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IF YOU GO AWAY
Friday Jan. 30, 2015
No better music and poetry for a summer rainy day with someone you love – or if you are alone longing for love once lost …
Contemporary of Kerouac and Ginsberg, a best friend of Jacques Brel – he wrote for others but it always seemed he wrote for us as a window to his life and he took us along for the ride.
I expect we all have songs and artists holding sense-memory – connected to where we were, or who we were with – some place, time or experience we never forget, ones we treasure, forever and always. Many of his pieces resonate for me. Some were fabulously successful. Two stand out for me The Sea and Do You Like The Rain. My CD was lost in some move (maybe I gave it away). One day a few years ago I was missing it. I went shopping, found it online and treasure it until I give it away again … or not.
The story of Rod’s life is sad – yet his joy, his magic, found its home in his poetry and lyrics. Mostly, it was the connection of his narrative, his voice, his ability to demonstrate his love and passion, softly and raspy at the same time. His Jacques Brel classic and Love’s Been Good To Me are unmatched, nobody else could have done them and left such an impact. His English version (If you go away ) of Brel’s Ne Me Quitte Pas is moving every time I hear it. Well, so does Brel’s.
We were not friends – but it certainly seems like I’ve lost one, Rod McKuen died yesterday.
Rod gone it …
Mark Kolke
column written/ published from Calgary, AB
morning walk: -4C/25F, light breeze (Chinook-days nearly over), as winter returns with some snow expected this evening; clear, star lit, a lone jogger with a flashlight in his hand startled Gusta – she did not understand the light bouncing all over …
Reader feedback:
HAND LENDING
Mark, Thanks for this. Sometimes ‘doing’ needs the brain to stop thinking first so that we are free to just do, MF, Palgrave, ON
Mark, please send Kudos to those people in Calgary that checked their sidewalks and spread a little sand/gravel on the really icy spots. It’s like a smile sent to all the people that walk to work along those paths, AK, Calgary, AB
Good Day, I was recently forwarded a copy of your daily musing and I really liked it. I would like to get on your mailing list and start receiving them. Thanks!, VJ, ?
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