What interests me,
Is that in youth,
We don’t care who sung a song.
Flagrantly, it could have been the most foul human being in the world.
Try and tell us who it is,
Who sung it, we’d deny it.
We wouldn’t want to believe it.
We’ll greatly deny the truth
Because we like the song.
In older years,
Who the artist is makes all the difference.
One can hear a song
Sung the same
By two different people.
One a good man
The other a bad…
Each with there slightly different tune.
I can’t listen to the one anymore…
Though their songs used to be so beautiful.
A man makes the meaning.
Johnny Cash sings the song good.
It now means something different
Because Johnny had sung the song.
Same lyrics… same chord progression.
But it means something different
Being sung by by a different man.
And how the man makes the meaning
Even as much as the poetry we read.
One man is Elvis;
The other Homer.
They both sing the same gospel hymn.
One is American.
The other is Greek.
One is about salvation.
The other is to scorn it.
The man made the songs
As much as the songs made the man.
A man sings one song,
It means a different thing
When it is sung by a different man.
The men sing their songs
Different, though the same lyrics
Because it is the man who made the lyrics mean
What they meant.
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B. K. Neifert 