Swan song
- Swan Song is also:
- the name of a novel by Robert R. McCammon; see Swan Song (novel)
- the name of a recording label, Swan Song Records, founded by Led Zeppelin
A swan song is a reference to an ancient and false belief that the Mute Swan (Cygnus olor) is completely mute during its lifespan, but may sing one heartbreakingly beautiful song just before it dies. An Orlando Gibbons madrigal states the legend thus:
- The silver swan, which, living, had no note,
- when Death approached, unlocked her silent throat.
- Leaning her breast upon the reedy shore,
- thus sung her first and last and sung no more.
The antiquity of the legend is indicated by Pliny the Elder's denial of it in A.D. 77. (Pliny's Natural History, book 10, chapter xxxii: olorum morte narratur flebilis cantus, falso, ut arbitror, aliquot experimentis, "observation shows that the story that the dying swan sings is false"). Not only do "mute" swans not sing as they die, but they produce snorts, shrill noises, grunts, and hisses throughout life. But the legend is so appealing that it has been used in artistic works over the centuries. Chaucer wrote of "The Ialous swan, ayens his deth that singeth"[1]. In Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Portia declaims "Let music sound while he doth make his choice;/Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,/Fading in music."[2].
Tennyson's poem "The Dying Swan" is a poetic evocation of the beauty of the supposed song and so full of detail as to imply that he had actually heard it:
- The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul
- Of that waste place with joy
- Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear
- The warble was low, and full and clear; ...
- But anon her awful jubilant voice,
- With a music strange and manifold,
- Flow’d forth on a carol free and bold;
- As when a mighty people rejoice
- With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold...
By extension, swan song has become an idiom referring to a final theatrical or dramatic appearance, or any final work or accomplishment. For example, Franz Schubert's collection of songs, published in his year of death, 1828, is known as the Schwanengesang (German for "swan song").
It generally carries the connotation that the performer is aware of his or her imminent demise (or retirement) and is expending his or her last breath on one magnificent final effort.
An example of a swan song is Freddie Mercury's song "The Show Must Go On", written and performed while he was dying of AIDS.