Thursday, September 26, 2013

Golden Slumbers

I kneaded pasta dough and put it under its bowl to rest and when I did in that moment a tune played in memory, "Hush little darling don't you cry, Daddy's gonna sing you a lullaby." So that's what I wrote when I posted the photos. But I wasn't sure of the words. It was a faint memory. Very faint. I wasn't sure at all. It sounds like rock. So I looked.

And I couldn't find it. All kind of stuff comes up. A rap song, a couple of those, I listened to those, actually, the 'buy you a mocking bird' and other extravagant bribes song, a lot of different things on YouTube, nothing close, and then finally at length after several searches about the 4th search, 4th page of Google results I saw the word Beatles and I knew it was them.

[beatles lullaby]

Man, what a song. I did not realize how fantastic this song is. Oh my goodness. I have been underestimating this group all along. Once I heard it and listened it blew me away. You probably think it's trite. I don't.

The lyrics are more excellent than I recalled. This is good stuff. And while I'm being blown away and crediting them for touching poetry I notice  they ripped it off from Thomas Dekker 1572 - 1632

Quite a long time ago. Like Shakespeare.

So no wonder it's classy. They spoke like that then.

And the whole time I read it, I saw it too and thought, man, that's really beautiful. Touching and beautiful.

There are variations of the poem and the song. I chose "kiss your eyes" and "smiles await you," one of the versions I saw, not "fill your eyes," and "smiles awake you." Other variations in the song as well. This is what the poem looks like. Only the first part. I adore these words.

Golden slumber kiss your eyes


Smiles await you when you rise. Sleep pretty baby do not cry, and I will sing a lullaby



"Sing" is the same as "song" in this dictionary. I would draw a "V" up my throat and make a ligature with "song" to indicate I am vocalizing it. Also, "lullaby" is a ligature of "song + sleep" not "song + baby" as you might imagine, but if you did that you'd be understood. Sing is flappy so with "sing" and "lullaby" next to each other it looks a bit flap-happy. The dictionary wasn't assembled with this sentence in mind, so it looks choppy.  He has a very big baby it seems, probably a rambunctious boy who needs a good tumble to get to sleep, he does an exaggerated "baby." My "cry" is one-handed tear trail and I shift my jaw back and forth like it's loose and broken, my "cry" is funny.  "Rise" means "wake up" not raise something up, nor build, nor rise like the sun, nor pop-up, the opposite of disappear, so I just used "rise." And "eyes" is done with a "V" one motion, both eyes, not one finger pointing to each eye individually. The same as you would spell "pizza with a single two-fingers "z" not two separate single-finger "z's." This dictionary has "eye" so I photoshopped his arm to the other eye. Actually, you would put the "kiss" on the "eye, " Just show it. "Golden" is very close to "California." And "when" is the same as "about." After all that, still, isn't it beautiful?

Cares you know not
Therefore sleep,
While over you a watch I'll keep.
Sleep, Pretty darling, do not cry
And I will sing a lullaby.

5 comments:

bagoh20 said...

I left a bunch of comments here, but I did them in sign.

Revenant said...

"Abbey Road" remains the best Beatles album, in my opinion.

Chip Ahoy said...

Is it?

deborah said...

It's hard to choose between Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road.

sakredkow said...

It is a great song. Love Paul's vocal. And nice to see Chip Ahoy, an artiste in his own write, discover the Beatles.

Hard to pick a "best" Beatles album. You almost can't go wrong. I think Rubber Soul has a lot of lyrical, melodic, beautiful songs that are kindred to Golden Slumbers: Michelle, Eleanor Ribgy, Norwegian Wood (the American Rubber Soul).