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Here is the link to the Evening under Lamplight radio show broadcast on Cambridge105 radio on Sunday, 25 July 2010, on the theme of Coming Back, as the Second Series came back on the air after a break of five months.
Some of the sound may come across a bit rough, but we’re all big enough to overlook that.
Welcome back, and let me know what you think!
RLA
Welcome back! Great set. How nice to hear the Spoonful’s Darling for the first time in decades. I loved it live, but was at the time down on the orchestration in the recording. Now, I like it just fine. FYI, when we were recording the John Paul Jones album, my engineer (and owner of the studio) was Brooks Arthur, who was recording Melanie in between our sessions and those of Bruce Springsteen for his first album.
I’m sitting beyond the horizon here in Tahiti and have found your radio show just in time, RLA, literally spending an evening under the lamplight, and having a most delighful time. Mauruuru,
Sylvie
Thanks for coming back, ‘sweet papa’ 🙂
“My Bed is Like a Little Boat” was my favorite as a child…
i now wonder if it’s what led me to sail later on!
This is yet another broadcast I can use to in teaching child development… thank you for yet another gift.
You were a weaver in another life, RL.
Excellent ‘musical conversation’, full of interesting ideas and a very personal selection of songs.
I particularly enjoyed ‘Beyond the Horizon’–it’s difficult to keep up with Dylan’s large output: this was impressive–like many other of his songs–for it’s potential infiniteness, like gamelan or Cape Verde music, accompanied by an inexhaustible verbal inventiveness.
I know, Dick. The orchestration becomes almost too much. What was he thinking of? Oh, I know: AM audiences/money. No, surely not!
Nice connection with Melanie. Did you ever meet her?
I am touched by these clever and thoughtful comments. Here we have people coming together from New York, Tahiti, Philadelphia, Italy. As the world turns, as the evening creeps across the world and lamps are lit, so this musical conversation spreads.
I’m glad “Beyond the Horizon” hit home. It’s a song whose music can easily make it slip right past our attention, but stopping to attend to the words wakes us up – if nothing else to the ever-fresh daring of this writer.
Emily, you’re going to have to get me a speaking engagement about RLS’s sense of children and their imagination. Time for a guest lecturer?
Hey, Babalu! Great to have the program back again. Just listened to”Cool Men”. Loved the Wide variety of sounds. Loved “They’re not making Jews like Jesus anymore”.
Good to hear you liked it, Ms Steamshovel. Yes, it wasn’t hard to have a wild mix with that theme. Some are easier than others! Love, Mr Mechanic
Here’s another Jesus Hermes-moment as captured by Kurt Vonnegut in “Palm Sunday”.
The day before Palm Sunday – Mary sister of Martha annoints Jesus’ feet with expensive ointment – Judus objects: Why was not this ointment sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor? The answer is “The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me”, but Vonnegut speculates this can’t be right: any original words in Aramaic have been translated into Hebrew, Greek and Latin. The original version must have been different and not the easy let-out for the complacent wealthy.
Much like in the ‘give unto Caesar’ ‘joke’, the words of the envious hypocrite Judas (‘Hey–this is very un-Christian. Instead of wasting that stuff on your feet, we should have sold it and given the money to the poor people’) were probably answered by something like : “Don’t worry about it, Judas. There will be plenty of poor people left long after I’m gone”.
A gentle put-down for Judas.
Hmm, yes, Vonnegut was a different kind of trickster. His version is indeed a put down, and gentle. But it’s direct, rather than indirect, isn’t it? It doesn’t make us stop and think.The “original” version is like RLS: it leaves out a step, which we have to supply, in order to make the connections to any satisfactory meaning.
“She’s still a Mystery to Me” was the perfect ending to Wondering… Thank you for sharing your own writing from so long ago.. yet another piece to read to my school psych students whose parents grow impatient with their children’s wonderings!
emilie