Wartime radio

When the country is facing difficult times, the radio stations play sad or thoughtful songs, ignoring all the raucous material that they might normally play. As a result, there have been several songs played that are also in my personal playlists, something that normally occurs extremely rarely.

About once a month, the 'Unhalfbricking' version of 'Who knows where the time goes?' gets played, but recently I heard what must be the original version from 'Sandy and the Strawbs' as it was only Sandy playing acoustic guitar and singing the original arrangement. I wonder how on earth the station managed to lay their hands on this version - it didn't come from me!

Nick Drake also gets played about once a month; normally this is 'Northern Sky', but over the past few weeks I've heard 'Day is done', 'Way to blue', 'Riverman' and 'Saturday sun' from his first album; 'At the chime of the city clock' from his second album was played last night, and 'Pink moon' from his eponymous third album has also been played.

Maintaining the Joe Boyd/Witchseason connection, I also heard a John Martyn song one evening. I didn't recognise the song (I wasn't listening closely) but it sounded like the style of 'Bless the weather'.

Yesterday I heard 'Colours of the sun' by Jackson Browne; I don't think that I've ever heard him on the radio here. We do occasionally hear Joni Mitchell - apart from the favourites 'Big yellow taxi' and 'Both sides, now', I heard 'California' recently.

Randy Newman also gets played occasionally. Twice I've heard 'In Germany before the war', that presumably was chosen because of its melancholy violins and clarinets. It certainly wasn't chosen because of its lyrical content, and I imagine that the song would be dropped should someone listen to the words and understand them - they're about a child killer.

Yesterday was played The Beatles' 'The sun king' followed by Fleetwood Mac's 'Albatross'. I couldn't hear if the presenter (if there was one) talked about the connection between the songs, but it would be better if 'Albatross' were played first followed by 'Sun king' as the latter was influenced by the former.

I did hear one Saturday morning a somewhat upbeat tune: at first this seemed to be a typical 'soul' number alternating between the I and IV chords, but suddenly the song took an extreme left turn into the sort of chord progressions that I write. I had enough presence of mind to whip out my phone and record part of the song for later identification (I don't have Shazam on my phone). When I listened to the recording, I guessed that I was listening to a song titled something like 'something to talk about' and indeed this was the title of a song by Bonnie Raitt (not someone who I have ever consciously listened to). What are the chords: A D A D (this is the straight part) F#m G F#m G C F C E. In Roman numeral form, this is I IV I IV vi bVII vi bVII bIII bIV bIII V. The second half of this verse is straight out of my songbook.

I want to finish this blog entry by quoting the words to a song that was played a few weeks ago; it's a song whose opening verses I have often sung to myself this year.

Many's the time I've been mistaken

And many times confused

Yes, and I've often felt forsaken

And certainly misused

And I don't know a soul who's not been battered

I don't have a friend who feels at ease

I don't know a dream that's not been shattered

Or driven to its knees

But it's alright, it's alright

For we lived so well so long

Still, when I think of the road we're traveling on

I wonder what's gone wrong

I can't help it, I wonder what has gone wrong

("American tune" by Paul Simon)

Fortunately this war seems to have consigned the 'judicial reform' to the dustbin where it belongs. Nothing so unites a fractured society than a war ... although in America of the 60s, a war caused the society to fracture.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
141	11/11/2008	Accident	Motorbikes