LOOSE LEAVES by Huw Parsons and Friends

ROB LEE'S BLUES IN PROGRESS:
Huw sings here about writer's block and is accompanied by Rob Lee on guitar. This is his first attempt at recording a song rather than reading a poem and the result isn't at all bad, with his voice sounding something like a cross between Willy Nelson and Elvis on a bad day! “Just what is a good voice?” Huw asks. “Can Van Morrison or Leonard Cohen, for instance, be said to have good singing voices?” “Probably not!” A good singing voice must be one that clearly conveys the emotions of the words and is instantly recognisable – and Huw scores highly on both those counts!


SEPTEMBER SADNESS:
Perhaps September is the saddest time of the year, with the nights drawing in and the start of Autumn heralding the end of Summer. This short and deceptively simple piece describes those feelings we all have, but with Huw's usual eloquence and David Cooper Orton's beautiful guitar playing which, I feel, has a whiff of Fleetwood Mac's 'Albatross' about it.


THEM AND US:
This is a short and powerful poem, and speaking to Huw about it, just after it was written, this is what he told me “A few nights ago I listened to a debate on Radio Four about social equality, which had Michael Portilo, and some bloody awful Cambridge Professor of Philosophy and Theology, arguing that this was an undesirable and unachievable goal. I was shocked, but not surprised, by their arrogance and complacency. They even had the audacity to quote passages from the bible to back-up their insidious views. Their beliefs and attitudes festered in my head for a while then one morning I sat down and wrote this poem, with very little effort, in ten minutes flat. I could have gone on and added many more lines but decided to keep it short and to the point. I don't usually speak of my politics and religion, nor do I readily write verse about such things; I leave that to the clever fanatics who do, but I was so incensed that this spilled out of me!”

Them and Us

They've food in their bellies, shoes on their feet,
In their homes tellies and subsidised heat.
They've fags in their pockets, money for the bus
It's the way God's meant it – them and us!

What gives them the right to breed like rabbits
And even to copy our bourgeois habits?
Yes, cream always rises as sinks the dross
That's why I hate the great unwashed!

Yes, rich men, poor men, castles and gates,
Landscaped parks and council estates,
So, despite what some tell you is true,
God's clearly ordained 'TO EACH HIS DUE.'



ON AND ON FOREVER:
This piece of verse is about Peter Bruegel the Elder's famous painting 'The Wedding Feast.' Before becoming a poet Huw was a painter and studied this artist, on one occasion travelling to Belgium to see places where this, and several other scenes that Bruegel painted, took place. The music was composed by Di Asplin to feel suitably medieval. Although Huw speaks this poem, it does have a song-like quality was a distinct rhythm and melody to it.


REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL – PART FOUR:
Huw and David recorded this in September 2015 in an attempt to create a hit record which would give more people a taster of their work. In the event it’s been a smash flop but the two of them have carried on regardless! As the title suggests it’s been inspired by Ian Drury's fantastic song 'Reasons to be Cheerful – Part Three.'


MY BEAUTIFUL LADY ALICE:
This tale of murder, madness, revenge and love is taken from scenes carved, in the twelfth century, on a font in Eardisley church. Here are shown two armed knights in hand-to-hand combat and one spearing the thigh of the other. This, apparently, is Ralph de Baskerville, the lord of the manor, killing Drogo, his father-in-law, in a duel. Legend says that afterwards de Baskerville was so troubled that he left the village to join a monastic order in Gloucester.


VERY REV:
As we all know when it comes to the clergy, fact is often stranger than fiction! So here's an affectionate and satirical piece of nonsense recorded live at an open-mic at The Baskerville Hall Hotel in Clyro. I particularly like the clever reference to 'Father McKenzie' who, in The Beatles song 'Eleanor Rigby', did indeed darn his socks alone!'


KEMPTHORNE'S STAR:
Huw tells me that since he discovered that his Great- Grandfather was born in a workhouse, he's become fascinated by this awful aspect of Victorian life. The title of the poem refers to the star-shaped layout of architect Sampson Kempthorne's workhouse design. This is one of the few poems on the CD which doesn't have any musical accompaniment - and maybe all the better for it in this instance.


BATTLE OF THE BEGWNS:
Huw wrote this after being told about an unrecorded battle that happened on the Radnorshire hills during the wars of Stephen and Matilda in the twelve-hundreds. Apparently, the fighting took place on the slopes below a now vanished castle, but there is a peculiar uncultivated and unenclosed strip of land in a nearby field, where locals say the dead were buried.


OUR FRIENDS FROM OVERSEAS:
There's something about this hard-hitting, but very compassionate poem, which I feel can only have been written from bitter-sweet experience. I say this because of the totally believable details Huw has used to characterise the main character, who must surely be real!


THE 'SOMERSET AND DORSET' REMEMBERED:
When I spoke to Huw about this poem he told me, “Whilst Pam and I were down in Somerset recently we walked along an old abandoned railway line just outside Muchelney. It was a beautiful evening and the track ran through the fields alongside the River Parrett. It was such a lovely walk it stuck in my mind and so I wrote this poem about it. When researching the railway on the internet I found that this old line wasn't part of the 'Somerset and Dorset,' or 'Slow and Dirty' as my father called it, but a branch of the Great Western which ran from Langport to Yeovil. On the internet too I found three lovely old black and white films called 'Branch Lines' with Sir John Betjeman. These were made in the early 1960's and focused on the 'Somerset and Dorset' from Glastonbury to Burnham-on-Sea. All very nostalgic and exactly as I remember the Cambrian Line, which ran past my childhood home in Llyswen.”


SAME STARS:
Rob Lee came to Huw a while back with this lovely tune, which he believed had been gifted to him by his long-dead Jewish great-grandparents! By pure chance Huw found that a poem he'd just written could be made to fit the melody, so here he is singing it as a duet with lovely Laurie Pyle.


ON EGDON HEATH:
Huw wrote this poem after making a literary pilgrimage down to Lower Brockhampton in Dorset to visit the birthplace of Thomas Hardy. To his surprise he found that Egdon Heath, or at least a good part of it, was a short walk from the house. He thought that this place, with its chalky soil and scrubby heather, would be an ideal place for adders, so he wrote this poem, which is part fact and part fiction.


WHITE RABBITS and MY FAVOURITE THINGS:
Here's Huw performing two of his poems at a poetry event in Cork. Nice!


And finally – IF AT FIRST:
This is a song with a beautiful melody and stirring words that's seldom heard in Britain, but at one time, not too long ago, was taught to all Irish schoolchildren. If only it were such songs that were the sole legacy of the troubles in Ireland!

Rob Scott

Huw Parsons was born in 1954, grew up in Llyswen, near Hay on Wye, and educated at Brecon Boys’ Grammar School and Chelsea College of Art.

He feels neither wholly English nor particularly Welsh, with his life’s diversity a social impostor and a cultural chameleon.

His influences: the poems of John Betjeman & Phillip Larkin, the novels of Leslie Thomas, the song lyrics of Sting & Jake Thackray.

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