Irish Writer’s Words: A Gift for Musicians
Speaking of music - which we kind of do all the time here on Irish KC - and of the recent Bloomsday in Kansas City, a writer in Britain explains today that Irish writer James Joyce’s words are so often turned into songs, because they are a gift for musicians - in metre, timbre, meaning and “singability“, before outlining people like Joey Ramone and John Cage who have made recordings.
I suspect that musicians like James Joyce because they recognise him as one of their own. Sound obsessed, single-minded, a bit bonkers. His words are more than mere words.
In his lecture, Burgess said that Joyce wrote like a composer: a phrase used early in the book might become a motif that could be repeated, developed, inverted, transposed and re-used later in the work. With Joyce, it’s not about words and music - the words are music. That’s why we love him. Even when we’re baffled, he sounds great.
You can read how John L Waters spent his Bloomsday, and compare it with yours, or mine
See Also:
• Tribute to Founder of Scottish Band
• Little Judy’s trying to watch “Top of the Pops”
• Largest Literary Prize Won by Irish Writer
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