It’s out now, in all its glorious wrongness! A true abomination of art — THE DOO-WOP OF STEPHEN CRANE.
That’s right. I took Stephen Crane poems, converted them into doo-wop songs, and now you can listen to them in all their catchy irony.
If I was going to turn the poetry of Stephen Crane into doo-wop, it absolutely had to include the creature in the desert eating its own bitter heart.
Endorsement or indictment of ambition? Either way, “You Lie, He Cried” is catchy.
The great thing about snarky poems from the late 1800s and 1950s style doo-wop is how they can both share timeless pieces of wisdom, like how hard it is to tell the difference between clay and gold.
Back when I discovered Stephen Crane’s poetry in college, I went by the handle DessertSage, so I was particularly amused by his sage poems.
“This One Is Me” is based on my favorite, and the refrain—“this one is a devil & this one is me”—turned out so catchy.
“There was set before me a mighty hill,
And long days I climbed
Through regions of snow.
When I had before me the summit-view,
It seemed that my labour
Had been to see gardens
Lying at impossible distances.”
—Stephen Crane
And now in doo-wop form…
“Gazing and Desiring” is a relatively straightforward song compared to many of the others on this album, but it still rather sharply comments on human nature.
“Aye But Beloved” is based on one of my favorite Stephen Crane poems. When I discovered it late at night in college, I was really taken with how it looped around at the end.
I love how this song leans into “and you love me,” like it’s almost mockery.
For this song, I was going for a dreamy, ethereal sound like “Come Softly to Me” by The Fleetwoods.
Obviously, nothing is as perfect as the intro to that song, but I think this turned out very pretty.
“No Sense of Obligation” is based on an absolutely essential Stephen Crane poem.
And the utter abomination of the line “Sha-na-na, hear me, I exist” is basically the thesis statement for this whole album.
“Clip-Clapper Tongue” is about only needing one person to see the value in your art to have succeeded.
But in this case, I don’t even care if I don’t get one person. I like it, and I’ll be my own person.
You can listen too, if you want.
I love the “bop-oom-bops” in “Little Red Devils.”
This is exactly what writing is like — little red devils scurrying around on the page as you try to mash them, mash them flat with your pen.
It’s why I prefer to use keyboards. Better for mashing.
“Flowers, Puppies, and Lambkins” is about the hypocrisy of angels.
“Do Not Weep, War Is Kind” pushes the irony dial to eleven, and I weirdly love that melted cassette tape sound at the beginning.
The Ride of Sin” has such a catchy, swinging beat to it, and you just can’t possibly do a collection of songs inspired by Stephen Crane poems without covering “The Black Riders.”
“The Wayfarer” by Stephen Crane is basically the Wario of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.”
And this is a doo-wop version of it.
And we end our album on “Ridiculous Voyages,” a song about God losing control of the ship of Earth and all our travels being laughable.
I love the way Stephen Crane plays with mythology — it’s epic, irreverent, heretical, and wonderful.