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      • No Need to Look for Love
      • 'The Love Quartet' >
        • The Tannery Wager
        • 'Fini and Archie'
        • 'The Love Bridge'
        • 'Forgotten Love'
      • The Priest's Calling Card >
        • Chapter One - The Irish Custom
        • Chapter Two - Patrick Duffy's Family Background
        • Chapter Three - Patrick Duffy Junior's Vocation to Priesthood
        • Chapter Four - The first years of the priesthood
        • Chapter Five - Father Patrick Duffy in Seattle
        • Chapter Six - Father Patrick Duffy, Portlaw Priest
        • Chapter Seven - Patrick Duffy Priest Power
        • Chapter Eight - Patrick Duffy Groundless Gossip
        • Chapter Nine - Monsignor Duffy of Portlaw
        • Chapter Ten - The Portlaw Inheritance of Patrick Duffy
      • Bigger and Better >
        • Chapter One - The Portlaw Runt
        • Chapter Two - Tony Arrives in California
        • Chapter Three - Tony's Life in San Francisco
        • Chapter Four - Tony and Mary
        • Chapter Five - The Portlaw Secret
      • The Oldest Woman in the World >
        • Chapter One - The Early Life of Sean Thornton
        • Chapter Two - Reporter to Investigator
        • Chapter Three - Search for the Oldest Person Alive
        • Chapter Four - Sean Thornton marries Sheila
        • Chapter Five - Discoveries of Widow Friggs' Past
        • Chapter Six - Facts and Truth are Not Always the Same
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        • Chapter 1 - 'Return of the Prodigal Son'
        • Chapter 2 - 'The early years of sweet innocence in Portlaw'
        • Chapter 3 - 'The Separation'
        • Chapter 4 - 'Separation and Betrayal'
        • Chapter 5 - 'Portlaw to Manchester'
        • Chapter 6 - 'Salford Choices'
        • Chapter 7 - 'Life inside Prison'
        • Chapter 8 - 'The Aylesbury Pilgrimage'
        • Chapter 9 - Sean's interest in stone masonary'
        • Chapter 10 - 'Sean's and Tony's Partnership'
        • Chapter 11 - 'Return of the Prodigal Son'
      • The Alternative Christmas Party >
        • Chapter One
        • Chapter Two
        • Chapter Three
        • Chapter Four
        • Chapter Five
        • Chapter Six
        • Chapter Seven
        • Chapter Eight
      • The Life of Liam Lafferty >
        • Chapter One: ' Liam Lafferty is born'
        • Chapter Two : 'The Baptism of Liam Lafferty'
        • Chapter Three: 'The early years of Liam Lafferty'
        • Chapter Four : Early Manhood
        • Chapter Five : Ned's Secret Past
        • Chapter Six : Courtship and Marriage
        • Chapter Seven : Liam and Trish marry
        • Chapter Eight : Farley meets Ned
        • Chapter Nine : 'Ned comes clean to Farley'
        • Chapter Ten : Tragedy hits the family
        • Chapter Eleven : The future is brighter
      • The life and times of Joe Walsh >
        • Chapter One : 'The marriage of Margaret Mawd and Thomas Walsh’
        • Chapter Two 'The birth of Joe Walsh'
        • Chapter Three 'Marriage breakup and betrayal'
        • Chapter Four: ' The Walsh family breakup'
        • Chapter Five : ' Liverpool Lodgings'
        • Chapter Six: ' Settled times are established and tested'
        • Chapter Seven : 'Haworth is heaven is a place on earth'
        • Chapter Eight: 'Coming out'
        • Chapter Nine: Portlaw revenge
        • Chapter Ten: ' The murder trial of Paddy Groggy'
        • Chapter Eleven: 'New beginnings'
      • The Woman Who Hated Christmas >
        • Chapter One: 'The Christmas Enigma'
        • Chapter Two: ' The Breakup of Beth's Family''
        • Chapter Three: From Teenager to Adulthood.'
        • Chapter Four: 'The Mills of West Yorkshire.'
        • Chapter Five: 'Harrison Garner Showdown.'
        • Chapter Six : 'The Christmas Dance'
        • Chapter Seven : 'The ballot for Shop Steward.'
        • Chapter Eight: ' Leaving the Mill'
        • Chapter Ten: ' Beth buries her Ghosts'
        • Chapter Eleven: Beth and Dermot start off married life in Galway.
        • Chapter Twelve: The Twin Tragedy of Christmas, 1992.'
        • Chapter Thirteen: 'The Christmas star returns'
        • Chapter Fourteen: ' Beth's future in Portlaw'
      • The Last Dance >
        • Chapter One - ‘Nancy Swales becomes the Widow Swales’
        • Chapter Two ‘The secret night life of Widow Swales’
        • Chapter Three ‘Meeting Richard again’
        • Chapter Four ‘Clancy’s Ballroom: March 1961’
        • Chapter Five ‘The All Ireland Dancing Rounds’
        • Chapter Six ‘James Mountford’
        • Chapter Seven ‘The All Ireland Ballroom Latin American Dance Final.’
        • Chapter Eight ‘The Final Arrives’
        • Chapter Nine: 'Beth in Manchester.'
      • 'Two Sisters' >
        • Chapter One
        • Chapter Two
        • Chapter Three
        • Chapter Four
        • Chapter Five
        • Chapter Six
        • Chapter Seven
        • Chapter Eight
        • Chapter Nine
        • Chapter Ten
        • Chapter Eleven
        • Chapter Twelve
        • Chapter Thirteen
        • Chapter Fourteen
        • Chapter Fifteen
        • Chapter Sixteen
        • Chapter Seventeen
      • Fourteen Days >
        • Chapter One
        • Chapter Two
        • Chapter Three
        • Chapter Four
        • Chapter Five
        • Chapter Six
        • Chapter Seven
        • Chapter Eight
        • Chapter Nine
        • Chapter Ten
        • Chapter Eleven
        • Chapter Twelve
        • Chapter Thirteen
        • Chapter Fourteen
      • ‘The Postman Always Knocks Twice’ >
        • Author's Foreword
        • Contents
        • Chapter One
        • Chapter Two
        • Chapter Three
        • Chapter Four
        • Chapter Five
        • Chapter Six
        • Chapter Seven
        • Chapter Eight
        • Chapter Nine
        • Chapter Ten
        • Chapter Eleven
        • Chapter Twelve
        • Chapter Thirteen
        • Chapter Fourteen
        • Chapter Fifteen
        • Chapter Sixteen
        • Chapter Seventeen
        • Chapter Eighteen
        • Chapter Nineteen
        • Chapter Twenty
        • Chapter Twenty-One
        • Chapter Twenty-Two
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Song For Today: 28th February 2019

28/2/2019

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Today’s song is ‘Let You Love Flow’; a pop song written by Larry E. Williams which was recorded in the autumn of 1975 by country music duo, the ‘Bellamy Brothers’ for whom it afforded an international hit in 1976.

The song's composer Larry E. Williams had been a roadie for Neil Diamond's live shows and ‘Let Your Love Flow’ had been published by ‘Bicycle Music’ who owned Diamond's own catalogue. Neil Diamond is reported to have shown apparent disinterest in recording the song himself according to Howard Bellamy stating, ‘that it wasn’t in his vein’. The singer Johnny Rivers also passed up the opportunity of recording the song. The earliest release of the song as a single was by Gene Cotton who released it as a single in 1975.

David Bellamy's recording sessions featured members of Neil Diamond's band, including drummer Dennis St John, and it was St John who recommended ‘Let Your Love Flow’ to the Bellamy Brothers. ‘Let Your Love Flow’ reached the Number 1 spot on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ on May 1st,1976, also crossing over to the Billboard chart rankings for ‘Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks’ and peaked at Number 2. It also attained a peak of Number 21 in ‘Hot Country Singles’.

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Going with the flow is responding to cues from the universe. When you go with the flow, you’re surfing the life force of nature and the universe. It’s about ‘wakeful trust’ and total collaboration with what’s showing up for you. Since the universe was created, Life has been a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Resisting change only creates unbalance, often produces sorrow, increases anxiety and stress, and prevents one’s emotions moving in harmony with one’s world around them.
I have always looked for the opportunity in change instead of focusing on any perceived threat. 

None of us will ever move one step forward while ever we have a constant eye on what is behind us. It is far better to become more willing to accept ‘what is’ than to deny ‘what will be’. If we release our creative energy and let it flow, we are better able to relish the possibilities. To get one’s creative energies flowing, one needs to become like the force of water (which is greater than all other forces such as fire, storm, gale, hurricanes, etc.). We need to be more willing to ‘go with the flow’ of our life experiences; not necessarily like or love them but to acknowledge their presence, to identify and flow with all positives in one’s situation. Water flows simply because it willingly allows itself to follow the gravitational forces of the earth.

Having a terminal blood cancer (with an average life span after diagnosis of three years) for the past six years, followed by skin cancers and a possible rectal cancer has led me more earnestly to live for the moment and to realise that in the current of life there is no past or no future obstacles that are allowed to govern; everything flows in an eternal present.

So, if it is increased happiness, feelings of belonging, personal identity and meaningful purpose you want in your life, all you have to do is to be the good person you were naturally meant to be; the good person you undoubtedly are, and ‘Let your love flow’ willingly along every path you follow, every stream you boat, every river and ocean you cross, every mountain you climb, and every cave you descend. Give your free flowing love to every traveller and each one of nature’s creatures you meet during your travels.

Love and peace. Bill xxxx

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Song For Today: 27th February 2019

27/2/2019

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Today’s song is ‘Here Comes that Feeling’. This is a favourite song of mine that was written by Dorsey Burnette and Joe Osborne and performed by Brenda Lee. The song reached Number 5 in the United Kingdom and was Number 89 on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ in 1962. It also song reached Number 40 in Australia. 
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Today’s song takes me all the way back to the start of the 1960s and my years as a wild and rebellious teenager who thought he was God’s gift to women. I was always a good-enough looking young man, and what I lacked in the facial beauty stakes, I more than made up with my popularity and abundance of confidence. While there were a couple of young men in our going-out group of friends who were certainly more gorgeous-looking than me, I can definitely say I was the best singer and dancer among the lot of them. The single and most important weapon I had in my personality file, however, was that dynamic cocktail blend of ‘good boy/bad boy’ image; that part-combination of a young man that all females secretly desire but few are brave enough to publicly acknowledge.

I was certainly conscious of my ‘pulling power’ with the ladies, and while I need to suppress every last ounce of modesty I possess today to inform you of this fact, no part of me was ever suppressed during my teenage years before my twenties. When I dolled up to go out for a night on the town, I never dressed to kill; merely impress enough to get me two successive dances with the chosen girl on the floor. Once the young woman had accepted a second and successive dance invitation from me, she was mine for the rest of the night, if I didn’t get bored with her company.

Now, I know that all you women reading this will be thinking, ‘What an arrogant, vain sod Bill is!’, and if you are, I willingly confess to once being so before my early twenties. However, don’t forget this ‘bad boy’ side of me (my vanity) was blended with another vital aspect of my personality; the ‘good boy’ side of me’. This 'good boy' side made me the kind of boy that the parents of any girlfriend I ever dated would be happy to welcome into their home for Sunday afternoon tea. I was always suspicious of such parental invitations. Whenever I received such an invitation, I would invariably take fright and run a mile. I’d politely decline with some excuse that still allowed them to hold a favourable impression of me. To tell the truth, I used to believe that the parents were simply wanting to get their eligible daughters married off to the first decent chap that showed his face over the Sunday afternoon dining table in their best room.

Then, every Saturday night when I went out dancing at the Town Hall, I would suppress my mother’s constant advice to find myself a nice girl and settle down into married life, and instead, bring to the fore of my mind the advice my father proffered as I combed my hair in the mirror for the final time before going out the door. Dad would simply say,” There’s no hurry to wed, Billy. Have your fun while you can, lad!” This advice merely supported my earlier suspicions that their oldest child of seven (myself) had been a consequence of my parent's unbridled feelings towards each other one moonlit night as they walked back home, instead of me having been a planned pregnancy within their marriage!

Back to the Saturday night dance and all the masculine machinations that used to govern a young man’s chain of thought from the start of the night to when he linked up with his lady friend at its end. When the dance was over, I would walk home the young woman whom I’d enjoyed the last dance with, holding her hand all the way in hopeful expectation of some tangible reward at the journey’s end. But during our journey, my ‘good boy’ feelings would find themselves being slowly smothered, and eventually suppressed by my ‘bad boy’ thoughts that now assumed supremacy and mental control.

I didn’t want the prospect of ending my night with a whimper instead of a big bang. As we walked holding hands tenderly, I would invariably start to have those old feelings all over again; you know the type of feelings I mean: the stirrings of the loins that seem to make all moons shine brighter: married life in the near future appear rosier: and even a couple of snotty-nosed children running around you, yelling ‘Daddy-Daddy-daddy!’ for your first five years of married life seem to make the sheer sexual excitement and satisfaction of the next few minutes’ worth it!

That would be when the ‘good boy’ part of my personality would wake up and come back into the equation to do battle with the ‘bad boy’ side of my personality. Would I finish the night off as either ‘romantic’ or ‘rogue’ of the month? All this mental conflict would do battle inside me as the power of the ‘Holy Catholic Church’ entered deadly combat with all downstairs thoughts of the Devil in me. Whichever side of my personality won through always walked a moral tightrope. The young woman would either be seductively won over or I would revert to the ‘good boy’ side of my personality and find myself ‘falling in love’ all over again for the third time that month.

Such situations, alas, only produced three outcomes of a night out for a young man on the pull. It could fizzle out like a damp squib by the end of the walk home with your lady friend as she gave you one safe kiss that was too short in duration to even require you taking the chewing gum out of your mouth, before going through her front door saying ‘Goodnight, Billy. See you around’. Or half-way through a passionate end-of-night kiss, either one or both parties might exclaim breathlessly, “Here comes that feeling… again…and again”, leading to an inevitable shot-gun wedding four months later. Very rarely would true romance be found in one’s midnight fumble inside the cookie jar?

For those romantics who found a perfect partner, the subsequent commitment to the one you love would require the greatest of manly discipline and human sacrifices imaginable to the mind of a twenty-year-old male. The discovery of one’s perfect mate would lead to a five-year engagement period, in which no lower groping could be contemplated or would be tolerated before the marriage bands had been read out in the parish church. In addition, compulsory Sunday afternoon visits and tea in the best room with one’s prospective in-laws would instantly commence and be expected to last until the day of the couple’s marriage.

After the marriage of the young couple, the tables would be turned; and instead, it would be your in-laws who would do the Sunday visiting, for which no formal invitation was ever required.

I must admit when I think back on these days, the advice of both mum and dad held their own merit in some regards, but whatever their advice was, it all came back to that awareness following the Saturday night dance, when on walking your girl back home you felt a strange stirring inside of you and thought to yourself, “Here comes that feeling” again…and…again.and…again!

Love and peace. Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 26th February 2019

26/2/2019

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Today’s song I want to sing for you is 83 years old! ‘The Glory of Love’was written by Billy Hill and was recorded by Benny Goodman in 1936. This version became a Number 1 pop hit. Subsequently, the song has been recorded by many singers; among the most notable being, Dean Martin, Jimmy Durante, Bette Midler and Otis Redding. 
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Despite being the briefest of songs, ‘The Glory of Love’ holds a message of truth that stretches all the way back to the days when Adam loved Eve. ‘Love’ may be the greatest of all experiences sought for by the vast majority, but ‘true love’ is never easy to attain and hold on to. It requires the skill of a master fisherman, who, having caught his catch, then must preserve it and keep it fresh in suitable conditions.

As someone who has experienced many sides of ‘the love equation’ in my long life (having feared love, sought love, found love, lost love, rejected love, enjoyed love, and had love disappoint me, dump me and divorce me), I do feel sufficiently qualified to say a few words about the emotion and its effect on our daily disposition and overall sense of happiness.

I would first have to say that ‘love’ is the only life lesson I know that teaches a human being how to become a better person. Because love cannot serve others without also serving self, it could be said that the expression of the love emotion and the continued practise of it could be said to be our most beneficial of human actions. My mother often said to me as a child,” Love where you can, Billy and you’ll never lose out”. These words have true meaning for me because whenever I have most needed it, the light of love has shone on me that very hour.

There are many forms that love takes, but for the purpose of this post, I will stick to the deep and satisfying love that is sometimes felt between man and woman and man and man in a committed relationship. Succeeding not only involves finding true love but once found, keeping it. The most obvious way of nurturing and keeping a loving relationship strong between partners is achieved within a communication channel between the couple that is never cut off, however uncomfortable it proves to be. Other essentials include travelling together towards shared goals, and to a place that you are both happy to end up.  A good strong marriage demands you both work as a team, no less than the crew of a ship that sails through both calm and stormy waters to reach safe harbour. In simplistic terms, a good marriage requires communication, commitment, co-operation, consolidation, consideration, consolation and celebration to be constantly present and available!

I have known the true and lasting love of two people endure more sacrifice, more love, more compassion and every aspect of the most fruitful and satisfactory of relationships between a couple. I don’t have to look more than a few feet: across the table, knelt beside me at church, accompanying me to the surgery, the hospital, or beside me in bed, to see the most enduring love and strength of my life: my wife Sheila. 

Love is a great master when one proves a willing student. It teaches us to be what we never were. It helps us to be what we need to be. It helps us to hold on fast to a life that is worth holding onto, but it also schools one in the knowledge that true love also knows when ‘to let go’. 

When my time comes to leave this life on earth, the only regret that I will have is that I didn’t have enough time to do everything on earth with Sheila that I would have liked to do. I would have loved to have been given more time to spend together, and in different circumstances that enabled me to fly safely, walk farther and plan a year ahead. I would have loved to have seen unseen places I always wanted to set eyes on: travelled to Singapore to meet Sheila’s distant family and school friends: place my hand on ‘The Great Wall of China’: visit the beautiful gardens in Japan during any spring season : dance on the beach at sunset in Hawaii : walk the Bronte Moors during all weathers : plant flowers, fruit and vegetables in our allotment which I knew I would have the reasonable certainty of seeing, smelling and tasting next autumn. The one thing I say to my Sheila is, “If I know what love is, it is because of you, sweetheart.”

There are two women in my life that have predominantly informed me as to the true nature of ‘Love’; my mother during my formative years and my wife, Sheila during the last decade. As a child, my mother used to tell me,” Love big, Billy and experience great miracles” (my paraphrasing of her words, yet accurate memory of her meaning). Whenever I had been uncharitable in word or action to another, my mother would threaten to hold me upside down and shake the nonsense out of me, leaving only the love inside me remaining. So, if you want true love in your life, my advice would be to first find it in yourself; then, give it unstintingly to others and simply wait in the certainty of receiving it back immeasurably, and without expectation. 

I once worked with an older man in a Brighouse textile factory on the night shift. He was an ardent Methodist who had reformed his earlier wild ways and come to religious observance and attended chapel weekly since marrying his ‘good woman’; as he called her. Albert was always coming out with pearls of wisdom for the younger lads he sought to impress. I’ll never forget him once advising us to “Love yourself; then forget it, and then love the world”. 

I conclude this morning’s post urging all to love freely and without fear or expectation. My mother gave me life first, followed by love, and finally understanding and acceptance. She didn’t always approve of all I said and did, but she always seemed to have the ability to understand and the compassion to forgive. I do believe that unless we love one another, we are destined to live without purpose and die in vain. I also believe that love, hope and forgiveness are inextricably intertwined and that without all three in our life and behaviour we are lost.

There can be no love today and no hope for tomorrow without forgiveness for yesterday.

Love and peace. Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 25th February 2019

25/2/2019

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Today I attended 'Skipton Hospital' to see the bone consultant who x-rayed and examined my shoulder. I initially needed to have an operation three months ago under a general anesthetic to replace my dislocated shoulder after manual manipulation couldn't reset it. Despite three months of subsequent physiotherapy, my shoulder only regained half its normal movement. The consultant informed me this morning that the news is not too hopeful. The x-rays show that my fall did extensive and irreparable damage to the tendons which were badly torn and it looked like my Deltoid Muscle in my shoulder is also damaged, along with other nerve damage.

The next stage is to have an electrical stimulation test called 'neurophysiology' to see how badly my nerves are working and to determine if some pain relief can be provided through means of injection. Unfortunately, the Deltoid Muscle is only visibly detectable through an MRI scan which my pacemaker prevents me from having. Only by confirmation through some other possible means that the Deltoid Muscle in my shoulder is not irreparably damaged, could a replacement-joint operation under full anaesthetic be considered.

So, the news looks bleak on the shoulder-improvement front for me ever having corrective surgery in the future and I will just have to add another disability to my bag of bones I carry around on my skeleton. I suppose I shall always forfeit my 'Bowling Championship' status as a non-entrant in this year's 'World's Ten-Pin Bowling Finals' if corrective surgery doesn't prove possible!

I have to say that a fully functioning shoulder is way down the list of priorities for me and Sheila at the moment as I await the biopsy results of my rectal warts over this coming week to determine if they are cancerous, and if so, whether I will be offered the big operation required to remove them at Leeds Infirmary?

Next Monday, I spend a large part of my day getting a Pre-assessment at 'Wharfedale Hospital' to see if I am strong and healthy enough to have a big skin-cancer and facial reconstruction operation done under a full general anaesthetic at Leeds Infirmary within the month of March. This will be the third operation/procedure done to remove the cancer cells. This operation may be followed by radiotherapy to mop up if the consultant considers necessary.

Due to other matters, I have no time to post a new song today, so I have re-recorded 'The Quest', as the first time I sang this song, I had the start of a sore throat and wasn't in my best singing voice. 

Love and peace. Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 24th February 2019

24/2/2019

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Today’s song is ‘I’ll Never fall in love Again’. This song was written by Lonnie Donegan and was first released by Donegan as a single in 1962. Its most commercially successful recording was by Tom Jones in 1967.

According to Tom Jones: “I did some shows with Lonnie and we became friends. One night he said, ‘Look, I have this song, you’d sing the pants off it. I've recorded it, but I can't really sing it. It's a sort of a rewrite of a song from the thirties when the Depression was going on, called 'I'm Never Going to Cease My Wandering.' Tom Jones said, “I knew that song because a lot of guys used to sing it in pubs in Wales. I went to his house in Virginia Water, and he got this record out to listen to. With the big chorus on it, it sounded fantastic. He was singing it Lonnie Donegan style, completely different from the way I did, like somebody busking."

On first release, Tom Jones' recording reached number 2 in the ‘UK Singles Chart’ but was less successful in the United States where it peaked at number 49 on the ‘Top Hot 100’. Others to cover the song include Elvis Presley.

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Between the ages of 15 and 16 years old, Lonnie Donegan was the rage with his ‘Skiffle’ songs. Between 1955 and 1958, after he’d had a hit in 1955 with ‘The Rock Island Line’, thousands of budding groups were forming bands in their father’s garden shed or the bedrooms of their friends. With the addition of a stringed tea-chest and an old rubbing board that mum used for washing, these ‘Skifflers’ dreamed of one day becoming famous. I recall spending 18 months as lead singer, with four other young chaps from the mill where we worked in Cleckheaton, spending two hours a week above a pub in Dewsbury Moor rubbing our washboards, singing Donegan songs and dreaming that someday we would swap the millwork for the bright lights of Broadway.

By 1962, the Lonnie Donegan craze had died down somewhat as other singers and styles took the headlines. We’d disbanded our ‘Skiffle Group’ some eight months earlier (never having grown good enough to perform in public anyway). Shortly before emigrating to Canada the following year I heard a song that Lonnie had recorded. It was not the type of song I associated with the ‘King of Skiffle’; it being far too slow and pedestrian for his voice. That song was ‘I’ll Never Fall in Love Again’, but it was only after I’d heard Tom Jones’s cover version of the song in 1967 after I’d returned to England from Canada that I fell in love with it.

I share a few similarities with Lonnie Donegan. We were both awarded the M.B.E., me in 1995 and Lonnie in 2000, two years before he died from a heart attack in November 2002. Lonnie had several heart attacks since the 70s and I had two serious ones around the time of Lonnie’s final heart attack. I am pleased to say Lonnie was awarded an ‘Ivor Novello Lifetime Achievement Award’ in 1997.

During his career Lonnie had 31 ‘UK Top 30’ single hits; three of them reaching the Number 1 spot. He was the first British male singer with two ‘U.S. Top 10’ hits.

Whereas Lonnie had many song hits, during his lifetime, the only thing I was to replicate was the ability to ‘fall in love’ too easily. I don’t mean become sexually attracted to, but to literally ‘fall in love’, and that was despite being one of the ‘baddest boys’ around who spent every one of his teenage years ‘loving and leaving them’.

I put this aspect of my character down to my proneness to invariably be blinded by the beauty of the female form, and to see much more goodness and worth in some attractive women that bowled me over than existed. Whenever I became disappointed in a relationship and indicated to my mother that ‘’I’d never fall in love again’, my mother just used to look at me and say, “Billy Forde, your trouble is you think there’s no one out there good enough for you!”, to which I’d reply ”I’m sure there is someone for me somewhere out there, Mum, but if there is, she’s hiding low and saving herself for me to come along”.

Little did I realise that I would be 68 years old before she materialised in the form of Sheila, Goddess of the baddest of boys.

Love and peace. Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 23rd February 2019

23/2/2019

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Today’s song is ‘A Boy Named Sue’; well, more of a narration than a song. The song was written by humourist and poet Shel Silverstein and made popular by Johnny Cash. The song was recorded live in concert on February 24, 1969 at California's ‘San Quentin State Prison’ for his ’At San Quentin’ album. Cash also performed the song (with comical variations on the original performance) in December 1969 at Madison Square Garden. The live San Quentin version of the song became Cash's biggest hit on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ chart and his only top ten single there, spending three weeks at No. 2 in 1969.

The story theme was inspired by the humourist Jean Shepherd, a close friend of Silverstein, who was often taunted as a friend because of his feminine-sounding name.

The song tells the tale of a young man’s quest for revenge on a father who abandoned him at three years of age and whose only contribution to his entire life was naming him ‘Sue’. Being commonly a feminine name, resulted in the young man suffering from a lifetime of ridicule and harassment by everyone he meets on his travels. Because of his rough experiences, the young man grows up tough and mean and becomes very streetwise; frequently relocating due to the shame he is constantly subjected to that his name give him. Angered by the embarrassment and abuse he has had to endure all his life, he swears that he will find and kill his father for giving him ‘that awful name’.

After much searching, Sue locates his father at a tavern in Gatlinburg, Tennessee during the middle of a summer season and confronts him saying, “My name is Sue! How do you do? Now. you’re gonna die!” This results in a vicious brawl between father and son that spills outdoors into the muddy street. After the two had beaten each other almost senseless, Sue’s father admits that he is the ’son of a bitch’ (in the Johnny Cash version of the song) that named him ’Sue’. The father justifies his action of naming his son ’Sue’ as being ‘an act of love’. Realising that because he would not be there for his son as he grew up, he wanted to help his boy the best way he knew how, ‘By learning to stand up for himself in the harshest of worlds where a man had to be tough in order to survive’. Sue’s father knew that the name he had given his son at birth would invite constant ridicule and enforce him to ‘toughen up or die’. Learning this, Sue makes peace with his father and they reconcile. With his lesson learned, Sue closes the song with a promise to name his son ‘Bill or George: anything but Sue’.

Silverstein later wrote a follow-up named ‘The Father of a Boy Named Sue on his 1978 ‘Songs and Stories’ in which he tells the old man's point of view of the story. The only known recording of the song by a major artist is by Shel Silverstein himself. Various cover artists have covered this song since then.

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Whenever I hear this song, I immediately think about the relationship with my late father, particularly during my earlier years of development before I’d left school and commenced work. Although I was named ‘William’ (after my maternal grandfather), my father always insisted on calling me ‘Billy’ for the rest of his life (after his own brother Billy). Indeed, all my family came to call me ‘Billy’ thereafter, while the rest of the world know me as either Bill or William. I never heard of Billy or Billie being used as a feminine name until I heard of the American jazz singer Billie Holiday who died in 1959 and the film star Billie Whitelaw, who was born in Bradford and made her film debut in 1954, came on the scene. Billie Whitelaw was a film star of my teenage years, who frequently appeared as a prominent image in one of my ‘sweet dreams’. Ironically, Billy and Billie became a more common female name in later years, and I can honestly say that the only emotion that the name ever engendered for me was one of endearment and never estrangement.

Growing up the oldest of seven children in my father’s house was in its own way a tough upbringing. My father was a strict and stubborn man whose own upbringing had been in the poorest of Irish households and witnessed him leaving school partly educated and going into hard manual work before his 13th year of life. Dad came across to England during the ‘Second World War’ years, and after getting a job below ground in the Yorkshire coal pits, he secured family accommodation in a tied-property before sending for his wife and then three children to follow him.

All of his life, my father remained a man of honour who would give his solemn word by the shake of crossed palms; and never broke it, whatever the circumstances. He was the only man I ever knew who crossed a picket line ‘alone’ at the pit where he worked in Gomersal ‘because he was more concerned with putting food on his family’s table than sticking to his labour principles. I will always remember him saying that ‘Principles are for the rich not the proud. Poor men cannot afford them!’

Growing up as a young boy, I frequently received physical reprimand from my dad when I did wrong. I once came home from school with a black eye after having fought a bigger and better fighter than myself who was three-years older than me. My opponent was 12 years old and had picked on me. I was 9 years old and weighed two stone lighter. I thought that dad wouldn’t mind as he had always told me to stand up for myself. Instead of being proud that I’d followed his advice, my father pushed me out the door and invited me to find the victor and fight him again; and to keep on fighting him until I won or until he stopped bullying me. Two further fights were fought by me with the bigger boy who continued to make fun of me in front of his friends (we attended the same Catholic School in Heckmondwike), and even though he won both, I put up a good-enough defence each time. The ultimate result was that Johnnie Donohoe gave up bullying me and became a lifelong friend. My father’s advice had led to me gaining Johnnie’s admiration.

Between 8-11 years my father would take me up to a nearby disused coal pit most Sunday afternoons. Would then work on a slag heap belonging to the closed pit, where we would fill up a hundredweight potato sack with slag/shale that we picked. Afterwards, dad would throw the sack of slag over the crossbar of his bicycle. We did this week in and week out whatever the weather. I didn’t mind, as I knew I was helping to provide much needed substandard fuel for the fire on a cold night. As we walked the mile back home with the sack of shale, I would feel puffed up with pride with the knowledge that our home would be warmer in the coming week because me and dad had braved the cold to work on the slag heap. When we returned, mum would kiss me fondly, thanking me for my efforts, and telling me to wash and change while she made me and dad a hot cup of tea.

It was during my eleventh year of life when my illusion of having been a significant family provider was cruelly shattered. One day I noticed my father go to the shed and place a sack of shale we had previously spent a cold afternoon collecting from the pit hill on his bicycle crossbar. Dad started to push the bicycle down 8th Avenue and off the estate. I followed at a safe distance. I eventually saw dad dump the shale contents of the sack in a farmer’s field. I ran home feeling very angry and betrayed that all my hard effort on the slag heap had come to nothing.

I asked mum about the incident later and she persuaded my father to tell me why he’d done what he did. These were the days when a boy would not dare confront his father demanding an explanation. Besides, the word ‘demand’ wasn’t one that dad would tolerate being uttered to him. Anything that looked like or even had the whiff of a ‘demand’ would be instantly crushed.
My dad obliged my mum's request and told me the reason for his action. I will never forget his words, ’It was to toughen you up, Billy. Me and your mother want you all to grow up not being afraid of hard work. It doesn’t matter whether you work down the pit or sweep a factory floor, you do the job as well as you can. That way you will always have a job to go to and an employer who values you!’

There were so many examples of ways that my dad tried to toughen me up and make me stand on my own two feet. Between the ages of eight and eleven, I would be as light-fingered as they came and would be stealing and getting into trouble trespassing two or three times weekly. The local ‘Bobby’ would often knock on the door and inquire as to my whereabouts at a certain time of the week when an offence had been committed by a boy answering to my description. If my mother answered the door, she would always provide me with an instant alibi and inform the policeman that I’d been in the house all night before the Bobby had even time to tell her what I’d done, where and when! If it was dad who answered the door to the policeman, before the Bobby had the opportunity to say what I’d done, my dad what call me down the steps and say to the policeman, “Take him away and lock him up for the night. It’ll do him no harm!”

None of you will be surprised in the slighjtest when I tell you that dad’s hero was the film star John Wayne, from whose film’s dad got his two favourite sayings that he would constantly quote whenever he sought to identify the secret to ‘manliness’:

“A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do!”
and 
“Never apologise. It’s a sign of weakness.”

While I could never subscribe to such sentiments today, their constant ringing in my ear were an undeniable part of ‘how I was supposed to judge manliness’.

Dad might have turned in his grave had he known that his cinematic tough-man hero, John Wayne had been named ‘Marion Robert Morrison’ at birth? Or perhaps he did know and decided to call me ‘Billy’ (to toughen me up), long before the song ‘A boy named Sue’ was released in 1969. The bottom line is whether it was the forced fights with Johnnie Donohoe, the weekly filling of the sacks of slag and shale at the disused coal mine pit-head, or indeed calling me ‘Billy’, something certainly toughened me up for my life ahead.

Love and peace. Bill xxx
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Song for Today: 22nd February 2019

22/2/2019

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​​Today’s song I want to sing for you is ‘Sea Cruise’. This song was written and sung by Huey ‘Piano’ Smith and his Clowns. The song was released in 1959 and has since been covered by many notable singers such as: Frankie Ford, Herman’s Hermits, Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Rivers, The Beach Boys, Showaddywaddy, Status Quo, Cliff Richards and the Shadows, Don McLean and Johnny Hallyday, among many others.

Huey Pierce Smith (known as Huey ‘Piano Smith) was born in 1934 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was an American Rhythm and blues pianist whose sound became very influential in the development of rock and roll. His piano playing incorporated the style of boogie, jazz and rhythm and blues and he came to epitomise the infectious New Orleans’ Rhythm and Blues sound that swept the country.

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Whenever I hear this song, I am instantly reminded of my first sea crossing of ‘The Atlantic Ocean’ during the cold December month of 1963 when I was emigrating to Canada. I was leaving my family for the first time in my life and my dear mother feared that she would never see me again. This was a time when all holidays were taken in one’s own country unless one happened to be a very wealthy person, and visiting foreign countries was only done by explorers, the aristocracy and royalty.

I had originally planned to emigrate to Canada with half a dozen workmates from ‘Harrison Gardeners Dyeworks’ in Hightown, but as each week came closer to the December departure date, all the others backed out one-by-one. I still decided to go on my own. I saw my voyage as a symbolism of a great journey.

The two-week voyage was eventful for several reasons. That winter of 1963 going into 1964 was to be one of the worst winters on record at both sides of the Atlantic. During my ocean crossing, I saw the sea at its stormiest and wildest, at its darkest and most dangerous, and at its calmest. The waters appeared to quieten and settle as the ship docked in Nova Scotia. In all the changing moods of that ocean crossing, I saw reflections of myself at different stages of my life.

The crossing was far from the romantic sea journey I had dreamt of. For the first three days the ship rocked and rolled through savage waves. Everyone on the ship (except for the captain) was constantly sick. After our sea sickness had abated towards the latter part of week one, I entered a talent contest. I was a decent singer when I set sail and had planned to earn my living singing forevermore once I landed on the shores of Canada. Indeed, it would be true to say that I saw myself as the best of singers simply waiting to be discovered. I suppose I should have taken the hint of that ship talent-concert result when I came second to an 8-year-old girl with Shirley Temple looks, if not the voice. I have forever since held the view that adults, children and animals should never compete against each other on the same stage, although I now see that I’d taken advantage of such matchings as a young boy entering talent contests many years earlier.

Towards the end of the first week, a ‘Gay’ man took a fancy to me and even offered me some money to ‘keep him company’. Given the year (1964) and my then prejudice towards ‘Gays’ (it being 1967 in England before homosexuality was decriminalised), I beat a hasty retreat and kept out of his way for the rest of the crossing. I have often mused what he would have been prepared to pay, had I taken up his offer?

My contact with a lovely Chinese lady who was about ten years older than me occupied my attention for the remainder of the crossing and added allure and glamour to the nights ahead. I was in danger of ‘Falling in love’ all over again and I hadn’t yet set sight on the coast of Nova Scotia. Common sense eventually prevailed and the castles in the air I had built in my mind whenever I thought about being in the company of my Chinese companion were allowed to fall into the category of 'ship romance'. We separated when the ship docked in Nova Scotia. I travelled on to Montreal by train and she was destined for Winnipeg. Our contact during that second week of the crossing was simply too good ever to exchange addresses or seek to keep in touch. These were precious moments on the S.S.Sylvania that would forever remain on the S.S.Sylvania.

Although I have never enjoyed good sea legs, ever since that crossing, I have always viewed the ocean waters as being a mighty harmoniser of the lonely heart and a settler of the mind.
When I set off for Canada, I saw myself as a huge breaking wave who was determined to change the landscape for the better once I hit the shore.

For six months in Toronto, I courted the oldest daughter, Jenny, of the then British Trade Commissioner, Mr S. Downton. Jenny’s father was able to get access to many events that were denied to the ordinary man and woman. One evening, Jenny was over the moon as she told me that her dad had managed to get tickets to see the Beatles in some huge stadium and that I was included in the party outing. Having previously committed myself to spend part of that weekend boating on the Toronto Islands with a friend, I politely declined, adding that the Beatles only came from Liverpool (fifty miles from where I lived in West Yorkshire) and that I’d have plenty of opportunities to see them when I returned to England. Little did I know then how famous they were destined to become!

By the time I returned to England some two years later, I had learned enough about some of the world’s waters to both fear and love their passage. Ever since that Atlantic crossing, I have stayed in love with the sea. I love seeing the choppy waters on the Atlantic Coast of Northern Ireland whenever I revisit the land of my birth. I love the sea but now prefer to see it at a safe distance. I love being near water and one of my favourite places and activities in England is rowing an attractive woman under the Bridges of Knaresborough on the calm flowing waters of the River Nidd; although my lack of mobility has reduced me over the past four years. The last time that when Sheila and I visited this beautiful place, Sheila assumed the captaincy of the boat while myself and our dog ‘Lady’ took a back seat.

When Sheila and I did our European tour last year (2018) I will never forget the beautiful water journey we had on Lake Como in Italy. Neither shall I ever forget the year before Sheila and I married when we had a wonderful two weeks in Sorrento, Italy during the summer of 2011. The most memorable and romantic part of that holiday that Sheila will give me permission to refer to, involved a two-hour boat ride around ‘The Isle of Capri’. I have used a photograph taken of me during that boat ride as my website photo ever since. (www.fordefables.co.uk).

In my old age, I have come to appreciate more how important the sea is to our world where water covers two-thirds of it. The silent waters in the woodland stream, the twisting torrent of the rivers, the calm and tempestuous changing seas and the awesomeness of the oceans; all help to reinforce the indisputable fact that everything is connected; that all roads meet, and that all rivers flow into the same sea.

The most comforting of all thoughts for me about the sea is the fact that its very presence constantly reminds me that no man is an island or is beyond redemption. That is why I will never lose faith in the goodness of mankind and humanity. I see the composition of mankind being like an ocean. If a few drops of dirt are dropped in the ocean, the ocean doesn’t become 'a dirty' thoroughfare, just as one sin doesn’t sink the ship of the soul on our travels through life. We are all redeemable, however many bad marks we have notched up on our travels.
Fancy coming with me on a ‘Sea Cruise’?

Love and peace. Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 21st February 2019

21/2/2019

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My song today is ‘Hurt’. Although the most recent popularity of this song came from Elvis Presley when he covered the song in 1976, the song was originally released in 1954 and was performed by Roy Hamilton. The song peaked at Number 8 on the ‘R&B Best Seller Chart’ and spent a total of seven weeks in the chart.

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Although my written advice provided today is extremely lengthy, it is worth reading and represents over fifty years of acquired specialist knowledge that is relevant to one's physical, mental and emotional health.
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Were I asked to define the most significant problem in the lives of those people with whom I worked and counselled for thirty years as a Probation Officer, I would be hard pressed to find one that was responsible for creating more stress, fear and anger in a person than the experience of ‘being hurt.’I don't mean 'physically hurt' but 'emotionally hurt'. In fact, I can say that it is far easier to get over a physical battering than soothe an emotional bruise.

The truth is that we will all be hurt during our lifetime and unless we are a saint, we will ‘hurt others’ also. If we are wise, we will learn from our hurtful experiences and enable such learning to be the forebearer of changed behaviour, besides providing a minimum level of future protection for ourselves.

First, lets us examine the most positive lessons we can learn from being hurt.

‘Being hurt’ and ‘hurting another’ is usually an indirect consequence of human misunderstanding, carelessness and insensitivity. Even ‘misers’ aren’t usually intentionally ‘mean’; they merely come to lack care and sensitivity in the concern of others, particularly when there is no discernible profit in their positive intervention of another’s problems.

One of the important lessons I had to learn early on in my own life was how to cope with lots of 'physical hurt' through the serious accidents and illnesses I incurred. Many years of my body physically hurting with pain led to me having a high pain threshold in later life; an aspect which has had its advantages over the past twenty years. However, I know from my previous 30-years experience as a Probation Officer that mental pain is worse than any degree of physical pain and cause greater hurt. And I also know that emotional pain is the worst of all hurts.

On so many occasions I have had to deal with battered wives, beaten and ill-treated youngsters, sexually abused children, and people who were bullied at school; as well as dealing with the perpetrators of these actions. Let me tell you while both victim and perpetrator invariably present as being deeply damaged in different ways, it is the victim who invariably bears the brunt of the hurt. I have worked with children who were sexually assaulted by their fathers or father figures (mum’s boyfriend). I have seen the physical effects of women and children beaten and left with broken limbs. I have known men and women murder their parents, partners or their children while under the heavy influence of drugs or/and alcohol.

I have known adults in their 40s, 50s and 60s who display no self-confidence or communication and social skills, and who are frightened of mixing with strangers and who still avoid all confrontational situations, ‘BECAUSE OF BEING BULLIED AND NAME-CALLED AT SCHOOL 40 AND 50 YEARS EARLIER!’ I have learned that broken bones and bereavement created by heinous crime are capable of healing quicker than character assassinations.

I have learned over the years that just because a person’s experience and the subsequent problem appears less traumatic than another’s, doesn’t mean they are required to hurt less. We each possess different pain thresholds and we are all capable of responding to similar/different situations in different ways.

The most common hurt most people experience is the loss of a loved one, either through their decision to separate from you or their unavoidable death. Were different types of pain (physical pain, mental pain, emotional pain) able to be measured and compared, in terms of ‘intensity and duration of the hurt ’, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that all types of loss can produce similar ‘intensity’ and ‘duration’ of pain and hurt. I feel reasonably sure that it wouldn’t matter whether the couple had been together fifty days or fifty years when it came to assessing the level of residue hurt felt by the individual left suffering the loss of a loved one.

I am sure we would discover that a man or woman who was dumped, betrayed, lied to, or deserted by a partner whom they had come to love a mere fifty days earlier, is just as capable of feeling as much hurt and pain (in intensity and duration) as the bereaved partner of a fifty-year happy marriage when the scales of hurt has weighed up all there is to weigh up.

It is as though all hearts that allow themselves to open will always run the risk of someday being broken. That is the ultimate price of ‘love’ we humans are asked to pay for risking the experience.

The hurt created by the loss is not because of the obvious consequences of the physical or mental separation, but because of the psychological power of keeping the bereaved person still 'emotionally connected' to the departed. One of the biggest problems to effectively deal with (whether a bereaved spouse or a dumped lover) seems to be the inability to emotionally ‘move on with life’ after the painful event. I have known widows and widowers grieve for ten years or more. I have also known people who were never married but who were betrayed and dumped by a person they had come to trust and love, to feel they will never be able to trust another. They also find themselves stuck in a rut of grief and unable to emotionally move on with their life.

My advice to any person once scorned by love and too afraid to trust enough again is to hold two thoughts in their mind: 
“I will never accept moving on with my life until I accept that the other person whom I once loved, has already moved on with their life.”
(and)
“They may have made the decision to dump me, but they are not the one stopping me picking myself back up and moving on.”

I would also ask the person still feeling 'too hurt' to accept that one is never hurt by the love one gives; only by the love one expects that doesn’t prove to be forthcoming.

Angry people are best helped by learning to continue to express their anger but ‘more appropriately’. Anger is body energy and can be a powerful driving force. Whenever anger is expressed inappropriately, It invariably hurts both the person expressing it and the person towards whom it is directed. It is far worse though not to express one’s anger at all and repressing it. Aggressive people find it easier to be angry with another than to admit they are themselves hurting.

Non-assertive people have anger behaviour which is repeatedly repressed. This inner anger builds up and up inside. Their response patterns make them destined to hurt themselves and not others. They are the quiet ones who put up with things as opposed to expressing their true feelings. This type of person out-numbers the aggressive type in society fourfold. The extremely non-assertive person is nothing less than a walking time bomb whose pressure valve will eventually lead to a massive ‘implosion’ (an explosion inside one’s mind and body) after too much anxiety, stress and pressure reaches the danger point.

When this happens, the body of the non-assertive person may become mentally unstable, suffer emotional disturbance or have a break down in extreme circumstances once the pressure point has been surpassed and they have ‘imploded’.

These response-pattern types (who are decent folk in every respect), are often the ones on the six o’clock news who have a total breakdown and kill themselves, along with their entire family and the family pet for ‘no apparent reason’. When television and press reporters interview the neighbours after such a tragic and inexplicable offence, they usually discover that the person who committed such a grave act was a pillar of respectability in the community; the very nicest of individuals who were never known to have spoken ill of another!

Other and more common aspects of a person who never expresses outward anger are usually witnessed in their problem behaviours. Such can include being more likely to engage in or display depression, addiction to prescriptive pills or alcohol, eating disorders or even the shop-lifting of items they can afford and don’t even want.

These are just a few of my life experiences as a Probation Officer, Stress Management Consultant, Group Worker and Relaxation Trainer during my lifetime. That is why the song ‘Hurt’ is my chosen song to sing today.

Love and peace. Bill xxx

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Song For Today: 20th February 2019

20/2/2019

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Today’s song is ‘Lying Eyes’.  This song was written by Don Henley and Glenn Frey and recorded in 1975 by the American rock band the ‘Eagles’ with Frey singing lead vocals. It reached Number 2 on ‘Billboard Hot 100’ chart and was Number 8 on the Billboard Country Chart’. The Eagles received a ‘Grammy Award’ for ‘Best Pop by a Group Performance’ for ‘Lying Eyes’, and were nominated for ‘Record of the Year’.

The title and idea for the song came when Glenn Frey and Don Henley were in their favourite Los Angeles restaurant/bar Dan Tana’ which was frequented by many beautiful women, and they started talking about beautiful women who were cheating on their husbands. They saw a beautiful young woman with a fat and much older wealthy man, and Frey said: "She can't even hide those lying eyes." 

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I have always found Frey’s sentiments to be true and feel that one’s eyes are the best beacons of either truth or lies. As a Relaxation Trainer for fifty years, I am well-enough acquainted with stress points in a person’s overall look and stance to know when someone is lying to me, even when they are stood with their back to me! As a rule, when a person is engaged in a deceitful action, both shoulders rarely remain horizontal and the distance between both feet are unknowingly narrowed by them. Arms are less subtle and unless they are good liars, their fingers are never distanced and form a part of closed hands instead of open ones. Lying well and getting away with it is an art that few people master. The speech of a liar is different to normal as their unconscious anxiety will shorten their breathing pattern. Sometimes, the volume of their voice is changed to one that is less natural in delivery and more deliberate in pronunciation.
Turn the person around and have them facing you however, and while all those characteristics still remain, they are not as prominent as previously. Merely looking face-to-face at you changes the strength of all the previous observations that you were able to observe but were being made by the subject subconsciously. Facing you causes them to be more on their guard, as looking at the person one is talking to (even when such talk is untruthful) automatically reduces stress levels. The most common feature indicating deceit is the other person avoiding direct eye contact with you (not looking away from you, back and forth, while maintaining conversation). and excessive blinking of eyelids, in addition to any sign of those body indicators previously mentioned. The most prominent of all deceit being practised will always lay in the stance, hands, breathing pattern and the nature of eye contact. While well practised liars can manipulate these body indicators, as far as I know, the eyes never lie!
By all means, test out these indicators I have identified on your family and partners, but please don’t end your 40-year-marriage with a loving partner because he/she fits into ‘the liar’ category on a couple of pointers. He/she might be telling an untruth to maintain a closely guarded secret from you as they make extensive preparations for some surprise occasion in the future. By all means, stay alert to the possibility of something not being entirely above board whenever the eyes indicate such.
Surely, we have all seen a screen shot on the television or in a film when a couple are entwined in a seemingly romantic embrace, yet the face of one of them (which is concealed from the other), reveals a very different story to what is being told in the mind and arms of their partner.

Love and peace. Bill xxxx
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Song For Today: 19th February 2019

19/2/2019

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Today’s song is ‘Long Tall Sally’.This is a rock and roll 12-bar blues song that was written by Robert ’Bumps’ Blackwell and Enotris Johnson. It was originally recorded by Little Richard and was released in March 1956 on the ‘Speciality Records’ label.
The single reached Number 1 on the ’Billboard Rhythm and Blues Chart’, staying at the top for six of 19 weeks while peaking at Number 6 on the pop chart. It received the ‘Cash Box Triple Crown Award’ in 1956. The song as sung by Little Richard is Number 55 on Rolling Stone’s list of ‘The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time’ 

It became one of the singer's best-known hits and has become a rock and roll standard covered by hundreds of singers, including the Beatles and Elvis Presley. A less known fact is that the song was originally called ‘The Thing’ when it was recorded in New Orleans by Little Richard. 

According to Blackwell, he was introduced to a little girl by Honey Chile, a popular disc jockey. Apparently, the girl had written a song for Little Richard to record so she could pay the treatment for her ailing Aunt Mary. The song, actually a few lines on a piece of paper, went like this:
'Saw Uncle John with Long Tall Sally,
They saw Aunt Mary coming
So they ducked back in the alley'.

Not wishing to upset an influential disc-jockey, Blackwell accepted the offer and took the idea to Richard, who was reluctant at first. Nevertheless, the line 'ducked back in the alley' was exactly what they were looking for, and Richard kept practising until he could sing it as fast as possible. They worked on the song, adding verses and a chorus until they got the hit they wanted.

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On a more personal level, this song holds fond memories for me. Whenever I hear this song, my mind is instantly taken back to my studying days as a Probation Officer at Newcastle-upon-Tyne University ( it was still a Polytechnic in 1971 when I was there). There were around two dozen mature trainees on the course, of which most lived in accommodation around the Newcastle area. While some of the married trainees went home some weekends, the bulk of trainees who had Newcastle accommodation went dancing. This was the era of rock and roll and we all found bopping a good way of relaxing and letting off steam after a hard week of studying.

My memory of this tine goes to a lovely young woman in her mid-twenties on the course called 'Elsa', who in later years joined the police force. Each weekend that a crowd of us went bopping, we were unsuccessful in our attempts to persuade Elsa to come along with the gang of us, and despite loving to bop and wanting to dance so much, she always declined. She was too embarrassed to be seen on a public dance floor.

Elsa’s embarrassment was perfectly understandable to all her friends. You see, Elsa stood 6 feet and 2 inches tall in her stocking feet and her height had always made her stand out as an oddball as far as she was concerned. Like many tall women who are embarrassed because of their size, Elsa had adopted familiar ways of making herself appear smaller. She would always wear flat footwear and had this habit of stooping her shoulders. She would also try to make friends with the tallest members of the course as she seemed more comfortable in their company.

To my surprise, Elsa and I struck up a good relationship from the very first day of the one-year course despite the large disparity in our height. While she was a few inches over 6 feet tall, she would always stand head and shoulders above myself (whose childhood accident had left me being 5 feet 4 inches tall if I stood on my left leg (known to myself and family as ‘my short leg’), and 5 feet and 7 inches tall if I stood on my right leg (known to myself and family as 'my long leg'). So, naturally, when Elsa and I stood side-by-side, Elsa’s height emphasised my shortness while my shortness emphasised her tallness.

Elsa and I had opted to specialise in ‘Behaviourism’ as our special chosen discipline subjects, a factor that meant we were in each other's company more often than had we specialised in different subjects. Essentially, ‘Behaviourism’ demands that one counters their problems better by 'confronting them' head on and 'attacking them' vigorously, whatever fear levels are raised. In short’, according to the textbook code on 'Behaviourism', it would help Elsa cope better with how she felt about her height if she deliberately, and as often as possible, associated with much shorter people in public places.

As the weeks passed by, Elsa was becoming visibly more disappointed each weekend night when the gang of us went rock and rolling and she stayed in her accommodation on her lonesome. We were also becoming much closer in our friendship and would sit next to each in the Lecture Theatre whenever possible. We essentially came to respect each other and to value each other's views, feelings and concerns. The time came (approximately 6 months into the course) when Elsa asked me to help her get over her fear of going dancing with the gang of us each weekend. At that time, I was well into ‘Behaviourism’ and would practise it at every opportunity, particularly whenever problem-solving.

I agreed to accompany Elsa to a weekend rock and roll dance but stipulated two conditions that were non-negotiable. The first condition was that she danced with 'only me' for the first half-hour of the evening, and second, that she bought herself a new pair of shoes. If I was to help her, every ‘Behaviourism’ strategy I knew demanded that I would have to change Elsa’s perception of herself, along with how she focused negatively on her height. 

Elsa was asked to go out and buy the fashionable ‘in-thing’ in footwear at the time; 3-5-inch stiletto-heeled footwear. I told Elsa that I believed heartedly that the best way to reduce her fear of her height lay in emphasising it to best advantage. I advised her this would be achieved by making her 'stand taller' instead of 'standing shorter', as well as standing 'upright' instead of adopting a stooped head and shoulder posture.

We had spent a good number of evenings before the dance bopping together. The most difficult thing was for Elsa needed to get used to dancing in high-heeled shoes. The good thing about rock and rolling is that whatever height distinction exists in each person in any dancing couple (even a 12 inches distinction), good dancers can cope with all-natural moves without too much constraint without looking a wally on the dance floor.

The night we went to the dance, it was like that scene out of the 1953 film, ‘Calamity Jane’, where ‘Calamity Jane’ is escorted to the dance by ‘Wild Bill Hickok’. In the movie, Calamity is wearing a heavy, old coat entering the dance, which once removed when inside reveals her to be the most beautiful belle of the ball.

Elsa went to the dance with me in a long coat that covered a beautiful dress she had purchased that was short in length and displayed her lovely long legs to best advantage. She wore flat shoes on our way to the dance and she’d also had her long hair done. When we arrived at the dance, she took off her coat and flat footwear and put on her new red 4-inch high heels. She was transformed and looked stunning. No longer did she look like a long streak of bacon; she was a blonde bombshell who commanded admiring male eyes of all present. 

She was beautiful and after having a few dances in her high heels, she was confident enough to take off her high heels and put some flat bopping shoes on for increased comfort. Whenever she stopped dancing and sat the next dance out, she put her high heels back on. Within the first hour she had at least half a dozen invitations to dance from other chaps, but in accordance with the two conditions I had previously imposed politely, Elsa politely told her suitors, “Not now, thank you, but I will later”’ Elsa refused all invitations to dance for the first half hour, unless I was the one doing the asking. Her refusals had the positive effect of making her feel ‘in control’ and made those men she’d initially declined ‘more eager than ever’ to have a dance with her (with or without high heels). I only got one more dance with Elsa that night after the first half hour as her dancing card remained full up.

Two years after we had left the course, Elsa, who never did enter the Probation Service, instead became a 'Cumbrian Copper' as I used to jokingly call her. Two years into her police service career, Elsa married another police constable from South Shields. I attended the wedding and I was glad to see that she no longer stooped and wore fashionable heels. She looked beautiful, despite being four months pregnant as I later learned. 

Her husband stood 5 feet 10 inches, and he was a handsome man whom she'd met at a dance! After her marriage, all contact with Elsa stopped. I will never forget her. She was as proud as the lioness (also called Elsa) in the film, ‘Born Free’. With the increased confidence she had obtained on the 1-year course she now walked tall and proud as she stalked her lesser prey.

Love and peace. Bill xxx
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Song for Today: 18th February 2019

18/2/2019

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Today’s song I sing for you is my version of ‘Cheek to Cheek.’ The song was written by Irvin Berlin in 1935 for the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie, ‘Top Hat’. In the film, Fred Astaire sings the song to Ginger Rogers as they dance. The song was nominated for the ‘Best Song Academy Award’ for 1936, which it lost to ‘Lullaby of Broadway’. The song later went on to become a great hit and was named ‘The Best Song of 1935’. It was inducted into the ‘Grammy Hall of Fame’ in 2000. In 2004, Astaire’s version of the song finished at number 15 in the ‘Top 100 Songs of Top Tunes in American Cinema’.

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were two of the best dancers that ever graced a cinema screen. In their time together, the couple made a total of ten films between 1933 to 1939.  In many ways, I would consider them to have been the forerunners of ‘Come Dancing’ that the British watch on their television screens each Saturday evening.

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While I used to do Old Time dancing as a 10-11-year old, before I was able to progress into Modern Ballroom dancing, a serious traffic accident that left me unable to walk for three years. Numerous operations on my badly injured legs left me with one leg three inches shorter than the other. This crippled condition effectively ensured that the only way I’d become a future ballroom dancer was ‘in my dreams’. 

I never did make the grade of ballroom dancer after I got the movement in my legs back at the age of 15 years, but I did spend many years mastering the art of discovering other ways of sweeping the girls off their feet on the dance floor; especially after the new sound and moves of Rock and Roll and its freestyle dancing hit the nation in the 50s and knocked it for a six. This was a time when it didn’t matter if one got a step out of line on the dance floor. Neither did it depend upon having two legs of identical length to be on an equal footing. All that mattered was one was able to swing one’s hips and move one’s entire body in synchronisation to the rock and roll beat of the drums and the rhythm of a teenage heart out on the pull.

This is a most appropriate ‘Song for today’ for me to choose, especially as I go into hospital for an operation this morning to examine my bottom while I am under a full anaesthetic (itself dangerous for me) and to take samples for a full biopsy to see if the warts are cancerous. If the biopsy proves to be cancerous, I shall require a big operation at Leeds Hospital at a future date, providing they offer me one. Hence, today in the operating theatre, I will be ‘dancing cheek to cheek’. 

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 17th February 2019

17/2/2019

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Today’s song is ‘Jolene’; a song that was written and performed by American country singer and songwriter Dolly Parton. It was released in October 1973 as the first single and title track from her album of the same name, produced by Bob Ferguson.

The song was ranked No. 217 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of ‘The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time’ in 2004. According to Dolly Parton, ‘Jolene’ is the song most recorded by other artists of all the songs she has written. Indeed, it is surprising how many songs Dolly has written for herself and other singers also. 
‘Jolene’ earned Dolly Parton a ‘Grammy Award for Best Country Duo/Group Performance 43 years after its original release.

The song storyline tells of Parton confronting Jolene, a stunningly beautiful woman, whom she believes is trying to steal away her lover and asking her "please don't take my man." Throughout the song, Parton implores Jolene "please don't take him just because you can." According to Parton, the song was inspired by a red-headed bank clerk who flirted with her husband Carl Dean at his local bank branch around the time they were newly married.

The song became Parton's second solo number-one single on the country charts after being released as a single in late 1973 (prior to the album's release). It was released as a single later in the UK and became Parton's first top ten hit song in the country, reaching number seven in the ‘UK Singles Chart’ in 1976. The song also re-entered the chart when Parton performed at the ‘Glastonbury Festival’ in 2014.

The song has always been a favourite of mine. I just love the down-to-earth messages and emotions in all of Dolly Parton’s songs. She is undoubtedly one of the most famous yet most unpretentious and modest of singers of the past fifty years.

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This song reminds me of a man called ‘Frank’ who I came to know when I was a Probation Officer in Huddersfield between 1971-1990. Frank had been married seven years and was the proud father of two children. During the early 80s, Frank, who’d been suppressing his true sexuality all his life, formed a relationship with a man of single status from Holmfirth. After much agonising, Frank left his wife and children and set up home with the other man. He still maintained access contact with his children. The relationship with his ex-wife and the mother to his children became toxic and both children were prohibited ever sleeping over at the accommodation of their father and his male lover.

For the better part of a year, all seemed to go okay between Frank and his male partner, although his wife felt betrayed and never forgave Frank for his deception. After approximately I year of living with his male partner, Frank discovered that he also had been the victim of deception after he learned that his partner was actually ‘bi-sexual’ and had been having an affair with a married but separated woman who lived in Meltham. Frank was initially enraged at his partner’s behaviour with the woman behind his back, and then his enragement turned to fear that his male partner would end their relationship and leave him for his woman lover. The more Frank pleaded with his male partner not to end their relationship, the more determined his male lover appeared to do so. In a final act of desperation, Frank found out the address of the Meltham woman his partner was going to leave him for, and after visiting her house unannounced, he pleaded with her ‘Not to take his man’. His pleas fell on deaf ears.

Whenever I hear the song ‘Jolene’, it always makes me think of ‘Frank’. Shortly after, I was transferred to Batley and then Dewsbury Probation Office where I remained until I retired early on the grounds of ill-health. I never did learn how things worked out for Frank after his male partner left him for the Meltham woman.

Love and peace. Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 16th February 2019

16/2/2019

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Today’s song is ‘Born Free’. The music is by John Barry and the lyrics are by Don Black. The song was written for the 1966 film of the same name and won an ‘Academy Award for Best Original Song’. After the song was released on the film's soundtrack album, it became the singer's signature tune for the remainder of his career. The song became ever popular following the success of the film ‘Born Free’ and was covered by Andy Williams and Frank Sinatra among many others in the years ahead.

I have many friends who are animal lovers, but my Facebook friend, Janet Brotherton’s concern, particularly for wild life, exceeds the concern of most animal and nature lovers. I dedicate my song today to her.

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I have had a long-established friendship with Virginia McKenna since 1989. We have helped each other raise funds for our respective charities on numerous occasions since. Every Christmas when the postman delivers the first Christmas card to our house, before I open it, I know who it will be from Virginia. I was annoyed when hospital admission prevented me attending her husband Bill Travers Memorial Service in 1994 but Virginia kindly sent me a copy of the event. She was Bill’s second wife and they were married in 1957. Virginia is currently a Trustee of ‘Born Free’ and her son Will is its President.

The ‘Born Free Foundation’ is an international wildlife charity that campaigns to ‘Keep Wildlife in the Wild’. It protects wild animals in their natural habitat, campaigns against the keeping of wild animals in captivity and rescues wild animals in need. It also promotes ‘Compassionate Conservation’,]which takes into account the welfare of individual animals in conservation initiatives. ‘Born Frees’ head office is in Horsham, West Sussex and it also has offices in Kenya, Ethiopia and South Africa, with representatives covering Sri Lanka and Australia too. 

Virginia and Bill always loved animals, but it wasn’t until after 1970 that their concern for the welfare of wild animals really took off. In 1969 Virginia and her husband, Bill Travers who starred in the film ’Born Free’ made the film ‘An Elephant called Slowly’. This featured an elephant calf called ‘Pole Pole’ who was given to ‘London Zoo’ when filming finished. In 1982, McKenna and Travers went to visit ‘Pole Pole’ at ‘London Zoo’. After seeing her, they launched a campaign to get ‘Pole Pole’ moved to somewhere more suitable and with other elephants for company. In 1983, it was agreed to move ‘Pole Pole’ to ‘Whipsnade Zoo’, but following complications during the transfer, ‘Pole Pole’ died. 

Her death deeply affected Virginia and Bill, so in 1984 they launched ‘Zoo Check’ with their eldest son Will and renamed ‘Zoo Check’ the ‘Born Free Foundation’ in 1991. ‘Born Free Foundation’ manages and funds projects in more than 20 countries worldwide; across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. It focuses on ‘nine working priorities’ which are: captive wild animal exploitation; trophy and canned hunting; wildlife trade; rescue, care, rehabilitation & release; human-wildlife co-existence and conservation; Integrated Wildlife Protection; transboundary programmes; UK wildlife protection; and education. It also has its own sanctuaries; two big cat rescue centres at’ Shamwari Private Game Reserve’ in South Africa, ‘Ensessa Kotteh Wildlife Rescue, Conservation & Education Centre’, in Ethiopia, and ‘Bannerghatta Tiger Sanctuary’, in India. 

I will always have an affinity with Virginia and the wildlife aims of her foundation. The song, film and foundation bearing the same name will always be held in my close affection. Any contributions to the foundation are always appreciated and welcome.

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song for Today: 15th February 2019

15/2/2019

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Today’s song is ‘Sorry (I Ran All the Way Home)’. This song was written by Artie Zwirn and Harry Giosasi and produced and arranged by LeRoy Holmes. The single was performed by New York-based, group ‘The Impalas’. It reached Number 2 on the U.S. pop chart and went number 14 on the ‘U.S. R&B Chart’. Overseas, the song reached number28 on the ‘U.K. Singles Chart’ in 1959. By the end of the year, the song ranked Number 24 on ‘Billboard’s Year-End Top 100 Singles of 1959’.

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The very first time I heard this song was by Brandan Boyer, an Irish singer in ‘The Waterford Showband’ around 1964. Having been born in County Waterford, ‘The Waterford Showband’ was always a popular group of mine that my parochial loyalties led me to keep an ongoing interest in.

I recall during my own teenage years when me and my next-in-line sister, Mary, might apologise half-heartedly to my sister Eileen after we had arrived home late, following a night bopping at ‘The Ben Riley’ in Batley. ‘The Ben Riley’ was a dance hall where me and sister Mary would escape to every Wednesday evening.

I was the oldest of seven children and one year separated myself, Mary and Eileen from each other respectively, but as far as Mary and I were concerned, it might as well have been five years in regard to our younger sister Eileen. Mary and I had learned to bop at the same time, and we even practised and taught each other different moves in our home during weekday nights. If I wasn't available for practice, our Mary would tie a length of washing line to a door handle as a bopping-partner substitute.

We loved to go dancing down Batley every Wednesday night, but we had a family impediment that threatened to spoil our weekly pleasure; our 15-year-old sister Eileen. When Wednesday nights came around and the time to catch the Batley bus for weekly rock and roll venue, Mary and I would get dressed up at the very last moment and wait in our bedrooms until a few minutes before the Batley bus was due to arrive. At the very last moment, we would both dash out of the house and jump on the bus.laughing and waving to Eileen as the bus parted from her sight.

Once our sister Eileen discovered where Mary and her older brother slipped off to every Wednesday night, she naturally wanted to come along and resented not being a part of what we were doing.

Mary and I would weekly run out on sister Eileen at the last minute and travel to ‘The Ben Riley’ on the same bus, but we would always separate upon arrival at the dance hall. For the rest of the evening we would go about our own business and we would very rarely come back on the last bus together after the dance had ended. Mary would invariably catch the last bus home and I usually got home much later. After alighting the bus, Mary would ‘run the rest of the way home’, hoping that dad (who started his shift at the pit at 6.00am) was fast asleep.

I never asked our Mary what ‘she did, with whom and where’ on Wednesday nights and she never stuck her nose into my business. As far as we were concerned, what happened at the 'Ben Riley' on a Wednesday night, stayed at the 'Ben Riley'! Our Eileen, however, could not be trusted by myself and Mary not to inform our parents on anything her big brother or sister had got up to, 'had she been allowed to gooseberry'. As far as Mary and I were concerned 'two was company and three a crowd' and neither of us wanted younger sister Eileen cramping our style on our night out.

As Mary and Eileen shared the same bed, however, every Wednesday after Mary had returned from the dance, my sister Eileen wouldn’t talk to her for having 'run out on her' at the last minute. Mary would have to offer the same apology to Eileen week after week (probably putting the blame on big brother for her exclusion). I was 17 years old at the time, our Mary was 16-years-old and sister Eileen was 15-years-old.

After growing fed up of being left behind by me and Mary every Wednesday evening, within the year our 16-year-old sister Eileen started courting John, whom she later married. Eileen and John recently celebrated their 56th Wedding Anniversary and spend every Wednesday night in their front lounge bopping and smooching together. The first marriages of myself and sister Mary fared much worse than that of sister Eileen. Whereas Eileen's marriage lasted the test of time (allowing her and John to be awarded a 'Blue Peter Badge'), Mary and I experienced our partners 'running out on us'. It's not a nice feeling being left behind, is it?

Love and peace. Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 14th February 2019

14/2/2019

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On this Valentine Day of February 14th, 2019, instead of a card, I will give my Valentine a vocal rendition, to hopefully ‘Jib Jab’ her into the realisation of just how much I love her. ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ is my chosen song I sing to Sheila today. I have never sung this song before, although I have heard it in the background from time to time. It is a beautiful song and I’m simply amazed that I missed it. I welcome this morning’s opportunity to redress this omission and consider it a perfect song to sing for the occasion of Valentine's Day.

This is a 1957 folk song that was written by the British political singer and songwriter, Ewan MacColl for Peggy Seeger, who later became his wife. At the time, the couple were lovers, although MacColl was still married to Joan Littlewood. Seeger sang the song when the duo performed in folk clubs around Britain.

During the 1960s, it was recorded by various folk singers and became a major international hit for Roberta Flack in 1972, winning Grammy Awards for ‘Record of the Year’ and ‘Song of the Year’. Flack's slow and sensual version was used by Clint Eastwood in his 1971 directorial film debut, ‘Play Misty for Me’ to score a love scene featuring Eastwood and actress Donna Mills.

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Many people doubt the romantic phenomenon of there being ‘love at first sight’, but I tell all ‘Doubting Thomas’s’ that they are wrong! Whereas it can take a lifetime to understand the treasure one has been blessed with, it only takes a second to fall in love. It is, unfortunately, a sad fact that until our love has left our life (has separated from us through either choice or death) or (has been unwillingly separated from us through illness such as dementia or abduction); only then, when we miss what we have had, only then do we realise what we have truly lost!

I will never forget the ‘first time ever I saw Sheila’s face’. It wasn’t the attractiveness of the facial features that drew me towards her and made me stick to her like a magnet. I have always been a man who preferred to see long black hair on a woman, and when I first looked at Sheila, I thought her hair to have been cropped too severely. It seemed too harsh for the tender facial bone structure it framed. The severe cut of her hairline did little to make her immediately appealing to my male eyes.

I have always loved physical attractiveness on the surface, but only when it is surpassed by the beauty that lies beneath the skin; the beauty that grows more beautiful with the passing of time and never wrinkles with age. It was plain to see that Sheila possessed that inner beauty, along with a depth of sensitivity and compassion that I found most alluring. As we spoke, her truth of expression in her words, the purity of thought coming effortlessly from her mind, and the innocence she exuded, drew me ever closer and kept me wanting to be ever nearer. Shelia came across as being non-pretentious and enabled me to see her human flaws and fallibility of character, which merely made her more humanly desiring, along with hints of ‘the little girl’ inside her. All these things I was able to see in her from being with her and talking to her for a few hours the first time we met.

By the time I’d left her on that first occasion, I had been smitten by her and knew instinctively that I'd just met a beautiful woman who'd ensnared me in a mesh of my own values and beliefs that she had cast (knowing or unknowingly). I knew that I had met my soulmate, someone who would make me half of ‘a perfect two’.

After I’d returned to my own home that first time after leaving Sheila, although I wasn’t wholly aware of it at the time, I had willingly allowed myself to fall into a ‘love trap’ that I was happy to be in and didn’t want to be extricated from. We had started to fall in love from the start of that first date and have been in love with each other ever since. Being in love with each other has enabled me and Sheila to be much more in love with life and our fellow beings. I LOVE YOU, MY VALENTINE.
Love and peace Bill XXX
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Song for the Day: 13th February 2019

13/2/2019

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Today’s song is ‘It Takes Two’. The song was a hit single recorded in late 1965 by Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston for Motown’s Tamia label. Produced by Weston's then-husband, long-time Gaye collaborator, William ‘Mickey’ Stevenson, and co-written by Stevenson and Sylvia Moy. ‘It Takes Two’ revolves around a romantic lyric that depicts many things in life (dreams, love, wishes, etc.) being better with two people instead of one. The single became Gaye's most successful duet single to date; later outperformed by Gaye's duets with Tammi Terrell. The song duet peaked at Number 14 on the ‘Billboard Pop Chart’ and reached Number 4 on ‘Billboard Soul Singles’ chart in 1967. ‘It Takes Two’ was also Gaye's first major hit in the UK, where it peaked at Number 16 on the British singles charts in the spring of that same year.

In 1990 ‘It Takes Two’ was covered by Rod Stewart and Tina Turner and featured in a television advertising campaign for Pepsi. It was released as the lead single from Stewart's album ‘Vagabond Heart’ in late 1990. The duet was a European hit, peaking at Number 5 in the UK, and becoming a Top 10 single in several European countries. It later appeared on both artists' greatest hits albums: Turner's ‘Simply the Best’ (1991), and Stewart's’ The Very Best of Rod Stewart’ (2001).

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In 1624, the English poet, John Donne wrote a line of prose that was to remain forever remembered when he said in a sermon, ‘No man is an island’. His meaning was that no one is self-sufficient or self-reliant. No one exists in splendid isolation and no one is immune from the actions of others around them. Think about a time in your life when you felt sadness or pain, and wouldn’t have benefited from the presence, understanding and empathy of another to help ease your unhappiness and discomfort; you cannot! Whether one hates or loves, we all need another upon whom to focus our emotions and direct our actions.

Six workmates from the mill I worked at decided to emigrate to Canada in December 1963. One by one they pulled out at the 11th hour, and I decided to go on this adventure alone. I won’t pretend that it was easy facing a new world all on my lonesome.

For the first three months, I frequently experienced feelings of homesickness. Three or four months later, I found myself doing what many tourists to the Niagara Falls find themselves doing; as I stepped across the borderline that divides Canada from the USA; back and forth like a child playing hopscotch. I smiled to myself at the time, but had I been sharing the experience with another, you could bet that we’d have both laughed out loud.

It’s like going to the cinema alone and watching an extremely good film; it’s just not the same! Even if your companion is sitting quietly next door to you, merely being together and sharing the same experience transforms and heightens the sense of enjoyment and excitement! Even going on ‘The Big Dipper’ or travelling ‘The Ghost Train’ either alone or with another seems to add to the fear level and excitement you each experience.

No one thing/person/experience or aspect of one’s life exists in isolation, wholly unconnected to another. No person or thing can be said not to have an effect (for either good or bad), upon another. When we are happy, we tend to make others around us happier than they otherwise might have been. Indeed; any emotion we express produces a greater likelihood of that very same emotion being expressed by others in your presence.

When one person in the West eats two slices of bread where one would suffice, someone in the East will starve as an indirect consequence of global interconnection! Hammer out a bump in a sheet of metal and a depression will appear elsewhere in the form of displacement. Strengthening one part of an object can often weaken another section of the same object as a direct consequence. How many times have we seen the solving of one problem directly lead to the creation of another problem?

The Creation of the Universe was the finest of balances imaginable in producing an Earth of 'relativity'. Mankind needed the ‘two’ primary planets of the Sun and the Moon to maintain a life of balance on the Earth. The creation of Mankind required both Man and Woman to bring meaning and a sense of purpose and happiness to one’s existence. According to the Bible, when God destroyed the Earth in ‘The Great Flood’, He saved ‘pairs’ of humans: Noah and his wife, their three children and their wives. Animals and all creatures that entered the Arc came in ‘two by two’.

So, whether it is friendship, companionship, romance, sexual activity, cohabitation, marriage or true love one seeks, it will always require the presence of two people to make it happen. Even obtaining one notable sensation of the body requires at least two of the body’s senses to bring such about. To come into ‘contact’ with something/someone necessitates ‘two objects/people meeting’.

Whichever way one looks at the facts, there is simply no denying that ’It takes two.’ Sheila and I know that!

Love and peace Bill xxx

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Song For Today: 12th February 2019

12/2/2019

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Today’s song I sing for you is one that ‘Gerry and The Pacemakers’ made famous; ‘Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying’.The song composition is credited to Gerry Marsden and the other band members, Freddie Marsden, Les Chadwick and Les Maguire. It was first recorded by Louise Cordet, and then recorded by the group themselves in early 1964.

The song was given first to Louise Cordet, a singer who had previously toured with the group as well as with ‘The Beatles’. Her version was produced by Tony Meehan and released on Decca Records in February 1964. The group then decided to issue their own version. The record, like the group's earlier releases, was produced by George Martin. 

It was released in April 1964 as Gerry and the Pacemakers' fifth single in Britain. It spent 11 weeks on the United Kingdoms’ ‘Record Retailer Chart’, reaching No. 6 In the US. It was the breakthrough single for the group, spending 12 weeks on the ‘Billboard Top 100’, reaching No. 4.

Gerry and the Pacemakers performed the song on their first US television show, ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ on 3 May 1964, three months after the Beatles had appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. I lived in Canada at the time and can still remember watching both groups on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’. The group's earlier UK hit singles ‘How Do You Do It?’, ‘I Like It’ and ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ and ‘I'm the One’  were then re-issued in the US to follow up its success, but "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" remained their biggest hit in the United States.

Personally, this song title always reminds me of my mother’s words when I was growing up. If ever she saw me tearful, she would open the window curtains as wide as possible, let in the sun and say, “Look, Billy. It’s a brand, new day. Now, don’t let the sun catch you crying, boy.” This is a philosophy of life that I have held ever since and whenever I have been faced with difficulties that initially appear insurmountable, I look to nature for the 
constancy of purpose, in the reassurance, that ‘tomorrow will always bring a new day’ and that ‘the sun will shine down again’.

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 11th February 2019

11/2/2019

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Today’s song is ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’. The song was written by Freddie Mercury of Queen in 1979 and appears on the group’s album ‘Greatest Hits’ in 1981. It became the group’s first Number 1 single on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ in the US in 1980 for four weeks and topped the Australian ‘ARIA Charts’ for seven weeks.         

Having composed ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ on guitar, Mercury played rhythm guitar while performing the song live, which was the first time he played guitar in concert with Queen. Since its release, the song has been covered by several artists including Elvis Presley. Freddie Mercury said that he originally wrote the song as a tribute to Elvis. Mercury also said, “I wrote the song in ten minutes, using a guitar which I can’t play for nuts, and in one way it was quite a good thing because I was restricted, knowing only a few chords. It's a good discipline because I simply had to write within a small framework. I couldn't work through too many chords and because of that restriction I wrote a good song, I think”- Freddie Mercury.

Having written ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ on guitar, for the first time ever, Mercury played guitar in concerts, for example at ‘Live Aid’ at the Wembley Stadium, London in 1985. 

Personally, while I recognise that love may be ‘crazy’, of one thing it certainly isn’t, it could never be described as ‘little’! It is the most important thing in the life of any man, woman, child and even animal. 

Apart from God, parents and family, the greatest embodiment of love I know in my life is my lovely wife, Sheila; the protector of my body and the custodian of my heart and soul. Every time I look at her, I fall in love with her all over again. Despite my life-threatening condition that was medically diagnosed shortly after our marriage, I can truly say that I have never been happier in my life as I am today. I know that I will always love Sheila because whatever trial faces us, she will always love me back.  If I sleep better today it is because of Sheila’s love. Whereas dreaming of Sheila has the tendency to keep me asleep, being with her is undoubtedly keeping me alive. If I have one regret, and it refers directly to that ‘Crazy thing called love’, it’s that I cannot turn back the clock. Was I able to, I’d be able to have found Sheila sooner and loved her longer, and what's 'little' about that?

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song for Today: 10th February 2019

10/2/2019

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Today’s song is a long-time favourite of mine, ‘Amazing Grace’. Ever since I was born, I have been brought up Christian in a Catholic family and have always believed in both the presence of God in our lives and His infinite power and grace that He bestows on those who believe in Him. At the age of 11 years, following a serious accident when a wagon ran over me, mangled my twisted body around its main driving shaft-axel and left me with extensive injuries, I was to experience several unusual events over the following months and years.

I spent nine months in hospital; the first month on hourly observation, in and out of consciousness on the critical list. During this month period, I had what I can only describe as ‘an out of body experience’, which following full consciousness was followed by a ‘calling’; a ‘re-conversion’ (or) 'strengthening’ in my belief of God’s power, presence and grace.

During my first month of hospitalisation, my parents were daily prepared by the medics for my imminent death. After I had regained full consciousness and had lived through my initial ordeal, my damaged spine led the doctors to tell me and my parents that I’d never walk again. Over the following 18 months, I was to have over fifty operations breaking and resetting my legs (not to help me walk again), but to enable me to look more normal in body appearance. I didn’t walk for three years but never stopped praying and never stopped believing that I’d someday walk again.

When I did walk again, the newspapers called me ‘miraculous’ and the hospital medics found my ability to walk again ‘inexplicable’. I was annually placed on display and used as a specimen of curiosity and inexplicable improvement by conferences of hospital specialists between 1957-1960. I have no doubt whatsoever as to the true explanation of my recovery, and that is why my belief in God’s grace, power and presence in my life has strengthened daily ever since.

Back to today’s song, ‘Amazing Grace’.This is a Christian hymn published in 1779, with words written by the English poet and Anglican clergyman John Newton (1725–1807). Newton wrote the words of ‘Amazing Grace’ from personal experience. He grew up without any religious conviction, but his life's path was formed by a variety of twists and coincidences that were often put into motion by others' reactions to what they took as his recalcitrant insubordination and refusal to accept certain aspects of life. He was pressed (conscripted) into service in the Royal Navy, and after leaving the service, he became involved in the Atlantic slave trade. In 1748, a violent storm battered his vessel off the coast of County Donegal, Ireland, so severely that he called out to God for mercy, a moment that marked his spiritual conversion. He continued his slave trading career until 1754 or 1755 when he ended his seafaring altogether and began studying Christian Theology.

Ordained in the Church of England in 1764, Newton began to write hymns with poet William Cowper. ‘Amazing Grace’ was written to illustrate a sermon on New Year's Day of 1773. It is unknown if there was any music accompanying the verses; it may have simply been chanted by the congregation. It debuted in print in 1779 in Newton and Cowper's ‘Olney’s Hymns’ but settled into relative obscurity in England. In the United States, however, ‘Amazing Grace’ was used extensively during the ‘Second Great Awakening’ in the early 19th century. It has been associated with more than twenty melodies, but in 1835 it was joined to a tune named ‘New Britain’ to which it is most frequently sung today.

With the message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of sins committed and that the soul can be delivered from struggle and despair through the mercy of God, ‘Amazing Grace’ is one of the most recognisable songs in the English-speaking world. Author Gilbert Chase writes that it is "without a doubt the most famous of all the folk hymns”, and Jonathan Aitken, a Newton biographer, estimates that it is performed about 10 million times annually. It has had influence in Folk Music and has become an emblematic African American spiritual song. Its universal message has been a significant factor in its crossover into secular music. ‘Amazing Grace’ saw a resurgence in popularity in the U.S. during the 1960s.

The one thing I know that I share with John Newton is the message of this musical acclaim and vocal testament of God’s constant presence, His saving grace, His infinite power and His eternal love for each of us. 

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 9th February 2019

9/2/2019

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Today’s song is ‘Dancing in the Street’. This song was written by Marvin Gaye, William ‘Mickey’ Stevenson and Ivy Jo Hunter. It first became popular in 1964 when recorded by ‘Martha and the Vandellas’ whose version reached No. 2 on the ‘Billboard Hot 100 chart and peaked at No. 4 in the ‘UK Singles Chart’. It is one of Motown’s signature songs and is the group's premier signature song. Other singers to cover the song include, The Mamas and the Papas, Van Halen, The Kinks, and The Everly Brothers. A 1985 duet cover by David Bowie and Mick Jagger charted at No. 1 in the UK and reached No. 7 in the US.

The song highlighted the concept of having a good time in whatever city the listener lived. The idea for dancing came to Stevenson from watching people on the streets of Detroit cool off in the summer in water from opened fire hydrants. Stevenson thought that they appeared to be dancing in the water as they splashed around playfully.

The song, however, was to take on a different meaning after several inner-city riots in America led to many young black demonstrators citing the song as a ‘civil rights anthem’ advocating social change. This led to some radio stations taking the song off its playlist after a number of black activists such as H. Rap Brown began playing the song while organising demonstrations.

’Dancing in the Street’ came to have two meanings; one representing a call to civil riots and mass demonstrations, and the other of simply being a party song.

‘Motown Records’ had a distinct role to play in the city's black community; particularly within bodies of suppressed minorities. and that community (as diverse as it was), articulated and promoted its own social, cultural, and political agendas. These local agendas invariably reflected the unique concerns of African Americans living in the urban north and the discriminations they faced daily from some of whiter America. The movement lent the song its secondary meaning that often is reported to have fanned the flames of unrest. This song (and others like it), and its associated political meanings did not exist in a vacuum. It was partnered with its social environment and they both played upon each other, creating meaning that would probably not have been brought on by one or the other alone.

The song will for me, however, always reflect a party song that was played constantly when I was first married; a time when partying every weekend at friend’s houses was a common occurrence. Nor have I ever been to a street party where it wasn’t played in association with its literal meaning, 'having fun and a good time'. 

Love and peace. Bill
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Song For Today: 8th February 2019

8/2/2019

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Today’s song brings back fond memories for me. When I was in my late teens and Friday night came around, I’d hurry home with my wages for the week, hurry down a bit of tea, have a quick bath and doll myself up to start the weekend. Those were the days when we’d spend every penny we possessed between Friday and Sunday night and by Monday, we’d be back on the borrow from mum until we got paid again. 

Another common feature of 1960 was a teenager's weekend sleeping routine. They would be rarely found in their own bed unless they happened to be struck down with flu. It was common to sleep over at a friend’s house and it was far from unusual for a mum to enter her teenage son’s bedroom on a Saturday morning to wake her son for his cooked breakfast, only to discover three or four of his hungry mates sharing the same bed. And, likewise on Sunday morning also; your son might wake up in the bed of another. If it had been an okay Saturday night, a friend’s mum would be cooking your son his Sunday breakfast. But, if your son hit the jackpot on Saturday night, his Sunday breakfast would be cooked by some attractive young woman who lived in her own flat accommodation! Oh yes! I forgot to say that way back in the 50s and 60s, every school in the British Isles taught all females to become accomplished cooks before they entered their teens; culinary lessons that the mothers of all daughters reinforced in the home. 

Back to Friday evening, I would be dolled up and going out the door for a night drinking, dancing, clubbing and womanising. My mother knew not to expect me home until 'she next saw me', and had I been murdered down some dark alley on a late Friday night, my absence wouldn’t have been considered unusual or have been reported to the police until Sunday evening by either mates or mother. It was customary for stopper-outers on a Friday night to return home (ever so briefly) on a Saturday teatime in order to put on a clean shirt and polish one’s black shoes before dashing out on the town again (please note that only dad’s, scientific boffins and nerds wore brown shoes).

As I opened the door to leave the house for a good Friday night out, my mum would always kiss me and start singing the opening lines of a hit song at the time, ‘Goodbye Jimmy, Goodbye’, only she would substitute the name in the song from ‘Jimmy’ to ‘Billy’. I would dash out the door to the refrain of my mother singing, ‘Goodbye, Billy, goodbye. Goodbye, Billy, goodbye. I’ll see you again, but I don’t know when, goodbye, Billy, goodbye!’ 

Such fond memories of 1959/60, Friday nights out and my dear old mum.

‘Goodbye, Jimmy, goodbye’ is a song written by Jack Vaughn and was performed by Kathy Linden. It reached Number 11 in the charts in April 1959 and was also covered by other artistes like Ruby Murray and the Kaye Sisters. The song is an indelible part of my development from young man into adulthood (then considered to be 21 years of age before one got the key of the door); unless that is one was already married, or happened to be a lucky chappie dating a young woman with her own flat accommodation and a spare key for the boyfriend!

Love and peace. Bill xxx

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Song For Today: 7th February 2019

7/2/2019

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Today’s song takes me well outside my comfort zone, and although I have never sung this song before, I fell in love with its ability to get my feet stomping a few bars into listening. The song is ‘Mercy’, which was performed by Welsh singer ‘Duffy’. It was released as the second single from her debut studio album, ‘Rockferry’ in 2008. Co-written by Duffy and Steve Booker, and produced by Booker, it was released worldwide in 2008 to critical acclaim and unprecedented chart success. As Duffy's first international release, the song is credited with firmly establishing her career and is now considered her signature song.

Well received by the public, ‘Mercy' peaked at number one on the ’UK Singles Chart’ in February 2008, remaining at the top of the chart for five weeks. It went on to become the third-best-selling single of 2008 in the United Kingdom, with sales of over 500,000 copies in the UK that year. It achieved worldwide chart success, topping the charts in Austria, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Republic of Ireland, Switzerland and Turkey, and peaked within the top five of the charts in Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Romania, Spain and Sweden. 

Duffy attributed the chart success to the fact that "everyone is searching for liberty ... from themselves or from the world they’ve created around them" and said that "everyone would like to be set free". It is Duffy's best-selling single to date. According to Duffy, "'Mercy' is autobiographical and is about 'sexual liberty' and not doing something somebody else wants you to do". Duffy has also said in an interview with ‘Observer Music Monthly’ that “I sing 'Mercy’ several times a day and it's just like having sex every time". 

In a later interview, Duffy said, "The lyrical interpretation is about my own ‘issues and baggage’ and when someone else listens to the song it isn’t about my baggage anymore, it’s about their baggage".

I interpret the song as essentially being no less than a mantra of lust that has been let off the leash for five minutes, and once one starts singing the song, being carried away comes naturally. Despite having never sung the song before today, and only having heard it three or four times, the musical mantra of ‘Mercy’ is simply too tempting to ignore.

Love and peace. Bill xxx
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Song For Today: 6th February 2019

6/2/2019

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Today’s song is dedicated to my daughter, Rebecca who celebrates her 34th birthday today. Rebecca (or Becky as we call her) is my youngest and only daughter. She has lived in London since graduating from University and is an independent woman of single status. She is of friendly disposition, kind, compassionate and loving of her parents and siblings. Her only fault is that when she holds any view, often she holds it so steadfastly and passionately that she runs the risk of being shielded from seeing the common sense of the other viewpoint. Still; to sum up how I truly feel about her, I'd have to say to her, “I love you just the way you are”.

'Just the Way You Are' is my song today. It was recorded by Billy Joel from his fifth studio album 'The Stranger' in 1977 and was released as the album's lead single. It became both Joel's first 'US Top 10' and 'UK Top 20' single (reaching Number 3 and Number 19 respectively), as well as being Joel's first gold single in the US. The song also topped the 'Billboard Easy Listening Chart' for the entire month of January 1978. ‘Just the Way You Are’ garnered two 'Grammy Awards for Record of the Year' and 'Song of the Year' in 1979.

Billy Joel wrote the song for his first wife (who was also his business manager at the time) Elizabeth Weber. After Joel and Weber split in 1982, Joel rarely performed the song live after 1986 until the 2000s. Joel has publicly stated that he disliked playing the song live in the wake of his acrimonious divorce from his first wife.

The saxophone solo that features prominently in the recording was played by Phil Woods, a well-known jazz performer and Grammy award winner. 
Happy birthday, Rebecca. Love You. Dad xxx

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song for Today: 5th February 2019

5/2/2019

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Today’s song is ‘I Got You, Babe'. I suppose that one of the nicest feelings one can have; a feeling that makes one feel secure, happy and hopeful for the future, is the knowledge that they live with and love their soul mate and are loved in return in equal measure. To be able to say, ‘I got you, babe’, even when one doesn’t have two pennies to rub together is enough to be happy.

The main danger I suppose is the risk of taking for granted the person you know loves you above all others. That is why the first and last words of the day to your loved one are, ‘I love you’. It is surprising how seldom these precious words are left unvoiced in the belief, ‘Well, surely she/he knows I love them?’ The simple fact is that we all feel better for regularly being told so. Just hearing these words sincerely spoken is in itself, a tonic. So please voice them often and with sincerity to the one you love.

‘I Got You Babe’ was written and composed by Sonny Bono. It was the first single taken from the debut studio album ’Look at Us’, of the American pop duo, Sonny and Cher. In August 1965, their single spent three weeks at Number 1 on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ in the United States where it sold more than 1 million copies and was certified Gold. It also reached number 1 in the United Kingdom and Canada. In 2011, the song was named as one of the greatest duets of all times by both ‘Billboard’ and ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine.  It was also listed at Number 44 on ‘Rolling Stone’s list of 5000 Greatest Songs of All Time’ in 2004. In early 2017 the song was inducted into the ‘Grammy Hall of Fame.’

This husband and wife duo started their career in the mid-1960s and released three studio albums during that decade. They achieved fame first with ’Baby Don’t Go and ‘I Got You, Babe’ in 1965. By the 1970s they had their own shows (two different television shows weekly) on American Television. The couple's career as a duo ended in 1975 following their divorce. In the decade they spent together, Sonny and Cher sold over 40 million records worldwide. 

Performing under her first name, Cher went on to a highly successful career as a solo singer and actress, while Sonny Bono was eventually elected to Congress as a Republican US Representative from California. The two performers were inducted to the ‘Hollywood Walk of Fame’ in 1998, following Sonny's death in a skiing accident. 

In 1985, a cover version of "I Got You Babe" by British pop band UB40 featuring American singer Chrissie Hynde peaked at Number 1 in the UK Singles Chart. 

I dedicate my song today to my good neighbour Veronica Moorehouse and her husband, Brian, with lots of love and affection.

Love and peace Bill xxx
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Song for Today: 4th February 2019

4/2/2019

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Today’s song is ‘For all we know’ is a song written for the 1970 film ‘Lovers and Strangers’ with music by Fred Karlin and lyrics by Robb Wilson (Robb Royer) and Arthur James (Jimmy Griffin). Both Royer and Griffin were founding members of the soft-rock group ‘Bread’. It was originally performed for the film's soundtrack, by Larry Meredith. It is best known for a cover version by American pop duo, the Carpenters in 1971, which reached No. 3 on the ‘US Billboard Hot 100’ singles chart, and No. 1 on the ‘US Billboard Easy Listening’ chart. The song was also a hit for Shirley Bassey at the same time in the United Kingdom. It has since been covered by numerous artists. The song became a Gold record. It won the ‘Academy Award for Best Original Song’ in 1971.

It is unusual to have a hit song sung by the Carpenters that brother Richard didn’t write. There was nothing unusual however in the song obtaining the Number 1 rating on the ‘US Billboard Easy Listening’ chart, as it does make easy listening on the ears of any music lover.

Richard Carpenter of the Carpenters heard the song during an evening of relaxation at the movies while on tour. He decided it would be ideal for the duo. It became a hit for them in 1971. When the original song was nominated for an Academy Award, the Carpenters were not allowed to perform it at the ceremony as they had not appeared in a film. At their request, the song was performed by British singer Petula Clark. Clark would later perform the song in concert on February 6, 1983, in tribute to Karen Carpenter, who had died two days before.

The song’s message is one that I am sure Richard Carpenter could be naturally comfortable with, as it falls within his style. The essence of the message is that ‘true love’ takes a lifetime to grow into a physical, psychological, mental and spiritual bond between two strangers who fall in love. In short; however much young lovers think they know their love mate, as the song says, “it takes a lifetime to say ’I knew you well and only time can tell a soul.’”

Love and peace Bill xxx

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