tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post4667121977253657846..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: William Blake in song, via Martha Redbone and Allen GinsbergAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-75359523155978830432013-09-21T21:02:30.689-05:002013-09-21T21:02:30.689-05:00Ah, I even know that one, from their first album. ...Ah, I even know that one, from their first album. But I had never realized it was Blake. I believe Tuli sings on that Ginsberg album - his voice is distinctive - but he was not in the credit list I found.<br /><br />Thanks for the pointer.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-40441833423207925902013-09-21T01:38:51.534-05:002013-09-21T01:38:51.534-05:00The Fugs set a couple of Blake poems to music in t...The Fugs set a couple of Blake poems to music in the mid-60's. I particularly remember a camp-counrty version of How Sweet I Roamed from Field to Field. (My name is Don and my e-mail is donh1@mindspring.com)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-47976383495189820342013-09-15T13:52:17.719-05:002013-09-15T13:52:17.719-05:00De Quincey is as wild as Swinburne. "wings a...De Quincey is as wild as Swinburne. "wings and talaria," you don't say. We have a separate word for winged sandals." That is amazing.<br /><br />Handel protests "I was long dead!" It is curious how such a vital form can be overshadowed by a single figure or shrivel up creatively, like the English theater did at the same time. Curious, too, that the first creative revival of both was in the operetta. But this is one of the mysteries of creativity, why Sullivan is brilliant, maybe unsurpassed, in one setting and ordinary in others.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-574040863364497742013-09-15T13:33:11.437-05:002013-09-15T13:33:11.437-05:00(from Increased Possibilities of Sympathy in the P...(from <i>Increased Possibilities of Sympathy in the Present Age</i>, <i>The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1</i>)Umbagollahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556344092820711893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-25364922219562214662013-09-15T13:07:28.678-05:002013-09-15T13:07:28.678-05:00Much of it was Handel's fault. It took Brits ...Much of it was Handel's fault. It took Brits a while to kick the oratorio habit. There are a few bright spots: Field, Delius. But no eccentrics to match the poets, for some reason.Doug Skinnerhttp://www.dougskinner.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-15064359452108025562013-09-15T10:00:40.671-05:002013-09-15T10:00:40.671-05:00I don't follow the rugby as a game, but I'...I don't follow the rugby as a game, but I'll stop to watch the pre-game singing. Thousands of people in beanies rolling out <i>Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau</i>, the big men going pink because they're nearly crying, and then the team goes on and wins thirty to three. I have no idea what Blake would have liked or hated -- I usually imagine him singing himself, since they say he sang -- but how would anybody respond if they knew that a far-off thing (whatever it was) would somehow be brought into cohabitation with your own very-close thing? <br /><br />I was reading De Quincey last night and he was getting starry-eyed at the thought of speed facilitating collusion: wonderful fact, he says: the mail can get from Edinburgh to London in less than <i>several days</i>.<br /><br />"Time, therefore, that ancient enemy of man and his frail purposes, how potent an ally has it become in combination with great mechanic changes! Many an imperfect hemisphere of thought, action, desire, that could not heretofore unite with its corresponding hemisphere, because separated by ten or fourteen days of suspense, now moves electrically to its integration, hurries to its complement, realizes its orbicular perfection, spherical completion, through that simple series of improvements which to man have given the wings and talaria of Gods, for the heralds have dimly suggested a future rivalship with the velocities of light, and even now have inaugurated a race between the child of mortality and the North Wind."Umbagollahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556344092820711893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-50498666805067120372013-09-15T07:20:52.296-05:002013-09-15T07:20:52.296-05:0019th century British classical music really is a d...19th century British classical music really is a disaster. I wanted to blame it on the Pre-Raphaelites, but that only accounts for half of the century. 100 years of, well, whatever that was. I feel like I have to cleanse myself with Martha Redbone. Amateur Reader's brothernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-30653096764670252992013-09-14T14:34:02.323-05:002013-09-14T14:34:02.323-05:00"Haka," I had to look that one up. Good..."Haka," I had to look that one up. Good one.<br /><br />My imaginative correspondence with Blake is limited. Funny, there are other writers where I will happily and glibly say he would have thought this and hated that. Not Blake, though. Well, I am sure he would have been happy to help out the suffragettes.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-5341743830433121742013-09-14T12:48:53.410-05:002013-09-14T12:48:53.410-05:00I'm not sure what Parry would have thought of ...I'm not sure what Parry would have thought of that, either. He was a fairly progressive chap, with Darwinian and feminist leanings; "Jerusalem" was originally taken up by the suffragettes. Doug Skinnerhttp://www.dougskinner.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-27183864895186070562013-09-13T23:08:24.954-05:002013-09-13T23:08:24.954-05:00"And let's not forget Hubert Parry --&quo..."And let's not forget Hubert Parry --" sometimes I wonder how Blake would have reacted if he had been made aware that people would one day regard <i>And Did Those Feet</i> as the legitimate counterpoint to a haka. Time acting like a sort of quilt around them, bringing the patterns together.Umbagollahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556344092820711893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-10742290113379433692013-09-13T08:15:32.453-05:002013-09-13T08:15:32.453-05:00Ginsberg certainly thought so.
I guess I saw - ...Ginsberg certainly thought so. <br /><br />I guess I saw - did not really meet but saw - Ginsberg once, too at a kind of Beat writer reunion book signing. I was more interested in Burroughs at the time, and had him sign a book. But Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti were right there, although I do not really remember even seeing them.<br /><br />Your story is better. You should go to a Henry Rollins show and return his book. No, that was a joke, don't do that.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-59111999881703969862013-09-12T23:56:25.098-05:002013-09-12T23:56:25.098-05:00Ginsberg's versions would probably be more alo...Ginsberg's versions would probably be more along the line of Blake's tastes, I say for no reason. I met Ginsberg at a party in the early 80s, after he'd worked with the Clash. In fact, I only knew of him via the Clash (I'd heard <i>of</i> "Howl" but had read nothing beyond the first line, of course). He was teaching at the Naropa Institute at the time. He seemed like a nice guy; he sat on the end of the couch and smiled at all the hippies. I have no idea why I'm telling you this.<br /><br />I like the weirdness of Blake. I have an edition of <i>Songs of Innocence and Experience</i> that I borrowed from someone who borrowed it from Henry Rollins when he was staying at her house during a speaking tour. It's a strange world. Anyway, I like what Redbone is doing to the texts.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-3727104182276521832013-09-12T20:47:44.904-05:002013-09-12T20:47:44.904-05:00Yes, that is a good point. I omitted the sequel. ...Yes, that is a good point. I omitted the sequel. In the 20th century, there are lots of classical settings of Blake,. Of course, in the 20th century there are a lot more good British (and American) composers.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-63449140435049548542013-09-12T20:05:17.602-05:002013-09-12T20:05:17.602-05:00I suppose Blake became more popular in the 20th ce...I suppose Blake became more popular in the 20th century. There are fine settings by Krenek, Hindemith, Britten, Alec Wilder, Virgil Thomson, William Bolcom, and many others. And let's not forget Hubert Parry: "Jerusalem" really is a stirring tune.Doug Skinnerhttp://www.dougskinner.netnoreply@blogger.com