Mike Scott is pop’s only literate lyricist who would dare take on the stately iconography of William Butler Yeats. Forget about the living proof provided by his band the Waterboys as they tackle the Irishman’s prickly poems through a series of 14 daringly diverse arrangements on the new An Appointment With Mr. Yeats (Proper American). You’d know that if you’ve listened to Scott’s richly robust catalog of Waterboys albums made since 1983, or even read his recently released book, Adventures Of A Waterboy. Though imbued with an intellectual curiosity beyond that of the most wizened scholar, Scott has long found himself inspired by Yeats’ vivid world-weary lyrical textures and smartly grammatical manner. On the other hand, he’s a big Twitter fan. Go figure. Scott will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new Q&A with him.
The new album by my band the Waterboys is called An Appointment With Mr Yeats. The title refers to W. B. Yeats, Ireland’s great poet, whose poems I’ve been turning into songs, now and then, for the last 25 years. The album is just out now in the U.S., but in Ireland it’s been out for a year or so, and recently an enterprising schoolteacher had the bright idea of using our musical rendering of Yeats’ poems to interest her class in poetry.
It worked. A few dozen bright kids who’d disliked poetry when it was force fed to them in the old-school way, responded positively when they were introduced to it in a modern song form. I hadn’t anticipated something like this happening with our album, but I was delighted to hear about it when the teacher, Miss O’Flanagan, wrote and told me. So delighted, in fact, that I turned up at the school with my guitar, Waterboys’ fiddler Steve Wickham and the national TV news cameras to sing some songs for the kids. And a report was duly shown on the evening news.
In between songs the kids asked Wickham and me questions. Most were about the process of setting Yeats to music, though a few veered deliciously off-topic, like my favourite: “Have you ever been arrested?” And then one smart kid asked me this terrific question: “What would you say to Yeats if you met him?”
I didn’t think of the right reply till hours later, when I was back home, but it is this: “Awright, Yeats mate? Have you any other poems that didn’t come out in your books that I could set to music?”
