Chanted Word: “Buddy” & “What The Good Soldier Was Told” by Stephen Mead
Buddy & What The Good Soldier Was Told
by Stephen Mead
Stephen Mead explains . . .
I began doing the spoken word pretty much as an experiment, eventually adding music, sound effects or my own humming as background to create thematic CDs and short collage-films.
Considering how many of my poems were narratives I often heard them in my head as librettos and I began to sing them. This seemed a natural progression to me: the spoken word as the sung word, not such a radical step considering how poems had been sung in operas, madrigals, etc. for at least a couple of hundred years.
Oddly, the reaction to me doing this in this day and age has been one mainly of bafflement: these are poems why not just speak them? if they are sung why not make them into accessible songs, something for American Idol?!
I let the muse take me where it wanted to go never expecting to make any money either as a poet or a lyricist.
“Buddy” and “What the good soldier was told not to recall” are a cappella versions of pieces I have been working on. Without sound effects, echo, reverb or music, I wonder if the words are actually stronger?
PLAY > “BUDDY” BY STEPHEN MEAD
PLAY > “WHAT THE GOOD SOLDIER” BY STEPHEN MEAD
READ > “BUDDY” & “GOOD SOLDIER” BY STEPHEN MEAD