Karim Al-Zand: Music: Four Not So Serious Songs

Four Not So Serious Songs

four songs for baritone & piano

Four Not So Serious Songs comprise light-hearted settings of two poems by Robert Graves (1895–1985) and two by me.

In This Song is Going to End our poor singer faces a looming existential crisis. An intemperate child protests his lot in Careers, a song which takes the form of a school-yard taunt. The nested structure of Warning to Children makes it a perfect poem for a patter song, its tripping rhythms spiraling down the page. Finally, So You Say is a gentle rebuke of melodramatic love songs, a parody of their romantic tropes.