Oh, Babe, What Would You Say

I have to monitor how far up the index items called Oh, Babe, What Would You Say get. It will never be top because they are nearly all also tagged 'music' but I worry that some innocent web-enquirer will google the title to find out who sang the masterpiece and be presented with five pagesof results directing them to David Green Books. It is Google's problem more than mine but I worry because I know, deep down, that everything is my fault.
It was Hurricane Smith. And, yes, it might be about time I started calling it Don't Let It Die.
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Readers glued to this channel for updates will be thrilled to know I've found a fourth work by an artist I can count as a favourite written with reference to another. Errollyn Wallen, a huge favourite, made In Earth from a favourite of hers, Purcell's Dido & Aeneas, and Purcell is close enough for me especially when the work in question has the magnificence required to qualify it on a third requirement, that it's any good. I might have five if we can have Ian McEwan's Nutshell, based imaginatively on Hamlet. It is not in McEwan's favour that although he is a favourite, he's not quite enough of a favourite for me not to have to check how to spell his name but Sweet Tooth, On Chesil Beach, Atonement, what can you do. And I know Hamlet as word perfectly as do any body of literature which means it feels as if I do but actually, I'm hopeless at it. The problem with Nutshell is that it was an elaborate trope, or some such thing, and might not be good enough to put alongside the masterpieces of the others in the final Top 6. We will see.
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Oh, and there's Alex Johnson's A Book of Book Lists reviewed in the TLS. I wish the TLS would try to keep up. Alex was a guest here ages ago on the back of that book. I'll tell you how long ago it was, the situation regarding the UK leaving the EU was in a state of utter confusion and bemusement at the time. That's how long ago it was.
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But the BBC Music magazine in W.H. Smith's today offered a disc of Ravel plus string quartets by Haydn and Mendelssohn. There is no other reason to go into W.H. Smith's, once a respected bookseller where I bought my copy of Ulysses - try asking their staff for a copy now. So I had it because however extensive my collection of discs becomes, it's unlikely to have the complete Haydn or Mendelssohn string quartets so I'll pick up bits and pieces from time to time.
Which is immediately contradicted by my prize possession being the Complete Works of Buxtehude by Ton Koopman and so surely I need never buy another Buxtehude disc again. Oh, but one does. Paul Riley provides a heart-stopping review of Abendmusik by Vox Luminis. He could have had a more lucrative career as a second-hand car salesman if he could talk you into buying a reliable runner the way he sold me that Buxtehude.
And so I must go and order that. I could sit here all night churning out the wordage but the skinflint Danny Baker only does his two hours on a Saturday morning, and it's not two hours, is it. So, why should I.