These I have loved
songs from The Sound of Music
in glorious surround-sound kitsch,
High on a Rocky Ledge, which is
a more quirky song about Edelweiss
from Moondog, the Viking of Sixth Avenue
The gravelly voice of late period
Billie Holiday – Strange Fruit
gut-wrenchingly poignant
but you are commanded to listen
much as broken Robert Wyatt
for whom Shipbuilding was written
and when you realise the real subject
was the Falklands War, you can
never unhear its meaning
On a more cheerful note
if you’ll pardon the pun
almost anything by
The Electric Light Orchestra
but for its lugubrious intro
as smooth as melted chocolate
let’s slip Need Her Love
onto the turntable
And whilst we’re listening to love
another song whose slight delays
stretch the heartstrings achingly
it has to be UB40
Please Don’t Make Me Cry
whilst at the opposite end of the scale
(another musical pun)
Deep Purple’s Hush
hurries the beat and
raises your heartbeat
with an excitement that
threatens to burst all bounds
on the cusp between pop
and heavy rock
Yet another driven classic
unmistakable from the first notes
of it’s Electric Bass accompaniment
Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
The Night will also set your pulse racing…
I could go on, for music comes
in endless forms and variations –
but these are the cream of the crop
– today…
All these have been my loves…
© Andrew Wilson, 2026
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, kim881 in Poetics, invites us to write a list poem in the shadow of ‘The Great Lover’ by Rupert Brooke, and to begin and end our poem with lines taken from the second stanza…
I could write a list poem of songs I have loved, Andrew, but you’ve beaten me to it! Yes, I have loved songs from The Sound of Music, still love Billie Holiday and Strange Fruit, and Deep Purple’s Hush. Nicely done.