Lead singer of The Seekers, Judith Durham, also died this week. (It’s getting to feel like 2016 all over again.)
The Seekers were one of the first Australian acts to come to the UK in the 1960s and find success. They were certainly not ‘rock’y but neither could they be described as pure folk singers. Durham’s voice always gave them a distinctive sound.
On an occasion like this lots of folk would choose their song The Carnival is Over, their second UK no 1, to bid her farewell.
Instead, this is the title song to a film of the same name, composed by Dusty Springfield’s brother Tom (a UK guiding light to The Seekers) with lyrics written by actor and man of many aspects, Jim Dale.
The book cover and spine have “Public library” as the title but the colophon shows “ Public library ” (actually struck through several times.) As is usual in Smith’s output the left hand margin is justified but the right hand one is not – curiously, though, the acknowledgements page has the reverse. The prefatory “Library” is an apparently true story about Smith and her publisher coming across a building emblazoned Library; but it’s an exclusive club instead. Smith’s stories are interleaved with Smith and her correspondents’ memories of libraries and their importance to civilised life. These interludes are entitled “that beautiful new build”, “opened by Mark Twain”, “ a clean, well-lighted place”, “the ideal model of society”, “soon to be sold”, “put a price on that”, “on bleak house road”, “curve tracing”, “the library sunlight”, “the making of me” and “the infinite possibilities”.
As in Smith’s previous collections the short stories included here tend to have similar structures whereby the narrator will start off on one course and then veer onto another, and on occasion a return to the first topic will occur.
In Last the narrator sees a wheelchair-bound woman has been left behind on a train. While she tries to effect a rescue she muses on the changing meanings of various words. Good voice is narrated by a woman who speaks to her dead father and ruminates on the First World War.
In The beholder a woman who has suffered a series of life altering events finds a growth on her chest. It seems to be a rose. The poet relates the life story of the poet Olive Fraser whom Smith imagines being inspired by finding printed music on the binding (made from recycled old paper stock) of one of Walter Scott’s Waverley novels. The human claim dwells on the unlikely connection between an unauthorised credit card transaction and the fate of D H Lawrence’s ashes. The ex-wife has a woman trying to come to terms with breaking up from her ex-wife because she was so obsessed with Katharine Mansfield. In it Smith says, “What the writer does is not so much to solve the question but to put the question.” She also utilises the word pompazoon; as Mansfield did.
In The art of elsewhere the narrator tells of her desire to come upon some kinder, better, less constrained existence. After life. A man is twice reported dead; both times falsely. The second time no-one cares. This leads him to muse on the vitality shown in the Mitchell and Kenyon films of turn of the twentieth century life.
In The definite article the narrator has an epiphany after lingering in Regent’s Park on the way to an important meeting. Grass A book of Robert Herrick poems brings to the narrator’s mind an incident which occurred when she was minding her father’s shop during an Easter break in her finals year.
In Say I won’t be there the narrator has an ongoing discussion with her partner about not revealing the contents of her recurring dream which features Dusty Springfield (about whom her partner knows a lot more than her.) She tells us the dream instead. And so on’s narrator ruminates on a friend who died young and her illness-induced imaginings that she was a work of art in the process of being abducted.
Pedant’s corner:- to not sway (not to sway,) ones bones (one’s bones,) H G Wells dream (H G Wells’s,) ‘We bought the book in Habitat, before Habitat became defunct.’ (Habitat isn’t quite yet defunct. It still has some outlets in a few Homebase stores.)
The second of Dusty’s collaborations with the Pet Shop Boys (after What Have I Done to Deserve This?) but this one doesn’t really feature them except as writers and producers. On the face of it a song about the Profumo affair would perhaps have been an unlikely hit except it of course appeared over the end credits of the film Scandal.
A Clive Westlake song that is lyrically reminiscent of last week’s first offering by Goffin and King in the lines, “Tomorrow will you still be here? / Tomorrow will come but I fear / that what is happening to me is only a dream…” but sung by the performer of the second.
Like Goin’ Back this is just a little heavy on the orchestral backing but it has power and pathos both.
Dusty Springfield: I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten
I woke up this morning to the news that Gerry Goffin has died.
In his collaborations with Carole King hewrote the lyrics to some of the most enduring popular songs from the 1960s. The list is stunning. At the end of the article in the link are songs he wrote with others.
His lyrics tended to be carefully worked out and belied the frothy nature of the productions of the era.
Look at the words of Will You Love Me Tomorrow. Their underlying poignancy was highlighted in King’s own version on her album, Tapestry.
Tonight you’re mine completely/You give your love so sweetly.
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes/But will you love me tomorrow?
Is this a lasting treasure/Or just a moment’s pleasure?
Can I believe the magic of your sighs?/Will you still love me tomorrow?
Tonight with words unspoken/You say that I’m the only one
But will my heart be broken/When the night meets the morning sun?
I’d like to know that your love/Is love I can be sure of.
So tell me now and I won’t ask again/Will you still love me tomorrow?
This, though, is the early 60s take by The Shirelles.
The Shirelles: Will you Love Me Tomorrow
And then there’s this:-
A little bit of freedom’s all we lack.
So catch me if you can I’m goin’ back.
Dusty Springfield: Goin’ Back
Gerald “Gerry” Goffin: 11/2/1939 – 19/6/2014. So it goes.
