We were driving back home from Perth this evening, listening to Brian Burnett’s (pronounced Burnit) show Get It On on Radio Scotland when he played Fisherman’s Blues by The Waterboys. You can always tell when a band is Scottish or Irish, that Celtic lilt just screams out at you!
Lovely stuff, the only down side was that as we were in the car we couldn’t dance to it, we’ve made up for that now though!
Well, the Shetland Folk Festival has come and gone, if you want to see and hear some of the music which featured in it – have a look here.
I’m not a crazy folky myself, although I do like it I wouldn’t go out of my way to hear it. One of my brothers absolutely despises (his word) all Scottish music, and just about foams at the mouth at the first squeeze of an accordion, it’s hilarious. But he is a massive Stranglers fan and follows them all over the place, even abroad. I must admit that I would probably choose to listen to The Stranglers rather than the old fashioned kind of traditional Scottish music.
Because I have siblings who are a lot older than me, I grew up hearing the music of the early Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Kinks and such, in fact one of my earliest memories is of Helen listening to Up on the Roof by The Drifters on our Dansette record player. But when I was getting on for being a teenager myself it was T.Rex and Marc Bolan in particular who had me starry eyed.
My bedroom walls were completely plastered with their posters and it was a great week if the middle poster of Jackie magazine was one of T.Rex.
It was the early 1970s and all of my friends were into The Osmonds, Jackson Five, Michael and Donny, Mark Lester and even what Jack calls Scotland’s Shame – The Bay City Rollers. But I was the only discerning one and was into T. Rex right from their beginning.
It’s sad to think that they are all long dead now, but here they are with Hot Love. I would have liked Ride a White Swan but couldn’t find a good version of it. As you can see, it was the year of hot pants and Pan’s People are shaking their stuff.
Who did you have stuck to your bedroom walls?
And if you don’t know what Up on the Roof sounds like, here it is. I’ve just realised that I must have been 3 years old when I first heard it!
Well the date has been set for the Scottish Independence referendum, it’ll take place on 18th, September 2014. Already there have been quite a few programmes on about it with talking heads all trying to get us to do whatever it is they want. It’ll be interesting to see how the campaign unfolds. One thing I do know for sure – if we are inundated by Tory toffs telling us what to do – it’ll be fatal for the union!
Apparently most women are undecided, me included and I suspect I might still be undecided when I walk into the voting booth to cast my vote. I must admit that I’m nostalgic for a Britain which doesn’t actually exist any more, which you probably guessed from all the old books which I read. Just as a matter of interest, as we’re all obsessed with the weather in the UK, according to Angela Thirkell’s books the summers weren’t any better way back in the 30s,40s and 50s. I know, that’s me going off at a tangent again, it’s just that it’s so much colder here than it should be at this time of the year and we’ll probably have a white Easter!
Anyway, I like Aztec Camera, a Scottish band from the 1980s. Have a listen to Good Morning Britain, the lyrics are definitely not upbeat, but the tune is. The film running behind them is interesting.
Songwriters: FRAME, RODDY
Words and music by roddy frame
Jock’s got a vote in parochia
Ten long years and he’s still got her
Paying tax and and doing stir
Worry about it later.
And the wind blows hot and the wind blows cold
But it blows us good so we’ve been told
Music’s food ’til the art-biz folds
Let them all eat culture.
Chorus:
The past is steeped in shame,
But tomorrow’s fair game,
For a life that’s fit for living
Good morning britain.
Twenty years and a loaded gun
Funerals, fear and the war ain’t won
Paddy’s just a figure of fun
It lightens up the danger.
And a corporal sneers at a catholic boy
And he eyes his gun like a rich man’s toy
He’s killing more than celtic joy
Death is not a stranger.
Taffy’s time’s gonna come one day
It’s a loud sweet voice and it won’t give way
A house is not a holiday
Your sons are leaving home neil.
In the hills and the valleys and far away
You can hear the song of democracy
The echo of eternity
With a rak-a-rak-a feel.
Chorus
From the tyne to where to the thames does flow
My english brothers and sisters know
It’s not a case of where you go
It’s race and creed and colour.
From the police cell to the deep dark grave
On the underground’s just a stop away
Don’t be too black, don’t be too gay
Just get a little duller.
But in this green and pleasant land,
Where I make my home, I make my stand
Make it cool just to be a man,
A uniform’s a traitor.
Love is international
And if you stand or if you fall,
Just let them know you gave your all,
Worry about it later.
Occassionally I have the experience of reading a book which has a sort of internal sound track as I’m reading it and it has happened with the book which I’m reading at the moment. It’s The Long View by Elizabeth Jane Howard, and almost from the beginning I’ve been hearing Under My Thumb – as I read it, over and over again! I hope to finish the book tonight and write about it tomorrow sometime.
As I am the youngest in a large family I had a lot of teenage siblings who were into – The Beatles (girls) and The Rolling Stones (boys), when I was just a wee thing. So being a girly it was The Beatles for me and when I asked Jack – who did Under My Thumb? (why Google when you have a Jack to ask?) – he said The Rolling Stones of course! Well actually, being Jack he said The Strolling Bones, but I knew what he meant and I was gobsmacked, because I had always thought that it had been done by a Motown group.
Anyroad up – I got on to You Tube to see what was available and I couldn’t resist putting two on, the performances are 40 years apart and sadly the line ups are obviously quite different, and on that note, did you know that Brian Jones bought Cotchford Farm which had belonged to AA Milne who wrote most of the Winnie the Pooh books there? That was where Brian died.
Jack immediately said – oh Kathy McGowan, Ready, Steady, Go – well I can’t remember her at all, I’m one of the Top of the Pops generation. Have a look at the 1966 version, obviously they hadn’t got around to lassooing the crowd with a big rope to keep them under control. The guys are having a tough time holding them back.
This version is from 2006, what a difference 40 years makes. Keith looks as if he has just been switched off when they get to the end. It reminded me that I haven’t got around to reading his autobiography yet.
Anyway I just thought I would share with you what has been going around in my head for days now. Do you ever get invaded by songs or tunes whilst you are reading?
At the moment I’m reading The Three Clerks by Anthony Trollope and he had a habit, in common with Dickens and other Victorian writers, of giving some of his characters comical or descriptive names, like Mr Gitemthruit. But it was the name Lord Gaberlunzie which struck me, because I realised from previous Trollope books which I’ve read that he had a good knowledge of Scotland and things Scottish and I’m wondering where he got all his information from, he must have had close Scottish friends of relatives.
A gaberlunzie was originally a licensed beggar but became used to mean just a beggar or even a vagrant. It’s one of those Scottish words which has a ‘z’ in it when it should really be a ‘yogh‘. So the correct pronunciation should probably be gaberlunyie.
If only poor Alaric Tudor in The Three Clerks had realised what Undy Scott’s family title meant then he would have been on his guard against him but then – there wouldn’t have been a story!
In the 1970s there was a folk group called Gaberlunzie. I found this clip of them on You Tube but I don’t know when it was filmed.
Happy Solstice – Do you feel like singing along?
Now is the solstice of the year
Winter is the glad song that you hear
Seven maids move in seven time
Have the lads up ready in a line
Ring out these bells Ring out. Ring solstice bells. Ring solstice bells
Join together ‘neath the mistletoe
By the holy oak whereon it grows
Seven druids dance in seven time
Sing the song the bells call loudly chiming
Ring out these bells, ring out. Ring solstice bells. Ring solstice bells
Praise be to the distant sister sun
Joyful as the silver planets run
Seven maids move in seven time
Sing the song the bells call loudly chiming
Ring out these bells, ring out. Ring solstice bells. Ring solstice bells
Ring out, ring out those solstice bells. Ring out, ring out those solstice bells.
Praise be to the distant sister sun
Joyful as the silver planets run
Seven maids move in seven time
Sing the song the bells call loudly chiming
Ring out these bells, ring out. Ring solstice bells. Ring solstice bells
Ring on, ring out. Ring on, ring out. Ring on, ring out. Ring on, ring out.
This is actually from 1976, the year we got married.
Some of the houses around here have had their tree up for three weeks already so I thought I should at least try to track down some of our Christmas decorations. Easier said than done because of course if everything had gone to plan we would have moved house by now, so I didn’t put the boxes where I could get at them easily in the attic, then I put a lot more boxes in front of them as I’ve been trying to declutter prior to putting the house up for sale. I really should bite the bullet and get rid of things.
So it took me the best part of the day to locate everything, in fact some stuff is still missing but it’ll just have to be. I couldn’t feel less Christmassy, but that’s about normal for me at this time of the year, at some point the whole spirit of the thing might appear, hopefully around about the winter solstice on the 21st. I’m more of a Celtic pagan than anything but I do love Christmas carols. Do you know the Coventry Carol? I think the tune is beautiful but melancholic but it matches the words well. Who knows, by the time we get close to the 25th I might be feeling in the mood for Deck the Halls. I might require some spirit of an entirely different sort mind you!
Lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay.
Lullay, Thou little tiny Child.
By, by, lully, lullay.
O sisters, too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day;
This poor Youngling for whom we sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.
Herod the King, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day;
His men of might, in his own sight,
All children young, to slay.
Then woe is me, poor Child, for Thee,
And ever mourn and say;
For Thy parting, nor say nor sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.
The September prompt over at November’s Autumn is which piece of music reflects the classic book which you read? I have to admit that I was flummoxed, but just for a wee minute, then it came to me – any music which is played at the Last Night of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
I read Phineas Finn, Phineas Redux and The Prime Minister recently, all books from Anthony Trollope’s Palliser series, mainly set in the the atmosphere of power and arrogance of Westminster but occasionally taking forays into the countryside and to Scotland, exactly as they do every year at the last night of the proms.
Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March – Land of Hope and Glory – is a perfect accompaniment to the Victorian splendour of Westminster and the ‘promenaders’ with their hooters and whizbangs mirror the character of Lady Glencora with her cheek and disrespect for authority.
Rule Britannia of course is a must and the mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly certainly enjoyed herself here.
The Sailor’s Hornpipe ia always more than a wee bit of mayhem as the promenaders (the eccentrics bobbing up and down, they have no seats, hence the name) join in as much as possible. I believe there were some nasty comments on You Tube about this behaviour. Maybe you have to be a Brit to appreciate the humour of it all. Anthony Trollope enjoyed poking fun at the establishment, politics and even himself.
I think all of the Palliser books feature Scotland, just as the Proms do as they traditionally end with Auld Land Syne. Years ago a very funny Scottish conductor tried to teach them how to do it properly but he was wasting his breath because they never do. Apart from anything else, like pronunciation being wrong – it’s never ‘Zine’ as some people say, you shouldn’t cross your arms until the second verse; so just at the end.
These pieces of music definitely give you a flavour of Victorian Britain, Empire, humour and downright eccentricity, just as Trollope’s books do.
We get woken every morning by our radio alarm clock, there’s no Scotland the Brave for us, a la Lorraine, but the manic tones of Chris Evans, whom I’ve actually got used to and quite like but the other morning he played ELO’s Mister Blue Sky and committed the sin of talking over the end of it!! Honestly, what makes them do it? Hinging’s too good for them – as we say. Anyway, if like me you heard him chuntering on about nothing important whilst the music was faded out and you too were incensed by him, here’s the original 1977 pro mo. It doesn’t quite capture the whole thing I’m sure there’s a bit of a hiccup close to the end and there are a few notes missing, but it cheered me up.
Wasn’t all that hair great?