To put my two examples in context, neither the singer of It Takes a Worried Man, nor the reciter (bellower) of the Oz bush poem were stage performers. The singer used to be a member of our group of friends who have been gathering to play music for over 40 years. He never performed in front of the larger folk club or on stage, as far as I know.

The reciter of the poem was at the folk club but it was a call from the floor so those instances were the only time he recited poetry. He bellowed it with no sense of the content or emotions of the poem and no sense of the nuances of sound which could have expressed the poem as it was intended by the poet. There is a melody to a well-recited poem, even though it is spoken and not sung.

I agree with your comments, The Sandman 05 Sep 25 - 07:27 AM.

I have been bemoaning "these young pop song writers" (I'm getting old!) who do not know how to write a melody and just repeat the same boring line over and over and the same boring melodic lines. Examples for me are Watermelon Sugar by Harry Styles, and a song called Confidence by Ocean Alley. Both are played over the PA as background music at a place where I sometimes go for lunch. I had to actually ask one of the staff what the lyrics were in each song because I could barely decipher them, partially due to the background noises but also because of the poor diction of the singers.

Another song I have heard there which does work well for me is Hurtless by Dean Lewis. He has a story to tell, he has a good melody, good expression and diction, good singing and melodic abilities, and he conveys the emotion well. I don't know any of his other songs and I probably won't go out and buy his album but he performs that song well, in my opinion.