(no subject)
My wandering around YouTube has illustrated the old maxim perfectly. The fact that you can put words to Holst's Thaxted doesn't mean you should, unless the words fit the rhythm of that lovely piece of music. Equally, the fact that you can set Blake to music doesn't mean you should, unless the music renders the words singable which God knows Jerusalem does not. But bad musical fits seem to be a tradition unhappily transported into the English-speaking world. Cf To Anacreon in Heaven, a song utterly unsingable even when drunk and more so when sober.