By Heart

This intense concentration on lyrics is the opposite to a meditative process. I don't do it to lose the original meaning of the lyrics, to lose myself or to be more centred in the present moment. I try to make the meaning grandiose and painful.

I don't know if I even understand music, but it doesn't matter, because I can intuit that pleasure in lyrics is the same type of aesthetic thrill.

A disturbing number of UK parliamentary constituencies, and many of their MPs.

The leaders of the Conservative and Labour parties since WW2.

A lot of sport shite.

And the moment I first read Freaky Trigger.

"Jabberwocky", "Ozymandias", Shakespeare's First Sonnet ("From fairest creatures we desire increase...")

Don't know any of these by heart any more (possibly Ozy....but no...I can get to "...and the heart that fed" and then I can't remember the bridge to look on my works etc.)

I have a very good memory for lyrics and also for track listings. This latter is absolutely useless and I wish my memory would work for something else instead.

(Actually I think I can do Ozymandias barring one word - the hand that ???? them)

I have what most people would consider a great memory but am crap about remembering lyrics, even to my most favorite music. And I don't remember much literature at all. "Ficht nicht mit dem Racketemench." Uh. I used to know Berryman's Dream Song 14, and also an Anna Akhmatova poem in Russian, but I forgot them both (still know lines of the Berryman though). I haven't reread enough poetry to have it stick - I only just started really appreciating any of it a few years ago. I should try harder - it's nice to have poetry at my command.

All the things I remember well, I remember based on cues. I play quizbowl at college so I have all kinds of useless factual knowledge, like the thing about Kekule and the snake, or title-author pairings for loads of things I know nothing else about, and the fact that Gauguin screwed Tahitian women.

Oh yeah - maybe Pound's "In a Station of the Metro," but I always changed the wording to one I like better by accident.

At uni I memorised a poem by Eluard called La courbe de tes yeux, just cos I liked it, but cannot remember it all now.

Oh, and lots of Gilbert and Sullivan. It comes from being in Glee Clubs and Light Operas a lot as a child. "I am the very model of a modern major general, I've information vegetable animal and mineral, I know the kings of England and I quote the fights historical from Marathon to Waterloo in order categorical. I'm very well aquainted too with matters mathematical, I understand equations both the simple and quadratical..." and on and on and on...

Oh, and I had to memorise the first chapter of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars, but all I can remember of that is "Gallia divisa est in tres partes..."

They were very big on memorisation at my school. Which is why I have such a poor memory now. My brain is stuffed overfull of cheerful facts about the square of the hypoteneuse and there's no room left for silly little things like peoples names and my own phone number.

I suppose if you count the number of Lollies, Fugue State and Dreaming Spires songs (lyrics and music) still taking up residence in my head, the memory banks are so full that I'm surprised that I can be trusted to remember where I actually live. (And this also, conveniently explains why I so frequently flub the lyrics live)

Poems, only one

Why is there no monument to Porrige in this land

If its good enough to eat its good enough to stand

Upon a plinth in Scotland a monument should be

A monument to Porridge

Oatmeal OBE

(spike Milligan)

I did get made to learn poems at school and I wish i could rember them but I appear to have fried my memory.

Orange helpfully sent me a bunch of mini cards with my name and number on with coy mesages e.g. Hi why don't you call me? I got all excited at the thought of dishing them out to dishy blokes until someone pointed out that they had spelled my name wrong and called me Emma Hamiltom. Bastards.

* 95% of song lyrics on songs I even sort of like
* 80% of song lyrics on songs I despise
* Loads of movie dialogue
* What my phone # was when I was 6
* Loads of bank account numbers (none of which are my own, which I am inexplicably unable to remember)
* The address of the Pulp fan club, which I've never belonged to nor written to, but somehow just know
* Every useless fact possible about Richey Manic
* How tall various celebrities are
* The exact amount of animals my mom has had in my life, including the goats and the ducks (WE LIVE IN NEW YORK, THIS IS NOT FARM COUNTRY)
* The train schedule to Springfield, which I've seen twice
* All of my ex-boyfriend's middle names
* Etc.

It's annoying. I wish I had no memory at all.

Waltham Cross, Double Two Oh One Four. Of course it had a 22 in it... sheesh, it started even back then.

Plus lots of obscure medeval Madrigals and Madrigal Christmas music.

Maybe it would work better in a live setting.

No?

OK.

I'm surprised no-one has said (or perhaps they have?) that they know all the Smiths' lyrics. I know virtually all the Smiths' lyrics. I know some of my lyrics, but not so many. Mostly I know old Smiths lyrics, which are more memorable. Hey, I know all the chords by heart too. Do they count?

Now here's a little story all about how my life got flip-turned upside down. And if you'd like to take a minute just sit right there, I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel Air.
In West Philadelphia, born and raised, on the playground was where I spent most of my days, chilling and maxing, relaxing or cooling, or shooting some B-ball outside of the school, when a couple of guys, they were up to no good, started making trouble in my neighbourhood, I got in one little fight and my mum got scared and said "You're moving with your Auntie and Uncle in Bel Air."
I whistled for a cab and when it came near, the license plate said FRESH and it had dice in the mirror, if anything I can say that this cab was rare, but I thought "Na, forget it. Yo home to Bel Air". I pulled up the house about seven or eight and yelled to the cabbie "Go home, smell you later." I looked at my kingdom, I was finally there, to settle my throne as the Prince of Bel Air.

Also the full title of Fiona Apple's second album (When the pawn hits the conflicts, he thinks like a king, what he knows throws the blows etc etc), which I've never even heard. I just picked it up reading through it in reviews and record shops.

There's probably a million pop songs I'd have no problem singing along to (I don't know if that counts).

And most of The End Of The World As We Know It (That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane, and Lenny Bruce is not afraid...). I think it was for a bet, or just in case it came up, or something.

Oh and Llanfairpyllgwyngyllgogerychwrndrobwyllllantysiliogogogoch.

I'm not sure what this says about me.

Peace on Earth! We praise and sing it
And pay ten thousand priests to bring it
But after two thousand years of Mass
We've got as far as poison gas

* Books of the bible, in order, Old & New Testaments
* Large chunks of the KJV although I can never remember the books or verse numbers
* Substantial number of children's poems, incl most of Now We Are Six and When We Were Very Young and lots of Shel Silverstein
* A veritable library of hymns, carols, and folk song lyrics, also the Sesame Street record, the words to "Blue Skies", "Red Sails in the Sunset", "I'm an Old Cowhand", and lots of other sheet music from the '30s and '40s and show tunes & Gershwin
* Whole scenes from Buffy/Angel/Bring it On/Gilmore Girls
* Pop lyrics galore
* The nonsense rhyme my mother made up when I was 6 to teach us our new address & phone number

Jesus, it's getting crowded up here.

"The Great O'Neal,
the trained seal
Said goodbye one day
he was going away.
He packed his bag
and locked his flat
and with his wife and Marina
in her yellow straw hat
he drove south until he came
to the sea and a shack
that bore his name...

SOMEBODY STOP ME!!!!!!

aboard
about
above
across
after
against
along
among
around
at
before
behind
below
beneath
beside

but the rest have gone.

despite this,

I know 'Meditation at Lagunitas' by heart, and 'For Sidney Bechet' by Larkin, and the lyrics to 'I wish I was a little bit taller' by Skee Lo. I though I knew 'Don't Mug Yourself', too, but I can't remember what's between "back in the light of day" and "girl brings two plates of full english over".

Something that is amazing is the NYRB review of a novel about learning poems by heart*, I don't know whether from book or piece but a richness has filled it yellow, butterdripped - it's easily my favourite thing I've read even close to that length.

(* 'And Now You Can Go', I can't remember who by...)

what a weirdo! yay me.

Among other things:

Agricola antiquus habet agrōs, I AE I AE O! Et in agrīs is habet canem, I AE I AE O! Cum vau-vau hīc et ibi vau vau! Hīc vau, ibi vau, ubique vau-vau! Agricola antiquus habet agrōs. I AE I AE O!