Yesterday evening, my wife and I were watching the television news when an
item was broadcast showing the eulogies at a funeral from one of the dead
hostages whose body was return from Gaza. The funeral was accompanied by
songs by a Moroccan singer, Amir Benayoun, whose voice is an acquired taste,
and - how can I put this diplomatically - I haven't acquired the taste. I
told my wife that I don't want him singing at my funeral, and she agreed,
saying that she would rather try and get Nick Drake to sing.
I don't remember what my initial reaction to this was - amusement?
disbelief? - but swiftly I told her that Nick died in 1974 at the age of 26.
I then told her the edited highlights: how everyone involved with his first
two records thought that they were wonderful, but that they never sold. Nick
barely performed live (did I see him in 1970 with
Fotheringay1? I still don't know) so he could hardly keep himself in the public
eye. I told her how the disappointment at the commercial failure caused him
to spiral into depression, and how he died. What it suicide or misadventure?
No one will ever know. I told her of the popular renaissance that began in
1999 when Volkswagen used 'Pink Moon' in an advert (why that song? I have no
idea) which caused his sales to suddenly come alive.
I should point out at this stage that my wife can identify the Nick Drake
songs played on the radio, and the 'Unhalfbricking' version of 'Who knows
where the time goes' is one of her favourite songs. She didn't like a few
other songs that I sent her that are similar in style; I shall try with 'The
sea'.
Following on from Nick, I told my wife of the last weeks of Sandy Denny:
the drinking, Georgia and Trevor Lucas. At the end of the 1990s I was very
involved in the Sandy Denny legacy, meeting and spending time with Sandy's
close friend,
Miranda Ward, and even copying discs for Georgia. I told her about Sandy's last concert
tour that I was able to see and how a live album was made of the final
concert, released in 1998. I told her how I had contributed some background
material - a ticket, an album advert - for this project.
As it happens, a few days earlier I had been ripping my Sandy discs to the
computer, in the same way that I did with
Richard Thompson's early work2. By chance I had looked at the booklet accompanying the album made of
that final concert and was pleasantly reminded that my name appears in the
sleeve notes.
So I dug out the disc again and showed the insert to my wife. She was
suitably impressed. I also am thanked in a book about Sandy Denny.
But what song would I like played at my funeral? In a sense, I don't really
care, and it also might well be that other people's perceptions of what
might be the best song to be played won't match with mine. I think that I
would like to be remembered by a song I wrote several years ago, 'Take these
few words'.
Internal links
[1] 1313
[2] 1883
This day in blog history:
| Title | Tags | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 211 | Wizz Jones: The legendary me - and musings on music samplers | Nice enough to eat, Fairport Convention, 1971, Dave Evans, The village thing, Wizz Jones | |
| 297 | Copper socks | Health, Copper | |
| 768 | User resistance | ERP, DBA | |
| 895 | Living in the past | 1970, Bristol Grammar School | |
| 1847 | Midnight and Blue | Ian Rankin, Richard Thompson, Police procedurals |
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