Welcome to Letters from Quotidia, 2024 Episode 6. Quotidia remains that space, that place, where ordinary people lead ordinary lives. But where, from time to time, they encounter the extraordinary. I didn’t much like the song I’m going to cover as the opener for this, the May letter, when I heard Bobby Darin’s version in 1966. But when I heard the original songwriter sing it off an LP I borrowed in college in 1968, well, that was a different story.
Back in the early sixties Dylan lauded him as the greatest living songwriter and- fun fact- the song in question, was written at controversial comedian Lenny Bruce’s home. Influential at the time and underrated now, Tim Hardin moved me- a teenager learning the craft of songwriting in my room in a now demolished Belfast college. If I Were A Carpenter was just one of the songs I learned 56 years ago as I jammed with other budding guitarists and writers in that hall of residence. Now, I’m recording it for the first time! And time now to reflect on the strange and twisting paths that life lays out for each of us.
The greatest living songwriter today is Bob Dylan- a claim supported by his Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 and numerous other accolades, citations, and awards over several decades, while Hardin’s darker path comprised unfortunate choices, addiction, and premature death at age 39. But nothing of that future bifurcation of life’s paths for each songwriter was evident back in 1968 in the room I used to learn songs off owned and borrowed LPs. Those of you familiar with the Letters know that I anxiously look over my shoulder at the burgeoning capabilities of AI, so you won’t be surprised to learn that I asked the Bing CoPilot to write me a short poem about two men who take two paths: one fortunate the other not. My AI companion(?) came up with this in a just few seconds:
Two men, two paths, two different fates/One chose to work hard, the other to wait/One faced the challenges, the other gave up/One reached the summit, the other got stuck//Two men, two paths, two different views/One saw the opportunities, the other the blues/One learned from failures, the other complained/One grew in wisdom, the other remained//Two men, two paths, two different ends/One had a legacy, the other had trends/One left a mark, the other was forgotten/One was fulfilled, the other was rotten// Mmm, I think we are still in the lead insofar as creativity vis a vis poetry is concerned-at least for the time being! Meanwhile, here is my version of If I Were A Carpenter. [insert song]
Tim Hardin and his work does deserve a wider audience and, in my own small way, if my version of his classic song, manages to increase that audience, even slightly, I will be content. Now to matters chagrin: If I were a Mayflower Pilgrim in 1628, and not necessarily a carpenter, I do believe I would have been one of the reprobates who, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary “erected an 80-foot Maypole, danced around it, drank beer, and sang.” This to the chagrin of straitlaced Governor William Bradford!
When I was first in Australia, I would often, on Friday evenings stretching sometimes into the wee hours, visit the home of friends to sing and play guitar with the accompaniment of beakers of wine. On one memorable occasion, unaware that I had outstayed my welcome, they ushered me out the door to the chorus of Goodnight Irene. Did I feel chagrin? At the time? Not a bit of it-that is, until, writing this Letter, I looked back and realised that I was, like those maypole dancers, more than a bit of a reprobate.
So, what, exactly is chagrin? As a noun, disquietude or distress of mind caused by humiliation, disappointment, or failure. As a verb, to vex or unsettle by disappointing or humiliating. I should have felt all those things at the time but I’m glad I didn’t. So, don’t look back in anger- to quote a song by British group Oasis. Which in turn quotes a play by John Osborne, which, incidentally, I had to study in that long-ago Belfast college.
Indeed, don’t look back in humiliation or disappointment or with a sense of failure. Don’t look back at all is probably too extreme a prescription- but don’t look back if all it’s going to do is leave welts on your soul. As a counter to the AI doggerel accompanying the first song of the podcast, I have chosen the first and final verse of A E Housman’s How Clear, How Lovely Bright to conclude this Letter. It uses the metaphor of dawn and sunset to delineate life’s journey.
How clear, how lovely bright,/How beautiful to sight/Those beams of morning play;/How heaven laughs out with glee/Where, like a bird set free,/Up from the eastern sea/Soars the delightful day.//Ensanguining the skies/How heavily it dies/Into the west away;/ Past touch and sight and sound/Not further to be found,/How hopeless under ground/Falls the remorseful day …//
There is no contest, is there? I will conclude now with the song that ushered me out of the door of that home fifty years ago. Attributed to Leadbelly but written in the late 19th Century, this song probably quite literally saved Leadbelly’s life as he was facing decades of hard labour for attempted murder but was pardoned by the Governor of Angola Prison in Louisiana and released into the care of folklorist John Lomax. The rest, as they say, is history. So here is my version of Goodnight Irene. [insert song] June in the topsy-turvey world Quotidia is the start of winter, but I won’t be constrained to frosty themes…or maybe I might so I’ll see you in 4 weeks’ time.
If I Were A Carpenter (Tim Hardin)
If I were a carpenter, and you were a lady
Would you marry me anyway? would you have my baby?
If a tinker were my trade, would you still find me
Carrying the pots I made, following behind me?
Save my love for loneliness, save my love for sorrow
I give you my onlyness, come give me your tomorrow
If I worked my hands in wood, would you still love me?
Answer me, babe: yes I would, I’d put you above me
If I were a miller, at a mill wheel grinding
Would you miss your coloured blouse, your soft shoes shining
If I were a carpenter, and you were a lady
Would you marry me anyway? would you have my baby?
Would you marry me anyway? would you have my baby?
Goodnight, Irene (attributed to Leadbelly)
Asked your mother ‘bout you
She said you was too young
I wish that I’d never seen your face
I’m sorry you ever was born.
Irene, Goodnight
Irene, Goodnight
Goodnight, Irene, Goodnight, Irene
I’ll get you in my dreams.
Sometimes I live in the country,
Sometimes I live in town.
Sometimes I takes a great notion
To jump into the river and drown.
[Chorus]
Stop ramblin’, stop your gamblin’
Stop staying out late at night
Go home to your wife and family
Stay there by your fireside bright
[Chorus]
I loves Irene, God knows I do
Love her till the sea runs dry
If Irene turns her back on me
I’m gonna take morphine and die
[Chorus]
Credits: All written text, song lyrics and music (including background music) written and composed by Quentin Bega unless otherwise specified in the credits section after individual posts. Illustrative excerpts from other texts identified clearly within each podcast. I donate to and use Wikipedia frequently as one of the saner sources of information on the web.
Technical Stuff: Microphone-songs Shure SM58; (for the podcast spoken content) Audio Technica AT 2020 front-facing with pop filter); Apogee 76K also used for songs and spoken text. For recording and mixing down: 64-bit N-Track Studio 10 Extended used; Rubix 22 also used for mixing of microphone(s) and instruments. I use the Band in a Box/RealBand 2023 combo for music composition.