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| Richard Caddel : The Very Best Of |
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Atlantic/Hanson K11221: "Rivers of Babylon" : Boney M for the Society for the Preservation of Rural England I want to be as dull and barefacedas the billhook in that hedger's shaking hands: also as dangerous and heavy. Nothing can resist us today, rain- water's so intoxicating and good. Thorn! Ash! Dogrose! Faltering heart's colours fading with the years. Philips BF 1473: "The sun ain't gonna shine anymore" : Walker Brothers to Kenneth Clark, Radovan Karadzic and Martin Webster The baby was truth. When the song stoppedwe saw her helpless on the diving board. You were there, remember, offering photos of her, asleep, to the staggered crowd. I got all breathless, trying to show them the backs, where you'd typed "FURY" "IGNORANCE" "MALICE" and "CONTROL". Atlantic K 10827: "Daddy Cool" : Boney M to the Department of Education and Employment To forget more than you ever knewis no joke. The skaters push out past last summer's trees' leftovers, but do fancywork, no straight lines. Even now winter sun may catch them, beautiful ignorant shadows cast on fish in ice. Epic EPC 4955: "Knowing me knowing you" : Abba in Cambodia, in Kosovo Amoral and apolitical sillyseeks ditto, divine: must be "docile and passive", unable to pervert language. O never teach me to understand: my sick children's gaze - years laid waste - and we have made all this - Panic NIC 2: "War Baby" : Tom Robinson Band to the Department of Transport Knowing who I come home to, trustand the fighting continues. A small wayside shrine will be lost under the new road, our children breathe perverted air. Government shrug, you can't make an incentive omelette, we can only walk where we may. It's you. It's me. It's us. Ember EMBS 261: "Wichita Linesman" : Glen Campbell in absentia Dear Flower, it's lonely hereonly the ceaseless drip of knowledge keeps me from you. I wire you: stomp on that Chinese sage saying how leaves feel good in Autumn. Virgin VS 612: "Karma Chameleon" : Culture Club homage to Glen Baxter They agreed it was a country of immense proportionswhich seemed to move as the sun and clouds passed over it. They agreed it was a gila monster of immense proportions which seemed to move as the brushwood moved around it. They agreed it was a politician of immense proportions which seemed to move CBS 6947: "Bright Eyes" : Art Garfunkel to the Department of the Environment We mask emotion.Never mind. Path forever closed. City centre dusk, synthetic voice, nerve, never far behind. London HL 10046: "River deep and mountain high" : Ike & Tina Turner for Ann The message is old, and disregardsache and frustration. I tear it, post half, throw the other, bottled, in the sea. It floats over oceans, islands, jungles, is misread by sailors and police, but still beats the posted bit. Forgotten what I wrote. You read. It's true. Not all of the popular songs referred to are admired by the author. Some of the poems appeared long ago in magazines such as Atlantic Review, Chock and Divan. | |
Richard Caddel reading at Morden Tower, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1975, photo © David James 1998,1999 Richard Caddel forsook a classical viola training and played briefly, cathartically, with a Tyneside band called Snarlpantry in the early 1970s. He has spent the rest of his life as a librarian. He is the editor of Pig Press, and the author of three collections of poetry including Larksong Signal (1997), and editor of Basil Bunting: Complete Poems (1994). You can read Richard Caddel's Introduction to the Centenary Edition of Basil Bunting's Collected Poems in issue # 10 of Jacket magazine. |
J A C K E T # 6
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