Jubilee Concert Song Choices
Cliff Richard. Devil Woman. Wronged man song. “She’s just a Devil Woman, with evil on her mind.” Give that man a knighthood! Oh, they did…
Robbie Williams. Mack The Knife. Song about a murderer. “Now on the sidewalk… whoo, sunny mornin’, Lies a body just oozin’ life.” Don’t harsh my mellow, Rob!
Ed Sheeran. A Team. Song about a junkie prostitute. “Go mad for a couple grams… And in a pipe she flies to the Motherland, Or sells love to another man.” Thanks, Ed!
Tom Jones. Mama Told Me Not To Come. Song about drug-fuelled party. “That cigarette you’re smoking ’bout to scare me half to death.” Delilah. Song about death and adultery. “She stood there laughing—I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more.” Loving the imagery, Sir Tom!
Stevie Wonder. Superstition. “Thirteen month old baby, broke the lookin’ glass, Seven years of bad luck, the good things in your past.” Hmmmm…
No respite, not even in popular Classical music…
Renee Fleming. Un Bel Di Vedremo (from Madame Butterfly). Deluded woman waits for philandering, unpleasant husband to return.
Best Thing About The Jubilee Concert
Grace Jones. Slave To The Rhythm. The Hula Hoop. Enough said.
The genius of Spy Magazine, now complete and online
Al Hirshfield draws the British editors who made their careers in NYC in the 90s. Diggin’ Anna Wintour as Paul McCartney!
2012-1951
In this Jubilee Week, a look back at the Festival Of Britain, put in mind by a lovely present from the erstwhile jazz drummer Colin Bowden. A framed 78 by the Crane River Jazz Band (on the Parlophone label) of I’m Travelling, with Ken Colyer on cornet and Bill Colyer on washboard. Colin: “That record of I’m Travelling was the first major recording I ever did, because I was in the audience!” Colin was a schoolboy at the time, but went on to become one of the major figures in the Traditional Jazz revival of the early fifties.
Clockwise: Parlophone 78, Bill’s misspelled invite, Princess Elizabeth meets Ken, Programme cover
Five Things I Saw & Heard This Week 
Our wonderful dad died 1st August, 2021, unexpectedly but peacefully. It’s a terrible loss, but what he gave us all is immeasurable. #colinbowden
I’m so sorry to hear that news, Laurel… Colin was one of the nicest people you could wish to meet, as well as a fine, fine drummer – he had the inner rhythms and the ‘bounce’…