The spoken word as musical instrument · 2:54am Mar 27th, 2014
If you could choose any voice to read “The Cremation of Sam McGee” aloud, whose would you pick?
The best answer always has this bit of genius about it: nobody would think of it in a million years--until someone does, and then everybody else goes “D’OH! Why didn’t I think of that?”
Isn’t that something? Now I’ll always hear that poem as Johnny Cash, just as I’ll always hear Mr. Micawber as W.C. Fields. Some voices were just meant to play certain parts.
But now listen to the same poem as read by its author:
Isn’t that something completely different? My preference is for Cash’s version, but that’s because I was born into the same era and tradition as he was: one of naturalistic performance, made possible by electric microphones and amplifications. Performers in Service’s day had to reach the cheap seats with their voices alone, sometimes in halls not designed for oration if they were on tour (poets were performers back then, and went on tour just like rock stars—or at least they did if they wanted to make money*)
So audiences back then expected—and probably enjoyed—a greater degree of artificiality in their performers. And that wasn’t without its merits. For example this recording revealed to me something I’d never noticed before, the striking musicality of the line:
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows
Given Service’s Scots accent (he was Scottish**) and his oratory style the phrase becomes:
Hoooooooowled oooooout their wooooooes to the hoooooomless snoooooows
Do you see what he’s doing? “The sound must seem an echo to the sense.” He’s making a metaphor out of the sounds of the words themselves.
And in fact he does this all through the poem:
He was always cold, but the land of gold…
Talk of your cold! Through the parka’s fold…
As we lay backed tight in our robes beneath the snow
“It’s the cursed cold, and it’s got right hold…”
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks…
Howling dogs, howling winds, howling wilderness—howling vowels. Service emphasizes them in his performance because you project your voice through vowels (most consonants can’t bear that much projection—try it). But I imagine he also did so because they give his poem its distinct musicality: he put it in there, he was presumably proud of it, and he was going to show it off.
But in doing so he obscures another virtue of the poem, one that Cash’s rendition puts front and center. That’s the aesthetic tension between the artificiality of the verse (iambic heptameter with the occasional extra unaccented syllable, and an internal rhyme which is a lot harder to do than it sounds) and the rhythm of the words themselves, which at its best is precisely the rhythms of natural speech, of conversation or of someone telling a story in a bar:
… “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip I guess…”
He crouched on the sleigh and he raved all day…
…though the dogs were spent and grub was getting low…
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit…
Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so…
“…I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked…”
This is what appeals to the modern ear: strong rhythm (“…it’s got a back-beat, you can’t lose it…”) and a gritty, authentic choice of words. Viewed this way the overt “literariness” of some lines (“Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge”) strikes us as inauthentic—though why it should I can’t say. In my experience any person with the ability, inclination and opportunity to read books can learn to love and use fine language, even without formal education.***
But just as the people of Service’s time liked what they liked, we like what we like: the gritty voice of a hard-living man growling out a tale of hard life, and hard death.
That’s the definitive difference between the two versions, I suppose: Service howls, and Cash growls. But both howling and growling are in the poem. Strange how it took two different men, from two different halves of the Twentieth Century to give each their place.
P.S.—yet I can’t help but think Service sounds a bit like Mr. Burns.
P.P.S.—now I’m imagining Smithers as Sam McGee.
P.P.P.S.—you know, you could do this poem with those two characters, straight, as part of a Simpsons Halloween special…
* ”It was not that people wanted to listen to poets but that they wanted to be seen listening to poets. It was considered Cultural.” – Richard Armour
** Which also renders the rhyming of “Sam” and “calm” entirely natural and unforced.
***It may even be easier to do so when one’s love of words is not smothered under term papers, dissertations and endless lectures upon the lecturer’s own research.
One of my:
Favorite memories of grade school--it must've been fourth or fifth grade--was one rainy day when the teacher decided to read us some poems. She pulled out a book of random poetic selections and started reading titles, asking us which one we wanted to hear. No one in the class--myself included--cared much one way or the other, so she kept going down the table of contents. I don't remember what the others were, but I remember perking up when she said, "'The Cremation of Sam McGee.'"
"Ooo," I said--or words to that effect. "Cremation's when they burn a dead body!"
Which perked up everyone's interest. The teacher tried to convince us otherwise, but we all wanted to hear the poem about burning the dead body, so she opened the book and began.
None of us were familiar with the poem--not even the teacher--and I will never forget the way she burst out laughing while reading Sam's last line.
And that's one of the reasons I write poetry to this day.
Mike
There is nothing quite like listening to someone who can sing. Voice may be the most beautiful musical instrument there is.
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*blinks* But where do I mention sing--?
Oh. Huh. How'd I do that?
The Title should be "The spoken word as musical instrument."
Fixed! And thank you
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My point actually still stands, in a way, however. Singers often have a good deal of control over their voice, and it can make them very pleasant to listen to even when just talking.
Maybe that's why I enjoy hearing myself talk so much.
If only I was actually as clever as I think I am. X3
1958870 I think you may be even more clever than you think.
I confess to me this poem will always be in my Uncle's voice. The first time I heard it I was very young and at my cottage and with cousins. We were all in a large bed and he was in between us and reading us he picture book. I remember it was a cool night and we could hear crickets outside the window. To me the poem I think will always have a tight hold on my memory. The images and the words combined to be something beautiful.
I do love the contrast between Service and Frost though.
That's a pretty remarkable analysis of the difference between the versions. I see what you mean about the theatricality. Service really reads it like a story that just happens to be a poem, glossing over a lot of the rhymes to give weight to the words that have more impact. And, yes, there's some scenery-chewing in there, but you make it make sense in context.
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