Welcome to the antepenultimate podcast of the Letters from Quotidia. On September 3rd 1752 Britain and the British Empire (including the American colonies) adopted the Gregorian Calendar, losing 11 days in the process. People rioted thinking the government had stolen 11 days of their lives. So, you see, conspiracy theories were alive and… kicking(?) back in the day, folks.
And talking about back in the day, one night in 1949, lyricist Jack Segal was invited to the New York home of concert pianist Evelyn Danzig. In fifteen minutes, they had written a hit song that has endured for well over seventy years. In the annals of Tin Pan Alley, there are many examples of One- Hit Wonders – songwriters who only ever managed a single enduring success… Evelyn Danzig’s was the affecting folk-style ballad Scarlet Ribbons. Although her other compositions failed to achieve popularity, more than 40 years of royalties from Scarlet Ribbons were sufficient to keep Evelyn Danzig comfortably until the age of 94.
That was then- now she might be able to afford a cup of coffee and croissant on the royalties she’d get on one of the streaming platforms- but I must avoid identification with that old man yelling at the clouds meme and content myself with a reminiscence: The first person I remember singing this song was Jim Reeves, known as gentleman Jim and, with Chet Atkins his producer, one of the originators of the Nashville Sound. He toured Ireland in 1963 and was immediately taken up by Irish audiences. Reeves returned the compliment, although he did not rate, at all, the quality of the pianos in those many draughty country halls in which he and his band performed. He charted many times in Ireland both before and after his tragic death in July 1964 at the controls of his own single-engine aircraft at age 40.
His silky, trademark, baritone voice is still popular today. Scarlet Ribbons has long been a favourite of mine, even though, in my rebellious, rock-infused, teenage years, I hid this almost blasphemous affection. It is amazing how many people of all ages and conditions love this product of Tin Pan Alley, cobbled together in a quarter of an hour over 70 years ago. But, as a father myself who has looked in at my sleeping daughters wishing I could make their dreams come true, I’m glad Jack and Evelyn met back in the year of my birth to create this wonderful song. I recorded a pared-back version for my post A Bit of Banter, Episode 109 during lockdown in June 2020. [insert song]
Who doesn’t like a good foundation myth? The Garden of Eden comes to mind, Romulus and Remus for Rome, of course, and the Pilgrim Fathers for America are also fairly well known foundational accounts, but the one that really tickled my fancy concerned a guy who sailed across the Adriatic to Italy to escape religious persecution, fled up a hill to escape a deranged woman who claimed she was his wife and who established a state that has endured through all sorts of political vicissitudes to the present day. San Marino, or more euphoniously, Serenissima-Repubblica-di-San-Marino-is-a European microstate enclaved by Italy. Located-on-the north-eastern side of the Apennine Mountains,
San Marino is the fifth-smallest country in the world and covers a land area of just over 61 km2, with a population of 33,562. (Thanks Wikipedia) San Marino can trace its roots back to 301 AD when St Marinus- the name means man from the sea- founded a monastery that went on to be the oldest extant sovereign state as well as the oldest constitutional republic. It also had the world’s first democratically elected communist government which held office between 1945 and 1957. The practice of having two heads of state, like Roman consuls, chosen in frequent elections, is derived directly from the customs of the Roman Republic. The council is equivalent to the Roman Senate; the captains regent– San Marino’s two heads of state- can be compared to the consuls of ancient Rome. It is thought the inhabitants of the area came together as Roman rule collapsed to form a rudimentary government for their own protection from foreign rule.
During World War II, San Marino provided a haven for more than 100,000 Jews and other Italians (approximately 10 times the population at the time) from Nazi persecution. In 1861, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln accepted San Marino’s offer of honorary citizenship in a letter that said: Although your dominion is small, your State is nevertheless one of the most honoured, in all history. Look, I would be likewise pleased to become an honorary citizen of the serene republic! But fantasies aside, I think the human scale of governance in that landlocked nation would serve as a fine model for humanity- can you imagine such a polity pursuing a war of aggression and genocide?
In previous posts I’ve covered our yearning for utopias in song and literature and here I provide another example from the American age of the hobo where homeless men roamed the country in search of work or something better. The singer Harry McClintock wrote The Big Rock Candy Mountains in 1895 and provided the first recorded version in 1928 as Haywire Mac. Orwell also referenced the song in Animal Farm where the animals’ version of heaven is called Sugarcandy Mountain. It’s been covered numerous times down the decades and I now offer my version of this nirvana, this utopia. [insert song]
Of course, there are no utopias. San Marino had the highest per capita death rate from COVID during the pandemic because they opted for the Russian vaccine rather that the more efficacious EU alternatives because of the latter’s slow roll out. And even the big rock candy mountain has its dark side. Harry McClintock claims that, at 16, he was homeless, singing for change. He told a radio host that he was a shining mark, one of those boys able to bring in money for an aggressive hobo who treated him as an exploitable piece of property: there were times when I fought like a wildcat or ran like a deer to preserve my independence and virginity. He, and other artists too, have left out the verse he wrote that painted this reality.
But other writers and poets have had a stab at what heaven would be like. For Rupert Brooke, writing in 1913 from the point of view of a fish, heaven is like this: But somewhere, beyond Space and Time/Is wetter water, slimier slime!/And there (they trust) there swimmeth One/Who swam ere rivers were begun,/ Immense, of fishy form and mind,/Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;/And under that Almighty Fin/,The littlest fish may enter in./Oh! never fly conceals a hook,/Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,/But more than mundane weeds are there,/And mud, celestially fair;/Fat caterpillars drift around,/And Paradisal grubs are found;/Unfading moths, immortal flies,/And the worm that never dies./And in that Heaven of all their wish,/There shall be no more land, say fish.//
If you are Emily Dickinson heaven is always just out of reach, “Heaven”—is what I cannot reach!/The Apple on the Tree—/Provided it do hopeless—hang—/That—”Heaven” is—to Me!//The Color, on the Cruising Cloud—/The interdicted Land—/Behind the Hill—the House behind—/There—Paradise—is found!//Her teasing Purples—Afternoons—/The credulous—decoy—/Enamored—of the Conjuror—/That spurned us—Yesterday!// So, there are a few accounts of what heaven or something equivalent to it might be like. But what about all the times when it isn’t heaven? Forty years ago, I wrote just such a song called, When It Isn’t Heaven and I’m using here a recording of it for a podcast in August 2016. I winged the accompaniment using the Spanish guitar my wife bought me when we first came to Australia in the early seventies. [insert song]
The second last podcast in the series will be published on 17 September and I hope you (and myself, too!) are around to hear it. But, if not, may we be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows we’re dead! Until then, may I leave you with this thought, Heaven is found in good company so, keep good company, be of good cheer and avoid like the plague those who seek to blight the time they spend with you.
Scarlet Ribbons (lyrics Jack Segal music Evelyn Danzig)
I peeped in to say good night and I heard my child in prayer
“Ooh for me some scarlet ribbons scarlet ribbons for my hair”
All the stores were closed and shuttered all the streets were dark and bare
In my town no scarlet ribbons not one ribbon for her hair
Through the night my heart was aching just before the dawn was breaking
I peeped in and on her bed In gay profusion lying there
Lovely ribbons, scarlet ribbons scarlet ribbons for her hair
If I live to be a hundred I shall never know from where
Came those lovely scarlet ribbons scarlet ribbons for her hair
The Big Rock Candy Mountains (words and music Harry McClintock)
One evening as the sun went down, and the jungle fires were burning,
down the track came a hobo hiking. And he said “Boys I’m not turning.
I’m headed for a land that’s far a-way be-side the crystal fountains.
So come with me we’ll go and see the Big Rock Candy Mountains.”
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains. There’s a land that’s fair and bright,
Where the hand-outs grow on bushes and you sleep out every night.
Where the boxcars all are empty and the sun shines every-day.
On the birds and the bees, and the cigarette trees, the lemonade springs,
where the blue bird sings in the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, all the cops have wooden legs
and the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft-boiled eggs.
The farmer’s trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay.
Oh, I’m bound to go where there ain’t no snow, where the rain don’t fall,
the wind don’t blow in the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains. You never change your socks.
and the little streams of alcohol come a trickling down the rocks.
The brakemen have to tip their hats and the rail-road bulls are blind.
There’s a lake of stew and of whiskey too, you can paddle all round’em in a big canoe in the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, the jails are made of tin.
And you can walk right out again, as soon as you are in.
There ain’t no short-handled shovels. No axes, saws or picks
I’m gonna stay where you sleep all day, where they hung the jerk
who invented work in the Big Rock Candy Mountains
I’ll see you all this coming fall, in the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
When It Isn’t Heaven (words and music Quentin Bega)
When it isn’t heaven in the bed alone
When the bottle’s empty on the floor
When it takes just one more drink
To make it seem all right then it isn’t heaven it’s my life
She left me early morning a week ago today
Got her job back smiles behind a desk
And I remember her last words as she closed the door
I guess I’ll marry safe forget the rest
I see the train wheels glowing I hear the whistle sound
Feel the tunnel pressing in on me
I feel the ashes flowing down my face like tears
A country drunk’s the saddest fool around
When it isn’t heaven in the bed alone
When the bottle’s empty on the floor
When it takes just one more drink
To make it seem all right then it isn’t heaven it’s my life
Then it isn’t heaven it’s my life then it isn’t heaven it’s my life
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- 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 9 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.
Discover more from Quentin Bega's Blog
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
