Wordsworth Rap - Happy Marriage or Travesty?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

One of the greatest poets of the English language is William Wordsworth (1770-1850). And perhaps his greatest poem is "Daffodils":

I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced,
but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:-
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed-and gazed-but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.


"But now William Wordsworth's most famous poem has been reworked and rewritten in a hip-hop style - complete with drum beat and quick-fire rhymes - in an effort to draw a younger generation of visitors to the Lake District.

Cumbria Tourism, which has released the new version of I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud to mark the 200th anniversary of the original, hopes the rap and accompanying video will appeal to the "YouTube generation"."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXbrSALG684

Personally, I think it is very cool.

Here are the "lyrics" for the hip-hop version:

I wandered lonely along as if I was a cloud
That floats on high over vales and hills
When all at once I looked down and saw a crowd
And in my path there was a host of golden daffodils so check it

The kind of sight that puts your mind at ease
I saw beside the lake and beneath the tress
And they moved me
Like they were based on the keys
They were fluttering and dancing inside the breeze and seemed infinite
Just like the stars that shine up in the belt of Orion across to the Milky Way
They stretched along the coast in a never ending line
All across the water marching across the golden silky bay

Must have been 10,000 I saw in my retina
No more than a glance then I register they’re beautiful etcetera
I never knew in advance but they were tossing up their heads like a pogo dance

In a contrast to the plants, there were waves beside them
The way they crashed and sparkled added to the marvel
And the writer couldn’t help but feeling bright like sunbeam cos the flowers and the waves they were quite someting yeah
Across the spot… just lost the plot…. just watched and watched all the yellow and green
And at the time I didn’t need to pay them no mine but when I think back to the day it was a hell of a scene

So often when I’m on my couch just sitting
In a vacant mood or idle position
With nothing to do my face screwed - time ticking
I gotta rewind to my vision
I get a flashback
In my minds eye
Feel the bliss of solitude from the hindsight
My heart fills up until the pleasure has spilled yeah
I’m taking back to dancing with the daffodils… daffodils…. daffodils…. to fade


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... rap110.xml

[truehobbit]

I think this sort of thing is fun as a joke, but sad if people think they need to "rework" a classical piece to make it appeal to a new generation.

I hope that they prove to be mistaken and the new generation finds the original to have as much appeal as it always did.

That said, I thought the rap was quite amusing, and if it had been the independent treatment of this poem by someone, just because they liked it, I'd have said 'well done'.
It was interesting how they kept large parts of the original and added a lot of words, esp quite a few five-dollar-words, making the original about twice as long and twice as hard to understand - but still reflecting the basic idea of someone being overwhelmed by the sight of the daffodils.

This being an official tourism promotion, though, I'd say that the title of the video, "mc nuts", correctly reflects on what must go on in the mind of the tourist board people: they're nuts, and they're into a "mc world" kind of culture.

What was really silly was the guy in the bunny suit jumping around in the video - what was that about?
Reminded me of Nimoy's "Bilbo Baggins" song and the girls with bunny-ears hopping around in it - what would you think if the Tolkien Estate promoted this as a way to introduce a new generation to Tolkien?

[yovargas]

I thought that was pretty amusing but...

But now William Wordsworth's most famous poem has been reworked and rewritten in a hip-hop style - complete with drum beat and quick-fire rhymes - in an effort to draw a younger generation of visitors to the Lake District.

...stuff like that never works. The "younger generation" sees through stuff like that a million miles away.

[Primula Baggins]

They always have. You should see some of the movies made for the "youth market" in the Sixties by sixty-year-old bald golfers. Groovy, baby.