from his latest album The Fade in Time, which arrived Thursday in the mail as the crowd fund was successful:
AIRDOG
I’ll take my dog and my
air-gun too And I will take a ramble
For I will ramble for a
mile or two Just to see what I can
find-oh
And I had not gone two
fields from home Before up jumped a
hare-oh
And she jumped and away
did run Straight into my plantation
I had not gone three
fields from home Before up jumped
another
And she jumped and away
did run My dog made her squeal murder
See how she laughs, see
how she cries When something stopped her
running
Though lay you still, my
poor pussy cat For your uncle now he is
coming
Oh I slept all night in
the tinker’s arms Tinker put his arms
around me
Oh there was folks and
there was jokes Paddy’s lost his banjo
I wouldn’t part from my
sweetheart For tuppence ha’penny or
farthing
Another load of wagon men Get a little bread for the women
I took that hare all along
the road And I sold him for a crown-oh
And they said they’d give
me all a crown a brace If I would bring
them fifty
'Sam Lee on this song:
A song of love and
devotion for the wild hare and a passionate reconciliation in song of the
paradox of having to kill the things we love for survival. ‘Airdog’ tells of
that almost carnal embrace of dog and hare as they tumble entwined in slow
motion across that liminal landscape of love and death. It’s a most tranquil
ceremony on the laying to sleep of the ‘pussycat’ as it transits from being
lithe potent creature to mere quarry and marketable meat. From the singing of
Gloucestershire man Wiggy Smith and intersected by bits of jasper Smith’s ‘Brighton
Camp’, for me this song is true Gypsy
poetry'
I would have liked to have been able to share the video of this particular song, alas I could not find it, recommend you connect to his site here samleesong.co.uk
instead an interview
 |
| i might add another hare, will definitely add stitches to the top part, all over |
How my mind moves
I pick up E.Meloy's ‘anthropology
of turquoise’ having decided to take this along to the shop today, who knows I
might have an opportunity to read; just before inserting the book in my bag I cast
a glance on the first page and in that instance am almost swept off my feet by
the incredibly sensual depiction of this to me unknown land - good choice then; am consequently struck by the
quote right at the very beginning, most especially by the author’s name W.G.Sebald,
a name I don’t know, however I am intrigued and mentally make a note to check
on him in the bookshop. Once there I forget all about Sebald until I open ‘de
Wandeling’ by R.Walser, another book I want to read and lo and behold in this
book again the name Sebald. Now I immediately google him and uncover some
interesting facts, he was German and has spent a good part of his life in the
U.K. teaching European literature, he loved walking and has written several
books….. I pick one and order this. It appeals to me because it’s about his
hiking in East Anglia ‘Rings of Saturn’, I then turn to Turquoise only to
discover the quote is from this very book. Full circle, wandered a good deal in
words, the mind full of swirls as it keeps on making connections.
 |
| am smiling as I hear the youngest arriving home |
addendum:
Dropped in at the book
shop to collect a couple of second-hand books; we have recently experienced the
generosity from one who apparently read English on an academic level, so
amongst these gems not only ‘regular’ novels abound, there appear to be many
text books. I gathered these three: Sterne’s ‘A Sentimental Journey’ and a
collection of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, both in an Everyman’s Library edition and
‘The owl and the Nightingale’, ed. By Eric Gerald Stanley (Manchester
University Press, 1972)
The last turned out to be
a pleasant surprise as it is an over seven hundred year old poem, printed here
in Middle English - I think -, which to my untrained eye bears many resemblances to Dutch,
Latin and Scandinavian languages – which should probably not come as a surprise
It will not be an easy
read, but it has immediately got my imaginative (is this a proper word?) juices flowing, a drawing
ensued and now I almost do not want to try and find a version in more readable
modern English. However I am also very curious to read the tale…..
Here a quote from the
introduction:
‘Those who have considered
The Owl and the Nightingale as a work
of literature have written of it with so full a measure of praise that one
comes with relief upon Thomas Wright’s introduction to his edition of 1843, where
he simply calls it ‘a curious poem’. That it is, and it is more than that. More
than any other English poem written before the fourteenth century it makes an
immediate appeal to the modern reader. The Nightingale delights; and the
crab-faced Owl disapproves of our delight, of our frivolity, and of the
Nightingale’s lascivious promptings. We are allowed to listen to the debate of
the two birds, not asked to judge between them. For we are not to be trusted;
we might well decide in favour of the plausible Nightingale, though on more
sober reflection we should perhaps admit that it is to the Owl that the victory
ought to have gone. The disputants have chosen a better judge than we are, one
Nicholas of Guildford, wise, just, and learned, yet not inhuman. Alas, we shall
never know for whom he finds. The poet too appears impartial. Let us likewise
reserve judgment, at least till we have heard the case.’
Are you excited too? Curious
to know what the poem is all about?
I most definitely am and
have googled several sites and will ‘cheat’ by reading a translation in modern English!
several useful links:
