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David Gilmour records a setting of the famous sonnet – the one about comparing thee – afloat upon a river It starts with an octave leap, then down a semitone-and-tone: eight and six; octave, sestet – clever, but not Shakespeare The tune is like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star but slightly jumbled and with an insistent shift to the relative minor, though not as often as I remember when I play it back inside my head There’s no guitar and the reverb is excessive, but I listen obsessively all day; at the end of the day, I don’t remember the middle of the sonnet or the melody in order And thee is nondescript and impersonal and intimate, and language is transcendent only up to a given point An ageing rocker is singing on a boat upon a river and thou art gone as unused grammar in the mouths of lovers