Desert Island Discs: Childhood Trauma and Workplace Pastoral Care

In the passing of stories

Listening to the back catalogue of Desert Island Discs has now brought me into the middle of the pandemic, the year 2020.

However, since I began this exercise way back in March, some of the people featured have passed on. I note with particular significance Yvonne Brewster, who was the first person I wrote about.

She passed away on 12th October at the age of 87 and was featured on last week's edition of BBC Radio 4's Last Word. [AkinBlog.NL: Desert Island Discs: To Be Young, Gifted and Black]

The interview format possesses an almost disarming innocence. What gets revealed shows how the context of sharing one's choice of music can inadvertently expose both vulnerability and discovery.

A spectrum of care

Whether it's the child sexual abuse suffered by Christopher Hazlewood, who founded the Paraorchestra, or the obvious abandonment of Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu, born mixed race and illegitimate, housed in a convent with nuns whilst her mother visited monthly, you appreciate the kind of trauma that forms part of the history of these remarkable people.

Then there's the story Dame Sally Davies told. At the point of retiring as Chief Medical Officer, she highlighted something missing from today's teaching of vocation, the grooming of talent, and the nurturing of expertise.

On the matter of junior doctors, she observed that pastoral care was missing. Very few knew the name of a consultant; that is, if consultants could even name others they had taken under their wing.

One example stood out. She arrived for an interview in a sports car and, on arrival, ended up in a driving manoeuvre that spun her around 360 degrees.

A consultant stepped out of the department and asked if she had come for the interview. On responding in the affirmative, he called to postpone the interview until the next day, taking the time to settle her down and getting her a cup of tea.

She returned the next day, interviewed, and got the job. However, she said, without the care and consideration of that consultant, she would likely not have got the job.

Care in the workplace

By extension, that lack of pastoral care and consideration of the humanity of junior staff, when interacting with sometimes overworked middle management who are under pressure to deliver to almost impossible terms and without the time to manage effectively, diminishes the productivity of the employee in many unquantifiable ways.

This is besides the way managers use promises they would never fulfil to lure new talent onto their teams.

In the end, it is usually left to the individual to decide whether they are fulfilled in settings that barely appreciate them.

When it comes to the tussle between self-respect and being patronised to the point of feeling belittled, I would hope the former would guide the person towards seeking greener pastures whilst nipping avoidable workplace stress in the bud.

Desert Island Discs references

Desert Island Discs: Yvonne Brewster 01/04/2005

Desert Island Discs: Christopher Hazlewood 29/05/2020

Desert Island Discs: Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu 04/06/2020

Desert Island Discs: Dame Sally Davies 02/08/2019

Pastoral care in modern workplaces (AI-generated)

Then I asked AI the question, How could the lack of pastoral care be addressed in modern workplaces?

That's an excellent question that extends beyond the scope of blog editing, but I'm happy to explore it with you.

Based on the themes in your blog post, here are some thoughts on addressing the lack of pastoral care in modern workplaces:

Structural Changes

Mentorship programmes - Formalising what once happened organically. Assigning senior staff to genuinely know and support junior colleagues, not just tick boxes. The consultant who postponed Dame Sally Davies' interview demonstrated this perfectly.

Protected time - Managers need designated time for pastoral duties, separate from productivity targets. When middle management is stretched thin, human connection becomes the first casualty.

Smaller teams - The anonymity you described, where junior doctors don't even know their consultants' names, suggests units have grown too large for meaningful relationships to form naturally.

Cultural Shifts

Redefining success - Measuring managers not just on outputs, but on staff retention, development, and wellbeing. What gets measured gets valued.

Slowing down - The consultant who made tea instead of rushing to the interview understood that five minutes of humanity can change someone's trajectory. Modern workplaces resist this pause.

Accountability for promises - Your point about managers using unfulfillable promises to lure talent speaks to a deeper dishonesty. Holding leaders accountable for what they commit to would restore some trust.

Individual Actions

Modelling care - Even without systemic change, individuals can choose to be that consultant. Remembering names, checking in genuinely, postponing the interview when someone clearly needs a moment.

Choosing environments wisely - Your conclusion about self-respect guiding people towards greener pastures is crucial. Sometimes the best response to uncaring systems is to leave them.

What aspects of pastoral care do you think are most critical in your own experience?

Every pretension to Africa for Africa Day

Africa Day in Manchester

I had planned nothing for the past Bank Holiday weekend except to catch up on some much-needed rest and sleep when I was offered a ticket to attend the Echoes of Africa event at Aviva Studios/Factory International on Saturday the 24^th.

This was in commemoration of Africa Day, previously known as African Freedom Day or African Liberation Day, initiated by the Organisation of African Unity on the 25^th of May 1963.

Looking at the agenda of events running from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM, I was unsure if I had the stamina for 7 hours of potential revelry and entertainment, but I was determined to show up, if only out of gratitude for the invitation.

Please, I’m not fooled.

The Live Painting Workshop, which had begun in the early afternoon, was already underway when I arrived. I took a seat on one of the long sofas at the back, and I tempered my cynicism regarding the artistry of the participants, who were pretending to represent some essence of Africa. It easily resembled a messy children’s paint class, yet people of all generations were engaged in it.

We have been led to believe that a certain combination of vibrant colours and abstract shapes is representative of Africa in context or origin; it reflected everything Toto’s Africa was, but not the reality of what Africa is. The inspiration for the song originated from a late-night documentary about Africa and likely the recollections of missionaries to Africa who became teachers for American schoolchildren.

An unrelatable discussion

The next item on the agenda, beyond the over-representation of Nigerians on the discussion panel, focused on a topic likely more suited for those seeking a career in Afrobeats or some contemporary genre of African music. Having first met a lady of Portuguese and Guinea-Bissau descent who knew the lyrics to everything the female disc jockey played; I spent more time with a grandmother of Caribbean heritage tending to her noticeably Caucasian grandson.

Indeed, what is now deemed the music of Africa is quite pervasive; it has a global audience, and collaborations are extending its reach into places one would never have expected such music to resonate.

Yet, in my conversation with the grandmother, I thought a more relevant topic would be how we preserve the significance of our African heritage in the diaspora and provide younger generations a sense of belonging in the various spheres that influence education, experience, and identity.

Music and fashion to the world

Perhaps this was not the forum for such a cerebral debate, and thus far, it had only intensified my scepticism regarding the purpose of this gathering. Each time we were urged to make more noise like Africans, there was a feeling that English reserve had crept upon us unawares.

The live music performances were interesting, but I knew none of the artists or their music, and I was barely connecting until one performer took the stage like the Bobby Caldwell of Afrobeats.

If there were no visuals, one would imagine the performer hailed from a large city in Africa; he had mastered everything and could pass for being as good as the popular Afrobeats artists.

Then came the fashion show; the mispronounced words by the compere regarding atelier to Aso oke were quickly forgiven when it became clear that the distinction between African designer and African fashion meant the latter garnered less attention compared to the former. Some of the items showcased on the catwalk were comical at best, but I am not the target audience for this kind of attire.

Before I knew it, it was almost 6:00 PM—a delightful day out and a reminder that the Echoes of Africa were just that; an echo is a reflection of the original sound and should not be mistaken for the real thing.

Desert Island Discs: To Be Young, Gifted and Black

Young, Gifted and Black - Aretha Franklin (1972)

Stories and selections

Listening through the back catalogue of Desert Island Discs on the BBC Sounds app has been a journey into enlightenment and recognition. Whether the stories told or the selections of music chosen by the guests, not only do you learn something about them, but you might also come away with insight and inspiration.

It was not until I was listening to the episode where Yvonne Brewster was a guest in 2005 that I began taking notes. I felt I should do a once-over of everything else I had listened to, but I did not have the presence of mind to do so.

This was before I went back to the beginning of the existing recordings, of which many have been lost or barely rescued in the first 25 years of broadcasting the programme.

It is a shame that no one at the BBC of that time thought this cachet of guests and interviews, many speaking with a received pronunciation accent harking back to a bygone age, should be recorded and preserved.

Pioneering, gifted and black

Yvonne Brewster was a pioneer as the UK’s first Black woman drama student; born to an upper-middle-class Jamaican family, she came to England to attend drama school at the Rose Bruford College where the proprietress thought she would unlikely find dramatic work in Britain, only for her to go on to achieve a distinction in drama and mime at the Royal Academy of Music.

Her achievement is exemplified in the third track she chose, To Be Young, Gifted and Black, which was recorded by Nina Simone in 1969. I was more familiar with the cover version by the Jamaican duo Bob and Marcia, however, the version recorded by Aretha Franklin won her a Grammy. [Wikipedia: Young, Gifted and Black]

While I knew of the music, I was not as familiar with the lyrics until I heard it clearly, a few weeks ago. From the 1950s onwards, we began to see such amazing talent and achievements from the global Black community, even as the civil rights movement took hold, and many African nations pursued the goal of independence from colonial rule.

We must remind ourselves

Blacks became known beyond the field of entertainment to academia, science, engineering, business, and politics. This was both a shock and a surprise to many Caucasians who thought otherwise.

I recall that my father’s white colleagues in the late 1960s sought to be derisive of his becoming a chartered accountant, having excellently passed his exams and had come third overall in England and Wales, along with winning the Foulks Lynch Prize. They sneeringly said they didn’t think he was that brilliant.

Yet, against all odds, we have striven, risen and shone, but that fact still needs to be instilled in us and our children, at every turn, it needs to get well beyond James Brown’s Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud, to the point that we know without a doubt from within ourselves, what it is To Be Young, Gifted and Black.

That is who we are, and too many times, we forget that we each have to be reminded, “Your soul's intact, And that's a fact!” No matter what age in life, this is our truth, one to live by and live out.

To Be Young, Gifted and Black

Young, gifted and black
Oh what a lovely precious dream
To be young, gifted and black
Open your heart to what I mean

In the whole world you know
There's a million boys and girls
Who are young, gifted and black
And that's a fact!

You are young, gifted and black
We must begin to tell our young
There's a world waiting for you
Yours is the quest that's just begun

When you feel really low
Yeah, there's a great truth that you should know
When you're young, gifted and black
Your soul's intact

To be young, gifted and black
Oh, how I've longed to know the truth
There are times when I look back
And I am haunted by my youth

Oh but my joy of today
Is that we can all be proud to say
To be young, gifted and black
Is where it's at

Is where it's at
Is where it's at

Songwriters: Nina Simone / Weldon Irvine – Source: Musixmatch

YouTube: Nina Simone - To Be Young, Gifted and Black (Audio)

YouTube: Bob & Marcia Young, Gifted & Black (Official Audio)

Nobody Does It Better

The music to my ears

Against all the odds, there is a spirit that drives us to that point where we are selflessly committed to something that matters. To me, there is so much music that I am familiar with, but I have not given myself the time to listen fully to the lyrics and appreciate the quality of songwriting and expression that went into the song.

Yesterday, I was listening to the music of James Bond films with orchestral support that was performed about two months ago and being broadcast on BBC Three. This was just after I had returned home from a long day, I even took the tablet into the bathroom to listen as I took a shower, I was enthralled. [BBC: Bond… James Bond] Only available to listen to in May 2024 before it is archived.

Indeed, a James Bond song

The many performers of James Bond theme music, going back to 1962, I began wondering and thinking, I did not know this was the original sound as they played through the repertoire of amazing sounds rearranged and performed by contemporary artists.

Nobody Does It Better, the theme song to The Spy Who Loved Me, written by Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager, the latter who suggested this was such an incredibly vain song that it naturally fell to Carly Simon you had sung You’re So Vain to give this ballad the full rendition it deserved.

If I remember correctly, we had a film night in boarding school, probably in early 1978, and that was when I first watched, The Spy Who Loved Me, I can only remember the last scene if anything. But we were and maybe remain lifelong fans of James Bond and the James Bond spirit.

Having the joy of the best love

Yet, as I have found out, whatever the inspiration behind any creative work of expression, how it is listened to, understood, and appreciated by others cannot be accounted for. It was written about the apparent sexual prowess of James Bond, I listened to it intently yesterday as a narrative of how the unexpected blossoming of love becomes a story of deep gratitude for having met someone to whom saying, “Baby, You’re the best”, doesn’t even begin to describe the blessing you have encountered.

That is how I feel towards Brian, “I wasn't looking, but somehow you found me”, that first embrace told me peace and comfort, I knew I would never love this way again because what I have is perfect. Thank you for loving me so unconditionally and so very supportively. I never say that enough.

Hotstepping into a magnetic resonance experience

Walking with a cane

For 20 years in December, I have used a walking cane. This was to help with the pain that I felt in my lower back for about a decade and there were times I had my much lighter partner stand on my back just to ease the pain.

The pain was exacerbated by standing still in queues or sauntering, I needed to be moving well or sitting down not to experience the pain. At times I have spoken about the pain either in the chest on my ribcage or in my back to my GP, and they have tried to put me in the scheme of enduring it rather than treating it. The walking cane gave more than the support and comfort to reduce or avoid the pain, altogether.

Obviously, when I got my first walking cane, it was a long black rod with an ivory ball to hold onto, as from the beginning I had decided whilst the walking cane was not a fashion accessory if you were to use a walking cane, get a good and fashionable one. Eventually, after trying many kinds of canes I have settled for Derby canes that have a rounded hook that could be hung over the wrist or the arm, hands-free.

Let’s have a closer look

In a conversation with my consultant a few weeks ago, we talked about my use of the walking cane which in addition became even more pertinent when I had cancer in my right foot some 14 years ago that I could not walk using the leg for almost 6 months. She proposed we have a scan of my spine to determine why I was having the back pain and if anything could be determined from that review.

Today, I attended a radiology session for an MRI scan of my spine without contrast. The without contrast part suggested I would not have ink injected into my veins to provide contrast in observing other organs in my body. I read up on the notes and was sure no adverse effect was expected as I had no metallic enhancements or augmentations had been done to my body. At least nothing I have consented to except if one had been abducted by aliens.

Stillness and noisiness

Having filled out the consent forms, the nurse invited me to the waiting room before the radiographer called my name and ushered me towards the theatre. At first, I was assigned a locker to put in my valuables, watch, love bangle, wallet, and satchel bag. I only had to take off my jacket and leave my cane outside.

I sat on the MRI gurney and as I was about to lift my legs to lay on the bed, I was told it might take 30 minutes when I planned for 10 minutes tops, I had to remain still, and the device was a disturbingly noisy thing that you needed earplugs and headphones. I had heard much about the containment from others with claustrophobic tendencies, and I decided not to be regaled by any more of their sordid tales.

As I lay down and set myself for the experience, I decided to close my eyes as the headphones belted out Ini Kamoze’s Here Comes The Hotstepper, certainly not what you want to be hearing in a magnetic tube, but that was what was on offer rather than the calming strains of classical music that I suggested might be a better offer.

Slipped out of it and sleep

I drifted off as the three shrill sounds suggested my insides were being peered into without intrusion, the wonders of medical science for which a controversial Nobel Prize was awarded in 2003. [The Lancet: The Nobel prize for MRI: a wonderful discovery and a sad controversy]

There were times I opened an eye, but I never gave thought to the idea I was in an enclosed space. Then the gurney slid right out, and we were done with a commendation from the radiographer that I took the session really well.

I got fully dressed up, collected my things and returned home, an interesting experience and in a few weeks, I should get a review of what was seen.

Deep inside the reality of period insomnia

Bodyform | #periodsomnia

Menses on television

My lack of education or knowledge about these matters would soon be evident even as I dumped the change I collected after a purchase at a pharmacy in Cape Town into a collection can for the support of girls who might need such materials as they reach puberty.

Have we not been regaled with adverts of feminine products short of demonstrating how they can be applied or utilised? I have been distracted by much and learnt a few life lessons from the stories of the women asked to share the sense of freedom and autonomy gained when using these personal hygiene products.

Music to my distraction

Recently, it was a Bodyform advert with the background music I could remember from a distant past but could not place it. This apart from the fact that what I thought was skatting or scatting, which is to sing without words, was a mondegreen as I misheard and never really knew the words of the song.

My situation was not helped because the voiceover was much louder than the music and hence nigh on impossible to get a music identifier app to distinguish the different sounds and produce a result. My searches for ‘Bodyform advert 2022’ which would have worked for many other adverts failed to yield the result I was seeking.

That was until I took a phrase out of the advert and modified my search accordingly to ‘Sleep fearless Bodyform advert 2022’. Then I got a hit, with the music loud enough to run by Soundhound, my favourite music discovery app and then my search for information that had been on for just about a month was over.

Deep down inside

Now, the song by Little Louie Vega, released in 1993 as I remember from my nightclubbing youth, has the genius of repetition in the genre of house music that the other words in the lyrics of the song might well be expended with.

Deep deep down inside
Deep deep deep inside

This is punctuated somewhere with ‘All we need is love’, said four times and we are back to Deep Inside.

Towelling insomnia

Now, hear me out, I thought Bodyform was marketing tampons rather than sanitary towels, panty liners, and sanitary towels like I would know the distinct differences or benefits of any, but hey!

Then I wondered, how the advert agency, on receiving the commission to create an advertisement thought Deep Inside was the appropriate encouragement to apply these products.

However, there is a very important point being made in this Bodyform advert that I should not ignore for my levity, Period or Menstrual Insomnia, an issue that is probably taboo but needs to be discussed as I was until now unaware of it. Even with nature, there is discomfort, inconvenience, and distress. [Sleep Foundation: PMS and Insomnia]

I conclude by letting it all tail off here before I say something I cannot take back.

Hardrive ‎– Deep Inside [1993]

Too much wine down the spittoon

Traipsing a new wine trail

Having missed out on understanding the essence of the Garden Route wine trail in not visiting a wine estate, or a distillery as there were many in that area, we decided we’ll do at least tour of wine estates close to Cape Town with the view to doing something different.

We booked a tour on Monday night and had a phone call informing us that our tour guide would be round to pick us up from our apartment at 9:00 AM, we were up and ready well before that time, thinking we were going to join a tour group on a bus, but it soon dawned on us as we drove out of Cape Town that we were on a privately chauffeured tour.

We arrived at Meerlust at 9:30 AM, Felix, our tour guide thinking we were up for wine tasting at that time. I could not countenance the idea of swilling alcohol that early, I come from a good home, we cannot be tasting wine at that time. Even as we saw people walking towards to the tasting rooms, we did a U-turn and continued our journey to other wine estates.

Music for posh wines

De MorgenZon (Established 1699) in Stellenbosch was acquired by the Applebaum’s in 2003 and they have a penchant for playing classical music to the ears if they exist of the grapes to make fine wines, at which point I was rolling my eyes. Apparently, according to Kudzai, the sommelier who conducted the wine tasting at our table, the vibrations from the music help the vines.

When I visited the restrooms, there were music scores on the walls leaving one captivated by both the familiarity and the strangeness of the music. Some new knowledge we gained was that for certain wines, the grapes were pressed with the stems to give that lemon zest taste.

My question was whether this excursion into the musicology of viticulture had made allowances for changes in vintage if the genre were hip-hop, blues, or jazz, for which no research could be provided. However, the vines were on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on our visit, the day before, they were given a serving of Antonio Vivaldi, to which I quipped as the weather was changing, if it was The Four Seasons.

A platter to clatter

Next, we arrived at Neil Ellis, a rather modern looking setup where we were told by the Tessa, the sommelier that they mostly buy in their grapes, though they have recently come into possession of a number of vineyards. Then again, this would suggest the wines made here are down to winemaking skills than the end-to-end from planting to bottling or core viticulture.

We availed ourselves of the platters of cheese, Parma ham and somewhat bland melon, but of the wines we tried, we came, we saw, we drank, we left. Nothing more to be said than the evident prospect of no return. Thank you.

At Haute Cabrière (Established 1694) in Franschhoek, by Pierre Jourdan for whom their Methode Cap Classique wines are named. Bongile, the sommelier, whose name attracted a twisting fate of mispronunciation, was helpfully at hand to explain as we took in the amazing mountain views from the tasting room. The bubbles go to my head.

Down a snake-winding staircase to the view of a cellar of barrels in a temperature-controlled room. To the right, the gents with urinal bowls full of ice cubes that creaked to the heat of your urination. Dare I say that might have been the highlight of my visit to this wine estate. We cannot for the snobbery of wine accept as good what our taste does not perceive, regardless of the medals earned from wherever.

Just at the very last

We invited Felix to have a late lunch with us in Franschhoek before visiting the last wine estate on our itinerary, Rickety Bridge (Established 1797) which for all its old money looks as part of an old estate La Provence now had such avant-garde names for their wines as Printer’s Devil from a few decades ago. In my own opinion, the range of wines were without character, though almost with distinction in aroma and definitely not in taste.

On being asked about my assessment after tasting 4 wines, I suggested they were a bit arboreal, a word our sommelier whose name I cannot recollect might not have understood, having not been provided with a spittoon, we had poured it all down the roots of a tree by our table.

The fifth wine had desperate attempts at effecting character but coming short in defining itself, that it verged on the quite truly forgettable. She returned with a Pinotage that did go down well, the first glass of about 25 wines that I had tasted in the day that I drank all up. Much as I sympathise with the winemakers along with the art, craft, and expertise involved in making their wines, to the individual, it is down to taste, palate, and comfort, one man’s poison is another man’s elixir. C’est la vie.

Lil Nas X - MONTERO - The Pied Piper is here

Setting it up

There is something about Montero Lamar Hill, also known as Lil Nas X that is enthralling, engaging, and arresting. Now, I am not a fan of rap music or any music where the apparent absence of enunciation leaves you having to attune your ear to patterns, rhythms, cadences, and much else to understand what is being said. I guess I will always need subtitles.

A story in antiquity tells of the town of Hamelin in Germany where an infestation of rats might well have introduced a plaque. Then came a stranger who promised to rid the town of the rats for a payment, he did do so playing his pipe and attracting the rats out of the town into the River Weser where the rats drowned.

On returning to the town to collect payment, he was refused. The Pied Piper then returned one day, playing a magical tune, had all the children follow him out of town into oblivion as certain legends have it, never to be seen again. The evil of not keeping promises and treating a person with courtesy, respect, and dignity was visited back on the town of Hamelin by the loss of their children. [Wikipedia: Pied Piper of Hamelin]

The piper in his element

I just watched the video of Lil Nas X’s new release, Montero (Call Me by Your Name), it is filled with a lot of mystical symbolism, and the lyrics have much hedonistic context for suggestion, eroticism, homosexual sex, drugs, and drink. Whilst a lot of this is Computer-generated Imagery (CGI), he descends the longest pole into the belly of the earth where he apparently lap dances the devil before strangling him and wearing his crown, thereby sprouting wings like the angelic being that Lucifer once was.

You can imagine the outrage, hot flushes, disgust, recriminations, and agitation from people who think they are good parents, the conservatives and the religious at all this with their confected rage about protecting children and all that. Let’s hear what Lil Nas X has to say.

Your responsibility, not mine

To the parents: “I am an adult. I am not gonna spend my entire career trying to cater to your children. that is your job.” [Tweet] In another tweet, he writes, “I literally sing about lean & adultery in Old Town Road. U decided to let your child listen. Blame yourself.”

About the depictions in the video with a mind on the ultra-religious that have preached about homosexuals going to hell, he says, “I spent my entire teenage years hating myself because of the shit y’all preached would happen to me because I was gay. So, I hope u are mad, stay mad, feel the same anger you teach us to have towards ourselves.” [Tweet]

So, there you have it, you tell someone that he is going to hell because of who he is, he uses his creative talent to give you a vision of your words and you are angry about him, about it, fearful for your kids and much else?

Love your rats or pay up

Therein is the advent of a modern-day Pied Piper, the parents who loved the music but failed to listen to the lyrics and gave their children full rein to enjoy the song and the video that won even a Grammy are like the people of Hamelin who were happy to see the rats piped out of town.

Now, as Lil Nas X has continued to showcase his talent with a full expression of his sexuality and giving life to the stereotypes thrown at many of us who just happen to be gay, everyone is pulling their children away, but they are hooked and joyfully following the Pied Piper.

The morale in every case is, pay up, pay your dues, pay what you agreed, be nice, reckon that difference does not make others less human, if you cannot show love, it is unnecessary to express vitriol and hate.

An appeal to our better selves

Be careful what you wish for, whatever nasty thing you say to another might well become a picture of your worst reality, at which point, you have nothing left to fight with, the battle for hearts, minds, and souls, was lost when you dehumanised a fellow human being because of their sexuality amongst other things.

Like always, from time immemorial, just because you pick a fight with someone does not mean they will fight you back if there is someone or something else that pertains to you where they can get an advantage. Love heals all things, hate destroys many things, including our faith in humanity.

Lil Nas X, thank you for being your true self, for that alone, you might well be in front of the queue to heaven leaving your earthly detractors in the other place.

References

Montero (Call me by your name) – Lyrics from Genius

Old Town Road (Remix) – Lyrics from Genius

The video; not for the faint-hearted, watch with caution and prepare to be shocked. (Parent & Grandparent advisory.)

He shall preserve my soul, even forevermore

A sleepy escape from evil

A few days ago, I woke up from a nightmare, like I was nudged out of slumber into wakefulness to spare me. So vivid was the dream that as I collected my thoughts about what had transpired in my subconscious, I was shedding tears, like everything in my being had come to help me manage the stress of my ordeal.

Brian in his wisdom arrested my irrationality before I did something stupid with the thoughts crowding my sense of sanity and proportion. He said, ‘Last week, you went through some challenging days causing some stress and hopefully, the brain is just filing away all that.’ There could not have been a better assessment of the situation along with the other things that bothered me.

He obviously has witnessed nights of my disturbed sleep from my talking in my sleep, to acting out and apparently kicking him in bed too. I’m mortified. Anyway, it was a lot to process and I tried to tackle it from all perspectives I could muster, as it all played out like a deliverance from adversity.

He keeps me safe

As I was writing down the parts of the dream I could remember, recurrent thought like some inspiration interrupted my flow. It was in Yoruba that I translated to English and searched for on the Internet.

It happened to be Psalm 121:4 “Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.” However, reading the whole Psalm put it into context. My help comes from the Lord in all situations and circumstances. [Bible Gateway – Psalm 121 (KJV)]

I cannot remember when last I read this Psalm if I ever had to recite over water to drink or bathe with, a well-practised ritual of my childhood by reason of the African-Initiated Christian denominations my mother has an affinity to.

He preserves my soul

For the last two nights, I had decided to sign myself off the news cycle because of the US elections, I first thought of playing back my classical music collection but ended up playing Amy Grant on Amazon Music before clicking on a playlist of gospel music.

One track was unmistakably Psalm 121, Jacquelyn Gouche-Farris had taken inspiration from the Psalm to write My Help which has been performed by many notable artistes backed by choirs. I am taking the time to learn the words of the song to hum and sing on my walks. For the times, this is one to give you a sense of peace, comfort, and assurance. [Genius Lyrics: My Help][Amazon Music: My Help]

The Psalmist says, “The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.”

The singer gets to the point without beating about the bush, “He shall preserve thy soul, even forevermore.” Then take all the pronouns and personalise them in the first person. What better prayer is there when you can confidently say? “He shall preserve my soul, even forevermore.”

[YouTube: My Help (Better sound quality)]

He holds me up

Then I found freedom

It was one Wednesday night in early April, 36 years ago that I discovered something on campus, a livelier form of religion and devotion that put me at odds with everyone apart from the community that embraced me.

There was some turmoil I did not understand going on in my life, one in which I was at school and attended lectures without any inkling of what was going on therein. Sadly, there was no one I could explain my predicament to, but I found the distraction of student union representation and religion to keep my head as things swirled around me.

My sanity mattered more

That I was a failed student probably did not surprise me, though the reasons were quite different from what my parents and some friends thought. I was fighting a battle for my sanity whilst everything else fell apart around. Maybe, I would have liked for everything to all come together, but what is a life without the trials and tribulations that make for the quality of experience?

Indeed, I can say that now, when in the midst of it, I was both helpless and hapless, yet taking each day as it comes writing the story I can tell today. Seminal in those experiences were events quite a few and one of which was the music of the time.

It’s a new sound

I had heard some Christian music that did not suggest the singers were ready to explore the talents they had, pedestrian, uninspiring, perfunctory with words that just needed mouthing and hands clapping without a sense of rhythm like God was a boring sad and an unfunny deity of the sort that mother’s religious proclivities embraced.

Then I heard Andraé Crouch, the whole concept of praise and worship changed, the uplifting music that you will learn, sway and dance to that you were moving too well to even consider clapping. You were dancing before the Lord and even if you become naked in the process like King David once did, it did not matter. [BibleGateway 2 Samuel 6:14-23 (NIV)]

He holds me up

Too many songs that became the way by which God held me through the difficult and seemingly impossible times, for I did not see any light at the end of any tunnel, I groped in the darkness and the Lord led me through the valley of the shadow of death to new green pastures and still waters, but it was a long journey through that wilderness where I strayed at times and predators were on the prowl to devour me. I was spared, saved, and protected, to tell a better a story.

Today, from my Amazon Music subscription I decided to ask Alexa to playback Andraé Crouch and that has been on for hours, reminding of how in times of trouble, I need not be troubled, I am held by the righteous right hand of God and my unsteady gait on the rocky path is kept firm in the knowledge that I will not fall, nor will I come to any harm. We have a destination and it is good to the end. [Andraé Crouch on Amazon Music]

The timely message on Our Daily Bread – God Holds Us just reinforces the sense, feeling and assurance that it is well with my soul. I want to get my maracas out for this.

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I paused the video so she could take a rest

Too mule to train

My Brian would love the role of a personal trainer, bless him, but not if I could help it. For one, I respond better to gentle persuasion than instruction. 4 years of secondary boarding school was enough of being ordered around that I was unpersuadable about going to sixth-form school and my mother who was a principal then could have obtained entry to any school of choice, but she could not get between my ears.

Obviously, he has taken interest in my return to the gym, discipline and persistence are rivals to my continuing to the point of seeing benefits. The topic of music for my workout came up again and his suggestion just was far from impressive. Yes, I could say to rowers in Cape Town, “Put your back in it, just a little more.”, God forfend in my sweating exhaustion I play that back to my own hearing to urge myself on. [YouTube:Masters at Work – Work at your leisure.]

My drumsticks hurt

As for calling me chicken as if to dare me, what I decide to do is what I do, names are just that, names. Don’t forget chickens are probably the hardiest and most maltreated animals in the whole, yet they thrive in whatever condition they are in. To be chicken is to have tenacity, the will to live and hold life sacred without unnecessarily courting danger.

I picked up a little more speed in my brisk walk on the treadmill, going at 6 km/h for starters and then up to 6.6 km/h for the last 15 of 25 minutes. I worked up a good sweat. Then moved to the floor exercises, going back to an old favourite Rebecca-Louise Smith on YouTube and she left me in the dust. It would take time. Maybe I should take the advice of a comment. “I paused the video so she could take a rest.”

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Meanwhile, for my workout music, it was Anita Baker which strangely was not on my phone, I had it in the cloud on OneDrive and thankfully, the gym offers free Wi-Fi. To stream directly from the cloud, I use the CloudPlayer Premium app.

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Suffice it to say, by the time my timeslot was up, I was ready to up and leave. Tomorrow is another day.

Right back on the treadmill

Getting up to speed

It is still baby steps at the gym, a process of gradually helping my body adapt to exertion and exercise whilst slowly discovering the muscles and regions of imminent pain I never thought I had.

Brian is somewhat interested in what I am up to as I have now booked 14 50-minute dates at the gym. Most of what I have done is brisk walking for 25 minutes going up to 6.5 km/h and then some floor exercises.

I don’t know if my time slot is quiet or my village community is not that keen on this kind of trouble. The only other visitors have gone to the swimming pool instead. Now, earlier we talked about music to workout to, he just needs some pace and rhythm to work out to whether or not he likes the music. I would playback my music collection of Anita Baker or the Emancipation album of Prince.

The workout was energetic with me breaking a sweat as I reached and maintained the target heart rate, the track that stuck in my memory after the exhausting session, says everything. That’s my only mission, get trim and get him.

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Once again, whatever it takes

If I had the words to heal your pain,
I will speak and see it flee from you,
The furrows on your face fingers to train,
The light of your smile returning anew.

Lord make my fervent prayer come true,
That the way you feel may fade away,
As the happy feeling you once knew,
Leads you into the sun to dance and play.

Every moment you bring me great joy,
I am never going to give you or this up,
Together we would go through it boy,
Let me see that smile again my buttercup.

Until we meet up we just keep talking,
Of every little thing that makes us ache,
Into the life ahead we are not sleepwalking,
We have got a world out there to shake.

When you asked my hand in marriage,
I felt like I was living my sweetest dreams,
Your wings of love became my carriage,
Let’s go and catch some amazing dreams.

Blog - Whatever it takes

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Music is the portal to my happy garden

How could it not be there?

I found myself running ragged not around the house but in my head, a song tailed off in my head, not one I have heard in a while, but it reminded me of a very happy place. I think of smells, conditions and music that take me to a happy sense of warmth and ease.

It was a song by Prince, so I thought I would play it back from my music cache in the cloud, I could not understand how I could not find the artist or any album. How could it not be in my collection? That is how my head got racing, quite perturbed, it had to be somewhere, on a disk or USB key, but I was not ready to start a search for that.

Alright, on another day

I do remember years ago, I used to play the music back on my mobile phone, but this was my third or fourth phone since then. Surely, I must have transferred the music files too. As luck would have it, it was on my current phone.

Next, get the files to the cloud. Not that easy, the file management on my phone does not offer raw access to the data. I plug it into my laptop, the music shows up in Windows Media Player, but the album information tag is lost. Not tonight.

We’ll just let it play off the mobile phone speaker even though it does not offer the best sound. Another day to fight that battle of merging all my music in one place. Meanwhile, I have merged the prolific output of the 3 albums of Emancipation in a playlist of the same name in shuffle mode and my dreamy self goes back to Christmas 1996.

The happy place, again

It was a Christmas present from my then partner’s parents. I could say I love every song on the albums, but some just stand out in musicianship and lyrical prowess. Nothing like the screeching falsetto of my classmate in secondary who should have been unheard singing, Ain’t got no money.

The best compendium of Prince music is PrinceVault and everything you need to know about Emancipation is there. [PrinceVault: Emancipation]. My favourite remains the mystical and spiritual The Holy River. I could meditate on the lyrics, the music, the story on constant replay. The thought of being drowned in a holy river to be delivered to a new life is a rebirth I love. Music is definitely the portal to my happy garden.

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Blog - Thought Picnic: Find your holy river in which to drown

Blog - Prince (1958 - 2016)

Blog - Chasing waterfalls of life

On the backseat screaming don't stop

Getting the words right

One of the useful things about the Internet has been the opportunity to sort out the mondegreens that I had learnt over decades. Songs that took my fancy that I tried to learn by ear but never got the words right because inflexions, accents, tonality, and variations could change the way words sound apart from the necessities of musicality.

I notice that a lot in Yoruba music, the words are tonal, but when put to song can change so much that if the context is not known the meaning will be completely lost. I will leave that analysis to linguists.

When Kenny Rogers died early this year, I remembered some songs that I took the time to playback on the turntable, stopping after a few words as if taking dictation, I thought I had it completely with Lucille. The refrain of the song is one example of how wrong I was. I think my dad had a record executive for a friend because he sometimes came home with a clutch of vinyl albums and that became the framework of my musical reminiscences.

My version

You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille,
Before wrong the children crapping with feel, (This seemed to make some sense to me.)
I've had some bad times, lived through some sad times,
This time you dishearken nor heed, (I really thought dishearken was an antonym of hearken)
You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille.

The lyrics [AZLyrics – Lucille]

You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille,
With four hungry children and a crop in the field,
I've had some bad times, lived through some sad times,
But this time your hurting won't heal,
You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille.

Hearing right and speaking better

There are too many songs that suffered a mangling from my either my hard of hearing or my trying to make a sense of what was being sung. Now, if a song sweeps into memory, I do not assume I know the words, I immediately search for the lyrics and compare with the total recall, I have, smiling and glad that no one caught me out like when I did not know how to pronounce bronchitis, yacht, or beau correctly.

What is strange is, I can remember each person who helped me out with getting those words right. I would think because I mainly sang to myself rather than to an audience, my mondegreens were karaoke gold dust.

I may as well shoot my gun

Earlier today, from one thing to another, I found myself searching for Ray Parker Jr. one of his songs that caught my ear, I heard on the cassette tape recorder and player of my neighbour. Let’s Get Off from his album, The Other Woman, sounded like Let’s Get On, I put it down to the quality of the recording.

Reading through the lyrics today, all he had to say was Parental Guidance steamy windows stuff. How was I to know? Yet, if you do have a lover, you probably and definitely want to do everything there and more. To say I have been promised more than a night of passion would be to put a finer point on a suggestion not too polite.

Poor teenaged Tevin Campbell whose amazing voice gave life to words of straight alluring whilst having an uncertain disposition. Not that we care anymore, the love songs lose their gender specificity whether babe, woman, man, lady, lover, and honey, whoever you squeeze is deserving of the songs you want to share. Ours is My Funny Valentine, someone does shed tears to it. [Tevin Campbell – Can We Talk – YouTube] [Anita Baker – My Funny Valentine – YouTube]

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Let’s Get Off, Ray Parker Jr. (Courtesy of AllTheLyrics)

Don't know, what's come over me.
Since we met, I've had this fantasy.
Of you on the backseat screamin' don't stop.
Just before the good part, I wake up.

Oh honey - to dream just ain't enough
Gotta have the real stuff.
C'mon baby - we can rock 'n roll each other crazy.
Give it to me, nice and slow
All of it, make me beg for more.
We love each other, so it can't be wrong.
Let me have it all night long.

If you feel the way that I do then let's get off.
If you want it bad as I do let's get off.

Sittin' at, my TV set
Watchin' dirty movies, and diggin' it.
Lookin' at the folks behind the green door.
Only make me want you more.

Oh, I wish that you would stop playin' games.
Can't put out this flame.
Hotsuff.
Oh, you got me burnin' up.

Give it to me, nice and slow
All of it, make me beg for more.
We love each other, so it can't be wrong.
Let me have it all night long.

If you feel the way that I do then let's get off.
If you want it bad as I do let's get off.

Ever since, I was a little boy.
Always liked to play "ridin' cowboys"
All you gotta do is holler "giddy up"
Cause I can take it, no matter how rough

Bang bang - I may as well shoot my gun.
Cause that's how the West is won.
Hey you! I mountin' up for round two.

Give it to me, nice and slow
All of it, make me beg for more.
We love each other, so it can't be wrong.
Let me have it all night long.

Get up, just me and you.
Come on let's get off.
If you want it bad as I do, let's groove.
Come on let's get off.

Please don't make me stop. No baby,
Till you make me bop.
Just warmin' up - I don't wanna stop.
Till you make me bop.

Oh! - me and you.
Come on let's get off.
Let's groove.
Come on let's get off.