Song to the Siren

Song to the Siren is the best of Larry Beckett's lyrics of the past fifty years, conceived as poems that can be sung. Most have been set to music and recorded. It includes every kind of lyric: ode, cycle, carol, hymn, ballad, serenade, erotica, blason, aria, blues, lullaby, elegy. Song to the Siren itself, written with Tim Buckley in the sixties, is a modern standard, recorded by This Mortal Coil, Robert Plant, Bryan Ferry, George Michael, Sinead O'Connor, Kitty Macfarlane, and over a hundred other musicians. It's been played in a number of film soundtracks: Moonlight Mile, Lost Highway, The Lovely Bones, Justice League. This is its first publication. The book includes an appendix with music sources and recording history for each lyric, and an essay on the genesis of Song to the Siren.