Welcome to Letters from Quotidia Hologram 9. A folk group in a macabre mood might sing the following chorus, Let’s not have a sniffle, let’s have a bloody great cry, and always remember the longer you live, the sooner you bloody well die. Or if the sanguinary adjective makes you shudder, what about, I’m a rambler, I’m a gambler, I’m a long way from home, and if you don’t like me well leave me alone, I’ll eat when I’m hungry, I’ll drink when I’m dry, and if moonshine don’t kill me I’ll live till I die.
What brought this on? Well, I was having an afternoon coffee with my wife, our usual prelude to attempting the daily crossword in The Sydney Morning Herald, when my phone rang and I saw it was from John Spillane, the whistle player with the folk group, Seannachie, we played in during the mid-1970s. This was in Wollongong on the south coast of New South Wales. We hadn’t spoken in years, and, of course, he had news: the sort that people who are septuagenarians or older are always expecting.
He told me, Bertie McKnight– he was the mandolin player of the group-died last week and, oh, by the way, did you hear that Tony Fitzgerald-Tony was our main singer-had passed away up in Queensland just before Christmas last year? Uh, no, I didn’t know, I replied. And before I could help myself, I continued- I suppose this means if we intend to get the band back together again, it’ll have to be as a trio! Joe Browne, our guitarist, was the only other surviving member of the original group, but I can’t see us reforming- in any sense of the word! And isn’t humour one of the more defiant, if not universally welcomed, responses to the inevitability of death?
Another example of defiance is found in Geoffrey Chaucer’s, The Pardoner’s Tale where a trio of blaspheming ne’er-do-wells set out in search of death to kill that miscreant for taking one of their friends. An old man tells them they can find death under a tree he points them to. They find there a stash of gold coins whereupon the youngest is sent to buy wine. He then poisons his accomplices’ bottles. Returning, he is killed for his share of the loot .His murderers then celebrate by drinking the poisoned wine and die horribly. So the trio found death, after all.
There are those who flirt with death, thrill seekers, daredevils, and teenagers as a general rule! But most non-suicidal adults seek to put off the appointment in Samarra with the grim reaper as long as humanly possible. Though some with more money than sense, go to the lengths of those seeking immortality through cryogenic freezing or, maybe, some bizarre plan to upload the contents of their brains to a machine where they would be subject, no doubt, to the tender ministrations of AI agents for all eternity- or however long the program could go without crashing.
I’ll just take the time-honoured way of songwriters of every stripe and write a song about a futuristic take on the topic. Most of us will not have the means of tech Bros and Sistahs and assorted oligarchs and billionaires to avail ourselves of this way of extending our existence but here’s a pitch that will appeal to some. I call it On Forever Farm[insert song]
Role models are all very well to the young with their lives stretching out before them towards far-off glowing horizons, but how relevant are they to the more mature among us- as I surmise most of the listeners to this podcast will be. And how far removed from our experience, talents and inclinations can role models be without becoming an exercise in futility? It might be OK for a pre-schooler to dream of being a ballerina or a basketball player because, for a few of them, this is within the bounds of possibility.
But, as Wordsworth reminds me, shades of the prison house begin to close upon the growing boy. And it’s been quite a while now since I was a growing boy! So where do the cohort of the elders, as I will now refer to my peers, look now we have long abandoned dreams of being an astronaut or zoologist or any letter of the alphabet in between spelling out a role we yearned for?
The Dominicans who administer the parish I attend here in Western Sydney, tell us that saints were real people and that we are all called to be saints in our daily lives; that the imposing roster of saints down the ages should not put us off trying to emulate one or more of them. However, there are ten thousand or more saints in the Catholic Church so how do you choose? Of course, some of the saints once venerated have been shown to be apocryphal- St Christopher, is an example of one. Or what about San Guinefort who turned out to be a 13th Century greyhound elevated because it saved a child from snakebite.
But I am willing to undertake such a comparison, even though in a previous letter, I have explored the idea that comparisons are odious. And it will come as no surprise that I suffer grievously in the comparison offered in the closing song because I have chosen the towering figure of St Thomas Aquinas! Born 800 years ago, possessing three Doctor of the Church titles, Dr Angelicus- self-explanatory, Dr Communis, which means Universal Doctor and Dr Humanitatis which means Doctor of Humanity/Humaneness. I didn’t get much further that this in the Wikipedia article because, you know, so much stuff! I call my song Doctor Doctor Doctor and here it is. [insert song]
He bit of more than he could chew, I hear some say. Well, the hundreds of letters I have produced over the years are littered with the detritus of bits I could not properly masticate!
On Forever Farm (words and music Quentin Bega)
Intro and Interludes : Emaj7 Amaj7 E2 B7sus
Verse: E B7 A E B7 A E D A D A D A E7 F#m7 Bm7 F#m7 Bm7 B7
E B7 A E
Welcome to Forever Farm a place where goodly humans go
B7
Where with your cherished pets and friends
A E D A
Who can stump up the cost of course you live a life of luxury
D A D
Among those of your monied kind in blissful clover
A E7 F#m7
Of some future state where nothing pains you
Bm7 F#m7 Bm7 B7
Nothing grieves you Nothing interferes with your nirvana
(interlude)
You won’t meet with anyone if you don’t choose to that’s your right
But if you need some company we have lots for you to choose from
Our selection of the finest men or women or animals
We don’t judge here as on earth you had to duck and weave
No penalties or consequences for what you want to do
Nothing interferes with your nirvana
(interlude)
Welcome to Forever Farm a place where goodly humans go
Where with your cherished pets and friends
Who can stump up the cost of course you live a life of luxury
Among those of your monied kind in blissful clover
Of some future state where nothing pains you
Nothing grieves you Nothing interferes with your nirvana
Your nirvana your nirvana your nirvana your nirvana
on Forever Farm
Doctor Doctor Doctor (words and music Quentin Bega)
Intro: C2 Am7 Dm7 G13 Verse: C Am Dm7 G7 Bridge: Ddim C6 F6/E G
Outro: D Bm G A Asus C
Doctor Angelicus as you were known, born in a castle to both wealth and power eight hundred years ago, I know, but have you seen the role models now on show
I admire the songs you wrote so long ago, they still feature today around the world not in the passing charts, but you can hear them in churches throughout this earth
While I struggle to write even one tune that will last
Doctor Communis is another title, you seem to collect them as if they’re trifles and maybe they are too, but your intellect still shines through
Your students called you a dumb ox, Thomas, because you were quiet, but Albertus Magnus said that your prophetic voice would ring out down the years
My students just called me a dumb ox without demur
Doctor Humanitatis, what a mouthful, St John Paul decided that you earned this title for you linked what’s human to the divine
While I just plod along looking for something to call mine
Anyway, it’s good to just touch base with someone from so long ago
You have so much more to say but I’m not the one to lay it out
Credits: All written text, song lyrics andmusic (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.
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