. . . Continuing w/ the cartoon-age

Michaelis is at his best articulating the appeal of "Peanuts" through the decades. In the 1950s it struck a chord with people feeling guilty over their vague discontent amid historic postwar prosperity (Linus watching a leaf fall: "Nobody's happy where they are"). In the 1960s it expressed the struggle of young people reaching for inchoate freedoms and pondering the meaning of existence (Snoopy, wondering why he was put on Earth: "I haven't got the slightest idea"). More than anything, "Peanuts" upended the belief that childhood is a time of innocence and happiness, for a child's pain is more acute than an adult's. "Charlie Brown reminded people … of what it was to be vulnerable, to be small and alone in the universe, to be human," writes Michaelis, "—both little and big at the same time."

-- From Sharon Begley's review of David Michaelis' "Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography,"

My favorite New Yorker cartoon

Mesostic III (Ulysses edition)

. . . But first, here are a couple of pictures of Ettore Schmitz (A.K.A. Italo Svevo) an Italian businessman/author and friend James Joyces' in Trieste, who he used somewhat as a model for his character Leopold Bloom. That's how I always picture Bloom to look.

. . . And here's a mesostic of the 4th episode (Calypso) of Ulysses w/ an index spine from a phrase in the 15th episode (Circe).

li	Ked
g	Iblet
stuffe	D
mutto	N
gav	E
faintl	Y
m	Oved
break	Fast
	But
gent	Le
m	Orning
c	Oals
	Mr
	Prr.
sc	Ratch
he	Ad.
curiousl	Y,
	Form.
t	O
he	R
b	Utton
fla	Shing
mil	K
sa	Id.--
un	Derstand
tha	N
w	E
mockingl	Y.
	Of
	Filled
warm	Bubbled
mi	Lk
	On
sl	Owly
ti	Mes
cli	P
afte	R.
l	Ap.
kidne	Y
	Fried
p	Ork
sauce	R
tong	Ues
	So
crea	Ky
sta	Ircase
pause	D
somethi	Ng
br	Ead
softl	Y
g	Oing
break	Fast? a
	Brass
jing	Led.
th	Ose
fr	Om
i'	M
	Proud
b	Rains
m	Ake
propert	Y
o	Ffice
sec	Ondhand
pictu	Res.
m	Utely:
pla	Sto's
quic	Kly
	Inside
hea	Dband.
safe.o	N
th	E
da	Y
cl	Othes
	Feel
	Black
ref	Lects
g	O
	Of
war	Mth.
	Prefers
yeste	Rday's
lo	Aves
	You
	Feel
y	Oung.
ea	Rly
s	Un,
	Steal
	Keep
	It
	Day
tech	Nically.
com	E
cit	Y
	Old
	Faces
	By.
cross	Legged
sm	Oking
c	Oiled
	Might
	Pillars:
sc	Roll
	A
sk	Y.
	From
d	Oorway.
he	R
lang	Uage.
	Strings
li	Ke
	It
rea	D:
i	N
th	E
larr	Y
	O'rourke's.
	Flabby
	Bar
m'au	Ley's
d	Own
p	Osition.
tra	Mline
u	P
ove	R
c	Anvassing
m	Y
o	Ff
t	O
sc	Rewed
	Up.
what'	S
o'rour	Ke?
russ	Ians,
they'	D
o	Nly
b	E
sa	Y
w	Ord:
	Funeral
a	Bout
fresh	Ly
thr	Ough
d	Oorway:--
	Mr
u	P
	Redheaded
	And
the	Y
	Findlaters
	Or
gene	Ral
p	Uzzle
cro	Ss
	Kelomen
	Inishboffin.
halte	D
stari	Ng
th	E
b	Y.
uns	Olved:
	Fade.
	Breathed
tranqui	Lly
	Of
c	Ooked
ite	Ms
sli	P
he	R
h	And?
denn	Y's
wi	Fe
	Oldish.
pai	R
sa	Usages
	Snipped
li	Ke
he	Ifer.he
mo	Del
ki	Nnereth
th	E
	Young
th	Ose
	Fall
	Breeders
	Litter,
	On
	One,
pri	Me
three	Pence
fo	R
c	Atch
slowl	Y,
	First
m	Orning.
hu	Rry
	Up,
	Shines.
wea	K
w	Ithin
	Duty
i	N
	Eccles
la	Y,
int	O
	Fire
	Better
wa	Lked
d	Orset
c	Ompany.
i	Mmense
	Pay
ma	Rks
	And
the	Y
o	F
y	Ou
cheape	R:
yo	U
	Sending

. . . And all of this Ulyssesmeshness is in celebration of my having just read it again completely (not an hour ago).

Please Remember Victor Jara . . .

On this day I think of the other September 11th which in turn leads me to think of the late great Victor Jara.



. . . Addendum to my initial post:

I first heard the name 'Victor Jara' in the Clash song "Washington Bullets" (from which I cribbed a line for the title of this post) from their great album (my favorite) "Sandinista!", many years later I heard Robert Wyatt's interpretation of Victor's song about his mother and father "Te recuerdo Amanda" (which he can be seen singing in the Youtube-age above). And from there I was finally hooked, I Found a vinyl rip of a Victor Jara compilation called "De Amor y de Bandera" (which I haven't been able to find any information about) and I've listened to that thing to death. I have most of Victor's discography now but that mysterious compilation is still my favorite.

There is a very good Democracy Now! interview w/ Victor's wife from September 16th, 1998 which was the 25th anniversary of his murder (or when when his body was found), it can be found here. It's chilling, I've been listening to it the last few days.

Victor and his wife Joan

Here is the last unfinished poem Victor wrote which was smuggled out of the Santiago boxing stadium where he would shortly be martyred. It has been translated from spanish by his wife Joan:

There are five thousand of us here
in this small part of the city.
We are five thousand.
I wonder how many we are in all
in the cities and in the whole country?
Here alone
are ten thousand hands which plant seeds
and make the factories run.
How much humanity
exposed to hunger, cold, panic, pain,
moral pressure, terror and insanity?
Six of us were lost
as if into starry space.
One dead, another beaten as I could never have believed
a human being could be beaten.
The other four wanted to end their terror
one jumping into nothingness,
another beating his head against a wall,
but all with the fixed stare of death.
What horror the face of fascism creates!
They carry out their plans with knife-like precision.
Nothing matters to them.
To them, blood equals medals,
slaughter is an act of heroism.
Oh God, is this the world that you created,
for this your seven days of wonder and work?

Within these four walls only a number exists
which does not progress,
which slowly will wish more and more for death.
But suddenly my conscience awakes
and I see that this tide has no heartbeat,
only the pulse of machines
and the military showing their midwives' faces
full of sweetness.
Let Mexico, Cuba and the world
cry out against this atrocity!
We are ten thousand hands
which can produce nothing.
How many of us in the whole country?

The blood of our President, our compañero,
will strike with more strength than bombs and machine guns!
So will our fist strike again!
How hard it is to sing
when I must sing of horror.
Horror which I am living,
horror which I am dying.
To see myself among so much
and so many moments of infinity
in which silence and screams
are the end of my song.
What I see, I have never seen
What I have felt and what I feel
Will give birth to the moment ...

My Current Theme Song

Clock Without Hands


once there was a man who slept for all his life
everything he did seemed set, date and time
once there was a man who wept on discovering
a life of sleep walking had made him forget
all of his dreams

there's an endless web
that binds us together
strings soft as a feather bed
tying us down

a clockwork life is filled with few incidents
and none of them caused him much surprise
the road from a to b was always the same it seemed
it offered him some kind of comfort
like a rope round the throat

there's an endless web
that binds us together
strings soft as the touch of snow
tying us down

"Clock Without Hands", from the Pram album "Somniloquy" (which was the first one i ever found/bought). I recently re-discovered this favorite song while listening to a leaked copy of their new album . . . it's pretty good but no "Clock Without Hands".

Der Mervyn

I can't remember who it was I heard refer to Merv Griffin as 'Der Mervyn' (à la Bing Crosby's Sobriquet 'Der Bingle'). I'm pretty sure it must've been T.S., it sounds very much like his humor. Whoever it was it stuck hard in my noodle and would always give me a personal chuckle anytime I got the chance to use it (or more likely 'think it'). W/ Merv's passing, I did a few Google searches for 'Der Mervyn' and came up completely empty handed. So it's either something I hallucinated (which I never rule out anymore) or I'm the only one that found it funny enough to remember? Either way I wanted to do my little part to honor 'Der Mervyn'

Well now both titans T.S. (Tom Snyder) and Merv are only broadcasting in eternity. Somehow Merv's passing fully closes the door on my childhood, who's greatest thrill was being home from school which meant watching seventies daytime television that I was too young to fully understand. I have to admit that Merv and Mike Douglas are pretty much interchangeable in my memory either way I very much enjoyed both of them. Dinah Shore was my very favorite but that may be selective miss-memory? There were of course the game shows, "Match game" being my favorite and of the syndicated sitcoms the ones that stick out in my memory are the weirder ones; "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir", "Nanny and the Professor" (really not that weird, more "Huh?") the weird crown has to go to what was my favorite when I was very young (god only knows why?) "Love American Style", what the hell was that?

It's not like I ever post anyway (and I'll always use any excuse not to) but I was trying to avoid the 'dead people' posts unless I really had a fondness for the person or of course (what trumps all of my reasonings) the mood was right (like this post). I had actually started to write something about Antonioni and Bergman's deaths but like many (MANY!) other posts it never went anywhere. I think it was mainly finding out that Tom Snyder had also died a few days earlier and I didn't feel right talking up the two great directors and leaving T.S. (who was almost like a friend, in that weird television way) in the background? As 'Dead People' posts go Rosie O'donell did Merv right in her recent post. I think it really captures his Merv-ness, reading it though gives me that lower gut poopy feeling that I would get being in that situation. So really all of this nonsense is b/c (maybe?) Tom Snyder said something that struck me funny some time back in the 90's and in a small way i wanted to keep it alive . . . if this can be called living!?!

POP QUIZ!

Mommy?
	please kill me!
	Nit nit folly bololey
	aMERICAN sHIRLEYCOLLINSIST
	a caravanette in Hull
	Rodney Stephen STEIGER
	Austin Stories
	chance favors the prepared mind
	I leaped up screaming "I got the fear" and ran out of the house.
	The Space Girl's Song
	Ivor Cutler
	as if the earth under our feet/were/an excrement of some sky
	kerozew
	Li De La Russe
	Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls.
	01.20.09 & GOODBYE!
	Marcia Degli Accattoni
	please commodify me!
Free polls from Pollhost.com

The pure products of America / go crazy

I think I had meant to post this in the spring (although the poem to me has an autumnal quality to it?), also I believe I had meant to post this pretty much since the beginning of this blog, being as it is one of my very favorite pieces of poetry. well I suppose now is as bad a time as any?

"To Elsie" (or "The pure products of America / go crazy")


The pure products of America
go crazy—
mountain folk from Kentucky

or the ribbed north end of
Jersey
with its isolate lakes and

valleys, its deaf-mutes, thieves
old names
and promiscuity between

devil-may-care men who have taken
to railroading
out of sheer lust of adventure—

and young slatterns, bathed
in filth
from Monday to Saturday

to be tricked out that night
with gauds
from imaginations which have no

peasant traditions to give them
character
but flutter and flaunt

sheer rags—succumbing without
emotion
save numbed terror

under some hedge of choke-cherry
or viburnum—
which they cannot express—

Unless it be that marriage
perhaps
with a dash of Indian blood

will throw up a girl so desolate
so hemmed round
with disease or murder

that she'll be rescued by an
agent—
reared by the state and

sent out at fifteen to work in
some hard-pressed
house in the suburbs—

some doctor's family, some Elsie
voluptuous water
expressing with broken

brain the truth about us—
her great
ungainly hips and flopping breasts

addressed to cheap
jewelry
and rich young men with fine eyes

as if the earth under our feet
were
an excrement of some sky

and we degraded prisoners
destined
to hunger until we eat filth

while the imagination strains
after deer
going by fields of goldenrod in

the stifling heat of September
somehow
it seems to destroy us

It is only in isolate flecks that
something
is given off

No one
to witness
and adjust, no one to drive the car

from Spring and all (1923) William Carlos Williams

There's been conjecture that the particular pure American products Williams was writing about in this poem were an (urban) legendary band of north Jersey hill people referred to as the 'Jackson Whites', who were rumored to have been descended from runaway slaves, deserters and camp followers from George Washington's army, and the indigenous Indians of the area who from decades of inbreeding were supposed to have been rife w/ genetic mutations (six fingers and such) not to mention mental retardation. I'm sure a sort of band of north Jersey boogeymen, who funnily enough were referred to in one episode of those other Jersey boogeymen the Sopranos. The kernel of truth about the 'Jackson Whites' can be found on Wikipedia here.

Getting back to Dr. Williams though, here is a link to him reading the above poem:

To Elsie

I've always found something about Williams' poetry that makes me think of him as being neither fish nor fowl and his voice doesn't dissuade me from that line of thought, speaking of which I just found a virtual treasure trove of Williams readings and interviews on the Pennsound page here.


. . . Oh yeah and could Allen Ginsberg have ripped off the opening line of "To Elsie" more in the opening line of his "Howl"? At least he always freely admitted it.

No one wins but the thieves . . . so why side with anything

Side With the Seeds


Tires type black
Where the blacktop cracks
Weeds spark through
Dark green enough to be blue
When the mysteries we believe in
Aren’t dreamed enough to be true
Some side with the leaves
Some side with the seeds

The treetops nod
the rain applauds
The park grows dark
And the swings all slowly die
But you and I will be undefeated
by agreeing to disagree
No one wins but the thieves
so why side with anything

The streetlights glow
Comes and goes
When the sun comes back
As we all can plainly see
Embracing the situation
Is our only chance to be free
I’ll side with you
If you side with me

"Side w/ the Seeds" from the new Wilco album "Sky Blue Sky" currently in heavy rotation . . . I guess that foto means I side w/ the leaves?

Can you say, "GEAR PR0N?"*

Unit Delta Plus studio, 1966

All's I have to say to that is WHUH!?! And I thought the David Tudor page was it.

* "none of that airbrushed shit"

(F'it . . . ) aMERICAN sHIRLEYCOLLINSIST!?!

a still from Ghost Box films by Julian House (yoinked off of the wire's page)

So a few days ago in an attempt to take a break from listening to Shirley Collins for a little while, I put on the The Focus Group (and various Ghost Box) tracks that I have.

All things Ghost Box (but in particular The Focus Group) were my musical obsession about a year or so ago. I didn't really have much to listen to just the few tracks you could download from the Ghost Box webpage but those few tracks were enough for me to become proselytizingly obsessed! That stuff was like the musics I always wanted to hear and also so evocative (of something? . . . gauzey half-memories of gradeschool filmstrips . . . seventies television furniture music?) that I felt liked I'd already heard it before? So I ended up listening to those handful of tracks nonstop for a few weeks, after some time I moved on to other things but I still wanted to get at least the two Focus Group albums that were out at that time. I finally did last October sometime? And was somewhat disappointed, not b/c the albums weren't great but that I had pretty much burnt them down listening to what I already had from each album over and over again. Then I realized after some time that I was listening to these albums wrong, they worked much more effectively as background music instead of studied minutely b/c the music is so completely ethereal upon close inspection it practically disappears! I came to that final conclusion a few months ago but since the onset of my Shirley obsession I hadn't really gone back and listened that way too much until the other day. So like I said the other day I'm listening to the first Focus Group album "Sketches And Spells" and I get to the track "Colouring Toys" and there was something there that I instantly recognized but it took me a couple of seconds to realize just what it was, not like when you hear the source of something that you've heard a million times sampled/looped in something that you are very familliar w/. When I realized what it was I just had to smile like an idiot, the guitar figure that is looped all the way through the Focus Group track is a somewhat modified sample of a Davy Graham phrase from the beginning of the song "Jane, Jane" off of "Folk Roots, New Routes", the album he did w/ (. . . wait for it!!!) SHIRLEY COLLINS!?!

. . . doing my best worst Pacino, "Just when I thought that I was out they pull me back in!"


Colouring Toys.mp3

Jane, Jane.mp3

File Under: YAY YAY YAY!!!

I just read that currently the GREAT Robert Wyatt is in the studio working on a new solo album that is scheduled for release this autumn!!!

. . . Hopefully this won't turn out to be just a rumor that never materializes? . . . Well at least I can have something to look forward to for a few days until I forget about it and then remember again in a few months and then get to be happy about again, until it's next december and no word of any new Wyatt material.


. . . In other Robert (not so) news, there's this:

"Wyatting"

Recently the noun "Wyatting", named obviously after Robert Wyatt, appeared in some blogs and music magazines to describe the practice of playing weird tracks on a pub jukebox to annoy the other pub goers. The name was coined by Carl Neville, a 36-year-old English teacher from London, because one of the favourites LPs for this effect is "Dondestan".

Robert Wyatt was quoted in The Guardian: as saying "I think it's really funny," and "I'm very honoured at the idea of becoming a verb [sic]." However, when asked if he would ever try it himself, he said "Oh no. I don't really like disconcerting people. Although often when I try to be normal I disconcert anyway."

And here's another bit of Robert ephemera that I just reread and was tickled by all over again; an outtake from a Wire magazine article on the band This Heat:

The only thing I remember was Charles Hayward asked, is it a bit naff to call a record Deceit when we are called This Heat. I said no, no, do it, do it. I never have this squeamishness of the avant garde of going for the obvious. I love the obvious - thank God something is obvious in this confusing world. Of course it should be called Deceit. I did encourage them in that. They did call the record Deceit didn't they? I'm glad they did, you should never miss a chance like that. It's just an open goal. Avant garde football, you know, it's too obvious; I'll stand in front of the goal with the ball, but it just seems so naff to kick it on. No, Kick! That's a goal that's what you're here for.



Oh yeah did I say YAY YAY YAY-YAY YAY!!! already?


. . . And in other YAY YAY YAY aural goodness news for this fall, I read Stereolab are also in the studio w/ an album slated for release sometimes in September, Broadcast are currently recording as well but no word about when their new release will come out as of yet, and I just saw that Pram as well are saying now their new one is scheduled for release this October (I'm not as excited as I should be about that one b/c I found their last album to be a big disappointment). Anyways, if these albums actually come out when they're scheduled to they should soften the blow of my next birthday (great!).



. . . And while I'm all on about (new) Music that I'm looking forward to getting, there's a (coming up fast) release date (June 12th) now for the remastering of Sonic Youth's early masterpiece "Daydream Nation". I know what I'll be listening to this Bloomsday!

You're it

No you're it
Yeah, you're really it
You're it
No I mean it, you're it
Say it, don't spray it
Spirit desire (face me)
Spirit desire (don't displace me)
Spirit desire we will fall
Miss me, don't dismiss me
Spirit desire, spirit desire
Spirit desire we will fall
Spirit desire
We will fall
Spirit desire, spirit desire
Spirit desire we will fall
Spirit desire
We will fall ...

Thanks Alot(???) Ye Olde Scottish Style . . .

Or YES, this is a cry for help! . . . either somebody take away the Shirley Collins discs I have or get me some new ones!?!

. . . Or almost everything you didn't want to know about my great and abiding love for Shirley Collins(!?!) but were afraid to ask weren't afraid to not ask!

Proud Maisrie

Proud Maisrie stands in the bower door
As slim as a willow wand
And by there come a gardener child
With a red rose in his hand, his hand
A red rose in his hand

(Him)

O you shall have my rose, fair maid
If you'll give your flower to me
And among the flowers in your father's yard
I'll make a gown for thee, for thee
I'll make a gown for thee

Your dress shall be the smelling thyme
And your petticoat camovine
And your apron of the salindine celandine
Come kiss sweetheart and join, and join
Come kiss sweetheart and join

Your feet I'll shoe with yon red rue
That grows in the garden fine
And I'll line them with the tappidance (tappitan)
So join your love with mine, with mine
So join your love with mine

(Her)

Since you have made a gown for me
Among the summer flowers
So I will make a suit for thee
Among the winter showers, showers
Among the winter showers

The milk white snow shall be your shirt
And lie your body next
And the murk black rain shall be your coat
With a wind gale at your breast, your breast
A wind gale at your breast.

The bonnet that's be upon your head
Shall be of the southren (sic) grey
And every time that you pass by
I'll wish you were away, away
I'll wish you were away

(THANKS ALOT!?!)

That's my transcription of Shirley's version of the song "Proud Maisrie" which is an offspring of "The Gardener" which is Child ballad #219. The two italicized flower names I have no idea about, I've seen 'solodine' where I have 'salendine', I went w/ 'salendine' b/c that sounds more like what Shirley's singing and that is at least a place name. (It's 'celandine', the other day I watched again Derek Jarman's wild girls anarcho-classic "Jubilee" and during one of the queen Elizabeth I sections she and/or her court magician John Dee mentions 'Celandine', which i looked up and it's a variety of poppy.) No such luck w/ the other head scratcher 'tappidance' and what Shirley sings sounds to me more like 'tappitan'? The other flower name 'camovine' I saw somewhere is an archaic version of chamomile.

That album "Folk Roots, New Routes"really took me a bit of time to get into, as I've written about previously I really prefer my doses of Shirley's song styling neat, straight no chaser and her accompanist here Davy Graham is anything but, his guitar work is all over the place incorporating jazz touches and middle eastern flourishes, which is all fine and good and he is highly regarded, I've read. I believe he was a big influence on Bert Jansch (who I very much like) but Davy Graham's playing w/ Shirley took some getting used to for me. Speaking of Bert Jansch (which for what it's worth his surname is pronounced 'yansch', I recently found out. and thank god, I hate it when I mispronounce a name/word. I'm just glad I caught that one relatively early unlike the great Jean Genet debacle of the early nineties!?! ) it was through looking for albums by him that I stumbled on Shirley. This one folk music blog I was getting Jansch stuff from had up a bunch of Shirley stuff as well and if it would've just been that, her album covers and tracklists I probably wouldn't have grabbed any of her music but there was a great picture of her (in her prime) up, looking like she'd just got out of a streetfight that did it for me (that's the picture I put in my first post about her). So I grabbed all I could get by her just on that and it really took me quite a long while before her music clicked w/ me. Alot of what I got there was mainly later stuff w/ her and a band or her and her sister Dolly and alot of that was all Renaissance(y) sounding, which I really couldn't get my head around easily, so I didn't even try to listen to it for the longest time. But for some reason the title of her "False True Lover" album got stuck in my head, I thought that was such a great title so I finally gave that song a good listen and I became completely addicted to that one song and then from there other songs from that album started to open up for me and before I knew it was hopelessly hooked on Shirley's voice. Anybody who knows me, knows of my great love for (as I believe it was the great Skip James called it) high-setto singing. And she hits the high-setto in spades on that album that and the almost percussive simple banjo playing she's accompanied w/ really did it for me. And then I think I read the relatively recent interview w/ her that's up on Perfect Sound Forever and she was just as no bullshit straight shooting as I had imagined her to be from that picture of her I'd seen which initially sparked my interest in her. Talking frankly about the english folk music revival of the fifties and sixties that she was a player in and talking shit on the big daddies Ewan McColl and in America on Pete Seeger, calling them out for their too rigid orthodoxy. From there I eventually started listening to the other stuff by her I had, some of it I like quite a bit, the stuff w/ just her and Dolly in particular but nothing as much as the "False True Lover" album. Which I found out was her first or second album to come out I say first or second b/c the material on those first two albums were recorded in the same sessions and then released as two separate albums (the other album's titled "Sweet England"). The problem now is that once I can get my grubby paws on "Sweet England" it doesn't look like there is much of her catalog left for me to get (if I could even find it) that I'd be as interested in. And the other thing that is driving me crazy is that she pretty recently put out a book about her travels w/ the late great Alan lomax gathering folk songs in the southern states in the late fifties called "America Over The Water" but it hasn't been put out in this country (hopefully) yet.

So anyways, that is pretty much the whole story of my obsession w/ all things Shirley Collins as if anyone could give two shits!?! But getting back to the most recent album of hers that I bought, some of the other cherry moments for me aside from the tracks I've already written about. In track order the first song, "Nottamun Town" firstly the melody from that song Bob Dylan borrowed for his song "Masters of War" (not from Davy and Shirley's reading of it, though), anyways it's one of those weird almost nonsense lyric-y songs that for some reason brings to my mind Breughel's painting "The Triumph of Death" or maybe even more Bosch for it's phantasmagorically aspects, Davy works it out pretty well on the guitar also. Next comes "Proud Maisrie" which I wrote about above then there is "The Cherry Tree Carol" which I wrote about below, that song though is just Shirley singing and playing banjo and it could fit very easily on her "False True Lover" album. The next track is a Davy Graham instrumental take on the Thelonious Monk standard "Blue Monk", which I have always thought of as minor Thelonious work and I find Davy's reading a little too bombastic so I usually skip to the next track. the wonderful 'roll your leg over' ribaldry of "Hares on the mountain" which is chock full of classic couplets but the first two are particular favorites of mine:

O Sally my dear it's you I'd be kissing
O Sally my dear it's you I'd be kissing
She smiled and replied you don't know what you're missing

(and then)

O Sally my dear I wish I could wed you
O Sally my dear I wish I could bed you
She smiled and replied then you'd say I'd misled you

"Hares on the mountain" is one of those songs w/ a million and one different versions and interchangeable stanzas, and it's one of those almost game songs kinda dirty dozens or like a myriad of blues songs such as "Bottle It Up And Go" (a.k.a. "Step It Up And Go") I've always loved the nonsense playfulness of those type of songs. Anyways "Hares on the mountain" (a.k.a. "O Sally My Dear", a.k.a. "Blackbirds And Thrushes") has it's origins in the Child ballad "The Twa Magicians" (a.k.a. "The Two magicians") which deals w/ popular beliefs concerning witches and warlocks w/ "the motif of successive transformation to aid flight from pursuers", I read that somewhere. The next song "Reynardine" concerns a werefox(?) is pleasant enough,Davy Graham's playing is subdued, to me it seems pretty standard folk song fare and I haven't really investigated it much further. The next track "Pretty Saro" is also pretty standard folk song fodder, "blah blah blah I'm in some far off country (Australia or America, here i think it's Australia?) and I'm alone and I left my girl behind and i miss her blah blah blah", it's a slow dirgey track that Davy Graham incorporates a bunch of middle eastern touches to his playing w/ an overblown solo workout in the middle of the song, snore. But this song does something which is one of the things I very much like about Shirley (and in general), which is when the singer doesn't change the sex of the song's protagonist to suit their own sex i.e. the protagonist of "Pretty Saro" is a man but the song is being sung by a lady. I always like that, or more precisely, I hate it when singers do the opposite, change the sex of the songs protagonist to suit the sex of the singer, to me it seems to take away from the integrity of the song (or maybe I mean, gives too much integrity to the song?)? I don't know, the other way it seems to make more of the song than what it is? Up next is "Rif Mountain" another instrumental track w/ middle eastern flavor which I usually do listen to but it's so overblown and the punning title bothers my delicate sensibilities(HA!). The next track "Jane, Jane" is again kinda nonsense-y lyric-wise but Shirley's interpretation of it kinda reminds me of the great Skip James song "Crow Jane", Davy's playing here is a little more fitting w/ the exuberance of the lyric. Next comes "Love Is Pleasing" which is a pretty standard sad love song about the vagaries of the subject. Then comes "Boll weevil, holler" and "Hori horo" the former an Anthropomorphizing account of the cotton pest and the later is again pretty standard sad love song fare. then comes up two more songs that I especially enjoy; "Bad Girl" (a.k.a "One Morning In May", a.k.a. "The Bad Girl's Lament"), which is one of those 'woe is me' deathbed laments, this one concerns a young lady dying from an unspecified social disease, what I like about this song is that it's a direct relation of "Streets Of Laredo" (a.k.a. Cowboy's Lament) and both of those songs are related to "St. James Infirmary" and all of them may come from the Irish ballad, "The Bard Of Armagh" (a.k.a. The Unfortunate Rake). Again, anybody that knows me knows of my 30+ years fixation w/ the song "The Streets of Laredo" (since seeing "Bang the Drum Slowly" w/ my Dad in the very early seventies), So this song "Bad Girl" that Shirley does, when I found out it's origins, was instantaneously fetishized by me. The venereal disease in this version of the song is only hinted at from the cryptic lyric:

Go send for the preacher to come and pray for me;
send for the doctor to heal up my wounds
For my poor head is aching, my sad heart is breaking,
My body's salivated, and I know i must die.

Apparently the 'salivated' line has to do w/ the fact that the mercury used in the cure for syphilis would cause excessive salivation(!?!). Oh Yeah, and I love in these old songs when something is described as 'clay cold'. The next song and last one that I especially have a fondness for is "Lord Gregory", which is one of those 'woe is me i'm going to have a bastard' (or have a bastard as is the case here) songs, this song has it's origins in the Child ballad "The Lass of Roch Royal" and not only is it, like I said, one of those, 'woe is me i'm going to have a bastard' laments but it's also one of those about the interactions b/n the rich and the poor, e.g. the song Shirley does "Richie Song", which is actually almost the exact opposite scenario as "Lord Gregory". "Lord Gregory" concerns the outcome of a royal's dalliance w/ a peasant girl, whereas "Richie Song" is the old chestnut, poor girl falls in love w/ poor boy but it turns out the poor boy is really the king and then 'happily ever after.' Anyway back to "Lord Gregory" the two (well three, it's sad) things I like about it is that Shirley sings it a capella and that there are a couple of passages that are litanies of the heroines woes and about the disparity of their positions rich/poor, I've always had a fondness for litanies. The litaniness in "Lord Gregory" brings to my mind the (almost seemingly endless) ones at the end of the song Shirley does "The Cruel Mother" that tells what's going to happen to the cruel mother after she dies b/c she killed her children (w/ a penknife!). The next track is the last of the Davy Graham instrumentals, this one is his take on the Carl Perkins Bobby Timmons penned song "Grooveyard", it's a pleasant enough track and I guess by default my favorite of the Davy Graham solo tracks. And the last track is another sad love song called "Dearest Dear" I enjoy this one but really haven't given it a proper listening in this song though Shirley does this thing where she will repeat the last lyric but slower and more deliberate which I always enjoy when listening to that song.