Lost in Translation

"Bright before me the signs implore me
Help the needy and show them the way.
Human kindness is overflowing
And I think it's going to rain today."  Randy Newman (1968)

Sometimes when I write, like right now, I have several things I want to say and I feel that I need to say them simultaneously if you are going to understand what I'm thinking and feeling.  If I could use visual art, I could spend hours and days putting my thoughts and feelings on canvas. Then when I'm completely finished, I can display what I've created and you can  see the whole thing.  You can  then derive some "meaning" from what you see.

Words are different. No matter how much thought and time I put into my writing and no matter how many times I rewrite it, you read the finished work from left to right, top to bottom, one word at a time. As you read, your brain assembles the individual letters into words and then the individual words into a whole. If I did my job and you were paying attention while you read,  then some "meaning"  emerges. However, the meaning you gain may be completely different than the meaning that I intend. If, for example,  my opening quote is from  "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening", regardless of what I'm writing about my mind flies to the night I was driving in a snowstorm down Monteagle, Tennessee around midnight on February 10, 2008.  And regardless of what I end up saying, your mind flies to something else. It's there now.

The power of words versus the visual arts is explored in the 2013  movie Words and Pictures. What starts out as an argument between an art teacher and a writing teacher, becomes a competition between their classes. What is more effective to convey meaning, words or pictures? Which is easier to understand?/

Often when I write, I listen to music. That music usually is instrumental so that beautiful words don't get in the way of the words I'm composing.  Right now I'm listening to Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor. The cellist is Sol Gabetta. Strange thing.  I don't like violin music at all. I not only don't like it, but I avoid it. I find it to be depressing.  But I love cello music.  Broader. Richer. More depth of feeling and emotion. It's inspirational. And isn't that what music is supposed to be?

Another thing that happens when I write, as it has happened just now, when I "put my pen to paper" (so to speak), what I write has little to do with what I had in mind when I started. I was going to go into some detail about a two-part  peak personal experience that happened the first  and second times I heard Randy Newman's "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" thirteen years apart. The first time  happened in the spring of 1975.  I can take you to the spot on US 78 E  where  it happened.  I was driving back to college in Birmingham, Alabama in my yellow 1973 Mercury Capri after a good weekend in Jasper. Sometimes, but certainly not always,  I think these things happen most often when something good is in our rear view mirror and we anticipate that something as good or better awaits us. Sandwiched between that reality and possibility was an event that had a profound impact on me. Then in 1988 something just as profound related to that song happened.  This time I was in my den in Ringgold, Georgia. The Universe had something important to tell me about friendship, recovery and redemption. And it took twenty years for me to hear what the Universe was saying. That was twenty eight years ago and I'm still listening.

This concerto  I'm listening to is a YouTube video.  I could be watching, but for now I'm just listening. I have a good friend who after attending a concert in Moscow said, "Some music needs to be watched as well as heard."  Very soon I will watch this video. From the audio there is a sustained ovation. I assume it's a standing ovation, but as of now I really have no way to be sure.

In that argument between the art teacher and the writing teacher, where was the music teacher? As powerful as visual art and the written word can be, can either hold a candle to poetry set to music? I watched part of  that concerto video. It was a standing ovation. Even the orchestra stood and applauded. And why not? Besides the incredibly beautiful music, as she played Sol Gabetta was caressing her instrument as tenderly and lovingly as a mother with her child.  It took seeing her performance to understand that.

The Chinese language, as you know, consists of  characters and not letters.  Each character means something. The combination of characters presents a symphony of meaning. Can  we begin to imagine what's lost in translation from those characters to the words we read left to right, top to bottom? But unless we learn the language, that's the best we've got. And what we derive from those words can still be very meaningful.

After I heard "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" that night on the radio, and after what I felt what I felt,  the DJ said neither the name of the song nor  the singer. There was no Google. The radio stations I called didn't know the song I was asking about.  I lost the song for thirteen years.  In 1988 the song found me. I had all but given up looking for it, and it just found me.  Now I enjoy the song from several different media: CDs, Spotify, YouTube and more.  But I never listen to the song from any source without going back to Jasper, Alabama in 1975 when I heard it for the first time on that German built stereo in that German build Capri.

If words are powerful and pictures are worth a thousand words, then what is the strength of poetry set to music?  There is little chance of rain today, but a significant  chance of friendship. And words.  And pictures. And music. If you force me to choose, it will be a difficult choice. But I'll choose words.  I can then imagine the pictures and the music. If "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" had been just music,  you wouldn't be reading this. And that would be a shame for both of us.