Mispronouncing Anastasia by PCBender

Mispronouncing Anastasia

A waltz in E major at a clip that keeps threatening to leave the poetry seminar behind, ‘Mispronouncing Anastasia’ is one of the more genuinely clever things PCBender has put on tape. The conceit, a song about the craft of writing songs, crammed with the very devices it names (‘the simile a smile, the pterodactyl as metaphor’), could easily collapse into a clever-clever exercise, but the blues-rock swagger of the rhythm section keeps it grounded and physical. That harmonized guitar passage around the one-minute mark does real work, landing the kind of melodic statement that earns the six-plus minutes of runtime. At 6:44 it asks for patience, but the payoff, particularly in how the bridge lets the meter unravel on purpose, rewards the listeners who stay.

Lyrics

The cursor blinks impatiently, awaiting inspiration “Oh Calliope, not an apostrophe,” the inner critic chides A tone, a mood, some imagery - a lurking desperation The irony, an ode to me, and in the end he hides

The couplet’s scansion leaves its marks Chiasmus lights, Chiasmus darks

Mispronouncing Anastasia, read between the lines Trading feet with Cinderella, an ode that’s not yet free The simile a smile, the pterodactyl as metaphor An angry alliteration, the quill becomes allusion… Never more

Making nothing into thing - Oxymoron’s bold antithesis Volta comes when needed most, a light motif that draws me in Consonance, experience, and evidence of innocence Are used with rhyme and words to scheme, the craft that makes the song begin

The couplet’s scansion leaves its marks Chiasmus lights, Chiasmus darks

The rhyme dissolves, the rhythm fades Syntax begins to stray The meter sheds its borrowed cage And meaning walks away

Credits

Songwriter: Michael Anthony Rose