on a poem that over the last two years have become dear to me. It all started with a band...who on a day became inspired by literature.
We all have that cd, or a few of them that have a permanent home in our cars or have become a cemented figure next to your cd players. When you haven't played them in a few months or when radio starts to become only white noise we reach for them and it is like hearing it for the first time. My finger for years went to track 5 on that disk: Bad Dream by Keane
Why do I have to fly
over every town up and down the line?
I'll die in the clouds above
and you that I defend, I do not love.
I wake up, it's a bad dream,
No one on my side,
I was fighting
But I just feel too tired
to be fighting,
guess I'm not the fighting kind.
Where will I meet my fate?
Baby I'm a man, I was born to hate.
And when will I meet my end?
In a better time you could be my friend.
[chorus]
I wake up, it's a bad dream,
No one on my side,
I was fighting
But I just feel too tired
to be fighting,
guess I'm not the fighting kind.
Wouldn't mind it
if you were by my side
But you're long gone,
yeah you're long gone now.
Where do we go?
I don't even know,
My strange old face,
And I'm thinking about those days,
And I'm thinking about those days.
I have always been infatuated with the chorus and there were days when it became a mantra that I kept repeating to myself. On a flight from Dubai late May 2008, I started searching the menu of the onboard entertainment. Music and comedy has always been the best remedy for my all consuming fear of flying. I found Keane's Live at the O2 concert. Almost instant calmness ensued. Front man Tom Chaplin revealed that Bad Dream was inspired by W.B Yeats' An Irish Airman Foresees his Death. The chorus carries even more weight for me now and the poem has become a beloved one of mine. Even the intro to the song sounds like the droning of propeller driven World War 1 airplanes and the air raids of the time and so sound links itself to the words of this great WW1 poem. Co-writer of the song Rice-Oxley said that “We wanted to get a balance between a kinda dream sequence. It starts very quietly, and I love the idea of being in a plane, like a Spitfire or something, being so high up in the sky that you can't hear the guns below you and so on. And it's almost got a serene silence which is what this Yeats poem seemed to really express. The song starts very quietly, but it gets huge and angry as it goes on... The big distorted washy piano sound in the middle is a pretty vast sound and it's I guess an attempt to express all that anger bursting out"
Neil Hannon reads Yeats at Keane's Live at the O2
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
Literature can inspire so much greatness from within us and it can be channeled into so many forms and translations. This is by no means a new phenomena but one that has taken place since the birth of literature, since Homer. And today even a popular song can lead us to great literary discoveries, it can lead us to Yeats. We should never be afraid to go down that curios rabbit hole...
