Artist	Song
Paul Celan	Todesfuge reading his own poem
George Crumb Ensemble New Art, conductor Fuat Kent	Song For The Rider, 1860 based on a poem by Federico Garcia Lorca
Talking Heads	I Zimbra based on a poem by Hugo Ball
Činna	Architekt based on a poem by Christian Morgenstern
De Kift	Zeis based on a poem by Sergey Yesenin, translated into Dutch by Maria Wiebes and Margriet Berg
Billy Bragg	A Pict Song based on a poem by Rudyard Kipling
Tom Waits	Nirvana based on a poem by Charles Bukowski
Gy÷rgi Kurtßg Chamber Ensemble, Istvßn Gßti, conductor Andrßs Mihßly	VerTs/Beating based on a poem by Jßnos Pilinszky
Syd Barrett	Golden Hair based on a poem by James Joyce
The Blue Aeroplanes	The Applicant based on a poem by Sylvia Plath
The Divine Comedy	Lucy based on fragments of poems by William Wordsworth
Brad Mehldau & RenTe Fleming	I Love The Dark Hours Of My Being based on a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated into English by Anita Barrows and Joanna R. Macy
John Vanderslice	My Old Flame based on a poem by Robert Lowell
John Cale	The Moon based on a poem by Jack Kerouac
The Waterboys	The Stolen Child based on a poem by William Butler Yeats
De Kift	De Zee based on a poem by Boris Ryzhy, translated into Dutch by Anne Stoffel
Vic Chesnutt	One Of Many based on a poem by Stevie Smith
Will Oldham	The Risen Lord based on a poem by D.H. Lawrence
Paul Celan	Psalm reading his own poem

Comment:

Here's one to make myself look all culturally distinguished, or something. (I think "hopelessly geeky" was the word I was looking for.) It's a mix made up entirely of poems set to music (though sometimes with lyrical adaptions). Well, the bookends aren't set to music, strictly speaking - but, uh, they qualify on account of the fact that fugues and psalms are musical pieces? No wait, I am not going to get all defensive about my love for Paul Celan here. They're here because they're awesome, and because I have yet to hear a musical realisation of any of Celan's poems that would do the man justice. I don't have a clue how this sounds to you non-German speakers out there, of course, but if it means nothing to you, I trust that you'll know how to fast forward the first few minutes. In any case, you can give this a listen here if you want to.

Title taken from the English translation (as printed in the booklet of the De Kift album 7) of the poem "Yes, it's done..." by Sergey Yesenin, of which De Kift do a rendition in Dutch on track 5.

PS: If the translation of the Rilke's Stundenbuch that Mehldau and Fleming are using is the best one there is, then I do feel sorry for those of you that don't speak German.

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