about 'adonais' and 'treasure'

[japanesebaby]

now everybody is familiar with the fact that ol' bob reads a lot. and that he wrote things like 'killing an arab' and 'charlotte sometimes', which are inspired by some literary pieces.
anyway, i always thought there was something different in those songs found on WMS that are inspired by pieces of poetry. the approach is completely different than on the ones mentioned above. 
the examples are more distant in time, being from 19th century.
and moreover, these are not just interpretations of the general theme, "a story compressed to a poetic impressions" so to speak, but more openly "reworkings of the original material" (maybe possible simply because the originals are poetry and not prose?).

so, as we very well know, 'adonais' is based on the elegy for john keats, 'adonais' written by p.b. shelley.
'treasure' is a re-working of the rather famous poem by christina rossetti.

and well i don't know if anyone really cares/cared about this but if you do, then what do you think? is it bob doing some cheap copy-pasting from his favorite writers since he ran out of ideas of his own or does he really manage to give grounds to it all?
i mean, what's the motivation for these, specifically?

just a classical 'homage' kind of thing? tipping one's hat to some fellow writers? (since i suppose that could very well be considered to be "reason enough" to go for it).

or is there an attempt to bring something new to the text? trying to offer a new way to read the text, a new way to balance and the themes in it? what's the actual relation between the texts?

or are they mainly "just" some personal reworkings? i mean, they were chosen simply because they just happened to be close to the themes robert was maybe working on himself. and as he might have realized there already were something said about this or that subject, then to go and rework through this older text was somehow better choice - because trying to write a new one, his "own" version, would have actually been closer to pure plagiarism than a reworking that openly admits it's source/inspiration?


+ by the way, do we maybe have some more secret ones out there, considering the entire output of the cure...?



(or is this just one of the silliest topic ever, " a foolish arrangement"...? )





from p.b. shelley (1792-1822): 'adonais' (last 3 verses):

[....]

LIII
Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart?
Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here
They have departed; thou shouldst now depart!
A light is pass'd from the revolving year,
And man, and woman; and what still is dear
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither.
The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers near:
'Tis Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither,
No more let Life divide what Death can join together.

LIV
That Light whose smile kindles the Universe,
That Beauty in which all things work and move,
That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love
Which through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast and earth and air and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst; now beams on me,
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.

LV
The breath whose might I have invok'd in song
Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven,
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest given;
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven!
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;
Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of Heaven,
The soul of Adonais, like a star,
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.


the cure: 'adonais'

Awakes from out this dream of life
And leaves us sleeping
Storm racked blind consumed
By phantom pale displays of grief
He slips from out this shadow land of pain
Where heads grow sorrow grey
And age destroys all hope
And spirits crushed
Lament and hide away
But wordless watch the soft sky smile
And breathless hear the low wind sigh
"What death may join no more let life divide"
"Dream yourself awake" he calls
"Eternity awaits us all
Open your eyes and be with me
Be with me... "
He breaks the chains still young
Dispels the hateful shades of treacherous time
And leaves us sleeping
Tortured mute
Devoured by ghostly shapes of life
He slips from ties of dust
To be the world we dream he lives
A part of everything we feel
The young and beautiful
And brave of heart
But wordless watch the soft sky smile
And breathless hear the low wind sigh
"What death may join no more let life divide"
"Dream yourself awake" he calls
"Eternity awaits us all
Open your eyes and be with me
Be with me... "
"Dream yourself awake" he calls
"Eternity awaits us all
Open your eyes and be with me
Forever... "



christina rossetti (1830-1894): 'remember'

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more, day by day,
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.


the cure: 'treasure'

She whispers
"please remember me
When I am gone from here"
She whispers
"please remember me
But not with tears...
Remember I was always true
Remember that I always tried
Remember I loved only you
Remember me and smile...
For it's better to forget
Than to remember me
And cry"

"Remember I was always true
Remember that I always tried
Remember I loved only you
Remember me and smile...
For it's better to forget
Than to remember me
And cry...

[japanesebaby]

(who's the 'she' is 'treasure'? the original poet, the woman who wrote it way back then... (because it was a 'she' this time)
or someone else reciting the verses today?
and the way the approach of the text/song changes, depending on which interpretation one chooses...)

[Dillinger]

i think he probably wrote the songs and a realized he had been infulenced by these poems indirectly. or maybe he just like the themes of the poem and felt he could write a song from it

[splitmilk34]

As someone who writes songs and also like to read a lot, I can tell you that there are some times that I feel so moved by a piece of literature that the themes stay with me and influence the things I am writing.  This is very much like recording music and being influenced by (or paying homage to) your favorite artists. 

I do not believe Robert was being lazy by writing these songs - I believe they affected him at a certain time and he chose to interpret their meanings in his own way.  There's nothing wrong with what he's doing, especially since they're not cheap rip-offs that anyone could've thrown together.  I mean it's not like he bashed out 3 chords and sang the lyrics verbatim. 

This is just one Cure-fan/musician's opinion.

[japanesebaby]

yes, surely these two songs are products of "being inspired by something". but what i was actually trying to say there was that there are influences and influences and homages and homages, that these can be of so many different kind that it's too vague to just say "this is influenced by this or that". because surely yes but the interesting question is 'how exactly'? and 'what for, what is it aiming for, artistically?' because the approach to the "subject matter" at hand can (and must!) become totally different, according to where it's all aiming at. because clearly we can say that robert was just as well inspired by camus when he wrote the 'arab'. but just saying that he was "inspired" doesn't really say very much at all! i think the interesting question is what approach he chose after he had gotten the initial inspiration. because inspiration is just the spark, it's not the flame itself...
with camus he couldn't rework it the same way as these ones. well of course he couldn't: the approach had to be different simply because the overall scale got so totally changed there (novel > song lyrics). the format changed almost way too much, it became "a story compressed to a set of images only", it was destined to become quite detached of the original in certain way, due to it's radical "change of format".... which i think was actually very good and a lucky thing (or maybe a wise conscious choice...?)! because it can be actually much easier, to rework something that way: because such  a change of format pretty much forces you to distance yourself from the original, thus providing you "room to move and air to breath", so to speak. it's easier to reflect your own interpretation then - so the forced distance helps.
but it's actually a lot different with these re-workings of pieces of poetry - and it's also much more difficult somehow. it's much more delicate and i think the danger of failing is much more real. AND i think he makes it even still a bit more difficult for himself, just by choosing to operate with the very same exact images, the very same words, the same sentences, expressions... so this time, he is really playing with the danger...!!
and i also think it's got to be a very conscious choice, really.

so, what comes to "being inpired": i think there is a very important and notable difference between these two songs and other literary insprired songs that he ever wrote.


another thing: because no, i don't think it was all meant to be a lazy rip-off or something like that either.
but do you actually feel both songs here, both lyrics are just equally successful?  because i don't think they are, i think there's a huge difference -  even thought the method of reworking and the approach to the source text seems to be similar with both of them, as pointed out already.
i think 'adonais' is really much much more successful than 'treasure'. to be honest, 'treasure' fails pretty much completely, it's almost a rip-off, if you really look into it - although of course it was surely never meant to be such....
but i'm not sure it manages to rise nowhere near the level of it's model. which is what it should try to accomplish in order to give some basic reasons for its own existence! but it's not original enough, it doesn't manage to bring any new perspective to the text. it does try though,  with a simple trick of enhancing image that there's actually someone saying these lines ("she"). but is it enough? i'm not sure it still manages to succeed... it's still just a "modernification" (is that a word? ;P) of the rossetti poem, nothing more. and as such, it's actually rather blunt. especially if you're familiar with the original text you just start asking "now why write it again, why make it anew - why repeat it?" - and doesn't 'adonais' manage to convince us, that it was worth to re-work it, whereas 'treasure' really doesn't?

so, what exactly is the strength of 'adonais' then?
and so what's the difference between the two?

[splitmilk34]

All good points...
I think the strength of "Adonais", outside of the musical arrangement, is Robert's interpretation of the poem.  He only hints at the original and makes the word's he wrote his own.  "Treasure" on the other hand, while quite pretty, is a direct retread of the Rossetti poem.  Not to say he was ripping it off, or aping it, just that his translation is more consistent with the source.
I'm sure it was worth "writing these again" because after falling in love with these poems he wanted to put them to music, in a way.  Sort of saying, "Right, now let's try it from THIS angle." 
Not sure, though.  There's no telling what he was trying to get across but I feel both songs are fairly exceptional. 
Thanks for the good back and forth, japanesebaby... it's fun to discuss things with other fans in this forum, and you've obviously been thinking about this subject for some time. 

[japanesebaby]

in the case of 'treasure', i think the song really suffers from weak lyrics - which i always found somehow surprising/confusing... not sure why. anyway, there's kind of comfortability, caressing qualities in the musical arrangement that fit into the theme of the song very well. nevertheless,  i find the interpretation of the poetry rather blunt, the section that robert adds there ("remember i was always true, remember..." etc.). i can't help it, i always feel like this section of the song is just like some clumsy teenager-ish i-wanna-be-a-poet kind of slightly embarrassing addition to the rossetti's completely non-embarrassing original. suddenly some those words seem so old and used, so meaningless. and i kind of hate to say all that because i really do enjoy the musical atmosphere in the song. but if i'm being honest, the lyrical output is amazingly childish, somehow... i really think robert rarely falls on his face like this elsewhere, really.
but then 'adonais', on the other hand...  :!:

it's fun to discuss things with other fans in this forum, and you've obviously been thinking about this subject for some time. 

yes i'd love more people commenting/discussing songs in earnest!

and true, i admit i have been thinking about this subject every now and then. well, long ago there was a period in my life when i was pretty detached from the cure & the likes for quite some time - different times, different things... anyway during that period one of the thing i was really into was literature. i can't remember anymore how it came to be but i was really into these 19th century poets at some point, strangely. and so, when i got back to the cure and people were slagging off WMS (sometimes for some understandable reasons, sometimes not so justified)... but one of the small things that somehow really delighted me was the surprise when i first heard these songs - it was like some familiar ancient faces staring back at you from the distance...
so, even though i think 'treasure' is a lyrical failure, it still manages to keep delighting me somehow - even though i'm well aware that's not because what it is but because of what it reminds me of (rossetti).
then 'adonais', on the other hand, now that's different...

[Bloodflower]

On the lyrical weakness of 'Treasure':

I completely disagree. I didn't find Robert's little insert to be amateurish or childish at all. Having read Rossetti's poem before hearing The Cure's 'Treasure', I think it fits perfectly. Indeed, I consider 'Treasure' to be one of the best of the Wild Mood Swings sessions, both for the lyrics (including Robert's "Remember...." bit) and music.

'Adonais' is another great song from the WMS-era. Definitely one of the best of the sessions.

[japanesebaby]

i suppose 'treasure' could be considered "sweet" in a positive sense, i know many people like this song because of it. and actually so do i, by the way. so i'm not saying the song is bad, just that the re-intepretation of the text simply doesn't work.
if i may offer some more evidence:

the structure of the text in 'treasure' is bound to fail because it misses something. robert's "remember me" addition breaks the spine of the poem... because 'treasure' tries to apply the power of the famous ending line from the rossetti poem in a similar manner BUT at the same time it completely ignores the crucial lines that appear in the original poem BEFORE that. i mean the section starting with "and if you should forget me for a while..." - because quoting the ending only really has no power without being connected to this idea/passage! i think that's the whole message in there: "don't worry if you should forget me for a while sometimes - because it's better to forget and smile than be sad". but 'treasure' only repeats the latter half of the idea, completely ignoring the first half(!) and thus missing what's actually wonderful in rossetti's poem. there's no magic in the ending line alone, without the first half of the idea being said first.  :!:

so this also explains why i think this "remember i was always true..." section doesn't fit in, however sweet and nice and beautiful it was as such. because however sweet, it still interrupts the overall stucture and the text becomes fragmented. because this section in 'treasure' is just repeating to us "remember i was this, remember i was that", then going directly from "remember me and smile" to "but it's better to forget" - so, where does the "it's better to forget" idea suddenly come from? out of nowhere. where does it connect to? there's no connection into anything - at least nowhere near as strong and powerful as in the rossetti's poem. it's supposed to be a powerful ending quote that summarizes the whole thing - but there's nothing to summarize in 'treasure'...!

besides, i feel these repeated remembermes alone somehow work towards turning the whole idea of the rossetti poem upside down: rossetti never insisted on "remember i was this, remember i was that..." - on the contrary: the beauty of her poem is in emphasizing the idea that it is not a sin to forget, to forget and be free and not to worry about it.
but in 'treasure', the beauty of this revelation gets all messed up because we're being "ordered" to remember remember remember...

thus i think there's really no such great point in the way it has been re-worked/re-interpreted. it's notably weaker and less clever than its model ever was. so much that actually the similarity between the two texts only almost starts to irritate, because the imitation is so pale...
but i suppose he liked it... for some reason.

[splitmilk34]

Maybe all of the "remembermes" were his way off detaching/detouring from the original poem ... to add his own little twist on it.  There's also the possibility that he's speaking in two different voices - the person wants to feel the way Rossetti felt but can't manage it and wants to be remembered.  Sort of like, the character wants to depart dramatically and romantically, but at the same time is fighting the human fear of being insignificant and he/she wants to feel immortalized by saying "Hey, look... remember all of these wonderful things I've done when I'm gone." 
I dunno... just a thought.  It's early in the morning and I can't bear to start work yet, so I decided to do this instead.

[Filipe]

Some interesting discussion here...
I thought I could leave my opinion also about these 2 songs...
Musically, we all probably agree that we are in front of 2 of the Best 96 cure songs... in this subject, Adonais probably goes a little more further: it's a splendid song, an intense one, with fantastic arrangements, so full of sensations..

Literally, I do also agree that these 2 are really far away from the writing of the other songs of WMS. It seems to me that we are dealing with personal reworkings of the texts you mentioned, Japanesebaby... Nothing more than that. It doesn't bother me to see RS experiencing this kind of writing... I would become much more worried if I noticed that he did it frequently...which is not true, as we know...

Robert is a fantastic writer as he has the ability to make us see our lives in his own words and that's what I find amazing in his lyrics... He doesn't need to get in a copy-paste adventure...that's for the weaker spirits.

Although i have to admit the fragility of Treasure: this free adaptation of Rossetti's text reveals a non-creative Robert, playing with 2 or 3 words all over the text/song. Of course, we can just say "nah, it's a simple song, with simple lyrics" but hey, we all know that he can do better than this "remember" insistence, no?

Back to Adonais just to say that here, the reworking process it's really a re-work: he took the original and free adapted it, maintaining the main idea and being coherent with the original... the best way to do it, I think

[japanesebaby]

  (bring on the trumpets!)

hehe yes actually i know that my robert-bashing was a bit severe, i'm quite sure he must have aimed at something more personal
and thus it shouldn't be a problem that the structure of the original text gets overlooked. he's speaking with different voices there, trying to make it a layered collage-like text... which of course isn't unforgivable as such. so i was just being a bit overly-polemic... hmm... or, maybe not entirely. because whichever way one looks at the text, it still doesn't quite work
- and like filipe said, so this is indeed a rather non-creative robert that we're witnessing here... and i'm not so sure i'm too happy with that dude. to be honest, he makes me considerably angry because it looks like he's taking an easy shortcut across the field while he should have stayed on the road, it's like he's not really bothering at all...
and it's true that he doesn't venture in some cheapish copy/paste adventures - other than... but wait: because i think he sort of does, but in a different way. because he's lazily copy/pasting himself in the 'remember' section, remember this, remember that etc.etc... so he does avoid the most obvious and clumsiest trap (which would have been some silly copy/pasting the original) - but rather amazingly he then immediately falls into another hole on the ground!  and even a similar one!
and oh no, oh look at him, there he lies at the bottom, gone all tumbling down oh poor old robert...

because the point is that i'm actually convinced that he could have (should have!) come up with a genuinely fine and compelling reworking of the rossetti poem if he had only really tried! 

[splitmilk34]

How about that japanesebaby?  He's passionate, isn't he folks?  I can see very clearly that we could probably argue this point back and forth forever seeing how our personal opinions probably won't change to suit another's.  I will concede to you, japanesebaby, that one could certainly view "Treasure" as Robert being lazy.  I, however, am just glad that "Treasure" wasn't another "Gone!"... maybe that's why it's so easy to overlook any shortcomings in "Treasure"... a few of the songs on WMS were just awful compared to it. 

[japanesebaby]

i'm not intentionally taking it back and forth with the goal in mind that people will eventually agree with me, of course not.
i'm not expecting anyone to change their own initial opinion about the song(s) with this. i guess i just found this to be a topic that keeps going back and forth in my mind every now and then. and i've noticed that the more we talk about it, more new ideas/impressions/things you didn't notice before it just produces, that's all. but maybe i was only me, so maybe enough's been said then i suppose.

How about that japanesebaby?  He's passionate, isn't he folks?

i'm not entirely sure whether you're referring to me - or old robert....?

[splitmilk34]

Didn't think you were... I'm actually thrilled we're talking about something other than what shows people want to download.  I'm thinking of starting a new thread to compare two other songs (which shall remain secret for now).
And I was referring to you, about how passionate you are about the subject... no offense meant my friend.  I was actually agreeing with some of your points, I just may have typed sarcastically, my apologies.
I actually listened to the two of these songs back to back a couple of times and I noticed how fake "Treasure" sounds.  The strings in the song, although probably real, sound like something that came out of Roger's keyboard, while the strings on "Adonais" sound a lot richer and natural.  Certainly adds to the perception (if there is one) that Robert cared a lot more about "Adonais" than "Treasure" ... I mean, the whole production/flow of the song is infinitely better.  Frustrating that this was not an album track (same goes for all of the WMS BSides).