Ellie Greenwich

Among the many great song writers that burst into out lives via the radio and our black and white TV sets were the songs of this remarkable woman: Ellie Greenwich.
Her CV is one to be proud of and contains the songs of legend.



Songs such as: "Be My Baby", "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)", "Da Doo Ron Ron", "Leader of the Pack", "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", and "River Deep, Mountain High", among many, many others.

Her songs were incandescent little bombs that exploded into life and burnt their tunes forever into your heart.

Acts like The Ronettes, The Crystals, Neil Diamond, Manfred Mann, The Shangri-Las, The Raindrops, Tommy James & the Shondells, Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans all owe a huge debt of thanks to Ellie Greenwich who sadly died aged 68 in 2009.

Pop music is nothing more than 21st century folk music and these nuggets of the ladies are classics of the 20th century. They are songs that will last forever.
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aNOtHEr dIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mEMOrY pOOoL.

Grocer Jack (Excerpt from a Teenage Opera) by Keith West

Released in 1967's summer of love this single received huge airplay, certainly on Johnnie Walker's Radio Caroline and to such a degree that its popularity took it to the number two spot in the singles chart.
It was part of a larger pop opera but one that never got to see the light of day for several decades as it wasn't released until 1997 nearly thirty years after the singles success.
I have always liked a song with a narrative and this one had a rather melancholic tale that was accompanied by the voices of many childern singing. It was all very typical of its time and very British too.

Count the days into years
Yes, eighty-two brings many fears
Yesterday's laughter turns to tears
His arms and legs don't feel so strong
His heart is weak, there's something wrong
Opens windows in despair
Tries to breathe in some fresh air
His conscience cries, "Get on your feet
Without you, Jack, the town can't eat".

REFRAIN:

Grocer Jack, Grocer Jack, get off your back,
go into town, don't let them down, oh no, no.
Grocer Jack, Grocer Jack, get off your back,
go into town, don't let them down, oh no, no.

The people that live in the town,
don't understand - he's never been known to miss his round.
It's ten o'clock, the housewives yell
"When Jack turns up, we'll give him hell".
Husbands moan at breakfast tables, no milk, no eggs, no marmalade labels.
Mothers send their children out, to Jack's house to scream and shout.

REFRAIN:

It's Sunday morning, bright and clear,
lovely flowers decorate a marble square.
People cry and mourn away, think about the fateful day,
Now they wish they'd given Jack more affection and respect,
The little children, dressed in black, don't know what's happened to old Jack.

SECOND REFRAIN

Grocer Jack, Grocer Jack, is it true what Mummy said,
you won't come back. oh no, no.
(rep. and fade)

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aNOtHEr dIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mEMOrY pOOoL.

Poetry By Inches, Words By a Mile - Sylvia Plath

Lady Lazarus
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it_____
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?-------
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The Peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand in foot ------
The big strip tease.
Gentleman , ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart---
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair on my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.


By Sylvia Plath

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aNOtHEr dIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mEMOrY pOOoL.

Fungible

Fungible is an odd word. All large, aggressive bits with no room for manoeuvre. Coarse sounding like dog's barking beneath a hooded moon. It is the sort of word Viv Stanshall might have used when drunk on Absinthe or perahps the sort of word a Walrus mubls while eating a sandwich filled with mustard.

fungible\FUHN-juh-buhl\ , adjective;
1.(Law) Freely exchangeable for or replaceable by another of like nature or kind in the satisfaction of an obligation.2.Interchangeable.noun: 1.Something that is exchangeable or substitutable. Usually used in the plural.

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aNOtHEr dIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mEMOrY pOOoL.

The Death Mask of Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel

I want one of these that, after cloggs are popped obviously, can then be hung on the downstair loo door for friends, family and others to enjoy while emptying the bowels.

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aNOtHEr dIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mEMOrY pOOoL.

Edwardian Ladies

There was something extraordinarily elegant, if not a little over the top, with the style and dress sense of Edwardian ladies; a certain flamboyance perhaps but a style that was far more vivacious than that of the Victorian's

I wonder where they hid their tattoos?

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aNOtHEr dIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mEMOrY pOOoL.

A Feast of Posters

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aNOtHEr dIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mEMOrY pOOoL.

Pressed Rat and Warthog

A sly fox of a song, one that slipped onto Cream's 1968 album 'Wheels of Fire' in between some incredible songs by Jack Bruce and Pete Brown plus some of Clapton's finest guitar playing. This song was by Ginger Baker and Mike Taylor and somehow fitted in neatly with this more experimental album.

Pressed rat and warthog have closed down their shop.
They didn’t want to; ’twas all they had got.
Selling atonal apples, amplified heat,
And pressed rat’s collection of dog legs and feet.

Sadly they left, telling no one goodbye.
Pressed rat wore red jodhpurs, warthog a striped tie.
Between them, they carried a three-legged sack,
Went straight round the corner and never came back.

Pressed rat and warthog have closed down their shop.
The bad captain madman had told them to stop
Selling atonal apples, amplified heat,
And pressed rat’s collection of dog legs and feet.

The bad captain madman had ordered their fate.
He laughed and stomped off with a nautical gate.
The gate turned into a deroga tree
And his pegleg got woodworm and broke into three.

Pressed rat and warthog have closed down their shop.
They didn’t want to; ’twas all they had got.
Selling atonal apples, amplified heat,
And pressed rat’s collection of dog legs and feet.

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aNOtHEr dIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mEMOrY pOOoL.

Ruffage

fiber /fi·ber/ (fi´ber)
1. an elongated, threadlike structure.
2. nerve f.
3. dietary f.

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A fibers myelinated afferent or efferent fibers of the somatic nervous system having a diameter of 1 to 22 μm and a conduction velocity of 5 to 120 meters per second; they include the alpha, beta, delta, and gamma fibers.
accelerating fibers , accelerator fibers adrenergic fibers that transmit the impulses which accelerate the heart beat.
adrenergic fibers nerve fibers, usually sympathetic, that liberate epinephrine or related substances as neurotransmitters.
afferent fibers , afferent nerve fibers nerve fibers that convey sensory impulses from the periphery to the central nervous system.
alpha fibers motor and proprioceptive fibers of the A type, having conduction velocities of 70 to 120 meters per second and ranging from 13 to 22 μm in diameter.
alveolar fibers fibers of the periodontal ligament extending from the cementum of the tooth root to the walls of the alveolus.
arcuate fibers the bow-shaped fibers in the brain, such as those connecting adjacent gyri in the cerebral cortex, or the external or internal arcuate fibers of the medulla oblongata.

And there you have it...RUFFAGE...Nuff said?

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aNOtHEr trIp INtO ThE mAGpIE mUdDY miRE.