Overview

Song to the Siren is the best of Larry Beckett's lyrics of the past fifty years, conceived as poems that can be sung. Most have been set to music and recorded. It includes every kind of lyric: ode, cycle, carol, hymn, ballad, serenade, erotica, blason, aria, blues, lullaby, elegy. Song to the Siren itself, written with Tim Buckley in the sixties, is a modern standard, recorded by This Mortal Coil, Robert Plant, Bryan Ferry, George Michael, Sinead O'Connor, Kitty Macfarlane, and over a hundred other musicians. It's been played in a number of film soundtracks: Moonlight Mile, Lost Highway, The Lovely Bones, Justice League. This is its first publication. The book includes an appendix with music sources and recording history for each lyric, and an essay on the genesis of Song to the Siren.

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Reviews

"""This luminous collection of lyrics, discerningly selected from songwriter-poet Larry Beckett's vast body of work, is a gift of line to be cherished. Song to the Siren-robust, wry, filled with heart, humor, longing, and pathos-far better than answers, voices the questions on which your life just might depend."" -Marc Zegans, poet, author of Lyon Street and The Underwater Typewriter ""His writings are gritty, funny, and steeped in the homespun vernacular of folk ballads, medicine show spiels, and backroom rock 'n' roll. ""Song to the Siren"" may be his most celebrated lyric, but its haunting Homeric echoes course through even his evocation of modern-day L.A. and points south. He journeys far and deeply in these pages, and he beckons you to follow. . ."" -Barry Alfonso, music journalist ""The poems should be read as they appear on the page; simple, heartbreaking and altogether moving. His work has meant much to me through the years."" -Peter Buck, R.E.M. ""He breaks down false distinctions between poetry and song, our longest lasting expression of emotion, which lives outside academic walls. Enter his world, and be inspired."" -Paul Wilner, Contributing Editor, ZYZZYVA magazine"

""This luminous collection of lyrics, discerningly selected from songwriter-poet Larry Beckett's vast body of work, is a gift of line to be cherished. Song to the Siren-robust, wry, filled with heart, humor, longing, and pathos-far better than answers, voices the questions on which your life just might depend."" -Marc Zegans, poet, author of Lyon Street and The Underwater Typewriter ""His writings are gritty, funny, and steeped in the homespun vernacular of folk ballads, medicine show spiels, and backroom rock 'n' roll. ""Song to the Siren"" may be his most celebrated lyric, but its haunting Homeric echoes course through even his evocation of modern-day L.A. and points south. He journeys far and deeply in these pages, and he beckons you to follow. . ."" -Barry Alfonso, music journalist ""The poems should be read as they appear on the page; simple, heartbreaking and altogether moving. His work has meant much to me through the years."" -Peter Buck, R.E.M. ""He breaks down false distinctions between poetry and song, our longest lasting expression of emotion, which lives outside academic walls. Enter his world, and be inspired."" -Paul Wilner, Contributing Editor, ZYZZYVA magazine

Author Information

Larry Beckett's poetry has been published in Zyzzyva, Field, Salamander, the anthology Portland Lights from Nine Lights Press, and his first book, Songs and Sonnets from Rainy Day Women Press, was favorably reviewed in the San Francisco Chronicle. Beat Poetry, a study of the San Francisco renaissance, was put out by Beatdom Books. Three book-length poems have been published, Paul Bunyan, by Smokestack Books, Wyatt Earp, by Alternating Current Press, and Amelia Earhart, by Finishing Line Press, with strong reviews in Zyzzyva. These texts were collected, with seven others, as an epic, American Cycle, published by Running Wild Press. The Book of Merlin, a translation of the sixth-century poet, is forthcoming from Livingston Press. His work has been commended by Jonah Raskin, Jack Hirschman, David Meltzer, Tom Clark, Ann Charters, Paul Wilner, David Young, and U.S. Poet Laureates William Meredith, W. S. Merwin and Charles Wright.

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