Heroes

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nIn his play Private LivesnNoel Coward has his character Amanda say: –

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n“Extraordinary how potentncheap music is.”

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nCheap music meant, in the 1930s, (when Private Lives was written), popular music. Amanda seems surprised, as if popular music should not be potent or have depth, but she is right – some popular music is extraordinarily potent. Popular music is not, of course, classical music. It may be the music of the man in the street, but that does not necessarily mean it is not as ‘high-brow’ as classical music. An awful lot of classical music is pretentious (pretentious – moi?), derivative and, let’s face it, meretricious ( … and a Happy New Year to you, too). And an awful lot of popular music is tremendously witty, clever and inventive.

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nHow can you not continuento listen to a song that starts with the line: –

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nI love a good bum on anwoman, it makes my day

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nAh, Jake Thackray.nPossibly the finest lyricist that this country has ever produced. I introducednhim yesterday but he deserves more than just a single mention. Technically,nJake was perfect – he’d taught English and knew his craft inside out, understanding scansion and metre as well as rhyme. He standsnin a magnificent tradition of European chanteurs,– easily equalling JacquesnBrel or George Bressens (whom he acknowledged by translating, deftly, LeGorille). Look at the next line: –

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nTo me, it is palpablenproof of God’s existence, a posteriori

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nPalpable? When was thenlast time you heard the word ‘palpable’ in a song? And that magnificent pun – anposterior (a bum) and a posteriori (a philosophical premise framed onnepistemological evidence)! In the second line of a song about arses and naggingnwomen? Well done, Sir. Listen to On Again, On Again at this link.

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nI also mentioned poundnnotes yesterday. Half of a pound was ten shillings, and a ten-shilling note wasnonce a thing to have. Nipping back to Welsh for a minute, a ten-shilling notenwas nicknamed a papur chwigain (six time twenty paper). Listen to the openingnof Steve Tilston’s Slip Jigs and Reels (apologies for the quality of the link –nit’s nothing to do with me).

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nHe was barely a man

nIn his grandfather’s coat,

nSewn into the lining

nA ten-shilling note.
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nThis is setting up a wholenfuture epic. And how. Just from these four lines we know that there is a grandnstory to be told here. Any teacher of creative writing worth their salt willntell their students that the opening line of any work must be a hook thatncatches the attention of the reader. I want to know what happens to this boy;nwhy sew a ten-shilling note into his grandfather’s coat, and where is he offnto? When I was a lad, you got ten bob (50p) for your birthday. These days younmight, similarly, stick a tenner in a birthday card. But sewn into the liningnof a coat? To stop it being pinched? An emergency fund to get him back home?nAnd why his grandfather’s coat? Does his father still wear his own coat, andncan’t spare it? Or has the father skipped, and Granddad’s hand-me-down is allnthat’s left for him? Brilliant.

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nI  have been lucky enough to meet Mr Tilston a couple of times. He is probably the biggest star that has never made it big. He is highly respected in the folk music world (and John Lennon, no less, was an admirer), and has been covered by many other artists, but the general public is missing something. Luckily, he has been on television recently, which is great, but he really ought to be more widely known. I saw him play at the open-mike folk nights in a pub in Abbey Village, quite a while ago now. It’s weird to sit and watch one of your heroes playing live in a pub, walk into the gents during the break and find yourself standing next to him, strike up a conversation and then buy his latest CD straight from his guitar case. Oh, and like you want your heroes to be, he’s a really, really nice bloke – and he plays his guitar like he’s been down to the crossroads.

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