This "poem" is a monologue from the end of one of the most astonishing songs I have ever heard.
I first heard of Ren when a friend Whatsapp’ed me eight or nine months ago encouraging me to check him out.
Of course, in our attention-deficit age, I said I would and then forgot.
Alan messaged me again two or three months later: "Did you check out Ren?"
I remembered that I had not and, now reminded, I clicked the link.
The word masterpiece is overused. The word great has been devalued.
“Hi Ren” is pure, unadulterated greatness, an absolute masterpiece.
It is one of several that Ren, a young Welsh songwriter, singer, guitarist, storyteller, rapper, poet, has released on YouTube and Spotify over the past year. At the time I release this podcast he is in Canada, receiving treatment for the illnesses and conditions that have had such a profound effect on his life. He is, as I say these words, without a music label. He is an artist of the future, doing things his way, embracing the freedom and possibility of the Internet, and finding a community that loves and cherishes him dearly.
Sinead O’Connor, the vastly talented and tormented Irish singer-songwriter who died earlier in 2023, praised Ren in some of her last posts on Twitter, when she wrote:
“Every song and or artist in history even Willie Dixon, Chuck Berry, The Beatles, NWA, Ice Cube, and even Bob Dylan, is officially relegated to class B. As are every actor in history or legend: living or dead, male or female. We all are now defunct.”
Ren might be the voice of his generation, but in our weirdly disconnected and distressed times, his generation might well span people of all every age, every faith, every nationality.
If you’re listening to this and you have yet to hear Ren, please, please, please, go seek him out. Start with “Hi Ren”, a 9-minute performance that is so phenomenal that it feels weird to describe it as a song. From there, check out the full 13-minute version of The Tale of Jenny and Screech.
These words come at the end of Hi Ren, a spoken word poem that I’m calling “Eternal Dance”. And Ren, thank you for what you’re putting into the world.
When I was 17 years old I shouted out into an empty room, into a blank canvas, that I would defeat the forces of evil,
and for the next 10 years of my life I suffered the consequences...
With Illness, autoimmunity and psychosis
As I got older I realised that there were no real winners or no real losers in physiological warfare
But there were victims and there were students
It wasn’t David verses Goliath, it's was a pendulum eternally swaying between the dark and the light,
and the brighter the light shone, the darker the shadow it cast
It was never a battle for me to win, it was an eternal dance,
and like a dance, the more rigid I became the harder it got
The more I cursed my clumsy footsteps the more i suffered
And so I got older and I learned to relax, and I learned to soften, and that dance got easier
It is this eternal waltz that separates human beings from angels, from demons, from gods
And I must not forget, we must not forget, that we are human beings.
Experience "The Tale of Jenny and Screech" here
For a detailed outline of the mission and purpose behind this podcast, please check out Episode 100, "Why Poems for the Speed of Life?", in your podcast player or click here to listen on Spotify.
Subscribe to or follow the show for free wherever you listen to podcasts.
Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/ | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.co
