I've never had an interest in poetry, nor do I profess to have any real skill in interpreting it. Despite this, I can identify and appreciate good poetry in popular culture. Who didn't, for example, go out and buy a book of William Blake's poems after watching Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man? Or trawl through Robert Browning's 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came' for a fix during the six year drought between Stephen King's 'The Waste Lands' and 'Wizards and Glass'? In my youth, the majority of my experiences with poetry were more prosaic. Back in 1991, I recall being tasked with analysing a poem for my Year 11 English class, and instead wrote an essay on Paul Hewson's 'Running to Stand Still' (otherwise known as Track 5 from U2's The Joshua Tree). When it comes to true poetry masquerading as song lyrics, however, nothing compares to the writing of Glenn Richards - lead singer of the Australian indie rock band Augie March.
Augie March's back catalogue is full of incredible music and Richards' indelible poetry. In their early days, their best songs focused on the life and musings of a twenty-something university student - 'Future Seal' (Thanks for the Memes, 1998) and 'Rich Girl' (Waltz, 1999), for instance. By the year 2000, Richards' lyrics had progressed onto more erudite topics. To pick their best songs from twenty plus years of recordings seems like an impossible (and pointless) task. Nevertheless, here are the Most Poetic Songs of Glenn Richards and Augie March.