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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.
Tags: Alice in Wonderland, birthday, Cambridge 105, Claudine Clark, Crouch End Festival Chorus, Cyril Ritchard, Days, Dylan, Forever Young, Jefferson Airplane, Kinks, Let Me In, Lewis Carroll, Mad Tea Party, Party Lights, Randy Newman, Ray Davies, RLS, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sensations, Sing me a song of a lad that is gone, Skye Boat Song, There's a party at my house, White Rabbit
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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.
Tags: Andy Stewart, David Balfour, Dylan, healing energies, heat, Journey through the Seasons, Kidnapped, Kinks, Lovin Spoonful, meditation, Romance in Durango, Stevenson, summer, Summer in the City, Taoist, Too Hot
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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.
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We invite you to attend to Time: time past, time present, time future, a time for this and a time for that, a time for the Ecclesiastes, and a time for Samuel Johnson, a time for the Animals, and for the Kinks, and for the Rolling Stones, and a time for Bach. Oh, yes, also Johnny Cash, and Fairport Convention, and the Fraggles, and Dylan. Time for Leonard Cohen too. And RLS and Seneca and T.S. Eliot and Wendell Berry. And, for some reason, a number of little Latin phrases. A rich show this week.
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All Friends are invited to attend the latest episode, with (as illustrated) Pogo, Randy Newman, Carol King, Dr Hook, and the Fraggles. Also the great Quaker Friend Willima Penn. And the usual guests: Kinks, Dylan, RLS. And not least, two pieces from my friends, Marc Copland and Emma Chapourian.
Songs of Pogo [Soundtrack] (Walt Kelly, “Man’s Best Friend”)
Toy Story (Randy Newman, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”)
Tapestry (Carole King, “You’ve Got a Friend”)
Completely Hooked – the Best of (Dr Hook, “I Don’t Want to Be Alone Tonight”)
New York Trio Recordings 3: Night Whispers (Marc Copland, “Emily – Take One”)
The Kinks – The Ultimate Collection (Kinks, “See My Friends”)
Down in the Groove (Bob Dylan, “Rank Strangers to Me”)
John Wesley Harding (Bob Dylan, “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest”)
Fraggle Rockin’ a Collection (Fraggle Rock, “Friendship Song”)
Tags: "I Don't Want to Be Alone Tonight", "It's an owercome sooth", "Rank Strangers to Me", "You've Got a Friend in Me", "You've Got a Friend", Carole King, Dr Hook, Dylan, Emma Chapourian, Fraggle Rock, Frankie Lee and Judas Priest, Friendship Song, Fruits of Solitude, Kinks, Marc Copland, New York Trio, Pogo, Randy Newman, RLS, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sappho Moon, See My Friends, Toy Story, Walt Kelly, William Penn
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Here is an archived Evening under Lamplight show from February, 2009, with a forty-minute reading of Joyce Carol Oates’ wonderful story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Attend to the story as a kind of modern version of Little Red Riding Hood – with a modern-day wolf who apparently is out to destroy the girl, but perhaps, on another level, he is leading her out from the Wasteland of her vapid suburban world into the sublime possibilities waiting for her, “the vast, sunlit reaches” of a new land.
