TUESDAY'S CORNER - PHOTOGRAPHY AND POETRY

By Debbie Bulloch



The other day I was listening to Jackson Browne’s FOUNTAIN OF SORROW. As I listened to Browne’s carefully crafted lyrics it occurred to me that photography and poetry share much in common. A photograph captures that special moment in time when the photographer clicks the shutter's release and freezes time forever. A poem, on the other hand, captures the mood of that moment in time when Muses breathed inspiration into the poet's heart.

When reduced to their most essential element, both photography and poetry are efforts to capture the mood of a moment. Look at one of your own favorite photographs and then close your eyes; you will be transported to the moment when the photograph was snapped. If you try hard enough, you will hear the sounds and smell the odors that were there when you took the photo. Do the same with a favorite poem and soon the rhythms of the words will evoke the mood of the moment captured by the poet.

Music is the bridge that brings together the words of the poet and the images of the photographer. The best songwriters use words to bring out feelings in the listener; they use those same words to paint mental images. Jackson Browne has written beautiful songs that can both evoke emotions and paint beautiful pictures.



In FOUNTAIN OF SORROW, Browne goes one step further and uses the device of a lost photograph to lead the listener into an exploration of the sorrow caused by a lost love:

Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you
There were one or two I know that you would have liked a little more
But they didn’t show your spirit quite as true.

Of special note is the reversed image in this line: I was taken by a photograph of you. Normally, we take photographs, we are not taken by them. Browne then goes on to describe the moment when the photographer releases the shutter and captures an image that will live on, even after the moment has passed:

You were turning round to see who was behind you
And I took your childish laughter by surprise
And at the moment that my camera happened to find you
There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes.

The rest of the song develops parallel themes of sex and nothingness, fantasy and realism, as Browne, looking at the photograph of a former lover, recalls: When you see through love's illusion, their lies the danger/And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool/So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger." In the chorus, highly romanticized sexuality becomes a "fountain of sorrow, fountain of light."

For all of you who love photography, for all of you who enjoy reading a good poem and for all of you who have loved and lost, and loved again, here are the entire lyrics to FOUNTAIN OF SORROW. Enjoy!

Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you
There were one or two I know that you would have liked a little more
But they didn’t show your spirit quite as true

You were turning round to see who was behind you
And I took your childish laughter by surprise
And at the moment that my camera happened to find you
There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes

Now the things that I remember seem so distant and so small
Though it hasn’t really been that long a time
What I was seeing wasn’t what was happening at all
Although for a while, our path did seem to climb
But when you see through loves illusions, there lies the danger
And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool
So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger
While the loneliness seems to spring from your life
Like a fountain from a pool

Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
You’ve known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
You’ve had to hide sometimes, but now you’re all right
And its good to see your smiling face tonight

Now for you and me it may not be that hard to reach our dreams
But that magic feeling never seems to last
And while the futures there for anyone to change, still you know its seems
It would be easier sometimes to change the past
I’m just one or two years and a couple of changes behind you
In my lessons at loves pain and heartache school
Where if you feel too free and you need something to remind you
There’s this loneliness springing up from your life
Like a fountain from a pool

Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
You’ve known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight

You’ve had to hide sometimes but now you’re all right
And its good to see your smiling face tonight

Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
You’ve known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
You’ve had to struggle, you’ve had to fight
To keep understanding and compassion in sight
You could be laughing at me, you’ve got the right
But you go on smiling so clear and so bright