Flanders and Swann

Who remembers Michael Flanders and Donald Swann? They wrote and sang comic songs and appeared as guests on TV shows in the 1960s. Flanders sat in a wheelchair due to Poliomyelitis, and Swann sat at the piano. 

Their best remembered song has to be “The Hippopotamus”, with its chorus “Mud, mud, glorious mud”. They had great fun with words. The lengthened ‘a’ in “the Hippopotamus” to rhyme with “was no ignoramus” still amuses me. Another song I remember is “The Gnu” (with a hard ‘g’), “spelt G-N-U-”.  

Michael Flanders wrote and sang most of the words and delivered comic monologues, and Donald Swann wrote the music and played piano. You could easily assume that Flanders, a large, impressive, bearded man with a rich voice, was the act, and the slighter and quieter Swann was merely the accompanist, but the music was every bit as important as the words. Donald Swann wrote catchy tunes and was an accomplished musician.  

I especially like “The Slow Train” about the 1963 Beeching cuts, and its litany of quirky station names: Blandford Forum, Mortehoe, Littleton Badsey, Dog Dyke, .... The way the halting rhythm of the music captures the halting rhythm of a labouring steam locomotive is delightful. Not only that, the song mentions a certain Yorkshire town.  

https://youtu.be/U6OHD2uCpfU

Miller′s Dale for Tideswell ...
Kirby Muxloe ...
Mow Cop and Scholar Green ...

No more will I go to Blandford Forum and Mortehoe
On the slow train from Midsomer Norton and Mumby Road
No churns, no porter, no cat on a seat
At Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Chester-le-Street
We won't be meeting again
On the Slow Train.

I'll travel no more from Littleton Badsey to Openshaw
At Long Stanton I'll stand well clear of the doors no more
No whitewashed pebbles, no up and no down
From Formby Four Crosses to Dunstable Town
I won't be going again
On the Slow Train.

On the Main Line and the goods′ siding
The grass grows high
At High Dog Dyke, Tumby Woodside
And Trouble House Halt, the sleepers sleep.

At Audlem and Ambergate no passenger waits
On Chittening platform or Cheslyn Hay
No one departs, no one arrives
From Selby to Goole, from St Erth to St Ives
They′ve all passed out of our lives
On the Slow Train, on the Slow Train.

Cockermouth for Buttermere ...
On the Slow Train, Armley Moor Arram ...
Pye Hill and Somercotes ...
On the Slow Train
Windmill End.

Record Box - 6, Female Singer-Songwriters

Yet another look at my old vinyl records before passing them on.

In 1974, I fell in love with female singer-songwriters. I suppose the truth is that I fancied them all for their insights and emotions. This music touched me deeply. It was the start of a turbulent few years, and more than any others, these records bring back what those times and places felt like in the most intense way imaginable. Some are now too painful to listen to. 

Carly Simon started it we that immortal line: “You’re so vain. I bet you think this song is about you.” I spotted her LP “No Secrets” in the wonderful Leeds Record Library, and tape-recorded it. It was sensational: her pitch-perfect, crystal-clear voice; the arrangements, the brilliance of the musicians, and her knack of putting a perfect melody and emotion to any lyric. Who else could write such a tune and verse about childhood friendship as: 

“The Carter family lived next door for almost 14 years

With Gwen and I inseparable from rag dolls through brassieres

Then Gwen began to bore me with her giggles and her fears

The day the Carters moved away, I had to fake my tears

I told new friends Gwen Carter had become a silly pest

And then I found I missed her more than I’d ever have guessed” 

Oh, and then it had that cover photograph! My copy is from a second-hand shop sometime later. 

I went straight back to that section in the library, and Carole King’s “No Secrets” was soon on my tape. She had of course been writing a string of hit records for other performers since the late nineteen-fifties, but this was her first solo LP. The arrangements were simpler than “No Secrets”, mainly King and piano, but the quality of the songs was just as impressive. How do you dream up songs like these, I wondered? I had no chance. 

Joni Mitchell really bowled me over. Again, she had been writing hits since the nineteen-seventies with the likes of “Both Sides Now” (Clouds) and “Big Yellow Taxi”, but her LP “Court and Spark” was a level above. It had a kind of loose-structured melody and lyrics, and unusual arrangements. 

Around that time, I had read Victor Pritchett’s “Midnight Oil” about his determination to become a full-time writer in Paris after the First World War. What would it be like to chuck your job and do that? Joni Mitchell’s song “Free Man in Paris”, said to be about the media promoter David Geffen, went round my head for weeks: “I was a free man in Paris, I felt unfettered and alive ...”. I bought “Court and Spark”, and further LPs followed over the following years.

Back in the record library, Laura Nyro’s “Eli and the Thirteenth Confession” drew my eye. I taped that and several others by her, and later bought two LPs, and recently others on CD. 

She was incredibly talented. She had been writing songs since the late nineteen-sixties, but was not well known, being little interested in fame. Important musicians such as Elton John cite her as a major influence. I knew some of her songs such as “Wedding Bell Blues” which had been a success for The 5th Dimension. There was something unusual about the melody. 

I also envied the way she multi-tracked her songs, building layer upon layer, singing all the harmonies, and playing all the instruments, which was something I would have loved to have been able to do. The title song “Eli’s Coming” is a great example. I wanted multi-track recording kit like this. The sound mixer on my Akai 4000DS tape deck was so limited. 

Her songs were like no one else’s. Her tunes, chord sequences, and tempo changes went in completely unexpected directions. She had a powerful 3-octave vocal range that could convey every emotion from pure joy to deep mental pain. It could sometimes be overpowering, but also subtle and delicate, as in the beautiful “Upstairs by a Chinese Lamp”. Sadly, she lived only to 49. 

It was as if she understood my own unstable emotions at that time. These were particularly formative years, weighing up other careers, uncertain whether a change was sensible. I bounded from elation to despair: the excitement of imagining the possibilities, talking things over with those who could help, then realising some things were not for me. Could I be a registered mental nurse, or a probation officer, or work in sales or advertising, or be a writer in Paris? Was it realistic to believe I could get into university? 

I did get in and very happily changed careers, but can no longer bear to listen to Suzanne Vega. She came a decade later during another emotionally turbulent period. I saw her on stage and was drawn to the wide jangly chords of her guitarist, and her ability to write a good tune. Again, her sombre and depressing songs reflected my mood at that time. 

I had been through an unpleasant, abusive relationship. You do not see them coming, and before you know, you have been taken over completely and blame yourself for all that feels wrong. I escaped to a job in Scotland, which was a good career move that later opened doors, but my mother died just as I started. My dad found it almost impossible to bear. I was now at least eight hours away and felt responsible. He visited me, and I hardly recognised the disorientated, shrunken old man stumbling lost along the railway platform. Yet he was only 65. On top of that, I found I was working for a self-absorbed, manipulative pillock of a professor who liked to micro-manage everyone: a jump from one kind of toxic situation to another. 

Eventually, I escaped again to a job with a Midlands software company. However, I had little in common with others there. Most were younger for one thing, and unlike the intelligent, educated, university types I had been with, and their wide interests. They laughed loudly at the owner’s offensive sexist and racist jokes in staff meetings, and seemed interested mainly in cars and late-night drinking. “Nice place Bristol”, one said. “Lots of lovely wine bars down by the docks.”

The offices were on the eighth floor of a building with an unprotected, full-height, rear stairwell, where the toilets were. I used to cling to the wall fearing what I might do. 

Things gradually improved, especially socially, and I felt more positive. A happy marriage and children came along rather late in life. The job paid well and did wonders for my confidence. But there was a lot of hassle and increasing foreign travel. When the time seemed right, I was glad to return to a university job, albeit for a lower salary. 

As I said, this music brings these years back intensely. I would not want Susanne Vega’s songs about solitude and domestic violence to do that. If allowed only one of these records, I would ask Laura Nyro to take me back to the best years. I think she was the most original and talented of all, yes, even more original and talented than Joni Mitchell. Her songs were rarely a simple verse and middle eight, and you could never predict where they might go. I think you hear her influence in both Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon. 

I came across this video that tells Laura Nyro’s story and explains her originality (although you have to put up with some rather long and annoying ad breaks). Her story would make a memorable film. 

Record Box - 5, Jethro Tull

Continuing to examine my old vinyl records before passing them on.

For many years, Jethro Tull was my favourite band by far, as shown by the 18 LPs (albums) in my record box. I was initially attracted in 1969 by the unusual sound of their single ‘Living In The Past’, which I now know was due to the 5/4 (five beats to the bar) time signature, which was and still is unusual in popular music. I went out and bought their LP ‘This Was’ straight away. It did not sound much like the single, having been released a year earlier. 

‘This Was’ had a strong rhythm and blues element, due to the influence of Mick Abrahams who left the band after its release, leaving Ian Anderson as the main creative force. But I liked it enough to buy the second LP, ‘Stand Up’. This was more like the single, with prominent bass, unusual tunes, arrangements and rhythms, and more of an ‘underground’ progressive rock feel. I was also entertained by the band’s unconventional subversive element, and their seventeenth-century rustic appearance (we had learnt at school about the inventor of the seed drill, whose name the band has adopted). One newspaper described them as a mixture of “pop, jazz, and jokery.”

The third LP, ‘Benefit’, hooked me completely. On first hearing the track ‘Play In Time’, I interpreted it as beginning on the beat instead of the up-beat, until it slowly and magically shifted into its correct position. The effect was sensational, but once heard correctly, it was never possible to experience the magic again. 

In Leeds, Roger the PhD student, one of the house sharers, claimed to like only classical music and considered pop and rock to be trivial rubbish. One day in 1972, he came in just as I started to listen to the fifth LP, ‘Thick as A Brick’. He sat down and quietly listened all through, fascinated by the complexities, musical sophistication, variety of themes, time signatures and tempo changes. He declared it to be at last popular music worth listening to. It validated my musical choices because a number of other friends did not like Jethro Tull at all, and thought I had lost my senses. “Ian Anderson sounds like a sheep”, one said. Another friend saw them live and thought ‘Thick as A Brick’ was brilliant, but too difficult for the band to play.  There was a lot in the press about how original they were, but popular classical conductor André Previn dismissed it on a television chat show as nothing not done before. Nowadays ‘Thick as A Brick’ is considered a progressive rock classic. 

Ian Anderson’s lyrics were also clever and original. The BBC radio presenter Alan Freeman was an admirer. I remember him drawing attention to the song ‘Weathercock’ on his Sunday afternoon programme in 1978 when the folk-rock LP ‘Heavy Horses’ came out. Does the weather cock reflect or determine the weather?  

        Good morning weathercock, how’d you fare last night?
        Did the cold wind bite you, did you face up to the fright?
        When the leaves spin from October and whip around your tail
        Did you shake from the blast and did you shiver through the gale?

        And give us direction, the best of goodwill
        Put us in touch with your fair winds
        Sing to us softly, hum evening’s song
        Tell us what the blacksmith has done for you

        Do you simply reflect changes in the patterns of the sky?
        Or is it true to say the weather heeds the twinkle in your eye?
        Do you fight the rush of winter? Do you hold snowflakes at bay?
        Do you lift the dawn sun from the fields and help him on his way?

        Good morning weathercock, make this day bright
        Put us in touch with your fair winds
        Sing to us softly, hum evening’s song
        Point the way to better days, we can share with you

In this YouTube video of a live performance in 2005, Anderson’s flute, the musicianship of the other band members at that time, the way the track builds to the instrumental section at the end, and the overall arrangement, remind us just how good they were. 

I bought just about every vinyl LP for twenty years, and then one on cassette tape. I saw them play live in Berlin in early 1982 when they played new tracks from ‘The Broadsword and the Beast’. I wondered what the Anglo-Saxon runes were on the cover, and spent ages painstakingly decoding them, guided by letter frequency. They spell out the verse of the title song, “I see a dark sail on the horizon, set under a black cloud that hides the sun. Bring me my broadsword and clear understanding. Bring me my cross of gold as a talisman.”

A few years later, around 1990, tied up by work and family, I stopped buying or listening much to music at all. More recently, I bought two DVDs of Jethro Tull performances, and interviews with Ian Anderson and other band members. It dismayed me how Ian Anderson’s subversive humour had been replaced by an entitled pompousness. Perhaps it had already started by 1985 when he recorded the LP ‘A Classic Case’ in which the band played their music with the London Symphony Orchestra. It must be difficult not to let all that success go to your head. 

As well as the LPs, I have the 1971 EP, ‘Life Is A Long Song’, (“But the tune ends too soon for us all”). So true. A funeral tune, perhaps.  

It would be difficult to choose a favourite track, but the title track ‘Heavy Horses’ would be a good contender. I love this nostalgically sentimental video with (after 70 seconds) its images of the beautiful animals that used to work our lands. I also like the less well-known but in some ways similar title track ‘Too Old To Rock And Roll, Too Young To Die’. As for Living In The Past, well I suppose that is what I do most of the time in this blog. 

Record Box - 4, The Beatles

Continuing to examine my old vinyl records before passing them on. 

Copies of The White Album were numbered 

The Beatles were the soundtrack to my teenage years. I heard Love Me Do on Radio Luxembourg when I was twelve, and their last LP came out when I was twenty. 

I have two Beatles LPs: the White Album, and Abbey Road, but I had the whole set on tape. I also have two 7-inch, 45 rpm singles: I Feel Fine / She’s A Woman and I Wanna Hold Your Hand / This Boy. Every record was innovative and original, leading the development of 1960s popular music from simple songs such as Please Please Me to the more sophisticated, like The Long And Winding Road. They assimilated a wide variety of musical styles, and widened our musical horizons.

I played them all the time, and liked just about everything they did. I have written about them several times, such as about how we went underage to the pub to watch The Magical Mystery Tour on television, and how Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, especially the song Fixing A Hole, seemed to accompany all my practical DIY repairs through the years (recently reposted). 

I liked Paul McCartney’s melodies best, and later George Harrison’s songs, such as While My Guitar Gently Weeps. I was never a big fan of John Lennon: he was too full of himself, outspoken, and opinionated for my liking. A bit of a big head. This was matched by his music which was edgier than the others’. 

The White Album allowed my early experiments with stereo. I fitted a stereo stylus and pickup cartridge to my record player, and wired one channel to my tape recorder input. It worked. The aeroplane at the start of Back In The USSR flew convincingly across the room, and I wanted to hear more. I spent my twenty-first birthday money on a rather expensive stereo hi-fi. 

Stereo Pickup Cartridge and Stylus

In the shared house in Leeds, we had The Beatles Song Book and played through it on our guitars at least once a week. We knew the songs really well, and I later recorded some improvisations around them. 

I suppose if I were allowed only one record, it would be by The Beatles. But which one? They had immense influence on popular music, and upon me. 

Fixing A Hole

New Month Old Post: first posted 7th February, 2015. A rather contrived piece about how the Beatles ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ accompanied my DIY jobs through the years. This piece was published in The Guardian newspaper (second item on the page linked here).

Fixing a Hole by the Beatles 

“I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in /
And stops my mind from wandering / 
Where it will go”

1968: A-level examinations year. We moved house and I was allowed to decorate my new bedroom as I wanted, and listening to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on my reel-to-reel tape recorder I covered the flowery wallpaper a responsible dark blue and irresponsibly failed my A-levels. I’m not sure which my mum thought worse, the room colour or the exam results, but after I left for an office job in Leeds, the flowery wallpaper returned.

1970: “Painting the room in a colourful way.”
 
To the tape of Sgt. Pepper, I painted the walls of my rented room an adventurous orange and unadventurously stayed for seven years, ignoring my mum’s frequent hints about the dreadful colour.

1978: A mature student in Hull. With Sgt. Pepper loud in stereo through my Akai tape deck, Leak amplifier and massive Wharfedale speakers, I emulsioned the room an impulsive dark red and unimpulsively got a first, despite living with such a dismal colour my mum said.

1990: “Filling the cracks that ran through the door”

In a good career in Nottingham, I at last meet someone who appreciates my interior design skills. I moved in with my old stereo and tape of Sgt. Pepper and mended the doors and window frames. I like to think my mum would have been impressed too but sadly by then it was too late. We sold the house and moved back to Yorkshire.

1993: Sgt. Pepper is now on a cheap cassette player as we paper our bedroom ceiling using the two chairs relay method. Standing one behind the other, the person nearest the wall sticks one end of the pasted wallpaper to the ceiling and the person behind sticks the next bit. The first person then moves with chair behind the second, and sticks up some more, and so on, right across the room. We both end up slippery and sticky, with more paste on us than on the paper, which slowly detaches itself and drops down.

2015: “Taking my time for a number of things that weren’t important yesterday.”

I only hear music in the car these days. Sgt. Pepper comes on and reminds me that now the kids are grown up we need to re-paper the bedroom ceiling which has cracked under the weight of all their junk – and mine – up in the loft. I wonder if the tape deck, amplifier and speakers still work?

Akai 4000 DS Tape Deck, Leak 3200 Tuner Amplifier and Wharfedale Glendale Speakers

Record Box - 3, The Who

The Who: The Ox, Tommy, Quadrophenia, Who's Next
I had more on tape

Continuing to look through my boxes of vinyl LPs before passing them on. 

Moving from Beethoven's Symphonies to The Who: quite a contrast. 

The Who were different. While other bands sang about A Groovy Kind of Love, and How Do You Do What You Do To Me, the Who sang about their mates in The Kids are All Right and My Generation. Aggressive disaffected young males and Mods and Rockers. Pete Townshend saw it as his mission to give voice to this misunderstood, inarticulate generation as Britain was changing after the war, moving from the relative certainties of the 1950s into the unknowns of the 1960s. 

They also sounded different. That what was essentially only a 3-piece band with a singer could make such a big sound was astonishing. They were all top at their game. Roger Daltrey's vocals were amazing. When Keith Moon joined the band on drums, they said it was like a furnace starting up behind them. Pete Townshend's song writing, arrangements, and backing vocals were original, and he played ringing, wide-spaced guitar chords no one else seemed to know: every amateur guitarist was baffled by I Can See For Miles and the beginning of Pinball Wizard. But, for me, who always had a hankering to play bass, it was John Entwistle who captured my attention. Listen to Can You See The Real Me from Quadrophenia for example: 

A video of the original is at https://youtu.be/IDqr9t1Zn6Q but I am more impressed by this deconstructed bass part from online teacher Stuart Clayton:  

https://youtu.be/SSAQGGD89pE

As I have mentioned before, I always heard the music first and the lyrics very little. Only now, after all this time, do I realise how unpleasant and uncompromising some of them are. Yes, I was mildly amused by "Hope I die before I get old" and "Why don't you all f-fade away?" in My Generation, but could one write the following today? 

(from Doctor Jimmy in Quadrophenia)

You say she's a virgin
But I'm gonna be the first in
Her fellah's gonna kill me?
Oh fucking will he

What is it?
I'll take it
Who is she?
I'll rape it

Well, maybe if you are a rapper. Exploitation and denial of opportunity is as bad as ever. 

Yet, for many years, astonished by the music, Quadrophenia was one of my favourite LPs.

Pete Townshend was writing about a character, of course, there are some pretty nasty ones in Tommy, too, and unpleasant characters warrant unpleasant lyrics. So when, in 2003, Pete Townshend was arrested, cautioned, and put on the sex offenders register for five years, for using a credit card on a child pornography website (a transaction he cancelled immediately without viewing or downloading anything), and said he had been there for research purposes, I see no reason to doubt him. 

He talked about the incident and his songs in this BBC interview in 2012, although it may not be available outside the UK. Listening now brings home how profound they were. Yes, the Who were different.

Folk Ensemble

Naughty to post this because it is not my video. I might have to remove it. 

The folk ensemble when I was still just well enough to attend. A bit untogether, but I miss it. This is from a Cèilidh rehearsal, but which is me, and which is Mrs. D.? Playing a life Cèilidh can be hilarious, especially when people get mixed up, or seem not to know their right from their left: "Next, link your right arms ... no, not that right arm, your other right arm." 

https://youtu.be/iYGN5T2vCqA

And here is another.

https://youtu.be/LhqMOvtpbXE

I am finding it difficult to respond to comments at the moment. 

Record Box 2 - More Classical

A second look at my ancient vinyl LP records (Albums), and the stories they bring back, before I sell or pass them on. Following the post about the Beethoven Symphonies, this is about the other classical records I have, of which there are ten. It is incredible how an old record can remind you of things not thought about for decades, as happened much to my delight here. 

I had no interest in classical music until the age of 16 or 17. It was too highbrow and sophicticated for the likes of me. My family and friends listened mainly to popular music on the radio. 

My friend Neville was from one of the diminishing number of northern working-class families that still had a piano, and lessons had included one or two simple classical pieces. His elder brother has taken this further, and assembled a small collection of classical records. He went off to university leaving them unattended in their front room. I asked about them, and Neville told me more. I think it was Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik he played first. Attracted next by the sumptuous excitement of George Gershwin’s ‘An American in Paris’, I went through the rest of the collection. That was my introduction to classical music. I tape-recorded most of them. I don’t think Neville’s brother ever knew. Thanks Mike! 

Before long, I bought some of the records myself, exactly the same versions. There was the aforementioned Gershwin, and The Planets.  

Slowly, I acquired more. Peer Gynt was an early buy. The Walton symphony fascinated me when played on the radio, although I was not sure whether I really liked it. I bought it with money over from exchanging the Beethoven boxed sets as explained in Part 1. Walton took some getting used to. It is one of those pieces you (well, I) need to listen to two or three times before you get it, but is brilliant once you do.

After going late to university, I began to go to concerts with discounted student tickets. You could hear buses going round Hull City Hall, but they had some of the best national and international orchestras. I bought some of the music I particularly enjoyed. The Vaughan Williams I still would, but the others I am not so sure. 

One record puzzles me: La bohème. How did I come by it? I cannot imagine buying it because (sacrilege!) I don’t like Opera. Although it has a few good tunes and songs, basically, I don’t like the style of singing. Ballet is wonderful, the music and colour and lighting and movement, but opera does nothing for me. 

Many adore it. One chap who travelled around Europe for the computer company I was with, took the opportunity to attend every major opera house he could. Booking a seat was the first thing he did. La Scala, Vienna State, Palais Garnier, you name it, even the Bolshoi Opera, he had been to them all.  

The first time he went, to Covent Garden, was in his twenties. At the interval, he realised he was sitting next to the formidable feminist writer Germaine Greer, who was also on her own. He asked if that was who she was. “Yes,” she snapped back, looking irritated. “Who are you?” He told her, and feeling inadequate, thought he should say something else. The first thing that came into his head was: “The microphones are very good, aren’t they”. She recognised his awkwardness, and spent the rest of the interval patiently explaining that no, they do not use microphones, what you hear is their actual voices, and talking about the training they have and techniques they use. 

He was one of the most likeable and enthusiastic people I have ever worked with. I have not thought about him or that delightful story for maybe thirty-five years. It came back gradually. What it illustrates to me is how, if we allow space for our minds to work as they should, they can pleasantly surprise us. But if we are afraid to do that, and fill them with constant smartphone distractions, it does not happen. 

The last record I have, Brahms Symphony No.3, was bought as a present in 1987. After that, my wife came along with an extensive collection of classical and popular cassettes and CDs. I went over to CDs and still use them. I prefer to listen to music through and in the order intended, and like having sleeve notes to look at. I think this is why there is renewed interest in vinyl records. As well as what some regard as better sound quality, they are objects of interest and beauty. 

Record Box 1- Beethoven’s Symphonies

I have two boxes of vinyl LP records (Albums) which I have decided to sell or pass on, but I would like to remind myself of what is in them first. They bring back forgotten stories. Two boxes is not a huge number, some friends had shelves floor to ceiling, but I had a reel-to-reel tape deck instead. I do still have my Sansui record turntable, but it has been in the loft for 30 years, and no one here is likely to use it. The tapes are long gone, but the LPs remain. 

I spent my first five years after school as an Articled Clerk with the same employer. When I left they held a collection for a leaving present. What would I like? I asked for the Deutsche Grammophon boxed set of Beethoven Symphonies conducted by Herbert von Karajan, the definitive version of the day. It seemed an appropriate leaving present from a professional firm. 

But, you observe, that is not the von Karajan set pictured, it is Karl Böhm. When I took the von Karajan set home, I put on the Ninth Symphony which begins with a very quiet section, and was dismayed to be able to hear an intermittent high-pitched whistle in the background. The manager of the record shop could not hear it, but it was still clearly audible to me on his equipment. Now I am older, it is unlikely it would be, like the high-pitched cat scarers our neighbours have in their front gardens, which my daughter can hear but I can’t. 

The manager offered to exchange the records, but fearing that the van Karajan sets would all be the same, I asked for the Karl Böhm set instead. It was disappointing. You might think that Beethoven’s Symphonies are Beethoven’s Symphonies, and always the same, but that is not the case at all. Somehow, the Böhm recordings did not have the same sense of excitement, at least for me, and I have rarely played them. He performs them marginally slower and more stately. 

It taught me that conductors, performances, and recordings can be quite different. There used to be a programme on Radio 3 on Saturday mornings called ‘Building a Library’, which compared different recordings of the same classical pieces. I think it is now in the afternoon. The variation is astonishing. Some recordings are pretty poor alongside others. 

So it is with Beethover’s symphonies. My wife has a set of CDs on period instruments conducted by Roger Norrington. They are much too quick and bright for me. My current preference, from online sources, is Daniel Barenboim with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which is made up of musicians from the Spanish world and the Middle East, including Israel and Palestine.

Here is a link to my favourite, the Sixth (Pastoral) Symphony, recorded in 2012. At 42 minutes long few may want to watch it through, and this YouTube version is broken by a couple of irritating adverts, but the balance and the way the different instruments and their solos are brought forward is, I think, absolutely superb. The video, of course, adds a dimension absent from stuffy 1970s recordings. The musicians look as if they are enjoying themselves, although the woodwind tend to show off a bit. Barenboim looks as impressively in command as ever. 

https://youtu.be/aW-7CqxhnAQ 

Housewives’ Choice

This is where I lived until the age of 6. It seems unchanged except for replacement doors and windows, and the back bedroom has been divided to make a bathroom. That attic is where I played with my dad. 

The front door opened on to a passage past the front room and stairs, to the back room, with a single-storey kitchen behind. There was an outside toilet behind the kitchen, and we hung a paraffin lamp under the cistern to stop it freezing in winter. There was blue paraffin and pink paraffin, just different brands I think. They had the same distinctive smell, both liquid and alight. 

For hot water we had a gas ‘geyser’. It had blue flames underneath when in operation. For large quantities to fill the bath and laundry dolly tub we heated it on the gas cooker, or lit a fire in an outhouse (the “wash house”) at the end of the garden. A bit later we did get a stand-alone Ada washing machine with a wringer on top and a hose that hooked over the kitchen sink. 

Here we are at the back of the house, ‘tin’ bath against the wall. With no indoor bathroom or toilet you needed a ‘po’ under the bed. The music of the tinkling deepened with the content, especially with enamel metal ones, although I guess they were warmer than porcelain for women to sit on. Did couples have one each, or share? If that sounds primitive, my grandma still used an earth closet. ‘Pos’ were also useful in freezing weather. It was all very well for men; they could wee in the kitchen sink over the dirty dishes. Now we want en-suite bathrooms and a shower every day. 

Before I was old enough for school, I was at home with my mum. Dad went off to work, and Mum began clearing up the breakfast table and doing things in the kitchen (and of course emptying the ‘pos’). I would play on the back room floor. After starting school, the same routine continued during holidays, and after my brother was born and we moved to another house with the luxury of an indoor bathroom. 

At 10 past 9 each weekday, Housewives’ Choice came on the ‘wireless’ as we then called it. It played popular songs. I soaked them in. Before I was 10, I could sing the tunes and at least the first verse of possibly 100 contemporary popular songs. That does not include the older songs my dad sang, traditional tunes, or hymns and carols.  

Last month’s post about uncool singers had me wondering how many I still know. Over the following days they came tumbling out of my head until I was begging them to stop. Here are some I can still make a decent attempt at. I tend to remember the tunes, but not always the words or singers. 

For a start, there was the Housewives’ Choice signature tune. I can also do Workers’ Playtime, Two Way Family Favourites, and Children’s Favourites. Or how about the music Granada Television (then the commercial channel for the whole of the North of England) played before starting up at five o’clock? 

The earliest contemporary song I remember is The Ugly Duckling by Danny Kaye (1952). Danny Kaye also sang Wonderful Copenhagen (1953). I doubt my memories are from those years because I was very young, and they were played incessantly later. 

Also from 1953 is She Wears Red Feathers (Guy Mitchell). He also did Singing The Blues (1957) but I suspect it is the slurred and affected Tommy Steele U.K. version I remember. An older boy copied it as he rode his bicycle along the street. Tommy Steele also sang Little White Bull (1959). 

I mentioned Memories Are Made Of This (Dean Martin, 1955) and Magic Moments (Perry Como, 1958) in last month’s post. Perry Como also sang Catch A Falling Star (1957) and Delaware (1959). I am pretty sure I remember them from that time and still know most of the words. 

Alma Cogan was hugely popular in Britain in the 1950s. I can still do Where Will the Dimple Be, Twenty Tiny Fingers and Sugartime (all 1955) which are fairly awful. But I seem to recall her recording of the brilliant Love and Marriage (1956) being played a lot, even though it was Frank Sinatra that had the hit. Illusion; conclusion; institute; disparage: good for the vocabulary, too. 

Another awful song was Pickin’ a Chicken (Eve Boswell, 1955). Sadly I still know it.

Michael Holiday had a wonderfully rich voice, but died tragically young. I knew The Story Of My Life (1958) all the way through. Is that why I write what I write?  

The Beverley Sisters were also very popular. As well as Sisters (1954), they were well known for Little Donkey and Little Drummer Boy (1959). 

My mother liked to point out that David Whitfield was from Hull whenever he came on, but I could not bring to mind anything he sang. I am surprised to read he sang the theme tune for the TV series, The Adventures of William Tell (1958). Ronnie Hilton was also from Hull.

That’s over 20. There were so many more. This is the personal compilation of a child of the 50s. I had to stop somewhere. It was becoming painful. I can still sing them all. I made the list from memory and looked up other details later. Some were covers of American songs by British singers, and some the silly kind of songs that appeal to children. Commercial compilations of 1950s hits are very different. 

When older, I had a transistor radio. I listened to 208 Radio Luxembourg at night under the bedclothes (Radio Luxembourg circumvented the BBC monopoly and ban on advertising). One night there was a request for ‘Love Me Do’ by The Beatles. I’d never heard anything like it. It stuck fast in my head, and music changed for ever. Parents thought it rubbish, not that it troubled them much. It would be some years before you would hear it on Housewives’ Choice. 

Uncool Singers

I have had a song on loop in my head for two or three days, by one of those uncool singers you would not have admitted you liked to your friends at school. The kind that during the height of sixties and seventies top and rock, would never have been played by Tony Blackburn on Radio 1, and would probably have had their own prime-time television show on a Saturday night. 

There were lots of them: Val Doonican and Clodagh Rodgers, or perhaps in America, Doris Day or Andy Williams. Memories were made of this by Dean Martin, and magic moments by Perry Como. 

We also had Andy Williams. He was pretty good, but most definitely not cool. I much preferred Britain’s Matt Monro, who was not cool either, but his recordings of Portrait Of My Love, Born Free and the James Bond theme From Russia With Love are incredible. What a voice! What a singer! If I was asked to name favourite uncool singers, he would be top of the list. 

I am thankful for that train of thought because it evicted the tune that was stuck in my head. You can have it instead. Any covert Roger Whitaker fans out there?  

He gave the impression of having a high opinion of himself, but Leaving Durham Town possibly vindicates it. Sugary sentiment but a great tune. 

So, who was your favourite uncool singer? Did Yorkshire Pudding have a regular date with Moira Anderson Sings? Did Dave Northsider just pretend he never watched the Des O’Connor show? Was JayCee just an old-fashioned girl who liked Eartha Kitt? Who was yours? You can own up here in complete confidence. Your secret will be safe with us.  

Developing, Printing and a Trip to London

New Month Old Post: first posted 20th July, 2016.

All the palaver of pre-digital photography: it seems as much of the past as typewriters and tape recorders: the business of loading the camera, rewinding, posting off the film, waiting for the prints or slides to come back hoping they will ‘come out’ all right, rationing your few remaining shots to avoid having to buy a new film, ordering extra copies for Grandma, and cluttering up drawers with boxes of colour slides, photograph albums and packets of negatives, and lofts with the slide projector, carousels and the glass-beaded screen.

And then there were those of us who took things a stage further: home processing. For that you needed another whole cupboard full of esoteric paraphernalia.

It was Duncan across the road who got me started. His dad developed his own photographs and had given him a packet of out-of-date contact papers. They darkened in light, so objects such as leaves or your fingers would leave a white silhouette. You could even print crude photographs from negatives in the same way. The problem was that the contact papers would continue to darken until they were completely black all over. Your silhouette or image lasted only five minutes at most.

Well, one thing led to another, and before long I was making proper prints from negatives. I turned the yellow shed into a dark room, got a device for exposing photographic paper to illuminated negatives for just a few seconds, and began to spend my pocket money at the local chemists on packets of contact papers and bottles of photographic chemicals: developer to bring out the images and fixer to make the prints light-proof.

With the idea of taking photographs of London, we went down on the train to stay for a few days with Duncan’s grandma in Hounslow, where turboprop aeroplanes rumbled low overhead smelling of paraffin, and we had to be up early so her night-shift lodger could use the same bed. We freely roamed the Underground on our Rail Rovers (would you let two fourteen-year-olds do this now, naïve as we then were?), went to the Science Museum, saw the Houses of Parliament and The Monument, howled with laughter at The Road to Hong Kong in which Bob Hope and Bing Crosby get fired into space in a capsule designed for monkeys, and got free tickets for the live Friday lunchtime broadcast of The Joe Loss Pop Show with guests The Barron Knights and regular singer Ross McManus – Elvis Costello’s dad. Actually, it was a bit disappointing to find the guests were only The Barron Knights whose act basically consisted of making fun of other groups. A few weeks earlier they’d had The Rolling Stones and The Searchers.

London Airport, 1964 (renamed Heathrow in 1966)

I took my new Kodak Brownie Starmite camera (12 images of 4x4 cm on rolls of 46mm 127 sized film), but none of the photographs I developed at home were much good. Only one commercially developed shots came out, taken at London Airport (not yet called Heathrow): the last frame on a colour film left over from an earlier family holiday.

I used the Brownie camera for the next ten years but with black and white film because colour was so expensive. I could occasionally afford the flash bulbs though: disposable one-use plastic coated bulbs filled with magnesium and oxygen, sparked off by a battery. They melted when fired, leaving ash-filled knobbly glass inside the protective plastic coating.

Black and white film was easy to develop at home if you had a light-proof developing tank, and one conveniently materialised at Christmas. The most difficult part was getting the film into the tank. You had to separate it from its light-proof backing paper and feed it into a plastic spiral which went inside the tank, but you had to do it completely in the dark. The yellow shed was just about dark enough for contact printing – you could do that in the dim orange glow from the contact printer – but film was ultra-sensitive and had to be handled in pitch-black. You had to wait for night time, and then found yourself with head and arms beneath thick bedclothes, trying not to breathe on the film, getting hotter and hotter and gasping for oxygen. You really had to get a move on.

Once the film was safely in the tank the lid stayed on and you could work in daylight. It was essentially the same process as developing contact prints. You filled the tank with Johnson Universal Developer for a fixed amount of time, emptied it and replaced the developer with Johnson Acid Hypo Fixer for around a further thirty minutes, rinsed everything thoroughly with lukewarm water, took the film out of the tank and just like in Blow Up hung it to dry weighted by a bulldog clip to prevent curling. After that the negative images on the developed film could be contact printed (I have archived a copy of the Paterson instruction booklet which shows and explains the process).

It was always exciting to take the shimmering wet film out of the tank to see the dark negatives for the first time and try to make sense of what they were. You could easily have forgotten because the earlier images on the film would often be several months old. When you then printed the photographs it was fascinating to watch the images emerge under the surface of the developing fluid, trying in the dim light to judge when they were ready. 

I was never more than an occasional snapshot photographer, but my uncle gave me his old enlarger for making prints bigger than the negatives and I avidly watched the BBC series Better Photography on Saturday mornings through the autumn of 1965. 

Later, the Brownie Starmite was superseded by a Zenith E, a fairly basic Russian-made 35mm single lens reflex camera for which I bought extra lenses, an electronic flash gun and extension tubes for close-ups. I later tried the more complex process of colour developing and printing but tended to have difficulty with the colour balance because of my colour deficiency. Eventually I moved on to colour slides, and home processing came to an end.

Now, of course, everything is digital and so another of those experiential manual skills has been lost to the electronic world: the exercise of judgement, the physical manipulation of the materials, the strange saliva-inducing smell of the chemicals, the darkroom perfectionism – all gone! Instead, we compile our digital albums, Photoshop our images, blog about what fun things used to be and can be vaingloriously creative without physical skills at all. It’s good in many ways, but not always as satisfying. 

- Maurice Fisher’s website Photographic Memorabilia is a real treasure trove of images and information about photographic film processing and equipment.

The Beatles Song Book

Another memory of the shared house.

Evenings wasted instead of working for exams. To the beer-off for a big bottle of Woodpecker or Strongbow cider each (were they 3 pints i.e. 1.5l?), then out with the songbooks and guitars? What a good thing the walls were solid. We never heard a squeak from the neighbours.

Brendon had the Simon and Garfunkel book, but that became too difficult as the cider went down. So, we would switch to songs made up ourselves, mainly about the chap who owned the house, known as “Pete may I trouble you gentlemen for some rent please.”

There was the song to the tune of The Ball of Kirriemuir: “Pete does all the cleaning, and that’s a job he hates, and so to appease him we have to wash the plates.” Or the one to the tune of The Tavern In The Town about what he liked to do with sheep. Delightfully juvenile.

Best of all was The Beatles Complete song book. My guitar playing improved no end through that. I still have it, its tattered and patched-up pages showing the use it had. We played it beginning to end, through all the old favourites from “Across The Universe” to “You’re Going To Lose That Girl” and “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away”. We never seemed to get “Across the Universe” right, especially the “Jai guru deva, om” bit. One of Brendan’s friends could do all the harmonies to “Because”, which was pretty impressive. 

Later, I used the Beatles book for [tautology warning] improvisation practice, making double and treble backing tracks with my Akai 4000DS tape deck. Of course, you can do this kind of thing today with digital mixing desks, or even free software such as Audacity on a laptop. It was not so easy then. 

Here, from 1978, is “Yesterday” with an improvides middle eight. After 45 years, I now tend to hear the snatched notes, clumsy phrasing and track synchronisation problems, which might mean I’m a better musician now, but I still find it has something. The held note in bar 5 of the last verse, followed by slowing down at the end, releases tension.   

I have only just noticed that the song has 7 bars per verse rather than the usual 8.

https://youtu.be/8lgucFMNC1o 

Bangers and Mash

We opened a tin of country garden vegetable soup. Sheer laziness, I know, but it was fine. However, we were surprised to see that the contents included rice and pasta. I know they have to keep the price down, even though it was not a cheap brand, but country garden vegetable soup containing rice and pasta, well, you wonder which country’s garden vegetables they have in mind. 

I am not the first to say this, but before around 1970, at least in the north of England, rice was for puddings, and few knew what pasta was. “Foreign muck”, as my mother would have called it, was laughed at. 

From somewhere in my head, came this forgotten song about an Englishman who married an Italian, who, in the days when men never entered the kitchen, gave him only Italian food.   

https://youtu.be/aGFpVN2xwXU

Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren recorded the song as a follow-up to their hit, ‘Goodness Gracious Me’, which arose from their roles in the film, ‘The Millionairess’ (1960).

Sellers was at the height of his popularity. I never understood why. To me, he seemed a self-regarding show-off, and not a particularly likable person. I found much of his humour unfunny, and in retrospect it was often cruel, with every -ist and -phobia going. He was brilliant at inventing comic voices and characters, as you can hear in the song, but it was the kind of humour that laughed at odd accents and eccentricities. I side with the eccentrics. Underneath, I think he was an immensely talented but flawed, deeply unhappy soul. He seemed unable to be himself. He died of a heart attack in 1980, aged 54. There are conflicting views about the exact nature of his relationship with Sophia Loren. I suspect she had better sense. 

The Deaf Duster

My wife was looking for a clean duster. I surprised her by producing a brand new one, forty years old. A BBC archive clip of programs I wrote for deaf children reminded me of it recently (the one-minute clip is here). Someone gave me the duster at that time.  

We decided the duster was much too nice to use as a duster, so it went back in the drawer. 

I never did manage to learn the sign alphabet. I can spell out my name, but little else. 

Memories churned around in my head, as often happens these days, and in the middle of the night, out of nowhere, there emerged a song.

To the tune of the old British music hall song Let's All Go Down The Strand: 

           Let's all go through the codes (Have a banana)
           Let's all go through the codes (Gertie Gitana)
           A B C D    /    E F G
           H I J K    /    L M N O P
           Q R S      /    T
           U V W X Y    /    Zee
           A B C D    /    E F G
           Let's all go through the codes.

What a great way to learn it: 

He's as daft as a brush. 

Right, who wants a part in The Semaphore Version of Wuthering Heights, or Julius Caesar on an Aldis Lamp? 

Paul McCartney’s RAM

New Month Old Post: first posted 7th November 2018

We can be very dismissive when young, especially about music. 

When Paul McCartney’s long playing record Ram came out in 1971, a lot of people hated it. They were irritated by the embarrassing sight and sound of Linda McCartney and her wooden, astringent vocals. Why was she on the record anyway: as if it were a primary school class where everyone has to join in banging tambourines and triangles, even the talentless? Why was she accredited fully as co-creator, which no one really believed?

I simply dismissed it. It was not The Beatles. I was fed up with it emanating from Brendan’s room in the shared house. After all, didn’t I have more sophisticated tastes? Didn’t I think of myself as a knowledgeable connoisseur of serious music like progressive rock, particularly Jethro Tull who had just released Aqualung? How could the McCartneys’ frivolous, inconsequential warbling possibly compare?

The only legacy, for me, was that to this day, whenever we drive past a certain cut-price supermarket I sing the following mondegreen:

Lidl Lidl be a gypsy get around
Get your feet up off the ground
Lidl Lidl get around.

I recently looked up the lyrics to discover that the actual words are “Live a little” from the track Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey who “had to have a bath or he couldn’t get to sea” – another misheard lyric, it’s “berth”.

One thing led to another and I ended up getting the CD as a birthday present (I don’t do streaming). What a revelation! Judging it inferior to Jethro Tull was being Thick as a Brick.

I now think Ram is amongst Paul McCartney’s best and most innovative output: so rich in ideas – melodies, harmonies, arrangements, decorations, quirky bits – almost every part of every track is different. It‘s an amusing, joyful record, a bit late-Beatles, like the brightest parts of Abbey Road and The White Album.

It has been described as a “domestic-bliss album”. Despite personal and contractual pains in disentangling himself from the Beatles, Paul was now living a contented and enviable life, very happy with Linda and children in their rural retreat. You hear it throughout. And Linda’s voice is just about OK too, or at least you get used to it. 

Maybe I liked Ram all along but did not want to admit it.

https://youtu.be/XI6C7L66zq8

Sunday Silliness

Silly Songs With Simple Chords
C and G7 

         Cows in the kitchen, moo moo moo,
         Pigs in the pantry, grunt oink ooh,
         Lambs on the landing, baa baa boo,
         Skip to my Lou my darling.

         There’s a horse in the hallway, neigh neigh neigh,
         A donkey in the doorway, bray bray bray, 
         Ducks and chicks in the chairs all day, 
         Skip to my Lou my darling. 

         Get all these animals out of this place,
         They make a lot of noise, they take a lot of space,
         There’s no room left for me or you,
         Can’t skip to the loo, you can’t get through.  

Downstairs

New Month Old Post: first posted 30th October, 2016.

A song for dads to sing to their children. 

What a super singalong on BBC Four on Friday! 

It Started with a Kiss, or rather for us with a bottle of Chilean Shiraz. It was followed by a fabulous edition of Top Of The Pops 1982, from 15th July. After several weeks of watching the constipated faces of Brian Ferry and Martin Fry (get the look!), it was great to have some good tunes for a change. Following Errol and Hot Chocolate came Dexy’s Come On Eileen, the perennial Cliff Richard, David Essex’s Night Clubbing, and Irene Cara’s Fame (although I have never understood the line in that song about qualifying for a pilots licence).

Later, there was a concert with the then (in 2016) 83-year-old Petula Clark who has brought out a new LP. Goodness, she is even more perennial than Cliff Richard. My great-grandfather used to like her and he died in 1960. Her voice is a bit thin now, but the music and band were superb. She kept us waiting for her ultimate singalong song but it duly arrived near the end. I then blotted my copybook by reprising my own lyrics from when the children were little. They went something like this.

When you’re in bed and Mummy’s snoring beside you

You can always go, downstairs

When you are cold and Mummy’s got all the duvet

There’s a place I know, downstairs

You can lie down on the settee, and have it all to yourself, 

Choose some bedtime reading from the books upon the bookshelf

How can you lose?

It’s warmer and quieter there 

You can forget all the snoring, no need to stay there 

Just go downstairs

Sleeping on the settee, downstairs

Sleeping so peacefully, downstairs

Everything’s waiting for you.

When you’re in bed and Mummy’s been eating garlic

There’s a place to go, downstairs

Onions and curry, chilli, tikka masala

Seems to help I know, downstairs

You can open all the windows and the air is clear and nice

Fill your lungs with freshness that’s free of herbs and spice

How can you lose?

The night is much cleaner there

You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares

And go downstairs

Have a weak cup of tea, downstairs

Crackers or toast for me, downstairs

Everything’s waiting for you.

I was lucky not to have to sleep downstairs.  

I Haven’t Time To Be A Millionaire

What do young people do when they begin to take more than just a passing interest in each other? One answer it that they walk in the countryside. Our children did so with there special friends, and I have written about how I was smitten one warm evening in peaceful Leicestershire ridge and furrow. 

My parents were no different. This pair of photographs is from 1945. That is Rawcliffe Church in the distance. 

I was selecting images to illustrate the old family audiotapes I have mentioned several times, with a view to putting them on YouTube to minimise risk of loss. Here, yet again, is my dad singing “I Haven’t Time To Be A Millionaire”, this time as a video with images. It may not be particularly sophisticated, but it seems to work well.

I bet he imagined he was Bing Crosby singing with Gloria Jean in “If I Had My Way”. Let’s say he makes a recognisable attempt. I cannot imagine my mum managing Gloria Jean’s coloratura soprano, though. I looked up the original. What a delight! Astonishingly, Gloria Jean was just 14 at the time, playing the part of an orphaned child. She’s nearly as good as Bing. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqzBUaonyZw

Dad sang a lot of Bing Crosby songs to us; there are more on the full audiotape, such as (from the same film): “If I had my way forever there’d be, a garden of roses for you and for me”, and (from “Rhythm on the River”): “Do I want to be with you, as the years come and go? Only forever, if you care to know”. 

“Stop being soppy,” I hear my mum say, which of course encouraged him. 

Isn’t it great to be able to share our parents’ musical obsessions, even years too late. I wish I could watch the films with them now.