First we attend to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and their songs celebrating self-pity. Then there are the Incredible String Band’s energy projections wishing you well, and the usual wisdom from Walt Whitman, about soul-body connection, being a hero at work, sympathy or the devil, walking around “pocketless of a dime”, and much more. Guest appearances from Robert Louis Stevenson, Alexander Pope, Ram Dass, and more. You are invited to attend. (Heard first on Cambridge 105.)
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Horny satyr sitting in dim oak-covert
Artemis on the hunt
“Like a pack of Satyrs, sitting in dim oak-coverts, and hearing only afar off the voices and swift feet of Artemis’s maidens” – intrigued? Attend the latest episode and learn more, and watch Whitman parade himself “hankering, gross, mystical, nude”.
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Lamplight 100: Century 
It’s our hundredth Evening under Lamplight and we celebrate with a few highlights from earlier shows: a Party Triptych, three songs about parties; a Kinks double-play about dancing; a Stevenson fable; one of Dylan’s best unknown songs, “Your Lover Now”; and a closing piece from Leonard Cohen, “Land of Plenty”. Plenty of things for you, and, as always, you’re invited to attend.
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You are invited to our exploration of Wabi-Sabi, a Japanese approach to life and art especially suited to this time of the year. We have music from Japan, America (Otis Redding, Robert Johnson, and more), Britain (inc. a tribute to Jack Bruce), poetry from Ryokan, William Carlos Williams, Rumi, and Stevenson, RLA’s Autumn meditation from Journey through the Seasons, and finally a famous passage from Whitman’s “Song of Myself”: a lonely woman’s fantasy about romping naked in the water with twenty-eight men, of whom “the homeliest of them is beautiful to her”.
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Lamplight 88 Light out of darkness [The Download link here is faulty. Download the podcast from the entry just above.] Series 2 of Evening under Lamplight comes to a close by offering you a little light in the darkness here at the year’s end – even if it’s just a little lamplight on a gloomy evening. See if it helps. You can attend to some absurdity, and some kindness and cheerfulness, the Winter episode of the Seasons’ cycle, and the hopeful expectation of eternal love waiting for us beyond the horizon.
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“Dust and ashes — we hold them up in our open palm and let the wind take them away.”
It’s time for letting go, or even letting yourself go, as you accept our invitation to attend to a show with some lively songs from many regular contributors, poems from Whitman, Elizabeth Bishop, RLS, and thoughts on all of this and more from RLA, your friendly host for this occasion. See you there.
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"My boy was by my side, so slim /And graceful in his rustic dress!"
We invite you attend to children, in their innocence, their playfulness, their horror too. We have as our guests this time Donovan, the Incredible String Band, Anne Sylvestre, Mokey Fraggle, Randy Newman, Kinky Friedman, and Dylan and the Kinks, with readings from Wordsworth and RLS, plus the myth of Niobe.
"Beaver, I believe her, is gone."
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Daphne and Apollo
What relationship develops in that space between the artist and the work of art, between the singer and the song, between the reader and the book? Tone brings it all to life, so we want to open and be attuned to what’s being asked of us in this space. It can happen to us anytime. We invite you to attend, and be attuned, to our show, featuring, among much else, an examination of the Daphne and Apollo story – a mythic retelling of the way the art itself loves the artist. We have on the show the Kinks, and Dylan, and the Fraggles, Leonard Cohen, the Miracles, and also a touch of raga and an ancient Greek hymn, with readings from RLS and Ovid.
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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.
