Opinion

Holidaying in a catastrophe: letter from Australia

Camping was off. That much was clear as we took our flight from Heathrow to Australia on the last day of 2019. Our first destination, a campsite at Cape Conran on the coast of Victoria, had declared that the risk...

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Friday Song: Andrew Bird, HOW YOU GONNA KEEP THEM DOWN ON THE FARM? (Young, Lewis and Donaldson, 1918)

Something rather interesting happens when a good contemporary artist decides to cover a song from the distant past.  When James Taylor sang 'Oh! Susanna!', a Stephen Foster from the mid nineteenth century came out out like a modern(-ish) folk song....

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Friday Song: Eddie Cantor, HUNGRY WOMEN (Jack Yellen and Milton Ager, 1928)

Should there be a trigger warning for listeners of this week'd Friday Song? Almost certainly. It makes gender assumptions that some might find offensive. Its premise is based on the patronising assumption that, on a date,  men will pay for...

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Friday Song: Clara Sanabras, THE DANCE OF SOLITUDE (DANCA DA SOLIDAO, 1972)

One of the more unusual CDs in my collection - and one of the most frequently played - is Clara and the Real Lowdown by Clara Sanabras,  which was produced by her musician husband Harvey Brough. It was this album...

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Friday Song: Paul Simon, STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS (1975)

If ever there were a song which showed how far songwriting travelled in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it is Paul Simon's extraordinary, enigmatic 'Still Crazy After All These Years'. In its story, its melody, the atmosphere it evokes, ...

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Friday Song: Gene Austin, I’VE GOT A FEELING I’M FALLING (Fats Waller, Harry Link and Billy Rose, 1929)

Fats Waller was quite often in trouble. A man who lived the rock 'n' roll lifestyle back in the 1920s, he had impressive appetites  -  gin, food, women, cars - and was mind-bogglingly hopeless in the making and losing of...

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Friday Song: Dan Hicks, BOTTOMS UP (1994)

How did I miss Dan Hicks? His seductive blend of gypsy jazz and bluegrass, his cool and sassy lyrics, his bloody-minded determination not to fit it into any particular genre  - all of that is tailor-made for me. Yet, until...

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Friday Song, Georges Brassens, FERNANDE (1972)

This week's Friday Song will be a great encouragement to those brave British patriots who fear that too great a proximity to Europe will corrupt and pollute our glorious culture. The story of Georges Brassens, and more specifically his song...

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Hoagy Carmichael, HONG KONG BLUES (1939)

The killer words 'Tin Pan Alley' frequently appear in  accounts of Hoagy Carmichael's career. That seems to me inaccurate. He was in many ways one of the first authentic singer-songwriters. Whereas the often brilliant Tin Pan Alley composers were writing...

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Friday Song: Carsie Blanton, BABY CAN DANCE (2009)

Soon after I became aware of the sparky brilliance of the New Orleans songwriter Carsie Blanton, I sent her one of my novels. She had announced on social media that she was, for reeasons I couldn't quite work out, prepared...

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