I had no problem whatsoever in choosing an artiste born in August for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday. Jerome John Garcia was born on August 1st 1942 and died on August 9th 1995. Deadheads still celebrate his life in ‘The Days Between’ – the period between the first and ninth of this month. The actual…
When I saw that the subject for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday was sweet things, there was only one question that needed to be answered: had I used it before? Happily, the answer was ‘no’ – but I have now. From the seminal 1970 studio album ‘American Beauty, this is a particularly fine live version…
I have to confess that when I saw that the theme for Song Lyric Sunday this week was ’empowerment’, my first, dread, thought was ‘I Will Survive’. Rest easy though, gentle reader, and be assured that this post is an entirely Gloria Gaynor-free zone. Instead, I remembered this song by Jimmy Cliff, the Jamaican reggae…
From 2014, on being an international jet-setter… Faraway Laughter “Far from home. Tell us about the farthest you’ve ever travelled from home.” There’s a website – of course there is: did you really think there wouldn’t be? – that will tell you the precisely opposite position on the globe to wherever you are in the world. Useful…
This week it’s time to celebrate a July birthday for Song Lyric Sunday. Looking down the list, one true A-lister stood out: (Sir) Michael Philip Jagger, born on 26 July 1943. So he’ll be 83 in a couple of weeks. Eighty three. I’ll just leave that with you for a moment…. Of course my first…
This week, Jim is looking for a tune from The Great American Songbook. Searching the list, there’s a predominance of what I’d categorise as Broadway show tunes: some good, some frankly awful and some that even a grumpy old trapped-in-the-seventies geezer like me absolutely love. And so it happens that this Jerome Kern classic is…
This week, the theme for Song Lyric Sunday is about enjoying outdoors: that’s something I do from time to time but, in the opinion of some, not enough. Oddly, the first artiste that sprang to mind was John Denver, who certainly made a decent living singing of the great outdoors. However, I was never a…
From 2014, asking the question ‘Is the world a better place? O tempora! O mores! “21st century citizen. Do you belong in this day and age? If you do, explain why – and if you don’t, when in human history would you rather be?” A bit tricky this one, because there’s good and bad today,…
As soon as I saw that his week’s theme was ‘Dads and Grads’ I realised two things. The first was that it must be Fathers’ Day today. Secondly and more importantly that I knew exactly which song I wanted to feature. I knew I had posted about this before, but as it was over nine…
If my contribution to SLS last week was pretty mainstream (and none the worse for that), this one’s a bit out there. The theme for this week is dependence and/or trustworthiness. I dismissed the idea of ‘He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother’, good song though it is, because the first thing that came into my…
the only deadhead in the hameau 