The Death of the Poet

At the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest, one of the most surprising, fresh entries was that of the Hungarian band AWS, with their “metalcore” song, Viszlát Nyár (Goodbye, Summer). What caught one’s attention, besides the attractiveness of the piece (within the confines of the genre), was the raw emotion and energy of the song and of the performance. Fittingly so, since the lyrics, written by the band’s front man, Örs Siklósi, had autobiographical connotations, speaking (in metaphorical terms) about the recent passing of his father:

Goodbye summer, you’re too late now;
because you lied to me that you’d be mine,
but you never came!

Bittersweet, poetic, raw, angry, sincere – all these sentiments and states expressed through the fitting musical language of the “metalcore” style.

While I must confess that this isn't a musical style with which I am very familiar, or that I commonly listen to, I really liked the band and the song – which led me to look into their other works, as well. And thus I listened to their two most recent albums, Kint a Vízből (Out of the Water, 2016, YouTube, Spotify) and Fekete Részem (My Dark Dimension, 2018, YouTube, Spotify).

And what I discovered upon listening to these albums was - to my delight – a band that truly tries to “make art” (again, within what one could call the rather narrow confines of the genre). This is especially true in what concerns the lyrics of their songs (and you can find their English translation here), lyrics that, in a manner quite seldom encountered nowadays in popular music, are quite lyrical (and intentionally so). And this is precisely one of the things that is most sorely lacking from contemporary pop music - the lyrical quality; and also one of the reasons why current popular music seems so pedestrian, empty, meaning-less and forgettable - because of a lyrical poverty reflected in their minuscule vocabulary, a the lack of a mastery of the language, and in a vulgarity that often verges on the pornographic.

Yet the high model of popular music should be (must be!) something along the lines of the works of a Leonard Cohen, a Simon & Garfunkel, a Bob Dylan, a Van Morrison, or even the Beatles – all of whom, at their best, created sung poetry. And a song that is not poetic is just… banal, passable, forgettable. And thus the landscape of current popular music is quite unlivable – which is why actually encountering an artistic, poetic endeavor, in such a barren landscape, feels like stumbling upon fresh water in the Sahara.

Yes, this is why it was so refreshing and enlivening to find (even within a fairly constricted musical genre) a true attempt to make art  - and to do it consciously, intentionally, in an intelligent and literate way, and daring to speak about the important things. Of course, one could find a number of youthful faults in these two albums, as well: a bit of emotional immaturity, of hormonal revolt, maybe some self-serving sentimentalism - all of these fully understandable, given the band members' young age. But what stands out from their music are not these minor lacunae – but what transcends what could be expected from a band of this type, and of their age range. For example: yes, one finds in their songs the genre-typical tone of social critique - yet here it is a critique that does not simply parrot some vacuous "anti-system" clichés, but almost always points further, at a deeper, personal pursuit of the (existential) truth – ultimately pointing toward the core question of, “how should I live?” (And that is a sign of maturity, an intellectual-poetic maturity dearly missing from popular culture today.)

It also helps that the words often have a metaphysical dimension, or ramification, as well – proving again that they come from a personal search for the truth, and for authentic existence; and not from a mindless repetition of clichés.

And the author of most of the lyrics - and thus the one whose personal existential quest seems to be reflected in these songs - is none other than the band's front man and singer, Siklósi Örs [in Hungarian the family name comes first]. And the biographical snippets that we have about Örs seem to confirm the personal and artistic depth reflected in these lyrics. And thus it was quite moving and joy-giving for me to discover a young artist – a new young poet - who is in the process of keeping the flame of poetry (and the pursuit of art) alive, in the mostly arid field of contemporary popular music - and also to see them endow a relatively shallow musical genre with unexpected poetic-existential depth.

In my mind, therefore, Siklósi Örs appeared as a worthy successor – of course, at a much reduced scale, and within a more modest artistic context - of the young rebel poets of the late nineteenth century (Rimbaud, Baudelaire etc). 

And then, many months later, I learned – and it was truly a shock to learn – of the passing of Siklósi Örs, aged only 29, as a consequence of leukemia. “Viszlát, nyár!” And it did hurt to learn this, as much as it hurts to hear of the passing of any real poet, of any true (if only budding) artist – of anyone who tries keeps the flame of what matters alive, and thus inevitably becomes a carrier of this light within the world. I am thinking of people like Leonard Cohen, Norm MacDonald… whose deaths hit unusually hard because they were true artists, true... poets. And so it was in the case of Örs, as well.   

I leave you with another outstanding piece from the band – perhaps their most poetic piece, and musically perhaps my favorite. In the lyrics to this song Örs uses the familiar images and sensations of an early morning city bus ride (or metro ride), to reflect and to inquire into his own existential state - and the state of the others.