Not Waving but Drowning Not Drowning, Waving takes their name from the poem. The underground '90s emo-hardcore act I Hate Myself recorded a song with the same name on their album 10 Songs. A track on Julian Cope's 1991 album "Peggy Suicide" was titled "Not Raving but Drowning" after the poem. The poem was also set to music by singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt on his debut album Little with a spoken introduction from a Stevie Smith recording. Singer and songwriter Tanita Tikaram set the poem to music in her song titled "Not Waving but Drowning" which appeared as a b-side to her single "I Might
The Highwayman (poem) in the pines gave me the first line." The poem was completed in about two days. The poem makes effective use of vivid imagery to describe surroundings; plus repetitious phrases to create the sense of a horseman riding at ease through the rural darkness to a lovers' tryst and soldiers marching down the same road to ambush him. "The Highwayman" is reputed to be "the best narrative poem in existence for oral delivery". Almost half a century later, Noyes wrote, "I think the success of the poem... was because it was not an artificial composition, but was written at an