Their Library: Mike Scott

The Waterboys leader on his love of Yeats

Having led The Waterboys on a profoundly varied career, Mike Scott must rank as one of Britain’s most under-rated songwriters.

Sure, he has dallied with chart success but it seems that critical recognition often overlooks the Edinburgh born musician. Remaining at the helm of The Waterboys, Mike Scott has just completed a very personal – and utterly fascinating – new album.

‘An Appointment With Mr Yeats’ has been more than two decades in the making. A outspoken admirer of the Irish poet WB Yeats, Mike Scott first attempted to place his words to music with ‘The Stolen Child’ on the ‘Pagan Place’ album.

Sparking an idea in the songwriter’s mind, Mike Scott began planning a full length dissection of Yeats’ work. Using his ‘Complete Poems’ as a guide, the songwriter began setting the writer’s music to music.

Collected on their new album, The Waterboys add a fresh dimension to Yeats’ output. Set to be released on September 19th, Mike Scott sat down with ClashMusic for a special instalment of ‘Their Library’…

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When did you first come across the poetry of WB Yeats?
I remember my mother speaking his name in awed tones, as if he was The One True Poetic Master, when I was ten or eleven. I noted then that his name was pronounced to rhyme with “great”. This didn’t seem a coincidence.

What were your first impressions of his output?
The first of his poems I remember reading was News For The Delphic Oracle. I loved it, didn’t really understand it, but was transported by the landscape he painted with words, and by the awesome invocation of Pan that happens in the third verse.

How did you relate to his spiritual concerns?
I didn’t conceive of anything like that when I first read Yeats. Later I returned to the poetry and appreciated the depth of soul in his work, and the absence of conventional religious thought. He was free of conventional conditioning, like all true poets should be!

Have you developed an interest in the poet’s political beliefs?
Not deeply, no. I’m more interested in the poetry than the man’s personal beliefs. I know his beliefs informed the poetry but I don’t feel a need to probe the backstory as it were, and find out what Yeats thought about the issues of his day. I also think there’s a lot of bull talked about Yeats’ beliefs by people who either have no idea (members of the public repeating stuff they’ve heard or read once without having researched or even properly understood it) or who have an agenda (biographers pushing their own hobby horses). So I steer clear of all that and keep my eye on the poetry.

Yeats had an innate musicality, is that something you responded to?
Yes. Many of his poems are distinctly musical. They have internal rhythm, they rhyme, they deploy words in a precise and colourful way that rolls off the tongue and lends itself to the rise and fall and play of melody. And all of it is done with an exquisite and sublime mastery. He really is a great poet and the act of setting him to music has been one of the choicest musical thrills of my life – and a privilege; to work with lyrics of Yeats’ quality is a wonderful experience. In setting them to music I tried to create a sonic version of the imaginal landscape the lyrics create in my kind.

You have used WB Yeats lyrics before, how influential has he been on your own work?
You mean on my own lyrics? I’ve never thought of this. Probably a little, but I haven’t noticed.

What keeps drawing you back to his poetry?
The fact that so much of it lends itself to music and melody. And he wrote so many fine poems I seem always to be able to find another one to work on.

WB Yeats published extensively, how did you begin forming your favourite poems for the new album?
I work from a copy of his Complete Poems, and there are over 600 of them. I propped the book on the piano and worked from page one right through to the end. If the first line of a poem suggested a melody I kept working on it. If it didn’t I passed on to the next one. I didn’t favour my favourite poems; I tried them all. The work is bigger than my personal preferences. Going through the whole book takes several weeks and I’ve done it numerous times over a period of many years.

How easily did the poems lend themselves to a musical setting?
Some of them come almost automatically, other have to be fought for, and some – many in fact – don’t work at all. If a poem isn’t written in precise metre and doesn’t use rhyme, it won’t be turned into a song as easily or, in my opinion, as well.

Did you find new meanings emerging from the arrangements?
I wouldn’t say “new” meanings, but my personal relationship with each poem deepens through the act of working with them. I have an emotional entanglement with each of the lyrics on An Appointment With Mr Yeats and yes, these deepen the more I sing them. It was necessary for me, as part of the process, to have such an entanglement with every song, so I could inhabit it authentically.

Were you forced to leave any poems off the album due to time restraints etc?
No. I had twenty years to develop this record; sufficient time to do exactly what I wanted. Nothing’s missing, nothing’s uncooked. The record is exactly as I choose.

Did you edit the poems at all?
Yes. Sometimes I compiled two poems to make a song. Sometimes I left out a verse. But mostly I made very small changes; a word here or there, a subtle alteration for the sake of rhythm or comprehension (ie removing a word no longer in common usage). But I worked with strict rules: never to alter Yeats’ meaning or intention, and never to impose a foreign piece of content. I’ve heard other people do some questionable things with Yeats. Van Morrison did one of the best Yeats’ interpretations when he set the poem Crazy Jane On God to music – that’s a beauty (on his Philosopher’s Stone album) – but he also did one of the worst. His version of Before The World Was Made includes a verse he wrote himself which changes the sense and meaning of the poem. And his words weren’t a patch on Yeats’.

How relevant do you feel Yeats’ work is towards modern society?
Great poetry is timeless. Because Yeats’ work speaks to the human soul its essence can never go out of date.

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‘An Appointment With Mr Yeats’ is set to be released on September 19th.

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