Think About It 086: GWYNETH LEWIS

 

We are all the artists of our own lives.  We shape them, as best we can, using our experience and intuition as guides.  But we're also natural liars and we get things wrong.  It's so easy for the internal commentary that forms how we live to become a forgery.  Approached in a certain way, depression is a lie detector of last resort.  By knocking you out for a while, it allows you to ditch the out-of-date ideas by which you've been living and to grasp a more accurate description of the terrain.  It doesn't have to come to this, of course, and most people are able to discern their own truths perfectly well without needing to be pushed by an illness.  But my imagination is strong and it takes some people longer than others to sort out pleasing fancies from delusions.

 

 

Sunbathing in the Rain: A Cheerful Book About Depression (2002)

 

 

 

 

Use the link below to visit the website of Welsh poet and writer GWYNETH LEWIS:

 

 

 

http://www.gwynethlewis.com/index.shtml

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Write Advice: CARTOON 019

 

© Mark Anderson

  

 

Use the link below to visit the website of US cartoonist and educator MARK ANDERSON:

 

https://andertoons.com/

 

 

 

 

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Words for the Music 025: ROBYN HITCHCOCK

 

ROBYN HITCHCOCK

c 2017

 

 

 

 

BALLOON MAN

ROBYN HITCHCOCK & THE EGYPTIANS

from the 1988 A&M Records LP Globe of Frogs

 

 

 

 

 

BALLOON MAN

I was walking up Sixth Avenue

When Balloon Man came right up to me

He was round and fat and spherical

With the biggest grin I'd ever seen

He bounced on up toward me

But before we could be introduced

He blew up very suddenly

I guess his name was probably Bruce

 

And I laughed

Like I always do

And I cried

Like I cried for you

And Balloon Man blew up

In my hand

 

He spattered me with tomatoes, hummus, 

Chick peas and some strips of skin

So I made a right on Forty-Fourth

And I washed my hands when I got in

And it rained

Like a slow divorce

And I wished

I could ride a horse

And Balloon Man blew up

In my hand

 

I was walking up Sixth Avenue

When Balloon Man blew up in my face

There were loads of them on Bryant Park

So I didn't feel out of place

There must have been a plague of them

On the TV when I came home late

They were guzzling marshmallows

And then jumping off the Empire State

 

And I laughed

Like I always do

And I cried

Like I cried for you

And Balloon Man blew up

In my hand

Balloon Man blew up

In my hand

 

 

Words and music

Robyn Hitchcock

 

© 1988 Two Crabs Music (PRS)

 

 

 

It's unfortunately easy to understand why Balloon Man failed to become a massive Top 40 hit when it was released in 1988.  For a start, it doesn't contain the word 'love' and is completely devoid of even the vaguest suggestion of sentimentality or cliché.  The weird little tale it tells has a decidedly psychedelic flavour that's made palatable to the listener by being cleverly combined with humour (which may explain why it became so popular on US college radio) and an infectiously catchy melody.  There's a marvellous cartoonishness about Hitchcock's imagery that allows him to constantly defeat the listener's expectations by inserting words and concepts — 'spherical, 'Bruce,' '…spattered me with tomatoes, hummus, chick peas and some strips of skin' — that are as odd as they are arresting.  The rollicking chorus is impossible to forget, containing one of the most strikingly original images — 'And it rained, like a slow divorce' — I have personally encountered in a contemporary pop song.  In fact, I can't think of the word 'divorce' now without automatically pairing it with the word 'rain.'  How's that for some powerful mnemonics!

 

The good news is that Robyn Hitchcock is alive and well and living in the US city of Nashville where he continues to record fascinating, thought-provoking and gorgeously melodic music of the same consistently high quality.  His latest vocal LP Shufflemania! was released in October 2022 and showed no diminishment of his considerable gift for penning a memorable tune or lyrics that continue to impress with their rigorous avoidance of everything that is shallow, trite and obvious.  Some critics insist that he deserves to be more famous than he is, but I don't know that I agree with that.  Fame veers toward the banal and Hitchcock's music has always been the antithesis of banality.  It is witty, engaging, insightful and, on occasion, deeply moving and has been since his debut LP A Can of Bees, recorded when he was a member of the Canterbury-based band The Soft Boys, was released well over forty years ago. 

 

 

 

 

Use the link below to listen to more great music by English singer/songwriter ROBYN HITCHCOCK, including tracks from his first-ever instrumental LP Life After Infinity released in May 2023:

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/@robynhitchcockweb

 

 

 

 

Special thanks to those who take the time to upload music to YouTube.  Your efforts are appreciated by music lovers everywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Write Advice 180: ANTHONY BURGESS

 

Like most novelists, I like to regard my books as works of craftsmanship for sale, objects as well-made as I can make them.  The deeper issues — aesthetic or social or metaphysical — are not my concern; they are strictly for the commentators.  A carpenter makes a chair for both use and ornament; the professional novelist hopes that his offering will provide refreshment for the mind and at the same time raise the mind closer to the eternal values of truth and beauty (which, as Keats reminds us, can be regarded as the same thing — different views of reality).  The problem of every professional craftsman is the reconciliation of these humble aims with the pressure of time.  Only the amateur — carpenter or novelist — has all the time in the world; the professional sometimes has to hurry.  If he is commissioned to write a book, that book must be delivered (just as a set of chairs must be delivered) by an agreed date.  He must say:  'Tomorrow I go out of circulation for a while; I must start a new novel.'  This, and his habit of gathering material in the hope that it may be useful for a novel, makes him seem cold-blooded to those who have a more romantic view of art — the Muse descending only when she decides to, the long wait — in an exophthalmic trance — for inspiration.  Novels are created by men and women who put bottom to chair and pen to paper.

 

'On The Margin' [The Novel Now, 1967] 

 

 

 

 

 

Use the link below to visit the website of THE INTERNATIONAL ANTHONY BURGESS FOUNDATION, an English-based organisation which 'encourages and supports public and scholarly interest in all aspects of the life and work of Anthony Burgess.'  It also operates an archive/performance space in his home town of Manchester.

 

http://www.anthonyburgess.org/

 

 

 

 

 

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