Song

Jackson Browne's very first album, sometimes known as "Saturate Before Using", reached the shores of this island  in 1972 . My younger brother Simon suggested that I should listen to it and I was immediately entranced. Jackson's plaintive voice, his musicality and his poetic lyrics grabbed me straight away.

He has released fourteen more albums since then and I have twelve of them. With Simon, I finally got to see Jackson in concert at Sheffield City Hall in March 2009 and we were not disappointed. It was a fabulous concert from a guy who has now been there in the background of my life for almost fifty years.

One of the songs from the first album that has haunted me forever is "Song for Adam". I know every word and I just have to close my eyes to hear the recording. No need for a turntable, a CD player or headphones connected to a phone. I just go to the music library in my head and there it is, complete and sweet.

It is not about love, seeking love or losing love as many pop songs are. Instead, it's about friendship, memory, loss and puzzlement. It was inspired by news of the death of  a Californian contemporary - Adam Saylor who travelled to India in the late sixties and died in the street below his hotel window. Did he jump or did he just fall? Nobody knows for sure though back in 2017, Saylor's father Dr John Saylor seemed pretty sure that it was suicide:

“He wound up in Bombay – Mumbai, now, it’s called. After a while, I think he got depressed. He wrote to me that he wanted to come back home, but he didn’t have any money. His girlfriend had gone back home, and he was stuck there.

So I sent him $600 for air fare, and a couple of weeks later I got another letter asking if I’d seen his note about wanting to come home, and asking for money. So, I sent him another $600, and I got a third letter wondering why I hadn’t responded. And just before Christmas, he jumped from the fourth floor of his apartment.

Someone had intercepted the letters and forged his signature on the checks. Adam never got them. I’m sure he was depressed, and he thought I had abandoned him."

Of course, there's a sense in which that background doesn't really matter. "Song for Adam" is a human song that most people can relate to without knowing any of the back story. Here it is with the opening lyrics so that you can sing along:-

Though Adam was a friend of mine, I did not know him well

He was alone into his distance, he was deep into his well

I could guess what he was laughing at, but I couldn't really tell

Now the story's told that Adam jumped, but I've been thinking that he fell

Together we went travelling, as we received the call

His destination India and I had none at all

Well, I still remember laughing with our backs against the wall

So free of fear, we never thought that one of us might fall

I sit before my only candle

But it's so little light to find my way

Now this story unfolds before my candle

Which is shorter every hour as it reaches for the day

But I feel just like a candle in a way

I guess I'll get there, but I wouldn't say for sure...

from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/3fYMVo0

Belfast

 

“Autobiographical” movies of childhoods seen through the eyes of a child are fairly common in film history .I Remember Mama, Kes, Little Women, The Yearling ……The list is a long one and so I was interested just how Kenneth Branagh would share his Protestant childhood in a divided 1969 Belfast.

Like all childhood memories Belfast is an seemingly endless series of vignettes. A scene dominated by a remembered and much loved one liner, or a fleeting memory of childhood humour such as a drunk auntie singing Danny Boy. Cinematic moments such as a much loved trip to the theatre with his granny ( a nicely underplaying Judi Dench) or a hospital trip to see his dying grandfather (a twinkling eyed Ciarán Hinds) have all been added to by the luvvie that is Kenneth Branagh , so the narrative is just a little drawn out and is overly sentimental, a detail you can forgive somewhat as it obviously a story of a boy loved so completely it almost hurt. 

Catriona Balfe ..many of the shots of the film were taken through open windows, an obvious childhood memory 

Jude Hill plays the eight year old Branagh with wide eyed appeal. Jamie Dornan is suitably buff as his heroic father but the main acting honours go to Catriona Balfe as Branagh’s young and long suffering mother who tries to keep the household going throughout everything.

Kenneth Branagh is just a year and a half older than me, so his childhood memories , even though they were experienced during the troubles had a certain resonance with me. 

His relationship with his grandparents, his love of cinema, his sense of feeling loved, his memories of humorous  events could have been directly snipped from my childhood and those parts of the movie I loved.

But for me, the whole thing was a little overly sentimental, and a tad overlong

from Going Gently https://ift.tt/3ufluPp

Me

 The magic

Is within me

When I put

My pride

Away

And let 

The world

Be my oyster

Please pray for someone special to me. Thank you all. 

from R's rue https://ift.tt/3IxVVNe

Cold

 

It’s cold this morning, very cold.

Overnight even Albert tiptoed on my bed in order to secrete himself next to a warm Mary, a move the elicited a jealous growl from Dorothy which was loud enough to wake me up.

A sharp tap on the Bonce was all that she needed to be silenced and peace was restored.

All three were still in bed when I woke, cuddled up in a knot of paws and legs and tails.

And all three didn’t want to move when I called them 

I needed to get up earlier today, as it’s Bluebell’s service.

I’m just grabbing a quick coffee now , in order to think about my day. 

Apart from Bluebell I’ve nothing sorted until 5 pm when I’m meeting a friend to see Belfast.

Im not a huge fan of Ken Branagh ever since he did the dirty on Emma Thompson ( who is a goddess in my eyes ) 

I still love her feisty Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing who replies to Don Pedro’s comment that she has a merry heart

“ Yea, my lord, I thank it, poor fool as it keeps on the windy side of care “

A great line in a so so film

Anyhow the field gate is open. I wonder if there is a funeral today. It’s not mine anymore so I’m not privy with such news.

It’s a cold day to be standing in the graveyard

from Going Gently https://ift.tt/3AtdZoO