WHAT IS TIME?

Cinderella in the English West Midlands

The ode fowk uv got their tales
Ay they? They spottle em like rain
To the window but yo’m blarting little wench
Yo’m code like yer fairther oo just
Cum in by the dewer and ee sed dae ee
Ee was perished, sed giz a light chap,
A little bit and do’ mither tew lung-
That ull be bostin.
Everthin’s orl right after yow uv blackgraited
The fire plaice over theer.

But little wench yo do’ know it doo yer?
Con yow ’eer me well-yo’m mithered
By a central question and cor tell if the chap
Luvs yow if at all. But do’ fall-
The lad wuz dear to yow and yow had chapped
Ands from scrubbin’ tew lung with the dolly
Gooing up and down. Do’ frown
-yo’m off to the ball and the pumpkin’s fat
For yower trip in the charabanc.
Yow’ve got a prins somewheer for yow
And them ugly sisters of yowers push do’ they, well
Let em,they ay right in the yed.
Yow doo yowers.
But yower dear chap flew dae ee? And youw think
Yow shor goo theer again
Except by sum cemetery wall
Where unce yow ad yower ’and in ’issun

Little wench do’ do it
Yo’m surely fixed fer the ball and cum fower
O’clock and the dawn
Yo’m dancing and all the swopsons want to tek
Yower pritty ’and so do’ wurry.
The prins ’as already landed
And his boat is ready.

Ain't no millionaire babe
but could be if I had the cash,
little verses don't come
cannot even make you laugh
at my distant song. You could
tell all your friends of the man
who proves your loyal fan
make you smile beneath satin sheets:
your TV screen lulls you into half
sleep and the man of your dreams
sails on a boat away.
I miss you nights-whisky for the day
when you were close to me
all so simple and so free;
I miss you, I do, near me, but poems
and prayers do nothing, the thoughts
that come burning bridges and us,apart.
Tell me did I break your heart?
Not my intention to do that,never wanted
that, the ongoing smart of no sweetheart.
Yet I hope you got lots of friends,new as
the dew to bide the while
and as you smile think on me
kindly if not endlessly
for all that I didn't do.
I miss you darling,I really do...

On reading an interview with Neil Young

He looks decidedly old as he sits in his hotel armchair and says it is necessary to hang on in there, swim against the tide, and what tides he has known: a pernicious aneurysm and a dialogue with heroin addiction.

This is Neil Young, Canadian, of the same mettle as Joni Mitchell. He talks of his life work to a camera eye, says the past is a forgotten country to which he’ll not return. He points however to his initial play sets in folk clubs when he chose to write his own songs. Listening to Dylan, whom he thought could not sing- a voice like sandpaper and glue as Bowie describes it in one of his songs- Young rationalised intent. ‘If Dylan can do it, so can I’. It is not pretty voices that make a man…it is ambition, which he hoped would not topple for him.

It didn’t. He’s still around and moving into retrospective. His audiobiography- what a word!- is to be released soon, a DVD set charting his musical flow. Take a deep breath, he’s still here, but older. ‘Archives’ is the name of the retrospective.

Blessings pour out from memory.

After the Goldrush has a strange apocalyptic feel to it, something that my youth cherished, a slow fading of the early Seventies. Its imagery spoke to a schoolboy who also doubted if he had any talent. But ‘If Dylan can do it why not try? ’

I shall certainly view his retrospective. To be young was very heaven but we are older now. Neil Young sits in his hotel room , jowls, a jaw modified by age. ‘ Well I saw the knights in armour coming’. Well they did but it no longer a rush for the Gold but rather a relishing of it.
Thank you Neil. You made a school lad happy then! Keep singing, keep writing.

Leonard Cohen- music to commit suicide by?

Well yes and no. The drone of his voice can suggest world weariness and his voice is certainly not pleasant except by rough standards. There are better cover versions it is true.
So what is for me so compelling? His lyricism. I think the song ‘take this Longing’ a good example. The woman in the song does not love him, at least in his mind. He makes himself sound like one in a production line
‘many men have loved the bells
You keep them chained to the ring’

Certainly the accent is on the body and its results, a measure of love.

‘ so let me judge this love affair
By the stain on the bed on which I have slept’
He says he’ll wear laurel leaves, the poet crowned in the confusion of love, the gap between need and satisfaction.
So is it music to commit suicide by? Only if we deny the body…the body must be accommodated. Even in melancholy there is light, seeing the other side of its coin. Perhaps we should learn to rejoice in his message and all our impulses. Perhaps the poet-lyricist is there to alert us to that perception…