TO WHERE I AM NOW

One day in 1937 a man and a woman walked past the studio building or towards it. This couple was with or without friends and knew the people with them or they were strangers. It was either a lovely day or a miserable one and they were both either quiet or loud as they approached the registry office in Parade Street, Penzance. They weren’t to know that around 60 years later, the In Deep Music Archive and The VIP Lounge studio would be in the building next door to where they were married. They walked past the beautiful old Captain’s House opposite what would become the prefab building of complaints, on their way to the subtropical Morrab Gardens, or they didn’t go there that day, though unlikely. Dylan might have turned to Caitlin and promised that they would have three children, Llewelyn, Aeronwy and Colm, sadly, now even they are gone. After Dylan’s untimely death in November 1953 at the age of 39 in New York City, Caitlin would finally write a memoir with the evocative title Leftover Life To Kill that would be used by Australian band The Paradise Motel as an album title (I wish I’d stolen it first).

At school we would be told about a famous Welsh poet that died too young who wrote ‘a play for voices’ called Under Milk Wood. We would read it out loud in English Literature class and we would eventually hear it read by famous actors like Richard Burton, another famous Welshman. In 1974 a band called King Crimson would release an album called Starless And Bible Black, the line taken directly from the beginning of the book.

“It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobble streets silent and the hunched, courters’-and- rabbits’ wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea. The houses are blind as moles (though moles see fine to-night in the snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows’ weeds. And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now.”

It seems strangely appropriate for Dylan to describe this place such as he has as we rest here in Penzance, the town in which he got married. It lies next to another place nearby that he oft frequented – Mousehole, (pronounced Mausl) that fits his description as it may a Welsh village, surely even more perfectly. In Laugharne where he lived intermittently until his untimely death, there he lies buried, his body returned from the Americas, next to his wife who lived till 80 and was also returned from Sicily where she passed away.

So where does Under Milk Wood’s fictional Llareggub lie exactly? (Which by the way is ‘Bugger All’ backwards). Is it somewhere between Mousehole and Laugharne? Or is it New Quay in Wales? It’s not the more famous Cornwall version, the surf capital of Cornwall. On our holidays as a child we would visit New Quay frequently. I’d look over the Cardigan Bay, swim in the sea, frequent the sandy beaches. Once there I found a giant dead crab and showed it off to strangers. There was a cafe with a lovely Welsh lady called Bethan who was always so kind to our family. Her husband taught me how to kill flies with a plastic spoon, hovering over them, still as a frightened mouse, bending the spoon back and letting it go, the action too fast for the usually quick fly to escape. It is said that this is the place where Under Milk Wood was mostly written and possibly as much the model for the village of Llareggub as anywhere. But when I hear about Dylan’s visits to Mousehole and read that passage from Under Milk Wood, I wonder.

In 1973 Benjamin Orzechowski and Richard Theodore Otcasek, future members of The Cars, would form the band Milkwood, Greg Hawkes, future Cars keyboard player, would also play on the album. In 1962 Robert Zimmerman would release his first album, but in doing so would change his name to reflect a literary hero. Inspired by the poem, A Child’s Christmas in Wales, ex Velvet Underground member and professional Welshman, John Cale, would open perhaps his most famous solo album, Paris 1919 (1973) with the song Child’s Christmas in Wales.

I find inspiration in contrasts, contradictions, opposites. I find great work where it’s not supposed to be and even lesser work in high places. A slight mention of Surf in Newquay, Cornwall, might look like some kind of pointer, but it came way after The Beach Boys albums were spinning their way across the turntable.

Between 1966 and 1973 The Beach Boys released 8 albums, some of which despite their quality and due to trends at the time were their worst selling records. Most probably like The Bee Gees albums post sixties and pre high wasted pants falsetto. These albums were:

Pet Sounds – 1966
Smiley Smile – 1967
Wild Honey – 1967
Friends – 1968
20/20 – 1969
Sunflower – 1970
Surf’s Up – 1971
Carl And The Passions – 1972
Holland – 1973

Throughout these records are amazing songs, unbelievable harmonies, groundbreaking production, huge hits and ignored masterpieces, but all post their Surf band image and reputation, the turning point being Pet Sounds. It’s up to you to find this out for yourself, or not. And then there’s Smile. In 2012 they reformed as well as they could with Brian Wilson, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston, Mike Love and David Marks, to make That’s Why God Made The Radio. Sadly by this time both Carl Wilson and Dennis Wilson had died. Ignore The Beach Boys’ genius at your peril.

Song Of The Day is High As A Kite from the first Noctorum album, Sparks Lane (2003), in celebration of the days I could reach the higher notes in the Pop tunes.

 

High As A Kite

Doesn’t mean that I have lost the feeling
I just wound up sitting in the car
Then I went home and stared up at the ceiling
Thinking everything had gone too far

But oh oh I am so lonely
And oh oh I wish you’d phone me

There’s rain outside as I look out the window
There’s people with umbrellas in the street
But through the dark the sun is almost shining
The thunderclouds have started their retreat

But oh oh I’m feeling better
Oh oh I, I’m going to come and get ya

High as a kite for you
Everything is gonna be alright
Try as I might for you
Something’s wrong and I can’t make it right

I touch your hand and lay there in the silence
I think I only want you when you’re gone
Sometimes I just feel like we are islands
We’ve both been marooned for too long

But oh oh why this confusion
Oh oh I’m disillusioned

High as a kite for you
Everything is gonna be alright
Try as I might for you
Something’s wrong and I can’t make it right

(High as a kite)
High as a kite but something isn’t right
(High as a kite)
Try as I might I can’t get it right

High as a kite for you
Everything is gonna be alright
Try as I might for you
Something’s wrong and I can’t make it right

(Everything will be alright)

(Willson-Piper / Mason)
Noctorum – Sparks Lane (2003)