A few years ago I was interviewed in a sort of rent-a-therapist slot on Radio Cumbria; they wanted someone in the biz to say something vaguely intelligent for a “dealing with difficult events” programme. Getting the phone call from some BBC gofer I’d thought it was a wind-up, but there I was, about an hour later, sitting in my study being invited to pronounce on a variety of things down the telephone—and live on air. Surreal. ‘Ah yes, (more…)
Tag: music
thing 26: ‘back down the vista of years’: a theatre-organ recital
Categories: music, reflection
‘D’you fancy going to a theatre organ recital?’
Erm….
Not the first thing I thought of, or even the fifteenth, when I asked Richard what he’d like to do on his birthday. Still, it was his birthday, so it was up to him. Besides, I thought, trying to open my mind just a teeny crack, it might be interesting. I didn’t actually know what a theatre organ was, really, and had I made the connection between those words and ‘Mighty Wurlitzer’ I might have got my mind ajar more quickly. As it was, I was thinking about Sale of the Century (“And tonight’s prizes include (more…)
thing 15: ‘a magic made by melody’: a gig
Stripping off with a bunch of other people, variously familiar to me, in the chilly, cramped vestry of some hitherto-unknown church. Dressing for Saturday Night in modest, full-length black, then perching on a chair in an unheated church hall, eating squashed sandwiches. All the ingredients of a perfectly normal weekend for me.
I’ve been singing in choirs since I was about 7 (not continuously, obviously), and this has frequently involved doing gigs in (more…)
‘the Christmas life’
Categories: celebrating the everyday, Christmas
So, this has to be one of the weirdest things I’ve seen this Christmas. “The true spirit of Christmas: Turkey panini and chips”. I mean, what? Who wrote that, and why? And why are they still working in advertising??
There’s something about how adrift things have got, here (unless of course this is so achingly post- post- modern and ironic that it should come with paracetamol) which inclines me either to laugh, or weep. I’ve decided to laugh, and (more…)
‘Everyone Sang’, Siegfried Sassoon
You can read this poem, and hear the poet reading it, here.
The simplicity and beauty of this poem silence me. It captures an experience of ecstasy, release and hope—an access into eternity—which all who have shared it will recognise. ‘Delight… beauty… tears… horror… song’… In his autobiography CS Lewis defines joy as ‘an unsatisfied desire which is in itself more desirable than any satisfaction’. This quietly, profoundly moving poem makes me think of that.