Verse chorus verse

I’ve been thinking about poems that have been turned into songs recently. This was prompted by listening to Loreena McKennitt’s splendid version of Alfred Noyes’ “The Highwayman.” I’d never read the poem before hearing the song, and I fell utterly in love with the song the first time I heard it – drama, love, sacrifice, and the glorious “I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way.” Who can resist that? Not I.

Which led to then also listening to The Waterboys’ take on Yeats’ “The Stolen Child.” Yeats is a favorite poet of mine now (speaking of things I cannot resist, there is the third stanza of “Sailing to Byzantium”), but when I first heard the song, I hadn’t yet read him. But I loved the song enough to seek out the poet who wrote it.