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(Credits: Press)<\/p>\n
Mon 16 February 2026 19:45, UK <\/p>\n
Spoken word poetry<\/a> isn\u2019t for everyone.<\/p>\n As a former spoken word poet myself, knees knocking audibly on a stage watched by dozens of other beady-eyed writers, I must admit, sometimes it comes across as a little cringe; surely, the listener hears the lyrics just as well when they are sung as when they are spoken, right?<\/p>\n A bad spoken-word-type lyric can come across as quite musical theatre; for instance, think Lin-Manuel Miranda\u2019s Hamilton, when each character launches into sing-song out of nowhere, popping their p\u2019s and exploding their t\u2019s until a river of spit is cascading from their mouth. Sure, there are ways to do it right, such that today, we might point to Dry Cleaning<\/a>, who have taken Sprechgesang into an entirely new direction, then of course, Bob Dylan has always been around.<\/p>\n Rest assured, the \u2018Subterranean Homesick Blues\u2019 singer wasn\u2019t an afterthought for Joni Mitchell, who discussed this \u201cspeak-singing style\u201d with an interviewer in 1998. When the interviewer admitted that they found it hard to perfectly summate the affectation of this vocable melody after seeing one of Mitchell\u2019s shows, the singer-songwriter responded, \u201cIt\u2019s the same thing that Bob does\u201d, and then followed up with the delicious phrase, \u201cThe poet takes over\u201d.<\/p>\n Ruminating on who might be the best point of comparison, Mitchell thought aloud: \u201cMaybe I guess Lou Reed, although I\u2019m not as familiar with his material as Bob\u2019s. The point in the performance is to make the words come alive.\u201d<\/p>\n Anybody who might invite an odd inflexion upon their recorded performance does so to manipulate the impact of their work further, like an artist putting their canvas in a frame that holds a secret meaning, too. The content and the form are in conversation with one another, with the form, here the singing style, is activated, and can tease out further meaning in the work due to the friction, tension, or indeed the ease of delivery.<\/p>\n Mitchell understood this, Dylan understood this, heck, even university me, reading out timid female-rage poems on a Wednesday night at an upstairs coffee shop joint, understood this. So why didn\u2019t Ella Fitzgerald? Mitchell explained: \u201cLike Ella Fitzgerald is a beautiful singer, she has perfect pitch and perfect time, but she doesn\u2019t illuminate the words, she just sings through them. \u2018S\u2019wonderful, s\u2019marvellous\u2019, that\u2019s the way it\u2019s written, she sings through it.\u201d <\/p>\n