Pat Blythe – Every Picture Tells a Story…and Music!

I try and start the column with the actual focus of the column, which is music. Then the squirreling happens and my brain starts to meander all over the place….and nowhere in particular. Again, researching something entirely different I came across this quote from a video I stumbled upon. The video is actually produced by Canon (which happens to be the maker of camera I use).

Pat Blythe – Openings, Bands and Music…Playing Catch-Up….

Openers…….

Today is a bright but chilly October day. (great opening line huh?) Then there’s Snoopy’s book opening….“It was a dark and stormy night.” Okay, how about “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” (Tales of Two Cities – Charles Dickens) Or, “It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” (Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen) THAT was a different time….most definitely. Then there’s, “It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.” (Earthly Powers – Anthony Burgess). I can’t even begin to imagine explaining that one. How about, “I write this sitting at the kitchen sink”. (Capture the Castle – Dodie Smith). That’s sure to grab attention…..and apparently it did. “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs and I don’t know what I was doing in New York.” (The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath). Confused, frustrated, a chronic depressive, Plath committed suicide by sticking her head in a gas oven at the very young age of 30, leaving behind two young children. “You’ve no choice, look back.” (The Story of Hansel and Gretel – Louise Murphy) We must learn from the past. “It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.” (1984 – George Orwell) Canada’s pants would do well to pay attention. Apparently they’re not paying attention to Hansel or Gretel.

Doug Thompson: CONFESSIONS OF A PROFESSIONAL ROCK AND ROLL INTERVIEWER – LOOK MA, STILL NO WORDS

“Well doggies” (as Jed Clampett used to say on the 60’s TV series, “The Beverly Hillbillies), there were quite a few responses to my last blog about instrumentals.  Most simply wrote to say ‘You forgot so and so’…or ‘what about…’, but hey, if that column sparked discussion about great instrumentals, then I have been successful.

And so, I guess I’m done.  Goodnight!