LA Times: Rod McKuen, a prolific songwriter and poet whose compositions include the Academy Award-nominated song “Jean” for the 1969 film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” has died. He was 81.
Whether we liked his work or not, McKuen absolutely embodies the sixties and a certain type of poetry (remember in "Sleeper" when someone tells Diane Keaton that the influence of Rod McKuen is very apparent in her--dreadful--poem?). So yes, without saying I love "Jean" or "Seasons in the Sun" or "Come Feel the Warm", I still say McKuen was an icon of his era--an era almost a half-century past my the time he died.
"Seasons in the Sun" was a wretched 'translation'--i.e., mangling--of Jacques Brel's mordant (and poignant) "Le Moribond" (The Dying Man). McKuen's version was a cheap, dumbed-down travesty.
When I was in high school a lot of girls made a point of carrying one or more volumes of his poetry with them wherever they went...but it hasn't been that long since those same books, tattered and stained, used to haunt the free shelf at my favorite local used bookstore, given away because they couldn't sell them. McKuen is to poetry what Thomas Kinkade was to art, popular, lucrative, and with the cultural lifespan of a mayfly.
6 comments:
A true icon of the 1960s. RIP.
I don't know if writing several volumes of bad poetry would qualify one as an icon.
Bad poetry makes one no less and icon of his times than bad music, television or fiction (remember JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL ?)
Remember what Noel Coward said about cheap music....
Whether we liked his work or not, McKuen absolutely embodies the sixties and a certain type of poetry (remember in "Sleeper" when someone tells Diane Keaton that the influence of Rod McKuen is very apparent in her--dreadful--poem?). So yes, without saying I love "Jean" or "Seasons in the Sun" or "Come Feel the Warm", I still say McKuen was an icon of his era--an era almost a half-century past my the time he died.
"Seasons in the Sun" was one of the most gag-inducing songs ever, without the risibility of "Honey" and the like.
Jeff
"Seasons in the Sun" was a wretched 'translation'--i.e., mangling--of Jacques Brel's mordant (and poignant) "Le Moribond" (The Dying Man). McKuen's version was a cheap, dumbed-down travesty.
When I was in high school a lot of girls made a point of carrying one or more volumes of his poetry with them wherever they went...but it hasn't been that long since those same books, tattered and stained, used to haunt the free shelf at my favorite local used bookstore, given away because they couldn't sell them. McKuen is to poetry what Thomas Kinkade was to art, popular, lucrative, and with the cultural lifespan of a mayfly.
Post a Comment