Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Daffodils Rap

Wordsworth’s famous poem, Daffodils (below), has been revamped as a rap tune and video, featuring a man in a giant squirrel costume known as MC Nuts. The idea is to connect the Cumbria Tourist Board with the “YouTube generation.”

I don’t mind the idea of setting the poem to music, even though they’ve mangled the words in the process. But I wish they hadn’t used the mascot squirrel. That’s just naff.

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:-
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed-and gazed-but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.

3 comments:

Matt Merritt said...

It's a bizarre looking squirrel too.

Ben Wilkinson said...

You're completely right, Rob: this might have been permissible, even enjoyable, if it weren't for some guy in a squirrel costume parading about. 'MC Nuts, better known as Sam'. Better known as?!

Rob said...

Yes, I saw someone at another blog commenting that any site which surrounds words like "rap" and "hip-hop" with inverted commas (sic) will never be able to make the youth culture connection it so wants. Very true!