Elvis had an heart-attack, 'cos he got too bleedin' fat.

May 6, 2009 2:40 AM

Bono's poem Elvis: American David, annotated by professor John Sutherland
posted by fearfulsymmetry (57 comments total)

I'm getting really fed up with this so-called poem
posted by Elmore at 2:49 AM on May 6, 2009

What is it with the big Bono/BBC love in at the moment? Not that I object greatly, but it is pretty noticeable..
posted by MuffinMan at 2:52 AM on May 6, 2009

elvis didn't smoke hash

But was rather partial to Dilaudid, Percodan, Placidyl, Dexedrine, Biphetamine, Tiunal, Desbutal, Escatrol, Amytal, Quaaludes, Carbrital, Seconal, Methadone, and Ritalin.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:58 AM on May 6, 2009

Also, I know that references to prison rape are frowned upon in these parts, but in Elvisland, the prison sex seems to be strictly consensual:

"Number forty-seven said to number three:
"You're the cutest jailbird I ever did see.
I sure would be delighted with your company,
Come on and do the jailhouse rock with me."
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:05 AM on May 6, 2009

“... yes folks, and thanks for tuning in to BBC Radio One; the poem you've just heard was Elvis: American David, written by Bono, lead singer of the rock band U2, in 1995. It is rumoured that...

Ah—hold on a moment. Yes, I've just been handed this; apparently, there's been some sort of mistake. And... all right, we have confirmation; that poem was not written by Bono in 1995; rather, it was apparently written by Bono as a book report for an junior school assignment, 'Who Is My Biggest Hero And What Kind Of Person Is He,' when Bono was seven years old. Interestingly, means that the Elvis poem was written during the same intensely productive period in Bono's life that gave us other significant Bono material, including the script for the seminal film Rattle and Hum and the lyrics to every U2 album since Achtung Baby.”
posted by koeselitz at 3:19 AM on May 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Also, I think the "girls of 14" is a factual reference, isn't it?

"Elvis and Priscilla met in 1959 at a party in Bad Nauheim, Germany during his stay in the army. She was 14 at the time, while he was 24."

This is indeed a shitty poem, but I thought the annotation was as bad, in its own way. Neither author put much effort into their craft. Maybe a shitty poem deserves shitty annotation.

This poem seems more like the emails I used to get from a dear friend who apparently either didn't understand how to use sentences and paragraphs to convey her thoughts or thought because she was an "artist" she needed to be "arty."
posted by maxwelton at 3:19 AM on May 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

64 Things Every Bono Should Know About Elvis.
posted by Sova at 3:28 AM on May 6, 2009

Half-flarf guff.
posted by pracowity at 3:43 AM on May 6, 2009

Today I'm going to build a slapping machine just so that if Bono ever drops by I can put him in it and turn the controls to 11.
posted by unSane at 3:46 AM on May 6, 2009 [3 favorites]

"... and we have an expert here in the studio, a noted expert on U2, to speak with us regarding the developing story on the Bono poem Elvis: American David. I'd like to welcome Suzanne S. Taylor. Ms. Taylor, can you give us some perspective on why people might have made the mistake of thinking this sort of nonsense could possibly have been written by a 35-year-old man who does not appear to have any mental challenges or handicaps and who appears capable of setting his thoughts into complete phrases and coherent sentences, at least outside of the confines of the recording studio?"

—Well, actually you've hit the nail on the head there, Stephen—and, by the way, thank you for having me—when you mention that Bono doesn't seem like much of a raving loon outside the studio. You see, the situation becomes all the more confusing when a man who is, to all eyes, caring, compassionate, and vocal about humanitarian concerns seems to become a bumbling, dribbling fool when he turns around and tries to do the one thing he actually became famous for. What your listeners at home might not know is that this is something which we in the field deal with fairly often; Bono actually suffers from a very highly-developed and tragic case of what in clinical terms is referred to as 'Bill Gates Syndrome.' This painful and horrific disease is unique in that it causes suffering for millions upon millions of people today, though the number of people who actually carry the syndrome is quite low, because those who are BGS-positive tend especially to be obnoxious wankers who happen to have the money, the time, and the rank narcissism to inflict horribly-wrought works of 'art' or 'design' upon the world in large ways.

The good news, Stephen, is that there's hope. Every professional who has spent any amount of time trying to treat BGS sufferers knows that Bono was really dealt from the bottom of the deck as it were—to start off, study after study has shown conclusively that people who insist on being called by silly made-up names even when they're grown men are astronomically more likely to see the onset of Bill Gates Syndrome, and Bono fits this profile perfectly.

(I should mention briefly as an aside that it's really only through the heroic and groundbreaking work of several of my esteemed colleagues that we've been able to rescue Bono's fellow band-member in U2, David Howell Evans, from a similar fate, although getting him to stop calling himself 'The Edge,' while very interesting and revealing for us all professionally, has proven to be much more difficult than we'd anticipated.)

To continue my point about Bono, however, it's not only the silly name he insists on using; he's also a member of a mediocre pop band that was overpraised because it managed to make music that happened to be different from what people suddenly decided they didn't like any more. If you look at the DSV-IV categories for Bill Gates Syndrome, you'll see that that already puts Bono at two of the characteristics—silly fake name and pompous, overplayed 80's pop band—where the DSM-IV categories state that even one of these symptoms can be indicative of BGS.

The DSV-IV categories also mention a strange correlation that we haven't really made a whole lot of sense of yet: it appears that, among rock-star sufferers of BGS, another indication is whether their band name is made up primarily of numbers and/or letters rather than words. Our primary example of this, of course, is the other most celebrated example of BGS, and perhaps the most tragic, Michael Stipe of REM. Andy Partridge of XTC is now recognized by most in the field to show indications of BGS.

“Well, that's all very interesting, Ms. Taylor; I think we have time to take a question from a caller here at the end. Caller, you're on the line with Ms. Taylor.”

Ah... hello? Oh! Yes. I just wanted to say... is it... Ghostbuster 2?
posted by koeselitz at 3:59 AM on May 6, 2009 [4 favorites]

You might have been able to use the word "spastic" (ie one suffering from cerebral palsy) in 1995: it won't wash in 2009, Bono – this is already the focus of spitting protest against your poem

Uh, no. The primary definition is 'of, relating to, or characterized by spasms', which describes 'Elvis leg' to a tee. Most of these criticisms are fair enough, but I think Professor John Sutherland starts to get a bit trigger-happy with all his shooting fish in a barrel, and pops off a couple of shots at the postman.

Yes, it's a list poem, with lots of weak lines. So what? I don't hear anyone loudly championing Bono as a great poet - not even Bono. This kind of pseudo-intellectual snarkage might serve some genuine purpose if brought to bear on some bona fide poetic sacred cows. I don't think UK poetry enjoys such an unassailable position that it can really afford to be mocking outsiders at the moment.
posted by RokkitNite at 4:06 AM on May 6, 2009

You get what you pay for: I'd venture John Sutherland did it pro bono.

You may groan now if you wish
posted by MuffinMan at 4:20 AM on May 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

I don't hear anyone loudly championing Bono as a great poet

Other than the BBC, who seems to be happy to waste licence-payers money by creating and screening a programme of him reading this dross.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 5:39 AM on May 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

elvis like america, started out loving but later turned on himself

Hasn't spent much time on the Rez, I guess.

I don't think we need belabor the... uh, quality of the verse. But it should be emphasized that, from all available evidence, fronting a stadium-level rock band is a mindfuck that only those who have experienced it can fully understand. In other words, if you could make 70,000 people scream at the top of their lungs just by wishing them "Good evening", you might start acting pretty weird yourself.

I believe Keith Richards mentioned this in explaining all the reading he does about Hitler and World War II. The psychology of crowds and the cult of personality is how he makes his living, innit?
posted by Joe Beese at 5:41 AM on May 6, 2009

There's a time to live and a time to die
I smoke Elvis Presley's toenails when I wanna get high

~Gibby Hayes, 1983
posted by kuujjuarapik at 5:45 AM on May 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Other than the BBC, who seems to be happy to waste licence-payers money by creating and screening a programme of him reading this dross.

'Screening'? It's on a Radio 4 show, isn't it? Have you listened to much Radio 4 lately? Dross is their stock in trade. If their audience gripe, I suspect it'll be because this is middlebrow dross rather than their usual highbrow dross.
posted by RokkitNite at 5:50 AM on May 6, 2009

Rock stars: is there anything they don't know?
posted by scratch at 5:54 AM on May 6, 2009

Uh, no. The primary definition is 'of, relating to, or characterized by spasms', which describes 'Elvis leg' to a tee. Most of these criticisms are fair enough, but I think Professor John Sutherland starts to get a bit trigger-happy with all his shooting fish in a barrel, and pops off a couple of shots at the postman.

No, he's pretty much on target here. In the UK, at least, 'spastic' has long been first and foremost a playground-level insult, at about the same level as 'retard'. CP charity The Spastics Society basically had to change their name to Scope because they thought the name had become too much of a problem. It's really not a word you can get away with using outside of actual clinical discourse.
posted by permafrost at 6:12 AM on May 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

It's really not a word you can get away with using outside of actual clinical discourse.

Ah. Now you're becoming ludicrous. He's using it as an adjective, not a noun. You have to deliberately pervert his meaning to wring a vaguely offensive interpretation out of the poem. Sure, it's a bad poem. But don't start getting all shrill over a storm in a teacup. Aren't there more important things to throw your hands up in outrage about? After all, the Daily Mail seem to be leading the charge on this particular pipsqueak transgression.

Sorry, but the idea that the word 'spastic' is somehow forbidden because people are poised to find offence in it, really annoys me. Unusually, for such a clunky poem, it's the right word to use there.
posted by RokkitNite at 6:26 AM on May 6, 2009

Unusually, for such a clunky poem, it's the right word to use there.

Actually, as far as I can tell, his greatest reasoning for using it there was that it happens to rhyme with plastic and elastic, making the whole thing pretty contrived.
posted by kingbenny at 6:36 AM on May 6, 2009

He should have used "drastic".
posted by MuffinMan at 6:41 AM on May 6, 2009

Elvis Ate America by Passengers. (AKA U2, Brian Eno, and Howie B)
posted by Dr-Baa at 6:50 AM on May 6, 2009

Actually, as far as I can tell, his greatest reasoning for using it there was that it happens to rhyme with plastic and elastic, making the whole thing pretty contrived.

Yeah. True dat.
posted by RokkitNite at 6:50 AM on May 6, 2009

There's a time for taking and a time for giving
But ripping off the Butthole Surfers is how we make our living.

~The Dead Milkmen, 1985

No, he's pretty much on target here. In the UK, at least, 'spastic' has long been first and foremost a playground-level insult, at about the same level as 'retard'.

Wow. That's good to know. It doesn't seem to carry those connotations here in the US--at least, not to the degree that anyone would consider the term offensive...

As far as the poem goes, it's in some ways too generous to even call this a poem. Bono uses the "list poem" form (Writing Workshop 101) as a cop-out to avoid having to do the heavy-lifting of crafting a coherent narrative arc or developing any real themes. It never quite achieves the status of list poem; it barely even qualifies as a sensible list.

But hey, Bono's not a singer/poet in the grand old tradition: he's just a rock star. So what do you expect? He's got a good voice at least.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:16 AM on May 6, 2009

See. This is what happens when you have insane success at one particular thing... You think you can do anything, and you're so very wrong.

Bono seems like a nice enough guy, and has an excellent voice, good band, crazy wealth, (apparently) happy family and all, why did he go and have to do this?

It's excusable in adolescents. Bono is almost 50 years old. Enough.

...although finding out about an incontinent chimp named Scatter sort of made my day
posted by Hickeystudio at 7:20 AM on May 6, 2009

What a conicidence! I just wrote a poem called Bono: Irish Attention Whore.
posted by Ratio at 7:29 AM on May 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

I never could figure out if Bono and the rest of the gang were merely ignorant of Spinal Tap's visit to Graceland when they made Rattle and Hum, or if they just decided they were earnestly sincere enough in their intentions to avoid the comparisons.
posted by total warfare frown at 7:31 AM on May 6, 2009

bono son of eire

bono son of his parents

bono brother to the people who were his brothers, and sisters

bono went to the cupboard

bono found the cereal...empty

bono drove a car

bono went to tesco

bono bought some weetabix

bono has two every morning

bono is regular
posted by Sova at 7:43 AM on May 6, 2009 [10 favorites]

"elvis the movie star made three good films: viva las vegas, flaming star, and jailhouse rock."

Flaming fucking Star?????
What???
No mention of "King Creole," the best Elvis movie ever?
Give me a fucking break.
This Bono character, didn't he used to sing with Cher?
posted by Floydd at 7:44 AM on May 6, 2009

See. This is what happens when you have insane success at one particular thing... You think you can do anything, and you're so very wrong.

Well, to be fair, there is an ancient, respectable history in Western culture of musician-poets (at one time, the two crafts were basically one and the same), although these days there aren't too many healthy specimens of the breed. Leonard Cohen is probably one of the only musician-poets today with any real literary credibility.

But Bono clearly does not represent the return of the archetypal musician-poet.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:49 AM on May 6, 2009

Elvis YEAH YEAH YEAH!
posted by steef at 8:06 AM on May 6, 2009

Dylan on Elvis:

It must be the Southern air. It’s filled with rambling ghosts and disturbed spirits. They’re all screaming and forlorning. It’s like they are caught in some weird web - some purgatory between heaven and hell and they can’t rest. They can’t live, and they can’t die. It’s like they were cut off in their prime, wanting to tell somebody something. It’s all over the place. There are war fields everywhere … a lot of times even in people’s backyards

I felt the ghosts from the bloody battle that Sherman fought against Forrest and drove him out. There’s an eeriness to the town. A sadness that lingers. Elvis must have felt it too.
posted by swift at 8:07 AM on May 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

I don't know which is more annoying, the poem, or the annotations...

(I think I had this prof for creative writing, and bono was the narcissistic guy sitting across the room from me, and both thought they were hot shit on a sliver platter...)

I'll vote for bono; at least the prof was funnier.
posted by not_on_display at 8:11 AM on May 6, 2009

Leonard Cohen is probably one of the only musician-poets today with any real literary credibility.

Joni Mitchell.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:19 AM on May 6, 2009

Relatedly, collections of mediocre poetry by Jim Morrison, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, Jewel, Paul McCartney and others continue to sell quite well in the big-box book stores.

(Also, calling Bono's lyric "half-flarf guff," while amusing, is really an insult to flarf, whose authors usually work fairly hard to assemble just the right balance of irony, kitch, and bullshit into the shape of a lyric. I can't imagine Bono did anything more than down a couple shots of whisky and jot a single draft of this nonsense.)
posted by aught at 8:34 AM on May 6, 2009

You get what you pay for: I'd venture John Sutherland did it pro bono.
actually what happened is this guy came up to sutherland, with an ego the size the room, and the shades of his glasses like roses in bloom, and he peeled off some loose pounds and slapped them down. one hundred, two hundred.
posted by the aloha at 8:46 AM on May 6, 2009

This instantly reminded me of the "More Crap" episode of South Park.
posted by futureisunwritten at 8:54 AM on May 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

bono grew up in california
bono didn't graduate
bono wrote for sam cooke
bono did percussion for a killer
bono knew a few chords
bono knew the few chords that mattered
bono did variety
bono was able to be the butt of a joke
bono the gypsy
bono the tramp
bono the theif
bono rode the love boat
bono was the dream of golden girls
bono was elected rep
bono extended copyright
bono has hurt our culture by that act
bono was reportedly a nice guy
bono lives on
posted by the aloha at 9:24 AM on May 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

I'm a poet,
don'cha know it?
My record sales show it.
They're long fellows.
posted by Forrest Greene at 9:37 AM on May 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

I refuse to give Bono the satisfaction of consuming anything he produces ever again. He's the Billy Corgan of pseudo-political drivel/philanthropy.
posted by cmoj at 11:01 AM on May 6, 2009

Have you listened to much Radio 4 lately? Dross is their stock in trade.

Oh, I misread that Times link. I thought it was a TV show. However, I'll not have you disparage Radio 4 unfairly. I listen to it all the time, and 95% of their output is resolutely middlebrow.

Radio 3 is where the real highbrows hang out.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:08 AM on May 6, 2009

Relatedly, collections of mediocre poetry by Jim Morrison, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, Jewel, Paul McCartney and others continue to sell quite well in the big-box book stores.

While I agree that a lot of Leonard Cohen's stuff is on the mediocre side, it's unfair to lump him in with all the other songwriter-cum-hack poets out there.

A lot of Cohen's poetry may be mediocre, but it is credible literary poetry that people take seriously in literary circles. But like any other human product, most poetry is mediocre. It's just a given that the bulk of what's produced in any medium is going to be middle of the road because most people are middle of the road in both their aspirations and abilities.

But Cohen was a published poet first, and only rose to prominence as a musician later. And there are moments of brilliance in his body of literary work (though he's been a little self-indulgent over the last couple decades IMO). Cohen's got a lot more credibility as a poet than fricking Jim Morrison or Jewel, for chrissake!
posted by saulgoodman at 11:10 AM on May 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (January 2009)
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 12:11 PM on May 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

For some ridiculous reason, this piece of vile masturbatory trash dedicated to someone who deserves better (Mr. Elvis Aaron Presley) inspired me to stay up most of the night writing an explication of a song-poem about Elvis that is actually good by someone who can actually write. Really. (I don't know why.) It's still not finished, and I might post it here, though it's entirely too long.

Anyhow, only now do I remember that someone actually wrote a song about Bono once. I imagine he's heard it; its writer was Welsh, not Irish, but it happened to be on what turned out to be the best rock album of the late 80's and early 90's. In a coincidence that is happy for our topic, that album, which was largely about rock and roll, featured a well-disguised image of Elvis Presley on the cover. I urge everyone to listen to this record. It's one of the best I've ever heard, and one of the few that it's safe to say has changed my life. Moreover, I believe that it's the only set of songs produced anywhere in the last thirty years that anybody can point to and say: 'see? These people understand what Elvis was about.' And it was a record made by a former punk band, no less, but they actually understood the legacy better than anybody had in years.

Where was I? Ah yes: that record has a song near the end which happens to be about our dear friend Bono. Remember, this is 1989 Bono they're talking about, the Joshua Tree Bono strutting about onstage. I think this song is a wonderful tribute and a very careful and honest depiction of U2 and their frontman:

BLOW YOUR TUNELESS TRUMPET

Blow your tuneless trumpet
Blow...
Blow your tuneless trumpet
The choice is yours

I'm going to see the horse doctor
He's waiting where the rain comes in
I'm going to see the horse doctor
He's waiting where the rain comes in

The fancy shirt I wore is just lying in the drawer
The girl I used to sleep with I don't see her anymore

Blow your tuneless trumpet
The choice is yours

Death belongs to everyone
It's the only thing we have
Yeah, death belongs to everyone
It's the only thing we have

I don't owe nobody I don't even owe the rent
I've even got some money left I still haven't spent

So blow your tuneless trumpet
The choice is yours

We don't want the glamour, the pomp and the drums
The Dublin messiah scattering crumbs

Just blow
posted by koeselitz at 12:22 PM on May 6, 2009 [3 favorites]

I don't think Bono wrote this poem, I think Wesley Willis did.
posted by padraigin at 1:32 PM on May 6, 2009

More like Wesley Crusher.
posted by Forrest Greene at 1:35 PM on May 6, 2009

Leonard Cohen is probably one of the only musician-poets today with any real literary credibility.


I bet you David Bazan could pull it off.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 4:50 PM on May 6, 2009

On his 21 December 1970 visit to the White House Elvis gave the President one Colt 45 in a wooden case, a memorabilia of the second world war

Bzzt! "Memorabilia" is a plural noun. Thanks for playing, Prof!
posted by Wolof at 5:04 PM on May 6, 2009

I bet you David Bazan could pull it off.

I've heard David Berman's literary work is actually pretty respectable too, but I haven't sampled it myself.
posted by saulgoodman at 6:35 PM on May 6, 2009

saulgoodman: Well, to be fair, there is an ancient, respectable history in Western culture of musician-poets (at one time, the two crafts were basically one and the same), although these days there aren't too many healthy specimens of the breed. Leonard Cohen is probably one of the only musician-poets today with any real literary credibility.

thsmchnekllsfascists: I bet you David Bazan could pull it off.

Please tell me you're joking. David Bazan can't seem to pull anything off besides a bland, humorless mask of a demeanor when he strums with vigorous melancholy on his guitar. And now that he's doing solo work, that means that, instead of achieving this ingenious trick while standing next to someone else, he now does it standing all by himself.

The biggest problem with David Bazan? He has some strong things to say, but there is no way in hell he'd ever shake off his cowardice long enough to say those things to the people he needs to say them to. This is why the very few strong things he has to say are padded liberally with very weak things to say. If he can't write words that have the balls to say what he wants to say even when he's allowed to hide behind melody, what magical formula is he supposed to adduce to write words that are supposed to stand on their own without the music which he uses as a crutch? Foregone conclusions?

saulgoodman: I've heard David Berman's literary work is actually pretty respectable too, but I haven't sampled it myself.

Actual Air is interesting enough to read through. Here, go check it out.

My sense is that, while I like David Berman and enjoy his intelligence and interesting and playful uses of language, I don't know whether he's really serious or dedicated enough to really be a significant writer. I don't really need my writers to be musicians or my musicians to be writers, I guess, but I'd rather listen to the Silver Jews than read David Berman's poetry.

David Berman gets an unchangeable entry in my big book of awesome, however, for penning those immortal lines from 'New Orleans' from Starlite Walker:

There is a house in New Orleans
Not the one you heard about,
I'm talkin' 'bout another house
posted by koeselitz at 12:27 AM on May 7, 2009 [1 favorite]

Koeslitz, maybe he's actually melancholy. I agree that some of his more jesus-y stuff was contrived. Maybe his newer music just speaks to me because he's got a drinking problem, he's terrified of his marriage and child, and he became an atheist. His newer songs are either extremely harsh criticisms of his former religion, or they're about bush and the bible belt. I'm looking forward to his new album.

As far as the musical side of it is concerned, I guess it's just a matter of taste. Either way, I like it a lot better than Bono or U2.

Foregone conlusions?

Exceedingly witty; I tip my hat to you sir.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 3:29 PM on May 7, 2009

I realized after I posted my last comment that I might have been a bit... harsh & hasty. Sorry about that, and thank you for your gracious response. I don't think I really have room to judge Bazan so quickly; and what's more, it seems like you understand the contrivance of his Pedro stuff that makes me hesitate. Hell, more to the point, from what you say, he understands the contrivance. All I've seen of his recent work is a string of solo covers on Youtube; but hearing what you've said, I'll be checking his new stuff when I can.

And, yes: I would much rather listen to him than U2, much less Bono.

Also: wit expended in the service of snark is wit wasted, unfortunately. But thank you.
posted by koeselitz at 5:18 PM on May 7, 2009 [1 favorite]

> I don't know which is more annoying, the poem, or the annotations...

Oh the annotations are funny as hell: very officious, dry and obvious statements at first, then getting more casual, less academic:

"elvis invented the beatles

Nonsense

potential

Beats the shit out of me what this could mean. "Potential"?"

The prof is having a laugh and so am I. It's almost like a skit from That Mitchell and Webb sound. More parody annotations! Thank you fearfulsymmetry.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:17 PM on May 7, 2009

Koeslitz,

I try not to be a dick to people I enjoy reading, and you seem like a decent enough guy.

If you want to hear some of his newer songs legally, here's a link to a recording (sound is decent) of a set at The Grey Eagle in Asheville. It's a mix of unrecorded new stuff, and some of his older songs that he's not embarrassed about.

The Leonard Cohen cover is pure coincidence, but I think I enjoy it better than Cohen's version.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 9:37 PM on May 7, 2009 [1 favorite]

Nine choice verses from celebrity poets
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:38 PM on May 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

The King
The Clown
The Crown
The Frown
The Clothes
The Pose
The Dose
The Rose
The Vox
The Box
E
LV
Bo Beau
No No
MT
U2

So Bye Bye
posted by effluvia at 9:33 PM on May 8, 2009

Leonard Cohen is probably one of the only musician-poets today with any real literary credibility.

Nick Cave.
posted by cmoj at 11:53 AM on May 10, 2009