Oh Babe, What Would You Say

Although shelf space is becoming a critical issue, it doesn't mean the acquisitions of books and records is likely to be subject to any spending restrictions. Although there are now three casual purchases that are increasingly unlikely to get read up there, the awesome glory of the Complete Buxtehude, the Schumann concertos, the Dvorak symphonies, the Nataslie Clein disc and all such things turn out to be such great successes that it only encourages me to buy more as belated compensation, now that anything is affordable, for the austerity of those teenage years when such purchases had to be carefully considered.
At least it meant they were played regularly enough to be imporinted on the memory for good.
But the consequences could be disastrous. Prompted to find myself Dylan's Street Legal on CD ahead of the original plan to collect Joni Mitchell, I am deeply enamoured of it, probably because it triggers all the residual memories of it except that it turns out to be even better, if possible, than I remember it. The potential disaster looms up when I find myself thinking that the next project, having dutifully produced 50 thousand words that rtepresent some kind of novel, could be to write an album. Not songs for someone else or with anybody else but the album of songs I might do myself. And so I scroll through guitars on the internet, delighted to see that they are all eminently affordable, as if it's only a matter of time before I have a set to compare with The Changing of the Guards, Baby Stop Crying, Is Your Love in Vain, etc.
I had thought that Bob Dylan couldn't sing but got away with it and so might I but on Street Legal he is majestic and however easy he makes it look to knock out a masterpiece album, that doesn't transfer to anybody who just happens to find themselves profoundly liking it.
Having been impressed by Julian Barnes but then having to console oneself that a lousy story that only ever aimed to fulfil the barest qualifications for novel status, it would be a dreadful folly to invest the next six months in making an album of twelve songs that will inevitably be laughable from one who genuinely can't sing and is no musician only in order to say I've done it. I hope common sense will prevail and I can return to The Perfect Book of poems rather than think that every genre is just another waiting for my inexpert contribution. It would be inexcusable to carry on saying there was too much of everything being produced while being guilty of producing the very worst of it myself.
It ought to be possible to happily admire wonderful things and not have to imitate them all myself. Luckily, seeing Steven Isserlis for the third, ever marvellous, time has not yet made me want to buy a cello.

But the TLS featured a great poem by Clive James recently, Anchorage International. I had always admired his commentary on poetry ahead of his poems. His ongoing farewell has been a powerful and moving process, heroically sane and measured in contemplation of the impossible. Circumstances invite the best to find the better still within themselves. If something's worth doing, it's worth doing well and not just for the sake of it.