Welcome to Radio Quotidia, episode 2 of The Blues, 12 minutes of music and musings. Quentin Bega here at the helm. I’m broadcasting from our studio located somewhere in the depths of Quotidia inside a digital onion. My aim to keep you entertained for a while. Let’s continue now with a couple of great tracks.
In 1971, a month or so before I got married, my brother Brendan, who had bought me Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited six years before, organised a night for our family and friends at a small, cosy, hotel in Cushendall. We had a meal and retired for drinks to a small lounge area where a piano was set against the wall. A pleasant-looking matronly guest who was staying at the hotel- not one of our little group- sat down and began to play. Emboldened by wine, I asked did she know Summertime.
The previous year I had devised a lead break for the song on my Burns short-scale jazz guitar instead of studying for my exams. I was rather proud of it and still had dreams of rescuing that Burns short-scale, my first electric guitar, from the pawn shop where I had traded it for rent arrears. Historical note- I never did get round to it. Maybe, that’s why I requested that song- I can’t remember now- but I remember with gratitude her rendition of this classic for a rather bleary-eyed young man. Memory renders it right up there with the great interpreters. And, for what it’s worth, here is my take on it: [insert song]
The song is fromPorgy and BessIts lyrics are by DuBose Heyward, of whom Broadway legend, Stephen Sondheim, wrote, he has gone largely unrecognized as the author of the finest set of lyrics in the history of the American musical theatre – namely, those of Porgy and Bess. The music, of course, was written by George Gershwin.
The setting of the song was Catfish Row, a dockside area of Charleston, South Carolina in the 1930s, Clara, a young, black woman, sings to her baby. Her husband Jake is a fisherman, and, like all the people of the settlement, they live hardscrabble lives. This scenario, of life, of death has been repeated throughout history and indeed prehistory. Through all the noise and nonsense, the conflict, the clash, we hear the soothing tones of mother to child as she seeks to shield her offspring from the unruly universe by resorting to a lullaby.
21-year-old Billie Holiday recorded the first cover of this song in 1936. She was part of the Harlem Renaissance spanning the 1920s and 30s including such important black artists as musicians Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong and writers Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. According to Wikipedia some people would argue that the Harlem Renaissance never ended and has continued to be an important cultural force in the United States through the decades: from the age of stride piano jazz and blues to the ages of bebop, rock and roll, soul, disco and hip-hop.
A great song and I still remember vividly the rendition at my Buck’s night in 1971. The year before, in 1970, I was in Belfast’s Smithfield Markets rummaging for cheap second-hand records when over the speakers in the record store I heard Christine McVie’s haunting performance of I’d Rather Go Blind. And, of course, I had to buy it. When I heard of her death at the end of November last year, I listened again (and again) to the track that had captivated me over half a century ago. So, in tribute to this great artist, I present this version [insert song]
And, remembering that the blues is about more than crying or being sad, here is a poem by Joyce Grenfell, born to an affluent Anglo-American family. I remember her as an amusing anecdotist and reciter of her own verse on light entertainment shows in the late sixties and early seventies. Joyce was a monologuist of real talent, who had an international career spanning four decades. I present here a short verse of hers. While in no way fitting the mould of a typical blues versifier, I think the acerbic wit displayed in these lines would fit right in, If I should die before the rest of you,/Break not a flower nor inscribe a stone./Nor, when I’m gone, speak in a Sunday voice,/But be the usual selves that I have known./Weep if you must,/Parting is hell./But life goes on,/So sing as well. [749 words]
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- 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.
Welcome to Radio Quotidia, episode 1 of The Blues, 12 minutes or so of music and musings. Quentin Bega here at the helm. I’m broadcasting from our studio located somewhere in the depths of Quotidia inside a digital onion. My aim to keep you entertained for a while. As I say, the theme this month is the blues. [insert song]
The song was the opener on the first LP I ever bought, The Rolling Stones, released on 14 April 1964. I loved it from the first bars of Route 66 which blasted out of my Dad’s stereo in the front room of our home in Cushendall, County Antrim. Written by US Marine Bobby Troup in 1946, who didn’t see colour, only soul, according to one of the marines serving under him. It remains one of the finest songs about freedom and the open road. According to my muse, Wikipedia, Route 66 symbolises escape, loss, and the hope of a new beginning; Steinbeck dubbed it the Mother Road. Another designation was the Main Street of America.
It was a primary route for those who migrated west, especially during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, and it supported the economies of the communities through which it passed. People doing business along the route became prosperous, and they later fought to keep it alive in the face of the growing threat of being bypassed by the more advanced controlled-access highways of the Interstate Highway System in the 1960s and 70s.
It underwent many improvements and realignments over its lifetime, but it was officially removed from the United States Highway System in 1985. Nothing ever stays the same, but it’s good to remember the good things about places and people. Now to another storied highway in American blues culture, Highway 61.
According to my muse, it extends 1,400 miles (2,300 km) between New Orleans, Louisiana and the city of Wyoming, Minnesota. The highway generally follows the course of the Mississippi River and is designated the Great River Road for much of its route. It terminates in New Orleans and was an important south–north connection in the days before the interstate highway system. The highway is often called the Blues Highway because of its long history in blues music. It is also the subject of numerous musical works, and the route inspired the album Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan.
As Dylan writes in his memoir, Chronicles, Highway 61, the main thoroughfare of the country blues, begins about where I began. I always felt like I’d started on it, always had been on it and could go anywhere, even down in to the deep Delta country. It was the same road, full of the same contradictions, the same one-horse towns, the same spiritual ancestors … It was my place in the universe, always felt like it was in my blood.
The suits at Columbia records didn’t understand Dylan’s title for the 1965 album and wanted to call it something else but Dylan fought for his idea right up the ladder until, as Robert Shelton, recalled, word came down and said, Let him call it what he wants to call it. So, Highway 61 Revisited, it is.
Hey, if you’re into spooky tales, the intersection of this highway with Route 49 is said to be the locus where Robert Johnston sold his soul to the devil. Anyway, here it is- my version of the title song. [insert song]
My thanks to my older brother Brendan who bought me this album for my 16th birthday, and I’ve been listening to it, off and on, ever since that time. That’s it from deep inside the digital onion that is Quotidia. Next week I’ll continue the theme with a Gershwin classic and a blues oldie to bracket the broadcast. And to quote from that Gershwin song, don’t you cry. Blues isn’t about crying- or not just about crying. I’ve always been captivated by its humour, truth and insight about the human condition. As Langston Hughes said in his short poem, Blues on a Box, written the year before I was born, Play your guitar, boy,/Till yesterday’s black cat/Runs out tomorrow’s back door// Talk about compressed wisdom! [695 words]
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- 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.
Welcome to the final letter from Quotidia. They began on January 11, 2021, as the pandemic was an entrenched feature of life just about everywhere. They reach their terminus on October 1, 2023. Over that time I have published 250 letters. That is a nice round figure to wrap up what began as a pandemic project.
Grief is a polymorphous beast. When my sister-in-law, with whom I had exchanged many letters over the years, died in October 2010, it prompted recall of a story about her mother who had a near-term stillborn infant who, because of dogmatic strictures, could not be buried in consecrated ground. On her deathbed, she revealed that she had never forgotten, for even a day, that child and she asked to be buried with the lonely one. The lonely one. One is a number grief understands. When I read that 599 children have been killed in Ukraine, I am numb.
But then I read the following account of a recent attack on the hometown of president Vlodymyr Zelenskyy, from the latest issue of A Letter From Ukraine made available by the Polish Dominicans who administer my local parish, Russian rockets hit a 9 storey apartment building…Among the dead were ten-year-old Daria and her mother Natalya. Next to the ruined building people assembled a mound of flowers and toys. In the picture you can see two boxes of Barbie dolls. The same ones that are in the dreams of millions of movie-going peers of Daria around the world. My eyes fill.
On grief, Emily Dickinson, as with so many other topics, has a singular view and I offer here the opening two stanzas of a much longer poem, I measure every Grief I meet/With narrow, probing, eyes – /I wonder if It weighs like Mine –/ Or has an Easier size.//I wonder if They bore it long –/ Or did it just begin –/ I could not tell the Date of Mine –/ It feels so old a pain – So old a pain- this year my first-born son, Brian would have turned 50, but as he died at age 15 in 1989, such a celebration was never going to be.
Over the years I have written several songs about him, and I will present here a song I wrote in December 2005, with the title, (on what would have been) Your 32nd Birthday. It was first published it in August 2016 as part of my blog TheSumma Quotidia, which, as I mentioned in the last post, was the precursor to Letters from Quotidia, where it found new life as part of a podcast published on 3rd June 2021. Here it is. [insert song]
Have you ever passed a medieval cathedral and looked up in wonder at the gargoyles leering out high above you? They are intended as ornate waterspouts protecting the building from the excess run-off of rainstorms. But they are also examples of apotropaic magic, intended to ward off harm or evil influences. Many cultures over many centuries have practised apotropaic magic right down to the present day.
Not me! I l hear you scoff. So, you don’t have a good luck charm, never cross your fingers, avoid cracks in the pavement, knock on wood or toss spilled salt over your shoulder. Instead you walk under ladders, smash mirrors whenever you can and wouldn’t wish upon a star even on a romantic midnight tryst with the woman (or man) of your dreams. OK. Brave (or is it foolhardy) you. But the song you will next hear is an example of such magic. Here’s how it came about.
The song, A World of Pain, waswritten and recorded in February 2002. I wrote in The Letters from Quotidia of May 2021, you know, it took me about six months to even believe fully in the events of September 11, 2001. But, here, from the perspective of COVID-ravaged 2021, I stand by the imaginative recreation of a possible dystopian future, outlined in the song, for people like me… It is as likely to come to pass as any of the prognostications of the experts I …read in the daily newspapers…The song posits a post-apocalyptic world in which small groups of Westerners, clinging to remnants of their culture and past, wander through a desolate landscape, harried by bands of fanatics (the successors of the Taliban and Islamic State, perhaps) who periodically force them to uproot and keep moving. I recorded the song in my workroom with just an acoustic guitar and vocal. I overdubbed a thin, sparse electric guitar after this and hoped that the apotropaic magic of the composition would help ward off the dystopian future foretold in the lyrics. It has worked so far- for me and my family.
But alas, not for far too many Afghan women, children-and let’s not forget their supportive men- trapped in just such a nightmarish situation. I want to pay tribute to their bravery, resilience, and humour by reference to a poetic form, the landay, which is part of an oral tradition dating back, according to the estimable Poetry Foundation,to the Bronze-Age arrival of Indo-Aryan caravans to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India around 1700 BC. These poems could have evolved out of communication through call and response back and forth over a long caravan train. The call and response nature of landays has morphed into teasing and sparring love poems between men and women; a kind of stichomythia that rivals that of ancient Greece.
Listen to an example of this ancient form from the second decade of the 21st century, When you kissed me, you bit me,/What will my mother say?/Give your mother this answer:/I went to fetch water and fell by the river./Your jug isn’t broken, my mother will say,/so why is your bottom lip bleeding that way?/Tell your mother this one:/My jug fell on clay, I fell on stone./You have all my mother’s answers, sweet./Now take my raw mouth — bon appétit! [insert song]
To conclude, here is a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson from 1866 where the Roman god, Terminus addresses the poet. Terminus is speaking also to all of us fortunate enough to have reached or surpassed three score and ten: It is time to be old,/To take in sail:—/The god of bounds,/Who sets to seas a shore,/Came to me in his fatal rounds/,And said: “No more!/No farther shoot/Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root./Fancy departs: no more invent;/Contract thy firmament/To compass of a tent./There’s not enough for this and that,/Make thy option which of two;/Economize the failing river,/Not the less revere the Giver,/Leave the many and hold the few./Timely wise accept the terms,/Soften the fall with wary foot;/A little while/Still plan and smile,/And,—fault of novel germs,—/Mature the unfallen fruit./Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires,/Bad husbands of their fires,/Who, when they gave thee breath,/Failed to bequeath/The needful sinew stark as once,/The Baresark marrow to thy bones,/ But left a legacy of ebbing veins,/Inconstant heat and nerveless reins,—/Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb,/Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.”//As the bird trims her to the gale,/I trim myself to the storm of time,/I man the rudder, reef the sail,/Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:/“Lowly faithful, banish fear,/Right onward drive unharmed;/The port, well worth the cruise, is near,/And every wave is charmed.”
With any luck, in the words the poem just quoted, I may for a little while still plan and smile and create something else because- that is what I do. And optimist that I am, and again in the words of the poem, I do believe The port, well worth the cruise. While I hope that port is still a little way off- the letters have reached their terminus. The final song I cover for the letters was recorded in 1965 by an artist I have listened to in awe and thankfulness through seven decades, Bob Dylan. I think it fits. [insert song]
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue. The 72-odd hours of podcasts encompassing several hundred songs and several hundred thousand words of prose and poetry that go to make up the Letters from Quotidia, over 33 months would prompt the retort of any junior doctor that he or she works that many hours in a typical week, routinely saving lives as part of their daily round. So, I ‘ll just end by saying a humble thanks to all those who have listened to these podcasts. I’ll also reprise the final words from my final podcast for the Summa Quotidia, in 2016, where the ancient Greek poet Archilochus fleeing battle, throws away his shield reasoning, But at least I got myself safely out! But, in two days’ time, tune in for Radio Quotidia: a series of weekly podcasts of 15 minutes or less featuring two songs. Fifteen weeks remain before the end of the calendar year. Each month will have a theme. October’s theme is The Blues, and the first program features two songs about American highways: Route 66, America’s Main Street, and Highway 61, the Blues highway. Tune in, then and… we’ll see.
(on what would have been) Your 32nd Birthday (words and music Quentin Bega)
Well nobody told me grief could stay green
Time would not heal the pain I feel
I’ve got diabetes my heart is not strong
High blood pressure pulses and I’m oh I’m getting on
We visit your sister now she’s 33
Found a life partner wants to be a mother-to-be
Your brother’s a young man who beat all the odds
He looks just like you two peas two peas in a pod
You’ve got a young sister you never knew
In our family history we’ve still to bring her to you
Your mother is frailer her bones breaking down
But she’s held us together since you went into the ground
Yeah nobody told me grief could stay green
And time would not heal the pain this pain I still feel
A World of Pain (words and music Quentin Bega)
Thunder is distant a storm on the way
As we lie under the shade of a prophecy tree
mumbling into our beads we pray
Horseman appear in a cloud of woe
Shouting this is the end so pack up your gear
And wrap up your women from head to toe
Oh so we set out over the plain
Looking for shelter again and again
As they ride away yeah they ride away
And leave a world of pain a world of pain
Days are for hunger nights are for dreams
Of magic lights in the sky
Before the dawn breaks a lone voice screams
Now once we had cities brighter than gold
Now ragged tents hold our tribe
The horsemen drew near and once again we must face the cold
Oh so we set out over the plain
Looking for shelter again and again
As they ride away yeah they ride away
And leave a world of pain a world of pain
Oh so we set out over the plain
Looking for shelter again and again
As they ride away yeah they ride away
And leave a world of pain a world of pain
It’s All Over Now Baby Blue (words and music Bob Dylan)
You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun
Crying like a fire in the sun
Look out the saints are coming through
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue
The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense
Take what you have gathered from coincidence
The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets
The sky, too, is folding under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue
All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home
Your empty handed armies, they’re all going home
The lover who just walked out your door
Has taken all his blankets from the floor
The carpet, too, is moving under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue
Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you.
The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start anew
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue
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.
It’s the 17th of September as I publish the penultimate podcast in the Letters from Quotidia series: podcast 19 of 2023. On this date in 1849, three people fled from a Maryland plantation and made their way north towards emancipation. Harriet Tubman and her two brothers, Ben and Henry. The brothers got cold feet and turned back but Harriet persevered and continued her journey into history where she is revered as an icon- an abolitionist, a social activist and supporter of women’s suffrage. What Ben and Henry did is a story as old as the Bible and as up to date as the latest Tik Tok dancing sensation: people escaping their chains only to regret leaving the devil you know for the unknown perils and pitfalls that striving for freedom delivers.
The Danes have a word: Hygge, which the Oxford Dictionary defines asa quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being. Is this the same as our pejorative term comfort zone or is it something else? Oh, I hope it’s something else because I would be more than a tad disappointed to find that the comfortable conviviality that I so very often embrace is, in fact, a trap, a sticky, honeyed prison from which there is no escape because the entrapped have no desire for anything at all but the sweetness of their servitude. Gemütlichkeit, the German word that describes the cozy domesticity of Schubert’s Biedermeier Vienna, is yet another term that comes to mind.
As I ponder the dilemma between choosing a cozy existence or seeking a more challenging milieu, I remember a recording my father made of The Green Glens of Antrim, a song about the place of my birth.He took his treasured AKAI reel-to-reel tape recorder down to a hotel where there would be a recital featuring the song. This would have been in the mid-1960s. He was proud as punch to be able to memorialise the event, as no one else in the village of Cushendall has such equipment back then. Fast forward to the mid-1980s when I directed a play for the amateur dramatic society in Cushendall after I had returned from Australia, and we were placed in the All- Ireland Finals (confined section).
In the hotel bar afterwards, a singsong commenced. Someone started to sing, Far across yonder blue… the opening line of the song. I have never heard a better rendition for we glens folk raised the roof with the best a capella version of the song I can recall. Of course, my eyes may be framed with rose-tinted glasses and misted with the fumes of the copious spirits we consumed that night, but I did get round to recording my take on this nostalgic song of place during lockdown in 2020 back in Australia. It doesn’t bear comparison to the epic rendition in that hotel bar in the west of Ireland, but it delivers hygge to me and you can find more detail about this in my post A Bit of Banter, Episode 90 [insert song]
Our world is acting out- like a toddler or, for that matter, a teenager throwing a tantrum. One may wonder if the Gaia hypothesis is real, and the earth is reacting to the multitudinous insults she has suffered at our hands in the past few centuries. However, in spite of the wildfires, the floods, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, mudslides, and pandemics presently afflicting us, who among us is not awestruck at the many wonders our world reveals to us when she is in a beneficent mood: the sunsets, coral reefs, floral profusion, caressing, cooling breezes, and the magnificent varieties of animal and bird life?
Switching gear now to poetry, and who better to evince the beauties of the world than John Keats in his majestic Ode to Autumn,Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,/Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;/Conspiring with him how to load and bless/With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;/To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,/And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;/To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells/ With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,/And still more, later flowers for the bees,/Until they think warm days will never cease,/For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.//Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?/Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find/Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,/Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;/Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,/Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook/Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:/And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep/Steady thy laden head across a brook;/Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,/Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.//Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?/Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—/While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,/And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;/Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn/Among the river sallows, borne aloft/Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;/And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;/Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft/The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;/And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.//
Who would choose to leave such a place behind? Too many do, alas. It takes a lot to bring me to tears but a song that does that is the elegiac, This Sweet Old World by Lucinda Williams first released on an album in 1992 and when Emmy Lou Harris, who covered the song on her 1995 album Wrecking Ball joins her in a duet, well… Williams wrote this song after someone she loved took his own life. When I sing it, I think also of all those who left the world before their time through carelessness or recklessness, or who were taken through mayhem, murder, or misadventure. Even the elderly believer in a paradise awaiting is in no hurry to get there, generally speaking. [insert song]
I’m going to use a somewhat loaded term, now- patrimony. Seven years ago, in August 2016 I published a post and song with this name as part of a series I called The Summa Quotidia– the seed corn, in fact, of the present Letters from Quotidia.I wrote then, Patrimony is defined by Merriam-Webster as anything derived from one’s father or ancestors. It may be material and exogenous, such as a mansion or something less tangible but nevertheless real- such as an inheritable characteristic such as a predisposition to…what? Let us conduct a mind experiment where the progeny of St Francis of Assisi and Snow White are set against the issue of, say, Adolph Hitler and Cruella De Ville. The children: a boy and a girl from each union, are stranded on a sinking ship. There are only two places left on the last lifeboat. You must choose who is to be saved. Do you save the girls? The boys? The pair from the forces of Good or those of the forces of Evil? Or one from each family? Choose. Perhaps you want to leave that to the Twittersphere…
Quaint, isn’t it? We can no longer refer to the Twittersphere. But what, then? The X-sphere? Back then, I quoted the poem, Heredity by Thomas Hardy, I am the family face;/ Flesh perishes, I live on,/ Projecting trait and trace/ Through time to times anon,/ And leaping from place to place/Over oblivion.//The years-heired feature that can/ In curve and voice and eye/ Despise the human span/ Of durance- that is I;/ The eternal thing in man,/ That heeds no call to die. He was referring unknowingly to DNA, even though it would be decades before Crick and Watson won a Nobel Prize for it in 1962.
I wrote the song Patrimony in 1996 when I was at a low ebb financially and in questionable health. I recorded the song at a small home studio in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney during long service leave I took in 2000. There are no backing tracks, it’s just me playing an acoustic guitar and singing. As I said in introduction to the song in 2016, Patrimony is really just the good stuff we tell each other. [insert song]
For a while now, I’ve tried to tell you good stuff in prose, poetry, and song but as the cliché will have it, all good things come to an end and the end is nigh, as any street preacher will tell you. I won’t be quite so histrionic but will simply inform you all that the next post will be the last of the Letters from Quotidia as they have run their course as a pandemic project. Until then keep well, keep true.
The Green Glens of Antrim
Far across yonder blue lies a true fairyland With the sea rippling over the shingle and sand Where the gay honeysuckle is luring the bee And the green glens of Antrim are calling to me
Sure if only you knew how the lamp of the moon Turns a blue Irish bay to a silver lagoon You’d imagine a picture of heaven it would be Where the green glens of Antrim are calling to me.
Soon I hope to return to my own Cushendall T’is the one place for me that can outshine them all. Sure I know every stone I recall every tree Where the green glens of Antrim are calling to me
Now I’d be where the people are simple and kind And among them the one who has been on my mind Sure I pray that the world would in peace let me be Where the green glens of[Antrim are heaven to me
Where the green glens of Antrim are heaven to me
This Sweet Old World (music and lyrics by Lucinda Williams)
See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world
See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world
The breath from your own lips, the touch of fingertips
A sweet and tender kiss
The sound of a midnight train, wearing someone’s ring
Someone calling your name
Somebody so warm cradled in your arm
Didn’t you think you were worth anything
See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world
See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world
Millions of us in love, promises made good
Your own flesh and blood
Looking for some truth, dancing with no shoes
The beat, the rhythm, the blues
The pounding of your heart’s drum together with another one
Didn’t you think anyone loved you
See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world
See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world
See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world
See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world
Patrimony (words and music by Quentin Bega)
I ain’t left a will there’s nothing much here that can’t be divided easy
Some things I’ve been some things I am are not very likely to please ya
What I have left are tokens at best a battered guitar and a sack full of rhymes
I hope you can make more of them now than I was able before ya
And if you can prevail escape the swinging flail that knocks ya down to the ground
Then you might rise above the cruel tides that endlessly seek to surround ya
Wear this cloth cap it represents what our forbears had to put up with
Put on these boots yeah walk in the shoes your father tried to get by with
Take this gold ring place on the finger of someone who loves you and can bring
Into your life the gifts of the time that will never leave ya
And if you can prevail escape the swinging flail that knocks ya down to the ground
Then you might rise above the cruel tides that endlessly seek to surround ya
Now go outside gaze at the moon whistle a tune that comes easy
Walk through the trees yeah take your ease by a stream that is running beside ya
Splash in the waves laugh at the clouds smell the wild flowers and kick up the sand
And if you can watch the sunrise painting the sky up above ya
And if you can prevail escape the swinging flail that knocks ya down to the ground
Then you might rise above the cruel tides that endlessly seek to surround ya
Then you might rise above the cruel tides that endlessly seek to surround ya
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.
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.
Welcome to the 17th podcast of 2023. On this date, 20th August three things happened of particular note- to me, anyway. In 1908 America’s Great White Fleet arrived in Sydney harbour and was greeted enthusiastically by the locals. This flotilla toured the world from 1907-1909 to make the point that Britannia no longer ruled the waves, but Uncle Sam was now in command. Over a century later it is still the case- no navy and no military force on earth can yet (notice the yet?) outclass America in any arena.
The second event I noted was in 1940 when the Royal Air Force defeated Hitler’s Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. What Churchill said then still resonates: Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. With democracy seemingly in retreat across much of the globe, neo-Nazis rising in influence in many countries, and totalitarian governments in Russia, China and much of the world, who will rally the forces of freedom? Do you see any Churchillian figure on the horizon?
The third event- and this is the one I wish to highlight- leaves the martial grounds of the previous mentions behind and, indeed, is hurtling through interstellar space as I speak. I refer, of course, to 1977 when NASA launched Voyager 2 towards the outer planets. This diminutive spacecraft has performed prodigious feats of planetary exploration under the guidance of dedicated scientists and engineers and represents the best that humanity has to offer.
One of these is Ed Stone, who was the chief scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab before he retired last year. He spent over half his life dedicated to the Voyager program overseeing the spacecrafts churn out discovery after discovery as they explored Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The ingenuity of the Voyager team will ensure power to Voyager 2 until 2026 but, even ingenuity will reach its limits. By the time a successor program gets off the drawing board and off the launchpad it will be 2036 and perhaps by then our AI overlords will have cancelled all the plans of humanity. Wow, that got dark all of a sudden, I hear you exclaim! So, let’s lighten the load by escaping the bonds of earthly gravity with a song about a man who works 9 to 5 driving a rocket ship- you’ll know it when you hear it, I hope. [insert song]
Yes, yes, I have the temerity to cover such a classic by claiming it’s in homage. But I’ve been a fan of Elton John ever since I bought the 45-rpm single Your Song for my fiancée in January 1971. Elton completed his years-long world tour by headlining Glastonbury earlier this year. Like all the old-stagers of my generation, The Who, The Stones, the remaining Beatles, Van Morrison, etc I imagine he will keep on going even if he gives away global touring with all its demands.
Now, to another song that has been downloaded more than a few times, Little Old Wine Drinker Me. I can remember visiting my brother, who was a Vet in West Cork, Ireland, where we always made sure we had an adequate supply of Sherry from the Wood. (Does anyone remember that concoction?) A group of us would play cards, chat, drink wine and listen to records into the early hours of the morning. As was exceedingly common for that era (late 60s-early 70s) the room was wreathed also, in tobacco smoke from the cigarettes, pipes and cheroots on the go. One of our favourite 45s (the vinyl single discs rather than those heavy handguns) was Dean Martin singing this song. It was first released by Charlie Walker in 1966, on the album Wine, Woman & Walker.
The song became a hit when it was released by Robert Mitchum in early 1967, and by Dean Martin later the same year. Like many others, I misunderstood part of section B because I mis-heard it. I rendered I matched the man behind the bar…as I asked the man behind the bar… which makes no sense when you think about it. Jukeboxes are kept out in the general bar area with lights flashing to entice punters- not behind the bar with the bar-tender! I guess I misheard it because I was not familiar with the verb matched in this context.
So, imagine the scene: early evening, the heart-broken narrator is having a few in a bar near where he is staying. Nothing much is going on- certainly, no-one is putting coins into the jukebox, and the barman holds up two bits and offers to match the guy. This involves each person holding a 25-cent coin and slamming it down on the counter. The punter gets to call match or no match. If he wins the match, he gets to put the won coin into the jukebox and play three songs (or, if he’s heart-broken he might want to double the number of sad songs and put his two bits in, too…) Of course, the house always wins- that sly ol’ bartender was going to put a coin into the jukebox, anyway, to liven up the joint!
I’ve loved the song from the moment I heard Dino’s suave delivery. This country-blues gem (clocking in at two and a half minutes) references those part of the US that are part of the country-blues tradition: it also has a broken heart, a train, a bar, rain, and a jukebox. What more could you ask for, apart from a dog and a pick-up truck? (And who’s to say the narrator didn’t drive his beat-up old Ford from Nashville to Chicago with his best friend hanging his muzzle out of the passenger window?) I recorded the song during lockdown in June 2020 for my post A Bit of Banter Episode 116and reprise it here. [insert song]
Here in the land down under, it is the end of winter- which in Sydney is not too hard to take. I helped out in my local parish by lending a 6mx3m canopy, some tables, and boxes of pandemic bought paperbacks for its annual fete- the first since 2019 when lockdowns constrained life just about everywhere in Australia. Fete derives from the French for festival or feast. In English its first use was by Horace Walpole.
Incidentally, if you are interested in a tragic tale of doomed romance and supernatural horror set in a baroque castle, why not open a book he wrote, The Castle of Otranto, the first gothic novel, published in 1764. He also coined the word serendipity, which means an unplanned, fortunate occurrence or discovery. One of my favourite words, I have applied it on more than a few instances to my own life. I also like his aphorism, This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel. Fans of the Gothic will feel more than think, wouldn’t you say? The following poem by Shelley,
The Cold Earth Slept Below, is a good example of this, The cold earth slept below;/Above the cold sky shone;/And all around,/With a chilling sound,/From caves of ice and fields of snow/The breath of night like death did flow/Beneath the sinking moon.//The wintry hedge was black;/The green grass was not seen;/The birds did rest/On the bare thorn’s breast,/ Whose roots, beside the pathway track,/Had bound their folds o’er many a crack/Which the frost had made between.//Thine eyes glow’d in the glare/Of the moon’s dying light;/As a fen-fire’s beam/On a sluggish stream/Gleams dimly—so the moon shone there,/And it yellow’d the strings of thy tangled hair,/That shook in the wind of night.//The moon made thy lips pale, beloved;/ The wind made thy bosom chill;/The night did shed/On thy dear head/Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie/Where the bitter breath of the naked sky/Might visit thee at will.
To conclude this post, I offer this original effort calledFete. I like the ambiguity of the homophone and borrow from Christina Rossetti’s Gothic poem, Goblin Market, for some of the imagery. [insert song]
Of course, our parish fete was not a Gothic horror scene. Far from it, it was a congenial gathering of the community. But writer’s make use of any material lying to hand, don’t they? And so, we leave the parish fete and head out towards the antepenultimate post (or third-last if you prefer two syllables rather than six!) Along the way may I caution you about buying candied apples from little old men emanating a faintly sulphurous smell? G. K. Chesterton opined, children are innocent and love justice while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy! Caveat emptor you know, let the buyer beware. But also note, caveat auditor-don’t believe everything you hear. I was going to say more but then came across this epigram, to be kind be quiet.
Rocket Man ( Music Elton John lyrics Bernie Taupin)
She packed my bags last night pre-flight Zero hour, nine AM And I’m gonna be high as a kite by then I miss the earth so much, I miss my wife It’s lonely out in space On such a timeless flight And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time ‘Til touch down brings me round again to find I’m not the man they think I am at home Oh no no no, I’m a rocket man Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time ‘Til touch down brings me round again to find I’m not the man they think I am at home Oh no no no, I’m a rocket man Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids In fact it’s cold as hell And there’s no one there to raise them if you did And all this science I don’t understand It’s just my job five days a week A rocket man, a rocket man And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time ‘Til touch down brings me round again to find I’m not the man they think I am at home Oh no no no, I’m a rocket man Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time ‘Til touch down brings me round again to find I’m not the man they think I am at home Oh no no no, I’m a rocket man Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time…
Little Old Wine Drinker, Me ( words and music Hank Mills and Dick Jennings)
I’m praying for rain in California So the grapes can grow and they can make more wine And I’m sitting in a honky in Chicago With a broken heart and a woman on my mind
I matched the man behind the bar for the jukebox And the music takes me back to Tennessee And they asked who’s the fool in the corner crying I say a little ole wine drinker me
I came here last week from down in Nashville ‘Cause my baby left for Florida on a train I thought I’d get a job and just forget her But in Chicago, the broken heartache’s still the same
I matched the man behind the bar for the jukebox And the music takes me back to Tennessee When they ask who’s the fool in the corner crying I say a little ole wine drinker me I say a little ole wine drinker me
Fete (words and music by Quentin Bega)
The winter sun is shining down the flyers out about the town
And now the parish fete has set its wares- the people wait
The wonders that they all will see on tables and stands almost for free
There are plants in pots with macramé knots to hang about verandas plain
There are books and prints and paintings wrought and curios for you to claim
Laura and her sister Kate are laughing as they pass the gate
Revealing tables under shade with a dazzling range of goods displayed
They agree to meet under the ghost gum at the hour of half past one
Laura likes exotic trinkets Kate want to taste the range of sweets on show
And so they part exploring what the fete will reveal to them in store
In a shadowed corner a man sets up his stall
Baskets of strange-shaped fancies seem beckoning to all
But where are all the people the silence like a pall
Shrouds the magic table as incense rises and falls
Here comes Kate with a coin
Eager the little man to join
Laura checks her ticking watch the time to meet has come and gone
Where is my flighty sister now I’ll go to seek her out somehow
My mum will give me living hell if I can’t find her I can tell
And so she starts her searching calling sister as she goes
Ahead she sees a shimmer like nothing that she knows
Through the magic curtain steps Laura as she sees
Her sister reaching for a candied apple from the stall
Don’t you dare Kate your sweet tooth will surely be your death
Don’t object come with me now- you should save you breath
Little did she realise the truth
The horror she saved her sister from in sooth
The little man hissed as they left his quota now will be one less
The gentle soul he missed today will count against him I would say
Among the council of the damned others like that evil man
But Laura and her sister Kate oblivious of that looming fate
Laugh and sing as they are passing through the parish gate
Yes Laura and her sister Kate oblivious of that looming fate
Laugh and sing as they are passing through the parish gate
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- 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.
Welcome to the first podcast of the month of August 2023, which happens to be the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. Exactly one year ago, I commemorated this day by featuring five songs dealing with that event in Letters from Quotidia Postscripts 9. Four of the songs had featured in previous posts, and one was a cover of the folk song- Morning Dew.
I wrote then, “Canadian folk-singer Bonnie Dobson wrote the song after seeing the 1959 black-and-white film On the Beach The film depicts the aftermath of a nuclear war. The final scene shows, and thanks, Wikipedia, for this dramatic sentence: The empty windblown streets of Melbourne are punctuated by the rise of dramatic, strident music over a single powerful image of a previously seen Salvation Army street banner: “There is still time … Brother”.
Bonnie wrote the song, Morning Dew, the first of her career-and what a first!- after friends she was staying with in L.A. went to bed. It has been covered by a wide range of artists. It was first released in 1961. She is still going strong this year, rousing audiences in Britain at the age of 83, what a woman, eh? The song has universal themes- which I will not insult you by explicating here- the 21-year-old Bobbie Dobson set it out as clear as the morning dew.” Well, I’m reprising it here one year later.
As I was researching material for this podcast, I came across a poem by Sankichi Toge, August 6, translated by Karen Thornber. SankichI Toge (1917 – 1953) was a Japanese poet, activist, and survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. His collection ‘Poems of the Atomic Bomb’ was published in 1951. I found it on the site cnduk.org. can we forget that flash?/suddenly 30,000 in the streets-disappeared in the crushed depths of darkness/the shrieks of 50,000 died out//when the swirling yellow smoke thinned/buildings split, bridges collapsed/packed trains rested singed/and a shoreless accumulation of rubble and embers – Hiroshima/before long, a line of naked bodies walking in groups, crying/with skin hanging down like rags/hands on chests/stamping on crumbled brain matter/burnt clothing covering hips//corpses lie on the parade ground like stone images of Jizo, dispersed in all directions/on the banks of the river, lying one on top of another, a group that had crawled to/a tethered raft//also gradually transformed into corpses beneath the sun’s scorching rays/and in the light of the flames that pierced the evening sky/the place where mother and younger brother were pinned under alive/also was engulfed in flames/and when the morning sun shone on a group of high-school girls/who had fled and were lying on the floor of the armoury, in excrement/their bellies swollen, one eye crushed, half their bodies raw flesh with skin ripped/off, hairless, impossible to tell who was who/all had stopped moving/in a stagnant, offensive smell/the only sound the wings of flies buzzing around metal basins//city of 300,000/can we forget-that-silence?/in-that-stillness/the powerful appeal/of the white eye sockets of the wives and children who did not return home/that tore apart our hearts/can it be forgotten?!// [insert song]
Can it be forgotten? The final line of the poem, August 6.It should never be forgotten. Though, who will tell those psychotic clowns who are threating the use of these obscene devices in Ukraine, Korea and elsewhere? Now, to matters more infused with what makes life worth living- love, in all of its variations.
Three years ago, in June 2020, during COVID-19 lockdown I recorded a wonderful love song written by Barney Rush and popularised by Christy Moore who had met Barney in 1969 in Jersey. “Barney explained it to me,” Christy recalls. “When he was writing this love song, he needed a name to tie it all together. Nancy Spain was a famous English journalist back in the 1960s, and Barney really liked the sound of her name. That was the name he chose for the subject of his song.” Nancy Spain was no ordinary journalist, but one promoted as a free-roaming controversialist by The Daily Express which declared proudly, if somewhat feverishly: “They call her vulgar. . . they call her the worst dressed woman in Britain. . .”And the reason “they” found her badly dressed may have had more to do with the repressions of the 1950s than with Nancy Spain’s own sense of style. In her public appearances on TV shows such as What’s My Line? she tended to favour “natty gents’ sportswear” and what they called “mannish” clothes.
Nancy Spain was, in fact, a lesbian. And it is said that she had many affairs with other women, including Marlene Dietrich. All of which was apparently accepted in good spirit by her soulmate Laurie. The two women even died together when the light aircraft in which they were travelling to the 1964 Grand National crashed into a cabbage field near Aintree racecourse. Noel Coward wrote that “it is cruel that all that gaiety, intelligence and vitality should be snuffed out, when so many bores and horrors are left living.” Well, Noel, old boy, the rain falls on the good and evil alike, as I think an itinerant preacher put it in Palestine a while back. (I got this info from an article by Declan Lynch writing in The Irish Independent, October 4, 2014) and her Wikipedia entry.)
After Rosalita and Jack Campbell, this is my most downloaded song. I think Nancy Spain would have been mightily amused to think that her name is used as the title of this love song. [insert song]
I will end this podcast with a song that is sort of like a lullaby. I imagine a mother reassuring her child that all will be well even though events unfolding in the world around might suggest that all may not be well. And I’ll preface it with a verse or two from one of my go-to poets- Walt Whitman. Several posts ago I used the first section from his profound and magisterial poem, Poem of the Open Road, Here is the second section of that poem that I think fits in well with the themes I am exploring,
You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all that is here, I believe that much unseen is also here.//Here the profound lesson of reception, nor preference nor denial,/The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas’d, the illiterate person, are not denied;/The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar’s tramp, the drunkard’s stagger, the laughing party of mechanics,/The escaped youth, the rich person’s carriage, the fop, the eloping couple,//The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town, the return back from the town,/They pass, I also pass, any thing passes, none can be interdicted,/None but are accepted, none but shall be dear to me.
And, from section six of that poem, Here is the test of wisdom,/Wisdom is not finally tested in schools,/Wisdom cannot be pass’d from one having it to another not having it,/Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,/Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content,/Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things;/Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul.//
And talking of wisdom, in Job we find, Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding? You would hope so but listen to some of the geriatric bloviating emanating from so many of our ageing politicians, shock jocks, and assorted long-in-the-tooth looney tunes and you would have to wonder what Job was on about!
In the closing song a mother tries to convey some wisdom to her child. But the child in the song is rather sceptical about the mother’s consoling nostrums. I tried out several styles to try to capture the spirit of the song and settled on this one to frame my original composition which asks the question, Is There a Ledger? [insert song]
Listen to this quotation from Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a survivor of the nuclear blasts at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki The only people who should be allowed to govern countries with nuclear weapons are mothers, those who are still breast-feeding their babies. There’s wisdom for you! Until the 20th of August, take care of yourselves, those you love, those around you and, if possible, the environment.
Morning Dew (Music and lyrics by Bonnie Dobson)
Take me for a walk in the mornin’ dew, my love Take me for a walk in the mornin’ sun, my love You can’t go walkin’ in the mornin’ dew today You can’t go walkin’ in the mornin’ sun today
But listen, I hear a man moanin’, “Lord” Oh yes, I hear a man moanin’, “Lord” You didn’t hear a man moan at all You didn’t hear a man moan at all
But I thought I heard my baby cryin’, “Mama” Oh yes, I hear my baby cry, “Mama” You’ll never hear your baby cry again You’ll never hear your baby cry again
Now, where have all the people gone? Won’t you tell me where have all the people gone? Don’t you worry about the people anymore Don’t you worry about the people anymore
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Won’t you take me for a walk in the mornin’ dew, my love? Please take me for a walk in the mornin’ dew? You can’t go walkin’ in the mornin’ dew today You can’t go walkin’ in the mornin’ dew today
But listen, I hear a man moanin’, “Lord” Oh, you didn’t hear a man moan at all But I’m sure I heard my baby cryin’, “Mama” You’ll never hear your baby cry again
Oh, where have all the people gone? Won’t you tell me where have all the people gone? Don’t you worry ’bout the people anymore Oh, don’t you worry ’bout the people anymore Don’t you worry ’bout the people anymore
Nancy Spain (Music and lyrics Barney Rush)
Of[G] all the stars that ever shone, not[C] one does twinkle[G] like your pale blue[D] eyes,/ Like[C] golden corn at[D] harvest time your[G] hair, [G]Sailing in my boat the wind, [C]gently [G] blows and fills my[D] sail, Your[C] sweet, scented[D] breath is every[G]where,
Daylight peeping through the curtains, [C]of the passing [G]night time is your [D]smile,/ The [C]sun in the [D]sky is like your [G]laugh, Come back to me my Nancy, [C]linger for [G]just a little [D]while, Since you [C]left these shores I’ve [D]known no peace or [G]joy.
No matter where I wander I’m still [C]haunted by your [D]name, The [C]portrait of your [D]beauty stays the [G]same, Standing by the ocean wondering, [C]where you’ve gone , if [G]you’ll return [D]again,/ Where [C]is the ring I [D]gave to Nancy [G]Spain.
On a day in spring time when snow starts to [C]melt and [G]streams do [D]flow,/ With the [C]birds I’ll [D]sing a [G]song, In a while I’ll wander down by [C]Bluebell Grove where [G]wild flowers [D]grow,/ And I’ll [C]hope that lovely [D]Nancy will re [G]turn
No matter where I wander I’m still [C]haunted by your [D]name, The [C]portrait of your [D]beauty stays the [G]same, Standing by the ocean wondering, [C]where you’ve gone , if [G]you’ll return [D]again,/ Where [C]is the ring I [D]gave to Nancy [G]Spain.
Is There a Ledger? (Music and lyrics Quentin Bega)
Hush my darling don’t you cry hold those tears and dry your eyes
Now you ask me in surprise why bad men prosper all the while
Is there a ledger in the sky where there’s accounting for their crimes
Where they will have to answer for all their cheating all their lies
Hush my darling don’t you cry I ask you please not to forget
There’s a purpose to it all even if you don’t see it yet
Holding faith is what we do even in the darkest night
Hoping things will turn out right that there will be a saving light
Oh mother dear why do you lie to me
I look around and see what’s going on
Slavery and oppression everyone seems to be
Sinking slowly sinking as in despair they drown
Hush my baby don’t you cry I know you need to question why
Bad things happen to the good not the wicked as they should
But all through history life has been a mystery
Love alone will see us through that is what I want to leave-oh!
Love alone will see us through that is what I want to leave with you
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- 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.
Welcome to the fifteenth podcast of 2023. As I close in on the terminus of Letters from Quotidia, I will reprise a few songs that have been downloaded over the years the Letters have been published. The standout is a song which I will provide some context around. I first published it back in 2020 as the pandemic was biting hard. The original post can be found in A Bit of Banter, Episode 70.
Rosalita and Jack Campbell was written almost a quarter of a century ago by Sean Mone of Keady, Co Armagh about the terror of drive-by shootings and targeted assassinations in Belfast in the early 1970s. I first heard the song from Christy Moore’s singing in 2019. It brought me back to my years in Belfast; first, as a teenager, from 1966 to mid-1968 when I spent weekends going to music venues with my girlfriend (later, wife); then, from late 1968- mid 1972 where I attended St Joseph’s College of Education, known colloquially as Trench House, for a teaching degree.
I saw Belfast turn from a vibrant, modern city into a bitter, sectarian battleground in those short years. The descent into hell did not take very long at all. From late 1969 to mid-1970, I lived in a dingy one-room bedsit near Carlisle Circus at the bottom of the Antrim Road. Across the landing lived a boozy journalist from The Belfast Telegraph who would regale me with tales of the dark doings of British special forces and various loyalist and republican groupings. The stuff he knew curdled my blood, even if he did, perhaps, exaggerate for effect. In July 1971
I got married and, in 1972, moved into a small house in a lane just off the Whiterock Road with my wife and infant daughter. There, we experienced the increasing violence that internment without trial spawned- and witnessed (but mostly heard) skirmishes between the IRA and British forces on that road where we could read, from our upstairs bedroom window, the graffito on the cemetery wall, Is There a Life Before Death? In answer to this question, we left the first setting of our married life for Australia in September 1972.
Hearing the song brought it all back, because, not just ourselves, but very many people in Belfast and Northern Ireland have been touched by such a shooting or other instance of violence associated with the “Troubles” which, alas, post-Brexit, may be metastasising again. Put up again thy sword…for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Do any of you think that the words of admonition spoken in the garden of Gethsemane by Jesus has much effect on those who are like the street demons of the song you will hear now? It would be nice to think- yes, a few, even if far too few. Here’s my most downloaded song: [insert song]
Regular listeners to the podcasts will know of my affection for the mythos of the American Old West: its gunfighters, explorers, adventurers, wild women and, in particular, its cowboys. It encompasses most of the 19th Century with its unruly offspring- the Wild West- which stretched from the end of the Civil War, for 30 years, until the advent of the 20th Century. Like so many other aficionados I eagerly consumed movies, TV shows, songs, novels, histories, and documentaries on this fascinating period and I still look forward to more quality work in this genre.
A poem, Out Where the West Begins, written in 1912 by newspaperman Arthur Chapmanto settle an argument between governors of various Western states who each claimed that their state was the true origin of the West, became popular almost immediately and was copied nationally and internationally. I give it here and no explanation will be needed for fans of the genre. Out Where the West Begins.
Out where the handclasp’s a little stronger,/Out where the smile dwells a little longer,/That’s where the West begins;/Out where the sun is a little brighter,/ Where the snows that fall are a trifle whiter,/Where the bonds of home are a wee bit tighter,/That’s where the West begins.//Out where the skies are a trifle bluer,/Out where friendship’s a little truer,/That’s where the West begins;/Out where a fresher breeze is blowing,/Where there’s laughter in every streamlet flowing,/Where there’s more-of-reaping-and-less-of-sowing,/That’s where the West begins;//Out where the world is in the making,/Where fewer hearts in despair are aching,/That’s where the West begins;/Where there’s more of singing and less of sighing,/Where there’s more of giving and less of buying,/And a man makes friends without half trying,/That’s where the West begins.//
Yes, while the original Old-and-Wild West occurred in a specific place and time, I like to think that it persists in all places and among all peoples who display the generosity of spirit and love of freedom set out in the poem. I had little problem finding a companion piece to the first song of this post. Marty Robbins, according to one account, was travelling along the Carlsbad Highway near El Paso and Juarez in the mid-1950s and wrote a draft of his great song El Paso. Three years later, in 1959 he had finished the draft and recorded El Paso in Nashville.
It is one of the finest songs of the genre and it reached number one in the American charts in 1960 and has charted around the world being covered by among others, The Grateful Dead, who featured it for a quarter century in their sets for a total of 389 performances. Sung by Bob Weir, supported by Gerry Garcia on harmonies, it was the Dead’s most requested number. And, because this is a homage and not a competition, I have no hesitation in giving my version here. Or maybe just a little hesitation… [insert song]
A personal journal such as this will obviously talk about the meaning of the term home and all it connotes from time to time. But as I look back over the past three years of the podcasts, I realise that the concept Home permeates the Letters. The final song of this post was prompted by episode 29, Home, published on 01 March 2021. In it I wrote, On New Year’s Eve, 1999, I was relaxing in my backyard with a beer in my hand and my guitar by my side. My family were all in residence and the sun was shining. The heat of the Australian summer was tempered by a cool breeze. I realised that, for the first time in over thirty years, I was in a place that I could call home without demur.
Some people live in the one spot, the one dwelling, their whole lives as have their parents and grandparents before them and they, in turn, expect to hand on the home to one or more of their children- but such instances must be rare today. For instance, in the first 45 years of my life, I had lived in twenty different places on three continents. However, for the past twenty-five years I have lived at the same address. And counting. The opening of the song that concludes this post was an echo of a line from Robert Frost, whose long conversational poem, The Death of the Hired Man has in it this statement, Home is the place where, when you have to go there,/They have to take you in. The other prompt for the concluding song was episode 65, Homebase, published on 03 May 2021.
Here I will make a comparison between these podcasts and a Bildungsroman. ABildungsromanrelates the growing up or “coming of age” of a person who goes in search of answers to life’s questions. The genre evolved from folklore tales of adunceor youngest son going out in the world to seek his fortune. Well, I am the youngest son, and many would say I am also a bit of a dunce, too. In the first line of the song, Homebase, I wrote, most things worth knowing I learned by the age of four, school was a drag and I walked out that door, All that I really want, all that I really need is you. Listen to my latest song with the word home in its title and you will see the connections. Here is that song, Home is the Place. [insert song]
Podcast 16 will land in a new month on an ominous date, 6 August, which is the day that humanity- or should that be inhumanity- ushered in what I think of as the beginning of the Anthropocene when the Enola Gay dropped Little Boy, the first nuclear strike, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. While the pundits are vociferously wondering if AI will spell the end of the human race, maybe it will be beaten to the punch by an older apocalyptic fear.
Rosalita and Jack Campbell (music and words by Sean Mone)
In a bar room in Belfast, into his pint glass,
Jack Campbell he sang as last orders were called.
The bar stool was his mustang, he swayed as his wife sang,
at the gunfire that rang around the O.K. Corral
Her name was Anita, he called her Rosalita
when the beer and the whiskey it went to his head.
To him she’s whisper “let’s take a wee dander,
to where we’ll be cosy in our little homestead”.
When the sun goes behind the black mountain,
street demons come out to dance
And cowboys who sing about gunfights and Indians,
against sub-machine guns they haven’t a chance.
As homeward they rambled, Rosalita and Jack Campbell
called in to their local fast-food takeaway.
As they danced round the chippie, singing yippee-aye-yippee
the crowd in the queue answered Yippe-aye-yay!
Till a car it came cruising, seeking a victim
Jack turned in confusion when he saw the gun.
His last word was “Jesus…” the trigger was squeazed
Jack fell to his knees and the car it was gone.
When the sun goes behind the black mountain,
street demons come out to dance.
And cowboys who sing about gunfights and Indians,
against sub-machine guns they haven’t a chance.
The years passed over, behind her closed door,
Anita she sank into Prozac and gin.
Her nights and her days spent in a haze
down the lonesome road thinking what might have been.
Rosalita, the dark senorita, still waiting to hear
from Jack Campbell her man.
He whispers to her “let’s ride into the sunset”
Heaven’s only one step from the old Rio Grande
When the sun goes behind the black mountain,
street demons come out to dance.
And cowboys who sing about gunfights and Indians,
against sub-machine guns they haven’t a chance.
And way out beyond the black mountain,
Rosalita and Jack Campbell dance,
Where troubles and old songs are forgotten and gone,
And dreamers still hold onto love and romance.
El Paso (Music and lyrics Marty Robbins)
Out in the West Texas town of El Paso
I fell in love with a Mexican girl.
Nighttime would find me in Rose’s Cantina,
Music would play and Felina would whirl.
Blacker than night were the eyes of Felina,
Wicked and evil while casting a spell
My love was deep for this Mexican maiden,
I was in love, but in vain I could tell.
One night a wild young cowboy came in,
Wild as the West Texas wind.
Dashing and daring, a drink he was sharing
With wicked Felina, the girl that I love.
So in anger
I challenged his right for the love of this maiden;
Down went his hand for the gun that he wore.
My challenge was answered, in less than a heartbeat
The handsome young stranger lay dead on the floor.
Just for a moment I stood there in silence,
Shocked by the foul evil deed I had done
Many thoughts raced through my mind as I stood there;
I had but one chance and that was to run.
Out through the back door of Rose’s I ran,
Out where the horses were tied.
I caught a good one; it looked like it could run,
Up on its back and away I did ride.
Just as fast as I
could from the West Texas town of El Paso,
Out to the badlands of New Mexico
Back in El Paso my life would be worthless;
Everything’s gone in life nothing is left.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen the young maiden,
My love is stronger than my fear of death.
I saddled up and away I did go,
Riding alone in the dark.
Maybe tomorrow a bullet may find me,
Tonight nothing’s worse than this pain in my heart.
And as last here
I am on the hill overlooking El Paso,
I can see Rose’s Cantina below.
My love is strong and it pushes me onward,
Down off the hill to Felina I go.
Off to my right I see five mounted cowboys,
Off to my left ride a dozen and more.
Shouting and shooting; I can’t let them catch me
I have to make it to Rose’s back door.
Something is dreadfully wrong for I feel
A deep burning pain in my side.
Though I am trying to stay in the saddle.
I’m getting weary, unable to ride.
But my love for
Felina is strong and I rise where I’ve fallen;
Though I am weary, I can’t stop to rest.
I see the white puff of smoke from the rifle,
I feel the bullet go deep in my chest.
From out of nowhere, Felina has found me,
Kissing my cheek as she kneels by my side.
Cradled by two loving arms that I’ll die for,
One little kiss and Felina goodbye.
Home is the Place (Music and lyrics Quentin Bega)
Home is the place where you can go
When every other place shows you the door
Home is the only place where you know
Friends will bring you joy then bring some more
Where laughter’s always easy never cruel
No one’s cornered as the dunce or fool
Where you can be open and just be yourself
Knowing no one here is hard of heart
Knowing that you won’t be left up on the shelf
That no one wants to tear your peace apart
Here you are contented and it seems
All things are possible even dreams
Hey! Ho! highs and lows round and round my spirit goes
Chasing after moonbeams I suppose in through the meadows of repose
Up down round and round time is slowing winding down
And in this moment not a sound as into your loving arms I drown
Home is the place where you can go
When every other place shows you the door
Home is the only place where you know
Friends will bring you joy then bring some more
Here you are contented and it seems
All things are possible even dreams- even dreams
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- 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.
Welcome to the 14th Podcast of 2023. It is now July, dry for some but such abstinence or even temperance is not to be found in the bounds of this Letter from Quotidia- or indeed in its author who struggled manfully through the last podcast process battling a respiratory illness-dragon that my wife labelled as merely a man-flu.
Which leads me to the song I am re-recording, I’m Supposed To Be. I addressed the background to it in Letters from Quotidia Episode 33: Four years in the heat of North Queensland and I was slowly going troppo. Outward trappings of success, a commission to write a musical play put on in the local commercial theatre, confident and assured as the head of English at a pleasant school, and I was sinking. Friends and acquaintances, family, excursions to the Whitsunday Islands, fishing trips and holidays on Magnetic Island- none of these rescued me from a melancholic miasma of weary wondering what’s it all about?
I was approaching my mid-forties, within the zone for an occurrence of the mid-life crisis, although empirical research has found no evidence for it and questions its validity as a human condition. So, sorry guys, just say to your wife that you’re buying that sports car because you’re a selfish sod and be done with it! I wasn’t really happy with the version I recorded back then so I have decided that an acoustic-only version of the song, at a slightly slower pace, is what is needed.
To help set the scene, I’ll re-visit two valued poets I have referred to elsewhere in my Letters, Amy Lowell, and Edwin Arlington Robinson. Like black ice/Scrolled over with unintelligible patterns/by an ignorant skater/Is the dulled surface of my heart.//This gem, Middle Age, by Amy Lowell, written in the second decade of the 20th Century, neatly describes how middle-aged me felt at that time in the tropical heat- and also four years later writing the song, as I was trying to get a toehold in the Sydney property market and carrying debts that nearly crushed me.
Discontent is woven into the human condition, is it not? Edwin Arlington Robinson, whose parents had wanted a girl and held off naming him for six months, wrote about a man uncomfortable in his skin in one of his best-known poems, published back in the year 1910, Miniver-Cheevy, Miniver cursed the commonplace/And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;/He missed the mediæval grace/Of iron clothing./Miniver Cheevy, born too late,/Scratched his head and kept on thinking;/Miniver coughed, and called it fate,/And kept on drinking. Well, 30 years down the track and no longer middle-aged, I’ll admit to scratching my head from time to time as I keep on drinking. Here is the re-recorded song, I’m Supposed to Be: [insert song]
Now, I can’t leave this part of the post without recounting a couple of anecdotes concerning Robinson which are greatly amusing, to me at least. And thanks to the site Poetry Foundation for this information: According to scholar Robert Gilbert, all his life Robinson strenuously objected to free verse, replying once when asked if he wrote it, No, I write badly enough as it is. A critic found Robinson’s tone not sunny enough, writing, “the world is not beautiful to [Robinson], but a prison-house.” To which he responded, “I am sorry that I have painted myself in such lugubrious colours, The world is not a prison house, but a kind of spiritual kindergarten, where millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks.”
I also admire his old man in the poem John Evereldown who refuses to stay by the safety of the fire, saying in the final verse, God knows if I pray to be done with it all/But God’s no friend of John Evereldown./So the clouds may come and the rain may fall,/the shadows may creep and the dead men crawl,—/But I follow the women wherever they call,/And that’s why I’m going to Tilbury Town. Let us leave the environs of Tilbury Town, now, with the proviso that we will return to it towards the end of the post.
The beauty of the morning at dawn as light spreads across the sky gives rise to feelings of optimism as a rule. Why this may be is, perhaps, covered by the pathetic fallacy where felicities in nature give rise to feelings within that all is well with the world. The islands off the west coast of Ireland have become refuges of those pushed to the edge of the world. The Connemara Cradle Song is a lullaby where a mother croons to her infant child and prays for the safe return of her husband from the night seas where he fishes for herring.
Some sources have attributed the lyrics to Irish singer and collector Delia Murphy who recorded on 78 rpm records in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. Her last recording was an LP, The Queen of Connemara in 1962. The song has been recorded by numerous artists over the decades. With my version I have sought to keep instrumentation to a minimum. Traditionally, lullabies should be sung unaccompanied in 3/4 or 6/8 time rocking between the tonic and dominant, but I would not wish to inflict my unadorned voice on the tender ears of my listeners. Think of the song, perhaps, as a soothing filling between the rather more astringent slices that make up the song-sandwich of this podcast. Here is, The Connemara Cradle Song: [insert song]
A couple of podcasts ago I featured a Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu who wrote a short poem about the fleeting contentment of sharing drinks with an old friend. At the risk of being labelled a running dog of the Chinese regime, may I cite yet another poet of the Middle Kingdom? This time it’s Lu Yu, a 12th Century poet who, according to Britannica online, gained renown for his simple, direct expression and his attention to realistic detail which set him apart from the elevated and allusive style of the prevailing school of poetry. Well, give me simple and direct anytime.
Here is his poem, Written in a Carefree Mood, translated by sinologist Burton Dewitt Watson: Old man pushing seventy,/In truth he acts like a little boy,/Whooping with delight when he spies some mountain fruits,/Laughing with joy, tagging after village mummers;/With the others having fun stacking tiles to make a pagoda,/Standing alone staring at his image in the jardinière pool./Tucked under his arm, a battered book to read,/Just like the time he first set out to school.
This fine reflection on life finds an echo in a 19th Century poem, Nature, by American poet William Wadsworth Longfellow. As a fond mother, when the day is o’er,/Leads by the hand her little child to bed,/ Half willing, half reluctant to be led,/And leave his broken playthings on the floor,/Still gazing at them through the open door,/ Nor wholly reassured and comforted/By promises of others in their stead,/Which, though more splendid, may not please him more;/So Nature deals with us, and takes away/ Our playthings one by one, and by the hand/Leads us to rest so gently, that we go/Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,/Being too full of sleep to understand/How far the unknown transcends the what we know. Also, simple, direct, and profound as I hope I have demonstrated elsewhere in the Letters.
And simple and direct is this from The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes, one of the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance who writes about one of the glories of American culture- the blues- which I have revered since my mid-teens. In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone/I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan—/”Ain’t got nobody in all this world,/Ain’t got nobody but ma self/.I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’/And put ma troubles on the shelf.”//Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor./He played a few chords then he sang some more—/ “I got the Weary Blues/And I can’t be satisfied./Got the Weary Blues/And can’t be satisfied—/ I ain’t happy no mo’/ And I wish that I had died.”/And far into the night he crooned that tune./The stars went out and so did the moon./The singer stopped playing and went to bed/While the Weary Blues echoed through his head./He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead// And now, as promised, we’re back in Tilbury Town, [insert song]
All too soon it’s over, and as the final half-dozen podcasts hove into view, I’m enjoying the sunny days and crisp nights of winter in Sydney’s outer west. Enjoy your slice of the world, too.
I’m Supposed To Be (music and lyrics by Quentin Bega)
I am a middle-aged man with both my parents gone
And my firstborn son he lies in the ground
I am a pillar of strength or I’m supposed to be
For my family they all look to me
To provide the material goods that keep them in the race
The lower middle-class is a frightening place
When there’s no way up that I can see but the way on down
Keeps on beckoning to nowhere town
Sometimes I get drunk and I howl like a dog
Sometimes I am aching with fear
At times I don’t know how I’m going to go on
I don’t know how to go on
But I am a middle-aged man with responsibilities
Although the point of this keeps eluding me
Read the new-age pundits read my stars sometimes
Scratch my head sometimes I’m still on the line
Between a birth and death that makes no sense to me
No one can show to me a larger mystery
Yet at the office I am still a force to be reckoned with
They don’t cross me if they know what’s good for them
Sometimes I get drunk and I howl like a dog
Sometimes I am aching with fear
At times I don’t know how I’m going to go on
I don’t know how to go on (instrumental verse and chorus)
I am a middle-aged man with both my parents gone
And my firstborn son he lies in the ground
I am a pillar of strength or I’m supposed to be-
Sometimes I get drunk and I howl like a dog
Sometimes I am aching with fear
At times I don’t know how I’m going to go on
I don’t know how to go on- But I go on
The Connemara Cradle Song (trad)
On the wings of the wind o’er the dark rolling deep Angels are coming to watch o’er thy sleep Angels are coming to watch over thee So list to the wind coming over the sea Hear the wind blow love, hear the wind blow Lean your head over and hear the wind blow
Oh, winds of the night, may your fury be crossed, May no one who’s dear to our island be lost Blow the winds gently, calm be the foam Shine the light brightly and guide them back home
Hear the wind blow love, hear the wind blow Lean your head over and hear the wind blow
The currachs are sailing way out on the blue Laden with herring of silvery hue Silver the herring and silver the sea And soon there’ll be silver for baby and me
Hear the wind blow love, hear the wind blow Lean your head over and hear the wind blow
The currachs tomorrow will stand on the shore And daddy goes sailing, a sailing no more The nets will be drying, the nets heaven-blessed And safe in my arms dear, contented he’ll rest.
Tilbury Town. (music Quentin Bega, lyrics Quentin Bega and E A Robinson)
I’m going to Tilbury Town to mingle with the women there racing around
Don’t ask my age or means or purpose what I intend to do with my purchase
I could have stayed by the fire smoking dreaming dozing the hot ash poking
Why should I wait for someone to ask me for a song or tune or joke to task me
I want to be free to follow the breeze where ‘ere the will o’ the wisp takes me
Free to be stupid, freedom to fail, stand at the crossroads, wonder who will [be next to] forsake me
God knows if I pray to be done with it all
But God’s no friend of me- you can write that down
So the clouds may come and the rain may fall,
The shadows may creep and the dead men crawl,—
But I follow the women wherever they call,
And that’s why I’m going to Tilbury Town.
I’m going to Tilbury Town to mingle with the women there racing around
Don’t ask my age or means or purpose what I intend to do with my purchase
I could have stayed by the fire smoking dreaming dozing the hot ash poking
Why should I wait for someone to ask me for a song or tune or joke to task me
I want to be free to follow the breeze where ‘ere the will o’ the wisp takes me
Free to be stupid, freedom to fail, stand at the crossroads, wonder who will [be next] to forsake me
So I am going to Tilbury Town, you know I am going to Tilbury Town
Oh, yes I am going to Tilbury Town
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- 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.
At the alder-darkened brink/Where the stream slows to a lucid jet/I lean to the water, dinting its top with sweat,/And see, before I can drink,//A startled inchling trout/Of spotted near-transparency,/Trawling a shadow solider than he./He swerves now, darting out//To where, in a flicked slew/Of sparks and glittering silt, he weaves/Through stream-bed rocks, disturbing foundered leaves,/And butts then out of view//Beneath a sliding glass/Crazed by the skimming of a brace/Of burnished dragon-flies across its face,/In which deep cloudlets pass//And a white precipice/Of-mirrored-birch-trees-plunges-down/Toward where the azures of the zenith drown./How shall I drink all this?//Joy’s trick is to supply/Dry lips with what can cool and slake,/Leaving them/ dumbstruck also with an ache/Nothing can satisfy.//
I’ll just reprise that last stanza, if I may- Joy’s trick is to supply dry lips with what can cool and slake, leaving them dumbstruck also with an ache nothing can satisfy! Wonderful! Real poets can achieve in a hundred words what lesser mortals strive- and fail- to convey in a thousand! Real artists do this. And real artists smile at our imitations of their inimitable excellence because they know such homage is just a way of saying thank you for your service to all of humanity: [insert song]
Louis Armstrong- Satchmo- one of the true greats of music, achieved a hit in the UK with this song, reaching number one. I remember, because, as a world-weary cynic of the advanced age of 17 I told my parents that it was just sentimental tosh- or words to that effect! The site, discovermusic.com is much more accurate than that pimply, callow, youth of the late sixties living in the Glens of Antrim: For Armstrong, it told a story of possibility. With his craggy, weathered voice, he sang a song of hope that seemed to resonate with people everywhere. What made his performance magnetic was its poignancy: it was as if Armstrong, who was in his twilight years and ailing from a heart condition, was taking one last, appreciative look at life, and taking stock of the simple things that most people take for granted. “It seems to me, it ain’t the world that’s so bad, but what we’re doing to it,… All I’m saying is, see what a wonderful world it would be, if only we’d give it a chance.”
Well said, Satchmo. This reminds me of Mahatma Gandhi’s reply to a reporter’s question: What do you think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a good idea. Almost sixty years later, I agree with Satchmo that the world remains a wonderful place, in spite of all the forces that are ranged against it. And the wonder of the world encapsulated by Hamlen Brook in little over one hundred worlds is a marvel in itself. True artists don’t waste space, colour, music, material, words, or your time (and mine): unlike the scammers of various sorts in various guises who not only waste your time (and mine). But also, they seek to separate us from our money. Alas, too many victims are also separated from hope and joy and peace of mind shattered by the predatory wickedness of those whose place in one of the circles of hell is assured eternally- should cosmic justice be a thing! Old man, stop yelling at the clouds! Who said that?
Excuse me, now, as I step down off my soapbox. Where were we? Separation. Yes, that brings me to a song I wish to re-record. In one of the early Letters From Quotidia Episode 22, in fact, I recorded a song about separation that I was not entirely happy with. And, as I was wondering how to fix it, American poet, W. S. Merwin, astonished me with the way he compressed the meaning I was looking for into 20 words, including the title. His haiku-like poem, Separation goes: Your absence has gone through me/Like thread through a needle./Everything I do is stitched with its colour. I thought I was pretty clever way back when I wrote the song Unhallowed Ground using a series of similes and metaphors to tell of the separation of my wife from me in 1989 when we had to part for a couple of months. 146 words or, without repeats, 91. Pretty good, I thought. But for comparison let me reprise W. S. Merwin’s gem: Your absence has gone through me/Like thread through a needle./Everything I do is stitched with its colour. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? The song you are about to hear is much more autumnal, even wintery in its tone despite one summer reference. [insert song]
The greatest separation is, of course, death. W. S. Merwin wrote the following poem entitled, For The Anniversary Of My Death, Every year without knowing it I have passed the day/When the last fires will wave to me/And the silence will set out/Tireless traveller/Like the beam of a lightless star//Then I will no longer/Find myself in life-as-in-a-strange-garment/Surprised at the earth/And the love of one woman/And the shamelessness of men/As today writing after three days of rain/Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease/And bowing not knowing to what. W. S. Merwin died in 2019, aged 91 and Richard Wilbur who wrote Hamlen Brook, quoted at the beginning of the post, died in 2017, aged 96. Both men had a good, long innings, to use a metaphor from the game of cricket. When I was putting this post together, I thought, yeah, let’s compose something upbeat to season the sombre timbre of this episode. And as it happens, more often than not, and to use a phrase from Robert Burns, the best laid plans of men and mice aft gang agley. Which means, our most careful planning can fall to bits.
Burns composed his poem To a Mouse, with the epigraph On Turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785. His second stanza resonates with my near despair at what we are doing to the natural world, I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion/Has broken Nature’s social union,/An’ justifies that ill opinion,/Which makes thee startle,/At me, thy poor, earth-born/ companion,/An’ fellow-mortal! The concluding stanza states, Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!/The present only toucheth thee:/But Och! I backward cast my e’e,/On prospects drear!/An’ forward tho’ I canna see,/I guess an’ fear! My concluding song takes us to 1849 when a 19-year-old Christina Rossetti hooked my soul with her poignant poem, Remember.
As I read that wonderful sonnet, I picked up my guitar and started to strum in a stately bluegrass waltz time and within a few minutes I had the template for the final song of this post- chiefly because that amazing 19-year-old poet supplied me with the lyrics! Readers of Christina Rossetti’s lovely sonnet will note that I have used her words almost unaltered. [insert song] I hope the plangency of the music and poetry in this letter has not proved too much of a buzzkill as I believe the younger set defines anything that takes away from the fizzing and frenetic fulsomeness supplied by our eager consumption of the confections that comprise contemporary life for we fortunate few living in the lap of western consumerism: old man yelling at the clouds again, I fear. So, until we meet again in early July (dry or otherwise) do care and take care.
What a Wonderful World (words and music Bob Thiele and George David Weiss)
CGAmEm
I see trees of green, red roses too
DmCE7Am
I see them bloom, for me and you,
FGC
And I think to myself, What a wonderful world.
Verse 2
CGAmEm
I see skies of blue and clouds of white,
DmCE7Am
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night,
FGC
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Verse 3
GC
The colours of a rainbow are so pretty in the sky
GC
Are also on the faces of people going by
AmEmAmEm
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
AmEmCG
They’re really saying I love you.
Verse 4
CGAmEm
I hear babies cry, I watch them grow
DmCE7Am
They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know,
FGC
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
FGC
Yes I think to myself, what a wonderful world.
Unhallowed Ground (words and music Quentin Bega)
Feeling like unhallowed ground
An instrument without its sound
A pilgrim left without a creed
Like a meadow gone to seed
An empty rhythm in my head
Tells me I’m not really dead
Like a rhyme that I should know
Like that blackbird in the snow
You’ve been gone far too long
How am I to carry on
Hurry home I’m alone
Cold as earth before the dawn
Sunlight gathered in your eyes
Blue lakes under summer skies
Moonbeams played about your form
As your body kept me warm
You’ve been gone far too long
How am I to carry on
Hurry home I’m alone
Cold as earth before the dawn
Feeling like unhallowed ground
An instrument without its sound
A pilgrim left without a creed
Like a meadow gone to seed
A pilgrim left without a creed
Like a meadow gone to seed
Remember (lyrics Christina Rossetti music Quentin Bega)
Remember me when I am gone to that silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Remember me when I am gone to that silent land
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann’d:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
Remember me when I am gone to that silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
When you can no longer hold me
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.
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