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You are invited to attend to some songs and readings about bells, specifically, as it turned out, church bells. We have two (odd) songs from the 1950s in our Featuring Philadelphia Music slot, and some other pieces, predictable and not quite so predictable. Come join us there.
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Michelangelo's Jonah
You remember Jonah, right? The prophet who ran away and got swallowed by the whale? Great story, but worth attending to a little more closely. You’re invited to attend with us, to this little literary masterpiece, with lots of interesting, and even sometimes relevant, music to help us along the way.
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Harvest Abundance
A change of season once again: from Summer Heat to Harvest, with its twin offerings of Anxiety, and Abundance. You are invited to attend to both states, with readings, songs and meditations to help you out – you and me doing it together.
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"I'm the last of the soot and scum brigade"
Attend with us to trains – the mournful whistles, the powerful chugging, the speedy, rhythmic movement. We see people longing for trains, chasing trains, looking out of trains, lamenting the loss of steam and the slow trains waiting to take us to better places, and we hear all these musicians imitating the train sounds.
Muswell Hill, London
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Here we celebrate London, with the Kinks, mostly. Thank you for your attendance and your attention.
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We celebrate the first birthday of Cambridge105, and of the second series of Evening under Lamplight – with a triptich of songs about Parties. Are you from Philadelphia? Then you’re especially invited. And there’s Alice at the Mad Tea Party, and some reflective looking back and looking forward hoping we all stay forever young.
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Alan Breck and David Balfour birstling on the rock in the Summer Heat
We look at Summer Heat – in the actual air around us or in our temperaments and psyches. A special reading from a scorching chapter of Kidnapped, and an interesting Mexican ballad by Dylan. Plus much more. You are invited to attend.
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We look at the myth of Narcissus, the irresistibly beautiful young man, who, it was predicted, would have a long life only if he did not know himself. But he saw his reflection in the pond, knew himself to be beautiful, and died – or rather (since this is myth) was transformed into a flower, freely sharing his beauty with others. Self-knowledge always leads to the death of some phase in our life. Music from, as usual, Dylan and the Kinks, also visits from Leonard Cohen, the Rolling Stones, The Who, the Beach Boys (are you kidding?), Debussy and Lotti. Readings from RLS, Ovid and Walt Whitman. We invite you to attend.
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We attend to songs lamenting the frustrations of using – or hoping to use – the telephone. We hear, of course, from the Kinks (twice) and Dylan (sort of twice), also Muddy Waters, Eddie Gorman and His Group, Lou Reed, Chuck Berry, Hot Chocolate, Dr Hook, and, at the end, Allan Sherman. And did you know that the first reference to using a telephone occurs in a work by Robert Louis Stevenson?
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“Live by no man’s code”, says Dylan’s lonesome hobo, and we look into this advice, which takes us into the world of individuals who refuse to conform and do things their own way. Usual guests of RLS, Dylan and the Kinks, also Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman, and the Fraggles (actually, this time, a Doozer), plus Robert Burns, Louis Armstrong and Frank Zappa. We invite you to attend.
