JINGLE ON MY SON!

JINGLE ON MY SON!
A doughty champion of his local culture.(Poet Tom Hubbard)Your performance at the city hall was soooooooooo good! Christoph thought it was excellent! (Carolyn)

29.5.15

HAMISH HENDERSON - NEW BOOK


This volume brings together more than twenty contributions ranging from fond memory to critical inquiry anent the late Hamish Henderson, Scotland’s leading folklorist of the twentieth century, remarkable poet and songwriter, and political activist.
Edited by Eberhard 'Paddy' Bort, the book includes contributions from Keith Armstrong, Margaret Bennett, Eberhard ‘Paddy’ Bort, Ray Burnett, David Daiches, Lesley Duncan, Archie Fisher, George Gunn, William Hershaw, John Lucas, Richie McCaffery, Geordie McIntyre, Dolina Maclennan, Alison McMorland, Ewan McVicar, Andrew Means, Donald Meek, Colin Nicholson, Mario Relich, Jennie Renton, Donald Smith and Sheena Wellington; and art work from Howard Glasser,Tom Hubbard, Allan McMillan, Jan Miller and Timothy Neat.
Anent Hamish Henderson is published by Grace Note Publications (May 2015) and retails at £15.

Grace Note Publications C.I.C.
Grange of Locherlour, Ochtertyre, Crieff, Perthshire, PH7 4JS, Scotland

Contact by Phone

01764 655 979

13.5.15

WOODEN HEART: A NEW SONG IN THE MORNING FOR PHILIPP FRIEDRICH SILCHER (1789-1860)*










Through an arch of towering plane trees,
I reach to touch the hips
of an upright Swabian girl,
her lips
fresh with strawberries
from a breakfast bowl of kisses
sprinkled with sugar
and yesterday’s cream.
The birds of the Platanenallee
fly on the wings of melancholy,
the breeze of history
scenting their songs.
It dawns on me
that the rain
will lash against our faces
as we push our way
through the saluting wood.
The day is crumbling already
around us
with the leaves memorably
crunching under our futile tread.
Half way along the soaking avenue,
the sun like a song
sparkles in my eyes
and lights my last hours
with the beauty of skies.
And suddenly
you are there
your lump of a statue
bursting though the leaves,
a kind of terrible stone
trapping your crumbling tunes 
inside rock.
To take a frail life
and carve it into something immortal
is a folly as well as a tribute
to the hypocrisy of pompous little leaders
seeking to employ music
for their brutal ends.
So I say
and so we sing
of beautiful glances
and military funerals
of dead songbirds
in the path of bullets.
I climb in spirit
to reach the flesh of this lovely girl,
for a moment
I am happy and then it is gone
behind the clouds of war.
And this is for you Friedrich
from my fluttering heart
in a sea of shaking branches,
reaching out
for humanity
to triumph
over the horror
of the mundane, 
a gift of a song for you,
a lovely glass of wine
as the armies march again
into the blind alley
of a bleak despair:


Can't you see
I love you?
Please don't break my heart in two,
That's not hard to do,
'Cause I don't have a wooden heart.
And if you say goodbye,
Then I know that I would cry,
Maybe I would die,
'Cause I don't have a wooden heart.

There's no strings upon this love of mine,
It was always you from the start.
Treat me nice,
Treat me good,
Treat me like you really should,
'Cause I'm not made of wood,
And I don't have a wooden heart.

Muss i denn, muss i denn
Zum Staedtele hinaus,
Staedtele hinaus,
Und du, mein schat, bleibst hier?

Muss i denn, muss i denn
Zum Staedtele hinaus,
Staedtele hinaus,
Und du, mein schat, bleibst hier?
(Got to go, got to go,
Got to leave this town,
Leave this town
And you, my dear, stay here?).

There's no strings upon this love of mine,
It was always you from the start,
Sei mir gut,
Sei mir gut,
Sei mir wie du wirklich sollst,
Wie du wirklich sollst,
(Treat me nice,
Treat me good,
Treat me like you really should,
Like you really should), 
'Cause I don't have a wooden heart.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

*Swabian musician Philipp Friedrich Silcher originally composed the tune, based on a folk lyric, used in the pop song ‘Wooden Heart’. His statue is in Tuebingen by the River Neckar.

'Beautiful poem, most moving and made me think again. It should be sung.' (Gitte Schwarze).

4.5.15

NEW CD FROM TIM DALLING


Eve's Bonie Squad


Official launch date: May 15th 2015.
I watched a documentary called 'The Secret Life of Waves' in which a scientist used the metaphor of a wave for human life. A wave doesn't really exist as an object, it's just energy moving through water particles. It's not an object, it's a process. So humans are just processes, forms of energy creating, building and discarding cells until we eventually crash on to the shore. I've found this metaphor really helpful as I've started to se the first faint outline of land up ahead.
So I'd like to dedicate these songs to all those waves in front and behind, from William Dalling, Nellie Maud Palmer, Eileen and Alan Baker to Tom, Rhona and Ailsa Dalling and the waves behind them.


To buy Eve's Bonie Squad for £12.50:
  • Send a cheque for £12.50 payable to TR Dalling, to
    Tim Dalling,
    2, Stratford Grove West,
    Heaton,
    Newcastle upon Tyne   NE6 5BB
    UK
    with your name and address, and saying you'd like a copy of Eve's Bonie Squad.
  • or click the link to buy using your debit or credit card:
    We use PayPal to collect your payment, but you do not need to open a PayPal account to pay this way. Nor do we see your card details, as PayPal deal direct with your bank.

Track listing and samples

1.Picture of You
2.Poison Hand
3.Where I Want To Be
4.Mr Michael Marra
5.Hey Burro
     - poem by Nigel Wild
6.Song of the Lower Classes
     - poem by Ernest Jones
7.Two Lighthouses
     - poem by Julia Darling
8.Eve's Bonie Squad
9.Shy Bairns
     - poem by Dr Keith Armstrong
10.They'll Never Come Back
11.Indelible, Miraculous
11.Song of the Wind
     - poem by Julia Darling
11.Enivrez-Vous (Get Drunk)
     - poem by Charles Baudelaire
11.Thalassa
     - poem by Louis MacNeice
All songs by Tim Dalling



the jingling geordie

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whitley bay, tyne and wear, United Kingdom
poet and raconteur