I was never a party-pooper, you understand – at least I hope not – but at most of the parties I went to in my youth I’d most likely be the one on his own in the corner, crippled by tongue-tied shyness, avoiding eye contact and trying not to be noticed. ‘Twas ever thus. So…
“War is over and battles are gone After the war no one has won” Well, this was a lot harder than I initially thought it would be. Helen’s theme for this week is ‘Peace’. Lots of songs about, or including the word ‘Peace’, of course – and peace could mean the absence of war or,…
Throughout this year of stately progress through my music lexicon, it’s become pretty clear that the late teens is the most important time for the development and fixing of musical tastes. Much of that, naturally, has to do with the music that was current during that period of seething hormones and general angst. So, lucky…
“He thinks he is a flower to be looked at” An interesting challenge from Helen for Song Lyric Sunday this week: a song about bragging. That set me thinking, as I wouldn’t naturally pay much attention to any song about imposing an ego on others. But with a bit of lateral thinking I came up…
“Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles To fall down at your door”” Lots of songs about travelling out there to fit Helen’s theme for this week, of course. My first thought – as it usually is – was something by the Grateful Dead, and there’s certainly no shortage of them either.…
Through the miracle of the world-wide web, I know that it was the evening of March 1st 1969 that I spent in the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall with my brother (well, I knew that already – obviously) at a concert compered by the immortal John Peel, which featured a sitar player (Vytas Serelis, also a noted…
Helen’s Song Lyric Sunday theme for this week is ‘self-love’. It’s fair to say that this is a topic that’s – well, let’s say ‘open to interpretation’. Keeping it clean, however, as another participant has pointed out, there is a plethora of self-love songs written and performed from a feminine perspective, but for blokes the…
‘Rules”: can’t live with em, can’t live without ’em. Especially the latter. An interesting theme set for us this week by Helen, and not too difficult to find relevant – if not necessarily all that poetic – lyrics. I’m sure that this song – written in 1959 by Sonny Curtis, a member of Buddy Holly’s…
Jazz is not like Marmite. When it comes to that disgusting yeast extract you either love it or you hate it – and you now know my position on the matter – but there is some jazz I like and some I just can’t bear. I don’t know why – I’m nowhere near enough of…
“Well I can tell your future before it comes to pass And I can do things for you that make your heart feel glad” An interesting – and challenging – theme this week from Helen: Fortune-telling or predicting the future. Didn’t see that one coming. Unless you take a very broad interpretation (and there’s no…
the only deadhead in the hameau 