COSTELLO AND THE SPANISH MODEL + bits & pieces

Back in 1978, he sang in a furious rush, spitting out insults and paranoia. The singers here take their time with the melody and the words, a shift that helps pull the compositions into sharp relief; they sound more pop and less punk in this incarnation.

THE MUSIC MAKERS and a sense of poetry

t is not necessary, I think, to understand poetry to understand the poem. To those who do understand them it might well be that metres and word origins, and scant rhyme might add to the enjoyment of the poem but most of us would understand the depiction (which they may or may not agree with) of the role chosen by, or imposed upon, the artist in society.

WHEN THE BOAT COMES IN

It is important to keep the historical memory of the island alive, in this sense, and I believe there is a budget to set up a Fishing Museum on the island, Why hasn't it been done?

THE COST OF FREE SPEECH

My own unconstructed but long held views on the matter I usually express by saying, if you cling to freedom of speech you must afford others the same right whether or not you agree with what they say, I do know that any time I have got into a fight it has begun at exactly the moment I realised I had overstepped the line between free speech and gratuitous insult.

BARTHES, RUSHDIE, & FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Words are murdered to dissect by every individual reader, Wordsworth suggest, and the evidence gathered may be used against the author.

AUTHOR  sends SNOWMAN on light years of travel

Francesca Dow, managing director of Penguin Random House children’s books, said: “Raymond Briggs was unique. He has inspired generations of creators of picture books, graphic novels, and animations. He leaves an extraordinary legacy, and a big hole.”

THE QUEEN OF RYDELL HIGH

The obituaries and career reviews for Olivia Newton John spoke of her being both a show-business icon and, patently, a very decent, grounded woman.

Boom Radio SIXTIES TURN SEVENTY (part two)

here we are again, faced with DJs being asked to truncate Radio 2's varied playlist to focus on more recent decades. Even Pick Of The Pops, a show fronted by my friend and veteran broadcaster Paul Gambaccini which looks back at music charts from bygone decades, last featured a hit from the Sixties back in September.

SIXTIES TURN  SEVENTY

In truth i could have compiled a top tedn for evry month of the sixties, such was, and is, my love of music. Readers will be relieved to learn that I have today assembled just a twenty song playlist to cover the whole of the decade.
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of stories and songs: MCMURTRY MADE + bits and pieces

“I’ve got a skinny little desk in my office,” he reveals, “where I can tape lyrics on the wall: verses on the left, choruses in the middle, bridges on the right. I don’t write down the melody because that stays in my head. The chords are intuitive once I have the melody.”