Today's musical setting is Carl Sandburg's short ambiguous poem about a strong-dreaming woman. The reader is left to decide, why the poem's Chick Lorimer is gone. Has she left with her flags flying high? Or is the poem's seeming praise of many lovers and her uninhibited nature hiding a more complex relationship with the town? As a singing performer of this poem I had to decide, and went with the more complex interpretation.
The Parlando Project combines various words (usually literary poetry) with original music in different styles. We've done over 750 such combinations and you can find more at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org