Showing posts with label Dick Gaughan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dick Gaughan. Show all posts

Sunday 1 April 2018

April Fool


I finished "The Catcher In The Rye" and will certainly say it will stick wuth me like a stay in hospital or being forced to watch a bad TV quiz show or soap. I am glad I read it and can now have an opinion on it. My opinion is that it is worth reading but don't expect to enjoy it, annoyance is the biggest feeling that I take from it.

I don't know if it has been made into a film or play, but I wouldn't bother with either. The titles comes as a result of kids sining lines from a Robbie Burns poem in a vers short interlude in the book implying that Holden Caulfield is some kind of potential threratening outsider but really he's nothing but an annoyance.

I lifted the following text from Esther Lombardi's blog ThoughtCo which you can read here

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The poem, "Comin Thro the Rye," by Robert Burns is probably best known because of Holden's misinterpretation of it in The Catcher in the Rye. He tells his fantasy to his sister, Phoebe (he's the "catcher in the rye," rescuing children). 

The reference in The Catcher in the Rye has prompted writers and scholars to take a look at the source. 

Here's the complete text of the poem.

Comin Thro the Rye 

O, Jenny's a' weet, poor body,
Jenny's seldom dry;
She draigl't a' her petticoattie
Comin thro' the rye.

Chorus:
Comin thro the rye, poor body,
Comin thro the rye,
She draigl't a'her petticoatie,
Comin thro the rye!

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,[r] Need a body cry?

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro the glen,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need the warld ken?

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If anyone wants my copy let me know or else it will be going to a charity shop.

It's a complete coincidence that I finished it on the moring of April Fool's Day where you are supposed to play pranks on people, which is fine as a kid but can get a bit grating in the adult worldd and some April Fool's jokes can be extremely tasteless indeed, so I suppose that falls into line with Holden Caulfield. The Wiki page is here where it mentians possible origins in Chaucer but various countries have equivalents.

Song wise this morning, because we have got onto Robbie Burns I will leave you with "A Man's A Man For A' That" by Five Hand Reel featuring Dick Gaughan who I think has one of the most distinctive voices in the world. I remember seeeing them perform this at Preston's Charter Theatre (The Guildhall's smaller performance space) in the early seventies, but I know that Eddi Reader also produced an album of Robbie Burns songs so there are links to all below this.

There is a site here that has all the robbie Burns stuff including "A Man's A Man For A' That" so hopefully I've left you a bit to think over.

A to think this si a result of me reading "Catcher in The Rye".

Don't be fooled and enjoy your Sunday

Tuesday 5 December 2017

Sleepless In Litton


Not exactly, but my sleep patterns this week have been a little weird, going to bed around ten, then wakig up every two to three hours untill about fuve am then drifting into vivid dream sequences, which in themselves are fairly mundane mixing up familiar places and people , like work environments, before waking about eight o'clock and sort of wanting to go back to sleep, but knowing I am awake so getting up shaving and showering and getting dressed.

Today I've been in Bakewell, and managed to do 11K steps with a walk from Litton to Tideswell and back, and was surprised in how quickly darkness fell.

I got back to Music In The Green in Bakewell (I first wrote about it here - February 2016) and bough a rare Five Hand Reel vinyl album "A Bunch of Fives" which I have never seen before, so I added that to my collection. It was a 1979 album after the departure of Dick Gaughan, I can't find any digital music from the album so I will leave you with "Bratach Bana" from their first incarnation.

Tuesday 15 November 2016

A Classic Motorbike in A Love Song - #ALifeinNumbers #52



Bike Music
I suppose I was brought up with motorbikes, British ones of course, generally. Japanese were dismissed as "japcrap" yet my mates still went for Yamahas. Did you know that the Yamaha logo is three tuning forks? It took me years to notice that.

These days almost every bike you see is Japanese with the odd Harley Davidson. If I see a British bike I will tend to photograph it, I still think they look great like  50s American Cars.

Harleys were seen in films such as Easy Rider, but I never knew anyone who had one.

 
One foreign bike that that a few of my friends had was the 250 Ducati Desmo, which despite the orange livery looked absolutely class. My brother tended to crash bikes a lot , one day spending three days in a muscular paralysis, he took a right hand bed too fast the bike slid across the road hit the pavement, through him off and crushed him against the school railings. He also once took a motorbike apart and put it together again and had a box of "things" left over. The bike still ran.

My problem with motorbikes is and was that I could never coordinate balance, gears, brakes, clutch , accelerator so always ended falling off. My limit was Speedway bikes which just have an accelerator. I do enjoy riding speedway bikes which just have an accelerator, and to this day Speedway is one of the only "going round in circles" sport that I actually enjoy.

Anyway we come on to #ALifeInNumbers #52 and there are two versions of this song, both of which are brilliant. The song is "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" written and originally performed by Richard Thompson. The structure is weird, the playing amazing , the story wonderful but sad but typical Thompson. Dick Gaughan covered it and his version is also excellent so I am going to include both versions. His is here.

The thing is I will never be able to play this song like I will never be able to ride a motorbike.

So enjoy you Tuesday my friends, the next post features one of my favourite bands, although really all these posts do.



Oh and I found this version by a band called Red Molly , a wonderful version. This is the first time I have posted three versions of the same song, and I love them all . This is great, looking for a great song I've found another great band. Their version is here. Today is a very good day.



Saturday 11 January 2014

Celebrate Good Times


No particular reason , apart from it's the weekend. It's colder than usual and this song came into my mind, by a band signed to ELP's Manticore label, PFM (Premiata, Forneria Marconi named after an Italian bakers, a bit more exotic than say The Warburtons or The Allied Bakeries!)

The skies here are very clear and cars are iced up, so in theory it may get a bit cold, but this is Newcastle so the temperature does dip every now and then.

I've also been alerted to the fact that the magnificent Dick Gaughan is playing the Sage next Thursday, so I think really I don't have the option to miss that despite the fact that I have to go to London the following day. Dick Gaughan has one of the most distinctive voices I've ever heard as well as being an excellent composer, guitarist and performer