Imitation, If It Is Not Forgery, Is

A Cabaret Song Has Got To Be Written - For The Middle Voice, Ideally - Because You've Got To Hear The Wit Of The Words. And A Cabaret Song Gives The Singer Room To Act, More Even Than An Opera Singer.

"love" Is So Short Of Perfect Rhymes That Convention Allows Half-rhymes Like "move". The Alternative Is A Plague Of Doves, Or A Kind Of Poem In Which The Poet Addresses His Adored Both As "love" And As "guv" - A Perfectly Decent Solution Once, But Only Once, In A While.

What Happened To Poetry In The Twentieth Century Was That It Began To Be Written For The Page.

The Composer Does Not Want The Self-sufficiency Of A Richly Complex Text: He Or She Wants To Feel That The Text Is Something In Need Of Musical Setting.

Writing For The Page Is Only One Form Of Writing For The Eye. Wherever Solemn Inscriptions Are Put Up In Public Places, There Is A Sense That The Site And The Occasion Demand A Form Of Writing Which Goes Beyond Plain Informative Prose. Each Word Is So Valued That The Letters Forming It Are Seen As Objects Of Solemn Beauty.