Dick’s Picks: French Poetry Vinyl Anthologies

Dick’s Picks: This week our resident vinyl guru ‘Dick’ has decided to get a little metaphysical on yo’ ass with a selection of French poetry anthologies, ‘wot no rock, metal, prog or psych’ I hear you ask, what’s that got to do with music and why should we care?

Well, leaving aside the potential benefits of immersing yourself in 600 years worth of some of the finest literary culture, close inspection reveals that good ‘ol rock ‘n’ roll has been ransacking this particular branch of literature for years; from the symbolist poets Verlaine and Rimbaud who provided the name for Television’s Tom Verlaine and were oft quoted in the lyrics of Dylan “mine have been like Verlaine’s and Rimbauds”, and if that’s not enough consider if you will the words of that infamous debauched libertine Charles Baudelaire who once proclaimed “personally, I think that the unique and supreme delight lies in the certainty of doing ‘evil‘–and men and women know from birth that all pleasure lies in evil”….whoah! Stitch that Pete Doherty…..rock and, err indeed, roll!