I once heard a story about Andy Warhol.  It concerned a number of paintings, which appeared on the art scene and which critics all agreed were amongst the finest pieces he’d ever produced.  When Warhol himself saw them, so the story goes, he claimed he’d never set eyes on them before and they were nothing to do with him.  The critics, however, were undaunted and claimed that Warhol was either being mischievous or that he was simply mistaken and the paintings remain, to this day, attributed to the artist.

Now, on the one hand, you have to admire their balls; but on the other, you have to say. ‘What the f***!’

I recalled this tale when a family member recently received a comment on a dissertation, which served as a reminder (if one were needed) that, in certain respects, academia has a great way to go before it can be admitted into the real world.  Now, I know academics have long felt like a breed apart and I have to say, I have heard of this sort of thing elsewhere – particularly in music - but it, nevertheless, brings one up short.  Having decided to research the works of a well-respected American author, the student made contact with said author and asked if they would assist by answering a number of questions.   The author graciously agreed and the student received a number of short, yet thoughtful and informative replies, which were duly referenced in the dissertation.

Back came the comment from the assessor, that the student was taking the author too much at their word and that, whatever the author thought, the real motives behind the work were not as the author believed but what critics of the works had already shown and wondered that the student had not realised this to be the case. 

Humility has never been much of a concern for academics but one wonders, on hearing stories like this, the extent to which arrogance is an essential feature of their job descriptions. 

  
I’d like to draw upon the National Health Service for the weblog, this week.  Not because I’m sick of struggling with my latest WIP (ha ha), nor because preparing my book for release is a pain (ho ho – where does he get them from?) but because the NHS has provided me with a little language gem that they could only have found down a rabbit hole somewhere.

My wife is currently investigating why her mother, suffering from dementia and in need of twenty-four-hour-a-day care does not qualify for financial assistance under our new and improved system of health care in the U.K. and she came across a number of rulings that have been made in similar cases.  One of them caught my attention.  It owed something to Joseph Heller but more, I think to Lewis Carroll.  I quote directly from the claimant’s own account:

My grandmother has… complex and unpredictable care needs… including severe dementia, bowel and urinary incontinence, no mobility and is unable to reliably communicate - and she has been denied funding, on the basis that her self-neglect, violence, aggression and requirement for 24-hour supervision, although 'unpredictable', are not severe enough to warrant funding. The [NHS] Trust claims that her behaviour, although unpredictable, is predictable, because it is always unpredictable…

That word “Trust”, used nowadays to describe the mealy-mouthed, ill-educated, immoral, bean-counting shits who run hospitals these days, is another example of the language fascism, which now pervades public discourse in England; however, I shall let it pass for the sake of brevity.

Concentrate, instead, upon the assertion that if someone is always unpredictable, that makes their behaviour predictable and wonder at the mind, which thought that up and ask yourself why they aren’t creating marvelous alternative universe where language can mean whatever they want it to mean and making tons of money doing it.

Actually, I think we know why, don’t we?  It’s a good deal easier, not to mention far more lucrative, to employ such skills in the task of screwing money out of senile old ladies.

Let’s be honest: if you walk into a pub for a quiet drink and there, sitting in one corner, is a small party comprising bespectacled men with beards and bespectacled women with flowery dresses and whose age you estimate as anywhere between late forties to late sixties, the chances are, you might suppress a shudder.  Perhaps it is some sort of race-memory that springs to your defence but your eyes are immediately on the lookout for various containers that look as though they might contain some species of stringed instrument or, if you are especially unlucky, Beelzebub’s bellows; a piano accordion.  I should imagine that even Al Capone would be relieved if the violin case turned out to contain a machine gun.  

For these people are undoubtedly Folk Singers and, like the poor, they seem to be always with us but, unlike the poor, they attract little sympathy. 

This seems a pity.  As a young man, I was drawn to some aspects of folk music largely, it has to be said, through the music of Neil Young, Bob Dylan and so on and through the work of great guitarists like the late Bert Jansch, John Renbourn and Richard Thompson.  They drew on the traditional songs of the past for inspiration and made of them great, original music.  Most of those early folkies of the sixties revival moved on, moulding and reworking the tradition and – well, doing what traditional musicians should always do – shaping the material for more modern times.  Even those who remain committed to the tradition, such as Martyn Carthy, have stamped their own indelible mark on the music, bringing to it elements of blues, jazz and rock. 

Only those who heard the Clancy Brothers in the nineteen sixties and thought that was the be-all-and-end-all have remained ossified in what is no longer “traditional” but an odd sixties variant of the genre.  Nowadays, traditional musicians should be wearing hoodies or shell suits, not hairbands and waistcoats.  They should be learning these songs at the knees of their parents, not from old L.P.s.  One of the great highlights of 2009 was hearing Benjamin Zephaniah’s dub version of the ancient Scottish ballad, “Tam Lin” on an album called “The Drowned Village”, which sent traditionalists into a tail-spin.

Which at last, brings me to my point.  I have a guitar student who wished to learn the old ballad, “The Outlandish Knight”, to a tune that I had learned many years ago from the playing of Nic Jones.  Reading the thing again, after so long, I was delighted to discover how “fresh” an ancient ballad could be.  For a start, the story is a cracker.  Briefly, there is a knight who is outlandish – that is, “not from around here”.  (Interesting etymology, this, since we use the term “outlandish” to mean anything bizarre or outrageous when it originally meant a foreigner or stranger.  But I digress.)  This knight seduces a young girl, with the promise of marriage and she steals some horses and money from her parents and off they go.  Pretty soon, they stop for a rest and it becomes clear to her that all he’s planning to do is rob her and kill her.  Indeed, it turns out that he’s a serial killer.  Anyway, she tricks him into turning his back with the sweetest and most unlikely ploy (in some versions, she pretends to go along with him and tells him he’ll get a nice surprise if he shuts his eyes) and asks him to cut away the brambles from beside the lake in which he’s planning to chuck her. She’s then able to push him in instead and he drowns.  So far, so contemporary.  But then, she decides to leg it home before anyone in the house finds out but her father hears her come in. 

‘What’s going on?’ he demands and the parrot – yes, parrot – says ‘Oh, it’s nothing.  There was cat trying to get into my cage and I was just calling for you to come and help.’

‘Sounds reasonable,’ says dad and goes back to bed.  And that’s about it. 

What I love about this story is not only its universality but also the way in which the metaphorical cat (the knight) and parrot, (the girl) are woven into the text of the actual story, providing an extra dimension of meaning to the whole thing.  It becomes an allegory or fable; a cautionary tale for young girls everywhere and everywhen.  Is it based on actual events?  It seems likely. The famous “Broadside Ballads” were news stories written in the form of poems that were hawked around the streets and at fairs, as early versions of “O.K.” or “Heat” magazine.  It’s just as likely that it was made up and equally likely that someone might have put their name to it.  (I was dismayed to find Tom Jones listed as the composer of a number of blues songs on his recent album, despite the fact that they are traditional).

What I also love, of course, is the language.  “Light off, light off your milk-white steed”  You see, you can use the word “steed” in poetry but not, I repeat, not in fantasy novels. But the fact that the language is a delight doesn’t mean that it’s the only manner in which this tale might be told.  Other versions of the song use very different but equally enchanting language.  “Lie there, you false-hearted man; lie there in the room of me.”

Traditional ballads should not be kept in aspic.  I can see this story being re-worked for a modern age and, I maintain, it would have been but for its being nailed down in the nineteen sixties.  As wonderful as some of these versions are, it would be a shame if the tradition had died out fifty years ago or, alternatively was left in the hands of those people down the pub.

Anyway, here’s Nic Jones’ version.  It’s good but I’d like to hear Benjamin Zephaniah’s version… or Lady Gaga’s for that matter.

http://www2.mrtzcmp3.net/Listen?a=4341m2864387&b=OexrK0&c=870ea03502f0&d=637&artist=Nic Jones&song=The Outlandish Knight