The Highwayman

A while ago Miles over at An Author's Quest posted about well written music being like good writing. He used the example of Taylor Swift and I had a big comment ('cos when are my comments ever little?) typed up about how I feel the same about Dido's album 'No Angel', but my internet being its usual temperamental self decided to flake out, and so the comment was lost in the void between typing and hitting 'comment'. What's got me on to the topic again is an acoustic gig at a bar in town I've just come home from. My friend Shoshana was playing, hence my being there, and she did a version of 'The Highwayman' by Alfred Noyes which was set to music my Lorenne McKennit.

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Now, this might be a well known poem to many of you, however when I was studying English Literature at school it was compulsory for us to do at least one Scottish module, and to do Shakespeare. The only American literature I got was Catcher In the Rye, hence having to admit to a bunch of my fellow academics at a recent conference that I didn't know who Boo Radley is because I never read To Kill a Mockingbird. My first encounter with this poem was in Divine by Mistake by P C Cast, where the main character is asked to tell a story and she draws on her experience as an English teacher and tells the story of Bess the landlord's daughter and her Highwayman. The novel talks of how Shannon pulls her audience along with her and has them bound up in the story with her telling. Well, I experienced this tonight from my very own 'Shannon' and by the end I has goosebumps and I was almost in tears. It's odd how words can affect us to such a degree with the right storyteller, and it reminds me of why I do what I do. Literature effects people, words can change our state of being on a physical and emotional level. that's some power to be able to weild.

I would love to be able to post Shoshana's performance for you all to see because it was fantastic, and I might be able to persuade her to let me film it sometime soon, but for now I've found a video which uses Loreena McKennit's music and a visualisation of the poem as a teaching resource for students who are having difficulty following the narrative. I think Shoshana's (with her friend Findlay on fiddle) was better, but McKennit did write the music and Noyse wrote the  poem, so you've got to give them some cudos.

P.S You can check Shoshana out t her myspace page http://www.myspace.com/shoshanam/music. Go on, its free!