I heard the news today that U.S. flags fly at half-mast for Dolly Parton passed away and I admit that in the past I found her songs embarrassed me D-I-V-O-R-C-E and Jolene – Coat of Many Colours seemed mawkish to my younger self Country Music as a whole I deemed outside my broad musical taste but life rubbed off my sharp edges and the spangled Queen of Country serious, caring voice came to articulate the various emotions whether experienced or vicarious that make us human, empathetic, emotional creatures Dolly, for me, joined Dickens and Steinbeck Vonnegut, Irving and Heller Woody and Johnny Billie, Bessie and Patsy in weaving strands of social history binding them with music from folk, blues and bluegrass, Appalachian, rock and pop – winning me over whole-heartedly – collaborators like Linda and Emmylou blended their voices with Dolly’s in sweetest harmony so today I can but weep that the fate that comes to all of us eventually has placed another star in the firmament…
I wrote this on Wednesday when the sad news of Dolly Patron’s death was announced but I am sharing it with dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night hosted by Grace. Apart from anything else, it is a tale of how one grows and matures and reaches different understandings…
There are songs too sad for me to sing to sing that is, without tearing up and who can wait for the singer to recover and compose themselves sufficiently to continue…
At first there was just one song I couldn’t manage Elvis Presley’s “In the Ghetto” – I could listen but when I tried to sing it -my throat closed and my eyes watered – I could not perform
As years go by more songs are added to the canon of those I cannot get through without weeping and often I cannot listen either – are they songs of mourning, laments, requiems
nothing so formal, but tales of the human condition the mere brevity of which is tragedy enough, or the near impossibility of finishing a shared life at exactly the same moment…
Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colours” might be considered kitsch if it were not true or true enough and I weep to hear the sweetness of her sometime collaborator Linda Ronstadt who has lost her voice to Parkinson’s and sings only within the loving circle of family. The exquisitely sad songs of Charlie Dore – a woman pretending her lover lives on the other side of the world in “Australia” so as not to acknowledge his abandonment – he must be sleeping while she endures the day… The rubato moments when Patsy Cline’s rich voice almost catches, falters, as it lays down the tragic tales of loss, longing and betrayal sung to cheerful melodies that belie the sentiment. Joni Mitchell wishing for a “River” to skate away on surely the saddest Christmas song Billie Holiday singing “Strange Fruit” a lump rises in my throat even as I write and to think of all those who left us too soon their lives driven, and driven down, by the need to perform, entertain, be loved… Janis Joplin, Nick Drake, Prince John Lennon, Jim Morrison Ian Dury who sang of “Sweet Gene Vincent” “Young, and old, and gone…” so many more…
These are the singers and musical moments that undo me…
I used to say that I listened to sad music when I was happy and that happy songs could elevate my lower moods but boundaries blur and I see poignancy everywhere and there are songs too sad for me to sing…
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, merrildsmith in Poetics invites us to write about music and this is also the theme for next month’s meeting of my “in the real world” local library poetry group…
Bradford is this year’s City of Culture and as one of the events of the festival, this morning, in time to greet the sunset, except it dawned cloudy and cooler than of late, some 300 people assembled in the quarry next to the Cow and Calf above Ilkley and on the edge of Ilkley Moor for the start of The Bradford Progress. However, far from the popular song in the title of this piece, we were treated to Handel’s ‘Eternal Source of Light Divine performed by 27 members of Paraorchestra and a Counter-Tenor, the falsetto song commanding absolute hush. Mindful that one can’t fully appreciate or be present for live a performance whilst videoing it, I took only a short sample of the performance.
Then, the Commoners Choir took over. Based in Leeds and led by Boff Whalley, former guitarist in Chumbawumba, the Leeds punk/anarchist band catapulted to unexpected fame with their chart hit “Tubthumping“, which is not a song about drinking but the resilience of the Working Class (“He gets knocked down, but he gets up again…”). I was too taken with listening to the choir harmonies this morning to really take in the lyrics but I heard a reference to Noam Chomsky…
The choir were then going to walk across Ilkley Moor to continue with a series of performances across today and tomorrow culminating in Millenium Square, Bradford.
In other news, my friend and poetry collaborator, Melissa Lemay, who runs an online Journal called Collaborature, published an interview with me that we recorded a few weeks ago. As an experiment, she recorded our Zoom call and then had the AI integrated with Zoom, transcribe it. This worked in so far as it kept track of our separate voices, and was surprisingly accurate and yet there were many misheard words that made editing quite arduous for her and she had to refer a few passages back to me for clarification. You can read the interview here.
My taste in music is eclectic but there is some music which locates my roots as such with fusion rock & classical electric screaming guitar solos and no small touch of sexy female vocals singing of “Back Street Luv” to 60’s Pop it was emetic Prog Rock group Curved Air their singer fresh from being in “Hair” pulls me back to teenage years and this, though compilations may be infra dig,this is the sound and album cover that I love not least because I’ve flown in just such an one and might have seen in heavens above A Rainbow in Curved Air from which this band derived their name.
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Mish in Poetics invites us to pick a favourite album cover and write an Ekphrastic poem…
This album by Curved Air was released during a twenty-year quiet period for the band and I love it because it is a great compilation that has blasted from my car speakers on many a drive but also because, in the 1970’s, I flew in a De Haviland Tiger Moth biplane as featured on the album cover – what’s not to like. If you are unlucky enough not to know the meaning of Prog Rock – you could do worse than jump into this album – volume as high as your speakers can immerse you…
I fell in love with Alice no, not Alice in Wonderland nor through the looking glass though this Alice famously admired her reflection in shop windows as she walked down the town.
She was not the girl next door eponymous heroine of the bereft Smokie who could not face a life without her nor the Alice in the driving White Rabbit pounded out by Jefferson Airplane – rather it was the plaintive harmonies of the McGarrigle sisters reviving a parlour song about a young girl wearing her favourite blue gown for the first time.
Little did I know that this Alice was no homely teenager but an American Princess daughter of a President denied her name for the tragic loss of her mother due to childbirth her father, Teddy, unable to bear his newborn daughter’s namesake she was condemned to be called Baby Lee until years later her father soothed by a new wife and five more children.
A feisty girl and woman Alice Roosevelt smoked and shot at Telegraph poles from moving trains but I prefer to think of the gentler image of the girl in the song in her Alice Blue Gown “Till wilted I wore it I’ll always adore it My sweet little Alice blue gown…”
Sometimes knowledge comes in the strangest, most roundabout way…
This morning I started my day with my usual routine – that means flicking through my social media and emails before settling down to read “Letter from an American” from the incomparable political historian Heather Cox Richardson who writes daily on current political affairs in America seen through the lens of the history of that country. Yesterday was Valentine’s Day and Ms Richardson chose to take the day off and spend it with her husband Buddy who is a fisherman and instead of – as she sometimes does on such a holiday – posting a photograph, she re-posted what she tells us is her favourite ever post – a very sad Valentine’s Day tale about Theodore Roosevelt. You can find Richardson’s posts either on Facebook or on Substack where she has 1.4 million subscribers and if you join them, then you can, like me, get her posts delivered to your inbox every morning. At present, she is experimenting with podcasting so that you can hear her reading this particular piece here.
The tale she tells is of how on Valentine’s Day 1884, Theodore Roosevelt lost both his mother, to typhoid and his wife to what was probably a strep infection within hours of each other. His beloved wife Alice, had delivered a daughter, their first child, just two days before. Theodore was so bereft that he never spoke or allowed anyone to speak of Alice again, and though his daughter bore her mother’s name was known as Baby Lee rather than Alice. Theodore was already a reformer by nature, but the death of his mother and wife to diseases of the poor – rife in the overcrowded conditions of the time and at odds with the riches of The Gilded Age which was then in full swing – confirmed Theodore’s determination to bring about change – but not before escaping to Dakota Territory to try ranching as a way of burying his grief over Alice. Following a disastrously cold winter in 1886-7, Theodore returned to politics with new determination, and the rest, as they say, is history.
What Ms Richardson did not mention, however, was what became of Alice aka Baby Lee. So curiosity piqued, I turned to Wikipedia who had a satisfyingly comprehensive article on Alice Roosevelt Longworth. Roosevelt eventually married for a second time and gave Alice five half-brothers and sisters and whilst her initial reaction to her stepmother was not the easiest as is so often the case with Step-relations, Alice eventually came to hold her in great respect.
Alice grew up to be a socialite, renowned wit and a bit of a clothes horse, which as the daughter of the now President, she could afford to indulge. So much so that the song “My Alice Blue Gown” was written about her. Now I confess to being a sucker for what we Brits call Victorian and Edwardian Parlour Songs but which for Americans would be Parlour songs from The Gilded Age and “My Alice Blue Gown” is a favourite as rendered by The McGarrigle Sisters.
So there you go, a connection that I never expected to find…
And if you are American or indeed anyone worried about the prospect of a second term of Trump, you can find some very qualified hope in Letter from American. I imagine that in choosing this title for her blog, Heather Cox Richardson might have been paying homage to Alastair Cooke’s Letter from America and if she was, then I for one name her a worthy successor…
The Poetry Postcard Fest is a challenge which encourages poets to write an unedited poem on a postcard and send it to a stranger. Organised by the Cascadia Poetics Lab, who organise the participants into lists of 31 + yourself for you to address your offerings to. This was my first year and hearing about it just in time to register, I was on List 15. The lists are sent out in early July and you have until the end of August to send out your missives – to date I have received 20 of 31 possibles and now that we are into September, it is allowable to share the cards and poems you sent and the cards but not the poems you received. I will share these in the order of sending and I will miss out those which I have not yet received in case they arrive soon… Although the original poem is to be sent as written – crossings out, blots and all, I have typed them out for people who can’t read my writing and I am allowing myself to edit if I feel like it…
Dear Christopher
Can you surf in the Gulf on the outer edge of the Keys is there enough fetch to raise waves suitable for surfing and which way does the wind blow or is it calm enough to paddleboard- the latest craze! I took these brightly coloured boards at St. Ives in Cornwall where surf and art mix I thought they were surf boards but looking now I am unsure perhaps kayaks – another way to breast the brine I savoured their beauty in the sun too old to try them out…
Christopher’s poem was a fine metaphor of the various times of data, and night, on the peaks, seen as music – perfectly prompted by his card – Maurice Baquet playing Chamber Music…
Love is in the air and is intoxicating as the fumes of brandy in a glass balloon it wafts beyond the happy pairs of lovers rekindling memories of a younger age re-living and reeling with heady recall
Three grandsons now perhaps have found their matches and you know when talk turns to children and which football tribe they should be raised in that these are keepers
I have never been to a match and been drunk on shared passion in a huge crowd but watching a film whilst waiting to meet the latest and last to join the set, we shared the intimacy of lovers in Portrait of a Lady on Fire
A camera takes us to the heart of an orchestra in concert with a closeness to each player’s breath and movement as they embrace their instruments to pull on our heartstrings and film likewise grants us close-ups of couples we would never see in real life our neighbours love lives hidden in semi-detached suburban rooms separate, unknowable, ineffable no matter how openly the rest of our proximate lives are lived was it different in the warm fug of tribal longhouses lovemaking couples as close as the next cocooning hammock?
Children don’t care to imagine their parents making love imagining they are beyond all that however deep the love they daily show and parents don’t dare to imagine their children either the perils of the heart the baton passed but when love is in the air for those lucky enough to have roots deep in the rich soil of happy parents there is the hope of templating happy families to come
Such open-hearted boys have not escaped without venturing up blind alleys at least two have had songs of heartbreak loss and bewilderment plucked painfully on their heartstrings before finding their way safely to harbour in calmer but still deep water after storm-tossed seas
I held those boys as babies drew or close-up photographed their sleeping faces turned their living-room into a fort, cave, nest or whatever their imagination could conjure from the jumble of throws and giant cushions taught them the love of the pun witnessed tantrums and triumphs watched football from the sidelines, school and scout uniforms gowns and mortarboards how could I not be drawn along in the wake of their love lives dropping away like the pilot boat waving up to the after-deck as I slow down and they gather pace on their own voyages of love
The calmness and Giaconda smile of one, the bubbling enthusiasm of another perfume from Morrocco the first impression throwing one off the scent of the depths of a doctor the brightness and humanity of all of them grandsons and girlfriends alike mingling as a family dancing in ever closer union my head spins and my heartstrings resonate simply on the fumes as love is in the air.
When successful singer and writer of songs Harry Nilsson schmoosed his foray into the Great American Songbook he little knew it would ruin his career.
A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night was a decade before such sentimental standards would slip down easily sumptuously with the richness of a cocktail knowingly too sweet but too delicious to pass up.
The ninth album following a trail of hit songs embedded in each one nothing prepared his fans for this shift in pace and orchestrations that out Hollywooded Hollywood.
Frank Sinatra’s arranger sewed the songs together slipping seamlessly from track to track in a welter of schmaltz that should make us sick but succeeds In pulling at our heartstrings.
All the emotional tricks of film scores with swooping glissandos of silvery strings dramatic pauses and sudden quietening that make way for heart-rending lyrics.
I can’t recall When or where Nilson whispered pure emotion in my ears or the joy of rediscovering this iced gem decades after Nilsson bombed his career.
Wikipedia told me the sorry tale but I was too awash with the joy of rediscovery to truly sympathise and if there is a heaven then he is surely there and I hope he hears my tribute and my sincere judgement that this beauty was simply ahead of its time…
Intro Lazy Moon For Me and My Gal It Had to be You Always Makin’ Whoopee You Made Me Love You Lullaby in Ragtime I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now What’ll I Do Nevertheless (I’m in Love With You) This is All I Ask As Time Goes By I’m Always Chasing Rainbows Make Believe Trust in Me It’s Only a Paper Moon Thanks for the Memory Over the Rainbow Outro
Written for a musical evening over at dVerse – Poetics – The Poet’s Pub where tonight the theme is Musical Muses, hosted this evening by msjadeli…
A brief video through the car windscreen in the Morrocan village of Ifraden…
This is my second year n the A2Z Challenge (2021) and this year I am determined to go on the Road Trip in which participants visit some of the blogs they haven’t managed to see during April – the month of itself. If you want to make your own exploration of this year’s Challenge, here is the Masterlist. I wanted to start with an image of a road trip that I had taken myself rather than one plucked from the ether – since you can hear my partner and I chatting as she films and I drive, it may amuse…
First up is The Sound of One Hand Typing, where John Holton treated us to Top Ten charts from various US and Canadian radio stations since radio is unique in its ephemeral nature and although there are not many sources of recorded airplay, there are lists of playlists and top tens – great for music buffs and radio aficionados…
More than Words took book reviews as it’s theme for the A2Z and the thing which makes book reviews interesting, is what they tell you about the reviewer as much as the books themselves, both through the selections they make, and the things they write about them. Pooja Jagtiaani is, as far as I can tell from her site, Indian and some of the books she has chosen for the A2Z Challenge are definitely from an India heritage but many are very cosmopolitan – they are well written reviews and if you want to add to your TBR list – try this blog out and see whether you like Pooja’s taste…
hdhstory is a writer’s blog – Harvey Heilbrun is a retired school teacher who the input of ideas from his former charges. He goes to writing groups and generates flash fiction from them and writing at home. I found the pieces I looked at intriguing but reading is such a subjective thing – you must make up your own mind.
