And finally….Frank Zappa – or my brother would want to know the reason why. What I know about Zappa may possibly be more than that of the average music fan: but it’s no more than the tip of the iceberg in terms of the prodigious quantity and range of his output. To be honest, not…
‘Falling’ is the theme that Helen has set us for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday challenge. Lots of songs out there about falling in love, of course, but while this is certainly a love song, it has a rather different take on ‘falling’. I’m a recent convert to Spotify and one very agreeable consequence of…
Helen has chosen the theme of ‘courage’ for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday. There are clearly plenty of songs out there that fit the theme in a broad sense. Many of them, though, I’d consider to be off limits for me, in the sense that they are about the challenges of being a woman. To…
That would be Neil Young, of course. I used to listen to Neil Young a lot in my youth. I was captivated by the first time I heard his distinctive quavery voice on ‘Helpless’ and I owned a couple of his albums – ‘After The Goldrush’ and ‘Harves’t – as well as the live CSN&Y…
This week, Helen at This Thing Called Life One Word at A Time has chosen the theme of ‘Obsession’ for Song Lyric Sunday. Of course, there are lots of songs that deal with obsession – mostly related to love (and lust) – and some of them are downright creepy. However, I think that this song…
Pat on the back for myself, but I saw this theme coming, having looked at the Marquessa’s fiction prompt for this week. It was Dylan Thomas who wrote: “Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light” Amen…
For ‘W’ it could only be The Who. Having, notoriously, slept right through their performance at the Isle of Wight in 1970, I finally got to see them at the opening night of the Rainbow Theatre in November 1971. They tumbled onto the stage at the end of a line of high-kicking chorus girls, Moon…
I’m British and saying ‘Sorry’ is what we do. Besides, experience has taught me that it’s always best to apologise, even if only as a precaution. More seriously, has there ever been a better song about regret for causing unintended pain than this? I was dreaming of the past and my heart was beating fast…
There’s almost an embarrassment of riches when it comes to songs about ‘Fire’, the theme set this week for Helen’s ‘Song Lyric Sunday. And not just any old songs about fire – really good ones. I thought about James Taylor’s ‘Fire and Rain’, but after last week’s rather gloomy offering, I finally decided on something…
As a teenager in the late sixties and the beginning of the seventies, the Stones or Led Zeppelin were your go-to sources of vicarious debauchery. But if you wanted to crank it up another notch – to vicarious decadence – then it had to be the Velvet Underground. Narcotics and BDSM: I mean, c’mon. But…
the only deadhead in the hameau 