Day 617 of the daily poems. It’ll be a hot one. Our poet Martin Newell recalls the guitars and drums of yore.
Guitars and drums
When I was young and
full of spleen
A frantic, hyperactive teen
I wouldn’t bother to pollute
my ears with clarinet or flute
Weapons of the music swot
Who called me thick
when I was not.
Guitars and drums were
all I had
To fight the world of school
and dad
Since these were things
which made a din
Much better than a violin
Its catgut scraped by horsehair bow
On suites I didn’t wish to know
Long symphonies devoid of beats
For starchy folk in upright seats
Who tried to foist their tastes on us,
The back-seat badboys on the bus
Five decades on and how we fret
If youth rejects the clarinet
In favour of the devil’s gourds,
The bang and clang of
power chords
Till reaching middle age
– like me
They stop and tune to Radio 3
Martin Newell