Music is my tardis

A good friend wrote the above phrase on my facebook after reading my last blog, just about the time that I realised that I hadn't mentioned music in my list of memory inducing 'prompts'. So I dedicate this blog to Carl with the hope that he will listen to all my favourite 'tunes' and not suffer too much at some of them....

Like humour, one's own musical tastes are so subjective. I have seen really good friends nearly come to blows over the 'best' rendition of a song. Just this last week I entered into a really fierce facebook debate on the best version of Leonard Cohen's wonderful Hallejuah - obviously John Cale although not everyone agreed....

And memories induced by music don't always mean that the particular piece of music is one of one's actual favourites! For instance whenever I hear Dexy's Midnight Runners' Come On Eileen it reminds me of a holiday in Woolacombe in the 1980s. I like the song but it wouldn't be one of the pieces I would chose for Desert Island Discs.

I know you are all waiting for me to start quoting all the Bob Dylan songs that mean a lot of me and all the memories they hold. Well there are so many that I will just give the one song, from the first Dylan album I ever bought [Bringing It All Back Home] way back when. The song is Love Minus Zero and reminds me of hours spent in my mother's front room with my old mono record player [yes that was what they were called back along!] I can't find a YouTube that does justice to Dylan singing it so have mixed two musical memories to link to this version by Joan Baez.

Most couples have their own tune and we have ended up with
Where do you go to my Lovely? by Peter Sarstedt . How this happened we have no idea but it is a ripping good tune...

I am hopping all over the place with these memories, why Queen appear next with Bohemian Rhapsody I have no idea, except memory is like that - random and not orderly! We used to listen to Queen constantly when we were 'exiled' in Germany [working for Ford] in the late '70s. And to the embarassment of all my children Other Half and I both know all the words to this whenever it is played anywhere and sing along with it - loudly!

Back to the late 60s and hippy times, to when we first heard Arlo Guthrie singing Amazing Grace. Since then we have heard lots of artists perform this, including massed bands, but there is still something unique about Arlo's performances. We have had it played at Christenings and Funerals and I am dropping hints for a forthcoming wedding!

Another completely random choice would be something by Paul Robeson. A favourite of mine, but he was also a favourite of my Father's. The trouble is, I really don't know which one song I would choose - the lullaby my mother used to sing, one of the Welsh songs he sang to support the miners, the hymns ..... Oh well Mum, here's your song Curly Headed Baby!

Roy Bailey is the music man I probably go to see most frequently these days. So my song from him I Ain't Afraid would be and the memory is of him and Tony Benn doing a great set at Cambridge Folk Festival in 2000. A set we have seen many times and enjoy every time!

I could go on for ever but must stop but before I do there are two songs I cannot ignore. Family know why I have Joan Baez singing Dylan's Forever Young. A very special memory.

And lastly, Billy Bragg's version of The Internationale. This song encapsulates so many memories: Family, friends, beliefs, hopes and ideals. And it is my ringtone on my mobile. And Billy and I are both 'Made in Barking'!

No photos today - the PC won't play.

Heroes

We are back from a rather meandering road trip around parts of the country which somehow managed to evoke several of my heroes, many of whom I have previously mentioned in these 'pages'.

The ending of our half term holiday in the West Country coincided with a celebratory concert given by a political folk singer friend of ours [and hero!] - Roy Bailey. He was 75 last month. Picture above and click on the blog title to go to his website. Roy Bailey is a good friend of another of my political heroes, Tony Benn, and in fact they perform together in a 'gig' called The Writing on The Wall which is basically the history of dissent. There is a brilliant CD of this available from Roy's website [no I am not on commission!] I have seen them perform this gig many times, the last time at the British Library in 2009 during the BL's Taking Liberties: The Struggle for Britain’s Freedoms and Rights season. 

Roy's concerts always feature him talking about his political beliefs and influences. On Sunday he was talking about two more of my heroes and influences - Paul Robeson and Joe Hill.

Our journey to Sheffield took us via East Midlands Airport, where we stayed at a nearby hotel on Saturday evening. However it was slightly alarming when watching President Obama [of course a hero of mine!] speaking about the foiled bomb plot on the Friday evening news to hear him mention East Midlands Airport.

When we left the East Midlands we travelled onto Sheffield via a circuitous route to take in places we had not previously visited. Driving through Matlock we passed Masson Mills which was Richard Arkwright's most prestigious mill. I suppose only a retired history teacher/lecturer would get excited about this and although I would not describe Arkwright as a hero of mine he certainly was a key figure in the industrial revolution. I suppose in a way it is not surprising that the site is now a shopping village [as well as a museum] and thus one of the birth places of the capitalist system has now become one of its 'cathedrals'!

Onto Buxton in Derbyshire, where Vera Brittain once lived. A definite heroine of mine, especially for her work toward Pacifism and Socialism. I had to restrain myself when browsing in a bookshop from buying yet another edition of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, my bookshelves are groaning as it is and I had already bought too many books during our days away....

Arriving in Sheffield it was lovely to see Andrew Motion's [a literary hero of mine, of course!] poem on the side of one of the university buildings. To see a wonderful picture of this and other great photographs of Sheffield please go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/theotherbailey/5137117621/in/set-72157625167089633/

Meanwhile the poem is a lovely way to end this travelogue of a blog!:

What If..? by Andrew Motion
O travellers from somewhere else to here
Rising from Sheffield Station and Sheaf Square
To wander through the labyrinths of air,

Pause now, and let the sight of this sheer cliff
Become a priming-place which lifts you off
To speculate
What if..?
What if..?
What if..?

Cloud shadows drag their hands across the white;
Rain prints the sudden darkness of its weight;
Sun falls and leaves the bleaching evidence of light.

Your thoughts are like this too: as fixed as words
Set down to decorate a blank facade
And yet, as words are too, all soon transferred

To greet and understand what lies ahead -
The city where your dreaming is re-paid,
The lives which wait unseen as yet, unread.

Paul Robeson

Photograph: Paul Robeson: A Biography by Martin Bauml Duberman

Had a bit of a confusing/harassing day yesterday due to all sorts of things but managed to relax with music and watching the Tour de France. A good friend sent some lovely music and links and before I went to bed I was playing some of my favourite songs by Paul Robeson - which has inspired this personal blog about another hero of mine. Clicking on the title above will takes one to a site which gives some biographical details about him.

However a very important piece of Robeson's past [for me]not shown on that site is his involvement with the Welsh Hunger Marchers in the 1930s. Robeson met unemployed Welsh miners in London in 1929, visited them in Wales and during the early 1930s became involved with their struggle. He sang at Caernarfon, Wrexham, Neath and many other smaller towns and in Mountain Ash in 1938 and the Rhondda in 1939.

The following has been taken from the website [details shown here] which is a very interesting read: http://bit.ly/db1mcE

At the Mountain Ash Memorial Concert to the Welshmen who died fighting fascism in Spain he said,
‘I have waited a long time to come down to Wales – because I know there are friends here…..I am here tonight because as I have said many times before, I feel that in the struggle we are waging for a better life an artist must do his part. I am here because I know that these fellows not only died for Spain but for me and the whole world. I feel it is my duty to be here.’

The 1939 film "Proud Valley" showed the struggles of Welsh miners and was also a lot about Robeson himself although he played a fictional character.

In 1957 the Welsh miners tried to repay some of their debt to Robeson. He was 'trapped' in America by having had his passport taken away during the McCarthy witch hunt. Robeson was reported to be very depressed and there is a very moving account in the biography shown above that he had been invited to sing at a Welsh Eistedfodd but could not leave the US. So it was arranged that he should attend a New York recording studio and a 'phone link was set up so that a Welsh miners' choir could sing a song in tribute to him, which re-invigorated him.

In 1958 Robeson had his passport restored and left the US, arriving in Wales for the National Eisteddfod in Ebbw Vale as Nye Bevan's guest.


I always knew that my late father admired Paul Robeson and I had assumed - as a child does - that this admiration was based on Robeson's wonderful singing voice. It wasn't until I was doing some political research many years after my father died that the truth began to dawn. My father was amongst those Welsh Hunger Marchers and possibly met Robeson in the 1930s. He came from near Neath - did he hear Robeson sing there? I will never know! As my father was a political activist I can only assume that he would have admired whole heartedly Robeson's political stance. By the time of the Spanish Civil War, f'r instance, my father was living in England and his fiancee [later to become my mother!] and her family had Spanish refugees living with them.

My mother used to sing me a lullaby in the 1950s and sang it again to all my children. I always assumed it was an old East End song, until I heard it again on one of the many Paul Robeson CD collections which I now own!

In the 1950s my father attended many Eistedfodd as a journalist. I do wish I knew if he was in Ebbw Vale in 1958!


This is the lullaby my mother used to sing to me and my children:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob0YKZdHCZw&feature=related

To bring the story up into the 21st century the Manic Street Preachers sang 'Let Robeson Sing' and a link for it is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlsfOSpVoQE

This blog is dedicated to Michael and Yvonne [they know why] who knew the first Elizannie