Monday, March 1, 2010

Kiss Me

The Kiss ~ Gustave Klimt

"Kiss Me" has to be the most winsome love song to come along in ages, and the accompanying video is just irresistible. I came across this adorable song when my kids were little, on one of their "Kidz Bop" CDs, and a few years later bought the grown-up version for myself on Sixpence's "Best of" CD (2004). Some have complained that "Kiss Me" turns up not once but twice on this compilation, but I like that! The second version is a combination of English and Japanese vocabulary. It's performed primarily in Japanese, with the imperative "Kiss me" sung in English every time. Guess what? You'll find the lyrics are just as lilting, no matter what the language!

Kiss Me
by Sixpence None the Richer

Kiss me out of the bearded barley
Nightly, beside the green, green grass
Swing, swing, swing the spinning step
You wear those shoes and I will wear that dress.

Oh, kiss me beneath the milky twilight
Lead me out on the moonlit floor
Lift your open hand
Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance
Silver moon's sparkling
So kiss me

Kiss me down by the broken tree house
Swing me upon its hanging tire
Bring, bring, bring your flowered hat
We'll take the trail marked on your father's map


Look closely, and you can see that "Kiss Me" is almost a sonnet: fourteen lines, a sprinkling of iambic pentameter. In fact it reminds me a bit of this long - treasured sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

Sonnet XI
Not in a silver casket cool with pearls
Or rich with red corundum or with blue,
Locked, and the key withheld, as other girls
Have given their loves, I give my love to you;
Not in a lovers'-knot, not in a ring
Worked in such fashion, and the legend plain—
Semper fidelis, where a secret spring
Kennels a drop of mischief for the brain:












Love in the open hand, no thing but that,
Ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt,
As one should bring you cowslips in a hat
Swung from the hand, or apples in her skirt,
I bring you, calling out as children do:
"Look what I have!—And these are all for you."

from the sonnet sequence Fatal Interview


Definitely a favorite. I'll have to write more about this sonnet soon . . .
" . . . rich with red corundum . . . "

See also my recent Fortnightly Post: "Kiss Today"

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