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Michael Jackson Records Pop Album of Robert Burns Poems

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CherubimII

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...-records-pop-album-of-Robert-Burns-poems.html
Michael Jackson records pop album of Robert Burns poems

Michael Jackson, the pop star, and friend David Gest have teamed up to record a bizarre pop album of Robert Burns' poems.



Last Updated: 1:44PM BST 27 Aug 2008

Michael-Jackson-2_784102f.jpg
Michael Jackson with Dame Elizabeth Taylor at the Royal Albert Hall Photo: PA



Gest, the former husband of Liza Minnelli, said they recorded the album at Jackson's studio in California with top recording artists, giving a 21st century twist to the Bard's lyrics.
Gest, a concert promoter and television personality, said that Jackson is in love with the poetry of Burns and helped pay for it to be put to music.
Scotland's national bard died in 1796 and his poems were described earlier this month by Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman as "sentimental doggerel".
But Gest, 55, believes his works are as relevant today as ever.
He said: "Our favourite poet in the world is Robbie Burns.
"Michael and I were originally going to do a musical on his life with Gene Kelly directing and Anthony Perkins as executive producer - but they both died.
"So Michael and I put all the poems to contemporary music in his studio in Encino.
"We did Ae Fond Kiss, Tam O'Shanter and all that. We turned his work into show tunes. It is beautiful and I still have the recordings.
"I am thinking more and more about bringing Red, Red Rose back to life because I went on that bridge when I was last in Scotland looking for Tam O'Shanter.
"I felt like I was a little kid looking for all those things Burns wrote about and the curator let me lay on the bed Burns slept in at his family home. The alarm went off. It was really surreal because Michael and I think of him as one of the most brilliant minds ever."
Paxman sparked fury after he dismissed Scotland's national bard Robert Burns as "no more than a king of sentimental doggerel" in the introduction to the new edition of Chambers Dictionary.
Paxman's derogatory description of the poet incensed Burns experts, with one leading scholar describing him as being both wrong and ill-informed.
 
haha this has got to be one of the weirdest things i've ever red but its cool Michael is a fan of Rabbie Burns as we call him :p
 
Interesting.... I'd want to hear that! But I fear the fate is the same as that Poe song... hidden in the drawer! lol
 
Some of Michael's plans for filming/musical or whatever last for like quarter of Century or something, hence no wonder many prospective stars die in the meantime.

It would be interesting to finally see something on that front, too. However, if the poetry is actually recorded, then it is unique event in itself.
 
It would be very cool, if it is true, but David Gest ... I think I remember he sometimes telling stories, one never can prove if they are true.

I hope it is. I want to listen to it. Michael loves art and he should do something in this way.
 
If true, I think its friggin awesome. And how about they use the word "intriguing" instead of bizarre once in a while. God Forbid an artists actually attempts art. yuck. MJ needs to go Indie. lol
 
I really hope this is true, I would love to hear this.

And to make this post relevant. I would love to hear Michael sing "O My Luve's Like A Red, Red Rose". There are many different choir versions, but I would love to see his take on it.[/quote]

So would I :yes:
 
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haha how random... but this is cool because my last name is burns. so this makes me smile :)
 
Ha! This has cracked me up, to think of MJ appreciating the old Scots language and sayings, I cant quite imagine it but its cool he likes Robert Burns.
 
This is interesting.

When I read this on the news thread, I wanted to know who was Robert Burns, really, because I hve never heard of him. So, I went on one of my favorite sites, google.

So, some of us know that he was a poet but maybe most people, like me, never read any of his work.

His Life:

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761575796/robert_burns.html

Robert Burns (1759-96), Scottish poet and writer of traditional Scottish folk songs, whose works are known and loved wherever the English language is read.

II Early Life

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Burns was born in Alloway, Ayrshire, January 25, 1759. He was the eldest of seven children born to William Burness, a struggling tenant farmer, and his wife, Agnes Broun. Although poverty limited his formal education, Burns read widely in English literature and the Bible and learned to read French. He was encouraged in his self-education by his father, and his mother acquainted him with Scottish folk songs, legends, and proverbs. Arduous farm work and undernourishment in his youth permanently injured his health, leading to the rheumatic heart disease from which he eventually died. He went in 1781 to Irvine to learn flax dressing, but when the shop burned down, he returned home penniless. He had, meanwhile, composed his first poems. The poet's father died in 1784, leaving him as head of the family. He and his brother Gilbert rented Mossgiel Farm, near Mauchline, but the venture proved a failure.

III First Vernacular Poems

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In 1784 Burns read the works of the Edinburgh poet Robert Fergusson. Under his influence and that of Scottish folk tradition and older Scottish poetry, he became aware of the literary possibilities of the Scottish regional dialects. During the next two years he produced most of his best-known poems, including “The Cotter's Saturday Night,””Hallowe'en,””To a Daisy,” and “To a Mouse.” In addition, he wrote “The Jolly Beggars,” a cantata chiefly in standard English, which is considered one of his masterpieces. Several of his early poems, notably “Holy Willie's Prayer,” satirized local ecclesiastical squabbles and attacked Calvinist theology, bringing him into conflict with the church.

IV Social Notoriety

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Burns further angered church authorities by having several indiscreet love affairs. In 1785 he fell in love with Jean Armour, the daughter of a Mauchline building contractor. Jean soon became pregnant, and although Burns offered to make her his wife, her father forbade their marriage. Thereupon (1786) he prepared to immigrate to the West Indies. Before departing he arranged to issue by subscription a collection of his poetry. Published on July 31 in Kilmarnock in an edition of 600 copies, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect was an immediate success. In September Burns abandoned the West Indies plan; the same month Jean became the mother of twins. He moved in the fall of 1786 to Edinburgh, where he was lionized by fashionable society. Charmed by Burns, the literati mistakenly believed him to be an untutored bard, a “Heavens-taught Plowman.” He resented their condescension, and his bristling independence, blunt manner of speech, and occasional social awkwardness alienated admirers.

While Burns was in Edinburgh, he successfully published a second, 3000-copy edition of Poems (1787), which earned him a considerable sum. From the proceeds he was able to tour (1787) the English border region and the Highlands and finance another winter in Edinburgh. In the meantime he had resumed his relationship with Jean Armour. The next spring she bore him another set of twins, both of whom died, and in April Burns and Armour were married.

In June 1788, Burns leased a poorly equipped farm in Ellisland, but the land proved unproductive. Within a year he was appointed to a position in the Excise Service, and in November 1791 he relinquished the farm.

V Later Songs and Ballads

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Burns's later literary output consisted almost entirely of songs, both original compositions and adaptations of traditional Scottish ballads and folk songs. He contributed some 200 songs to Scots Musical Museum (6 volumes, 1783-1803), a project initiated by the engraver and music publisher James Johnson. Beginning in 1792 Burns wrote about 100 songs and some humorous verse for Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs, compiled by George Thomson. Among his songs in this collection are such favorites as “Auld Lang Syne,””Comin' Thro' the Rye,””Scots Wha Hae,””A Red, Red Rose,””The Banks o' Doon,” and “John Anderson, My Jo.”

After the outbreak of the French Revolution, Burns became an outspoken champion of the Republican cause. His enthusiasm for liberty and social justice dismayed many of his admirers; some shunned or reviled him. After Franco-British relations began to deteriorate, he curbed his radical sympathies, and in 1794, for patriotic reasons, he joined the Dumfriesshire Volunteers. Burns died in Dumfries, July 21, 1796.

A memorial edition of Burn's poems was published for the benefit of his wife and children. Its editor, the physician James Currie, a man of narrow sympathies, represented the poet as a drunkard and a reprobate, and his biased judgment did much to perpetuate an unjustly harsh and distorted conception of the poet.

Burns touched with his own genius the traditional folk songs of Scotland, transmuting them into great poetry, and he immortalized its countryside and humble farm life. He was a keen and discerning satirist who reserved his sharpest barbs for sham, hypocrisy, and cruelty. His satirical verse, once little appreciated, has in recent decades been recognized widely as his finest work. He was also a master of the verse-narrative technique, as exemplified in “Tam o'Shanter.” Finally, his love songs, perfectly fitted to the tunes for which he wrote them, are, at their best, unsurpassed.

His Works:

http://www.robertburns.org/works/
 
Sounds interesting. :) It would be intriguing to see how it turns out to be.. if this is true. :lol: Would be This is the poem that was mentioned in the article..

[SIZE=+1]AE FOND KISS[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]by: Robert Burns (1759-1796)[/SIZE]

    • [SIZE=+2]
      a_pic.gif
      [/SIZE]      E fond kiss, and then we sever; Ae farewell, alas, for ever! Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee!
      Who shall say that Fortune grieves him While the star of hope she leaves him? Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me, Dark despair around benights me.
      I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy; Naething could resist my Nancy; But to see her was to love her, Love but her, and love for ever.
      Had we never loved sae kindly, Had we never loved sae blindly, Never met--or never parted, We had ne'er been broken-hearted.
      Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest! Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest! Thine be ilka joy and treasure, Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure!
      Ae fond kiss, and then we sever! Ae farewell, alas, for ever! Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee!


 
Interesting. That really would be wonderful to hear.
When my mother in law died she willed certain sentimental items to her children. One of them was a book of Robert Burns' poetry that was owned by my husband's father's family, who were scottish.
I love old-style poetry, though I sometimes find the scottish versions hard to understand.
 
so hes mike gonna like sing them? or just like i dont know "talk" them on the cd?
 
now I'm really disappointed theat it will not be realised. Michael and the poetry that fits together.
 
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