Road Songs (Special Edition)

If roads were stick insects, I would not be a driver. Give me a fleshy, curvaceous motorway and I am a happy man, turn it into a size zero paved surface and I will be hanging my car keys forever and ever.

A bend doth a road make. The way this man-made, asphaltic curve winds and wraps itself around the landscape is the reason why I love being behind the wheel so much. It is also the reason why I derive a greater pleasure from driving around the British countryside than in urban London. The streets in my adopted city are too narrow and even broad avenues that arch left or rightwards lack the necessary angular space to enjoy the manouevring around a particular bend.

And the most important element of this peculiar and, possibly, whimsical fancy of mine is the synergy between braking, the bend as such and my hands holding the wheel. The first was analysed in detail here, the second one is the subject of this post tonight and the third one will be discussed in another column very soon.

When you find yourself behind the wheel, steering your car on a long, flat piece of tarmac, at some point your brain begins to beg for a change. That's where bends, chiefly conspicuous ones, come into play. Brake slowly, shift into a lower gear as you go around and let your hands slide on either side of the wheel. Bliss.

In music, too, I love this symbiosis between tempo, musicianship and creativity. And I will use the examples below to illustrate the relationship between road bends and musical ones.

My first clip is by Maestro Astor Piazzolla performing a song that is as rhythmically exquisite as it is curvaceously adorable. Here the bandoneon is the simile to that stretch of road that meanders and zigzags whilst the violin and piano represent the foot on the gas pedal. Touching.



The second clip is by The Beatles and it is also a timeless tune, 'A Day In the Life'. It, too, is my favourite song from their renowned "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album and no, this is not the official video. In fact there's a disclaimer on the author's profile on youtube that reads thus: 'Beatle clips I put together to "A Day in the Life". I made the picture at the end too. I've been noticing that some sites have been using my video and I would like to say that although I like the idea of my video being liked it is not the original.' And you could certainly believe that this clip was the work of John, Paul, George and Ringo, couldn't you? Such a good quality.

'A Day In the Life' is actually two songs in one. Apparently Lennon finished writing the first part and spoke to Paul about finding a filler for the second section. The latter had scribbled another melody and agreed to add it to John's bit. The result is the union of scattered pieces of news and domestic life. John's view can be interpreted as the sum of disparate world and regional events. Paul's is mundaness at its best. And you notice that at 2:17 (clip below) when McCartney's part kicks in. To me it is the equivalent of driving through the Dartford crossing en route to Kent. There's the bend curving seductively upwards and then downwards, the barrier that separates the metropolis from the countryside, order vs freedom. As an addendum, let me tell you that the Dartford crossing is not always that romantic. In fact, it is a nightmare most of the time, but last summer it provided me with one of those priceless moments when, queue-free, I cruised downhill with Nina Simone on the car stereo belting out 'I Put a Spell on You' and if there's a more magical and serendipitous moment, I'd be glad to hear about it. On a postcard, please. And handwritten, nobody writes cards by hand anymore.

But I digress. Sorry. 'A Day in the Life' is a monster of a road song that symbolises bends at their most beautiful and chaotic, like that middle section. Genius.



Last but not least an artist who has been featured four times on this blog in less than three months. Some people might be wondering whether I have suddenly become a Billy Joel freak or if I'm being paid by his record company to upload his music. No, it has all been very fortuitous. There was that link to his song 'The Stranger' because the post in which the track appeared was related to whistling, then there was his song 'Vienna' used as one of my Sunday clips. A couple of weeks ago I confessed to being bowled over by the lyrics of his timeless 'New York State of Mind' and I now I bring you 'Scenes from an Italian Restaurant'. All this has been rather accidental, not intentional. In the song below, the road bend is symbolised by the changes at 1:41 and at 2:44. The first one is a smooth shift from a higher gear to a lower one, as the car effortlessly moves uphill, zigzagging carefully, whereas the second one is akin to going down and around a pretty bend at full speed, window open, wind massaging your temples. And by the way she is having a ball, isn't she? And so is the saxophonist. What do you mean who is 'she'? She, at 2:42; 2:59; 3:57; 4:08 and 5:01. Have you been paying attention? Anyway, what I would like to know is, what were you doing in the summer of '75? Going steady like Brenda and Eddy or driving around and enjoying road bends? Thanks and enjoy.



Copyright 2010

Next Post: 'Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music' to be published on Sunday 17th January at 10am (GMT)

Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music

One of my favourite lines from a song ever comes towards the end of Billy Joel's 'New York State of Mind', the fourth track from his 1976 album 'Turnstiles'. It goes like this: "I'm just taking a Greyhound on the Hudson river line (piano-pounding, momentum building)/ 'cause I'm in (the piano pirouttes mischievously)/I'm in a New York (this is the moment when Richie Cannata's saxophone spirals up and down melodically) state of... (half a second silence) mind... (the whole band comes back for the finale)."

I have often wondered why I like this section of that song so much when I have never been to New York - though, I'd love to -, I have never got on a Greyhound bus and I don't even know what the Hudson river looks like (though I'm under the impression it's quite long and broad). Some of the theories I have come up with are: Billy's tribute to his hometown echoes my feelings for my beloved Havana, the Greyhound serves almost four thousand destinations in the US, thus, symbolising adventure and the open road for me; and the same goes for the Hudson river with its expansive mass of water.

But apparently there's more to my fondness for this song than I first realised. According to research conducted by the University of Edinburgh's Institute for Music in Human Development and London-based chamber group, the Nash Ensemble (The New Statesman, 31st August, 2009), we, human beings, seem to have a built-in sense of musical harmony that allows us to engage in producing and/or listening to music. And I can hear all of you singing like a one-voice choir: But we knew that/after all, music is a universal language. I'm afraid there wasn't any effort on my part to get those verses to rhyme. Apologies.

I agree with your above refrain, of course, but there was one element, amongst some others that Guy Dammann lists in his excellent article, that attracted my attention straight away. It was the fact that music affects the amygdala, the part of one's brain that is involved in emotions of fear and aggression. And although that might not explain, at first sight, my penchant for that particular line of 'New York State of Mind' (hostility=love?) it might clarify why my hearing Billy singing that verse brings such a raw response in me. In my case, as a person living abroad now, my tension and dissonance manifest themselves in occasional displays of melancholy and nostalgia (I call them my fado moods, after the Portuguese musical genre), which obviously trigger off the need to listen to a particular kind of music.

It was in this situation, also, that I found myself recently after visiting Pilgrim Soul, one of my favourite blogs. This space is the domain of the Puerto Rican-born, US writer Judith Mercado and on it she discusses issues such as: identity, literature and music. It was the latter on which one of her recent posts touched when she uploaded a clip of a famous Puerto Rican song, 'Lamento Boricano' accompanied by an exquisite write-up about the sources of inspiration for one of her novels and the reasons as to why this particular track had been chosen. What could have been a totally personal experience (hers) became a shared tear-jerking moment (for me). I last heard 'Lamento Boricano' when I still lived in Cuba and I cannot even remember by whom, however, that was beside the point when I watched the video. What happened after can only be illustrated through Guy Dammann's explanation in the aforementioned feature: 'the significance of musical sound derives from the representation of that most elusive of all structures: the human subject itself.'

To wit: Judith Mercado and I had just shared a subjective moment together, steeped in our common history. We both come from the same neck of the woods, Latin America, and 'Lamento Boricano' had helped bring that cultural experience closer.

Of course, it helped that the song de marras was sung in Spanish. What happens, though, when we are touched by a composition written and performed in a language we don't understand? Does it still move us? Again, I agree with Guy when he states that 'when we hear music, we hear that another sensitive being is present. The proof of this is, in the best tradition, strictly empirical: people have been discerning this in the music they love for centuries.'

Personally, what both research and essay showed me is that music truly is the universal language and Guy's essay confirms that suspicion. I have known people who don't like visual arts at all, or can't stand dance. I've met others for whom cinema is irrelevant, but I have never heard of someone who doesn't like music, and I mean, someone who doesn't like any musical style. The world of harmonies might be linked to the area in our brain that guarantees our survival, but we can certainly vouch for the safety and warmth we find in its bosom even if one has never taken a Greyhound on the Hudson river line.

And to prove or disprove Guy's theory about music being a universal language, my clip today is a classic from that revered Catalán singer, Joan Manuel Serrat. Whilst going through some of my previous posts recently - yes, I do that every now and then so as to avoid repetition - I was struck by my sheer hypocrisy. There I was, a few weeks ago, ranting and raving against the classics' dictator and his monoculture, and yet, I am also guilty of contributing to that phenomenon. Most of the clips I upload on this blog are in English. I know why, of course. My blog is in English, most of the readers are English-speakers (in fact, bar a couple of them now, most fellow Cubans have deserted me, [sobs]) and I live in an English-speaking country. But still, I think my little Iberoamerican corner should be promoted more. That's why, in order to redress this imbalance and after seriously berating myself, I will be posting music in Spanish and Portuguese more often. I hope you will still enjoy it and more importantly, understand it. Although, taking into account the song below, that will sometimes be a hard task even for Spanish speakers.

'El Romance de Curro "El Palmo"' deals with the eternal topic of unrequited love but in this case the ending is quite sad and tragic. Curro, a fake Gypsy, loves Merceditas, who works as a cloakroom assistant. The latter elopes with a doctor and Curro dies of love. Quite simple, really. But if there's an aspect of Serrat's songbook and poetry on which we, fans, can always count is the lack of simplicity in his melodies. His songs are powerful vehicles that travel the whole gamut of human experience, from sheer regional patriotism (cor, the guy was born in Barcelona, you don't get any more patriotic than that, all right, then, since you insist, Basques, too, have that local pride embedded in their DNA) to sublime romanticism ('Penélope' and 'Lucía' come to mind). So, 'Romance...' goes beyond the traditional tale of unreturned passion and delivers an emotional, poetic narrative, teeming with themes such as: class, deceit, manhood ('Y Curro se muerde/los labios y calla/pues no hizo la mili/por no dar la talla') and the afterlife. For Spanish speakers, who, as I was, are at a loss over some of the terms Serrat uses in the song, find below a little glossary for you. And I hope you enjoy the clip. Many thanks.

Pegarse el piro: To leave, to escape.
Marcial Lafuente Estefanía: Prolific writer of cheap western novels.
Cura- pupas: Doctor.
Palmar o palmarla: To die, in this case 'Curro fue palmando', Curro was dying.



Copyright 2009

Next Post: 'El Último Trago'(Review), to be published on Wednesday 23rd December at 11:59pm (GMT)

Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music

Recently there has been a spate of articles in the UK on motherhood, fatherhood, working hours and the balance between professional and domestic life. You can arrange those words in any order you wish, especially if you want to highlight priorities and hierarchy, but the outcome will convey the same message: parenting has just got harder.

Harder not because we're still enamoured of the idea of the traditional nuclear family with dad going to work and mum staying home to look after little John and Jane, but because of the many options open to parents in western societies at the end of this century's first decade. The vast goulash of family settings nowadays encompasses everything from single parenthood to gay couples adopting and raising children. And sometimes multiple choices pose difficult quandaries.

However, this should not be interpreted as a call to arms to return to the dark ages when men were the main breadwinners and women the crumbs-gatherers, but rather as a pragmatic analysis of what means to be a parent today in the West. And it goes without saying that my point of view is mainly based on my experience as a father.

The fact that the kernel of many of the aforementioned features and articles points at growing concerns about work-balance amongst women should not be underestimated. One of the milestones of the feminist wave of the 60s and 70s was equal opportunities at work. The fact that as of 30th October women in the UK have been working for free should not go amiss either, but on the whole there are far more opportunities at both junior and senior levels for women to succeed than twenty or thirty years ago. This development in career choice has brought with it positive economic, social, political and psychological changes.

But one of the unintended transformations, or at least one not planned in the long term, in my opinion, was the role of fathers or male carers in child-rearing.

For many years fathers impersonated a character that was a cross between a villain and a buffoon. Smoking and pacing endlessly outside labour wards whilst their partners inside were doing all the hard work, driving the family car on a Sunday afternoon after a long week of getting home late way past little John and Jane's bedtime or waving goodbye to the whole family at the airport as he went on yet another business trip; this was the typical caricature we came to expect of the paterfamilias. And if truth be told, many men enjoyed the ride. What is less known is that in today's topsy-turvy world, men do want more flexibility to be with their children. And unsurprisingly we come across many hurdles.

The first obstacle is fathers from the previous generation or the one before. These dinosaurs succeeded most of the time through sheer hard work and if a balanced domestic life was to be sacrificed, then so be it. And this mindset cut across classes, whether dad was a blue-collar or a white-collar worker the message was the same: bring home the bacon. It should then be expected that they demand the same of their employees.

The second impediment comes from women, paradoxically. And the crux here is generational, too. Like those antiquarian male bosses who are slowly waking up to the fact that female employees can and do become mothers, women from previous generations are gradually realising that for some men a career path can be to become a househusband and looking after his and his partner's children. Yet there's still reluctance in mothers and grandmothers to accept this transformation.

The third challenge we encounter as fathers arrives courtesy of the state. The current paternity leave is still a work in progress, although it has come a long way from when my daughter was born. Nevertheless it still places the emphasis of child-rearing on the mother whilst dad gets a minimum of two weeks off work with payment of just over £120 per week. One of the schemes going through parliament at the moment is how to extend fathers' leave to six months so that both mum and dad (or mum and mum and dad and dad) can take that half year together during their baby's first year.

There are other barriers which I won't mention now because this post would become tedious and repetitive. The message is clear, though: there's a discussion going on in the UK about parenting, and this debate has both positive and negative sides. In my case it has touched me at a personal level.

Recently my wife landed a job as a Special Education Needs Assistant Teacher at our daughter's primary school. Her role is to support a child who suffers from autism. Whereas before she would be the one usually staying at home to look after our children if they got ill, now the situation has changed and I am the one required to step in if one of our little ones is unwell. I am, however, in a lucky position, in that I have a boss, the school's headteacher, who is very open-minded and supportive but when I worked in retail the atmosphere was anything but. And that was one of the reasons why I left the travel industry. Because it was not a child-friendly environment. However, even with that support from my current boss, I still feel guilty when I miss a day at work and have to carry out my duties and responsibilities from home. Why is that? Surely my family should come first. My only explanation is that as a man, I have an in-built device that goes off the minute I have to swap 'real work' for childcare. The former is seen as more relevant and important than the latter. And that, to me, is the issue at the centre of this debate of fathers and male carers adopting a more hands-on approach in child-rearing.

And if anyone thinks that my experience of sharing childcare with my wife is a one-off, he/she will be mistaken. It is a similar situation across the UK but where class and families' purchasing power make a big difference. Men who want to be involved in their children's lives and decide to stay at home to look after them, or to work from home, are usually well-off to begin with. The majority also belong to the so-called chattering classes. There's also a divide across the professional field with more stay-at-home fathers being part of the creative and cultural industries (CCIs) and self-employed sector (and no, I have not got figures to back this claim up, it is chiefly based on observation and my professional experience). Their partners are on an equal footing financially and that goes some way towards addressing the income vs annual inflation conundrum.

But what cannot be denied and I hope my previous paragraph did not put any future dads off, is that fathers do fulfill an important role in a child's life. I was given a book by my wife before our son was born. It was called 'Fatherhood Reclaimed'. On the evidence I've seen in twelve years living in the UK I would say proudly that the outcome of this enhancement of paternal responsibility will be 'Fatherhood Re-Imagined'.

I wonder if David Milliband will be wearing a blue suit next time he meets Hillary Clinton. Alternatively he could do with a blue dress, if he is feeling kinky. Will Vogue be running next a story along the lines of 'Clinton: I did not have sex with David'? Oh, the shame and decadence of it. Have a nice Sunday.



Copyright 2009

Next Post: 'What Makes a Good Writer?', to be published on Tuesday 1st December at 11:59pm (GMT)

Autumn Songs (Adagio)

The car window is rolled down a little bit allowing some fresh air to caress my face. In the back my two children are reading, whilst my wife is sprawled on the front seat with her shoes off after teaching an exhausting soul-jazz class. Outside, the landscape is a combination of shades that remind me of ripe lemons, golden syrup, melting butter and thick honey. Leaves have not started to fall off trees yet, not at least in this part of London, but it can't be too long before we are assailed with a flood of the crunchy, dry and rhomboid-shaped foliage.


I like autumn. I like the smell of it. It has this particular scent of chilly mornings (chilly, not cold), pure air that fills up your nostrils and slows down your step. It's a season of colour. Yellow-tinted. Unlike spring, my other favourite season, the hues are not strident, but calmer, they don't stare at you, but doggedly let you soak them up. It's a transition period, it's preparation for a harsher stage. It's watered-down amber. And it's, above all, music.


I'm an autumn sign and my favourite music has that autumn touch to it. Starting today I will post what I consider to be essential listening during autumn season, or when feeling in an autumn mood (similar, but very different). I would like to know your opinion on it. Unlike most media lists in the UK of the 'The 100 Best...' or 'The 50 Most...' variety, this one will have not language barriers, and will cross over into many different cultures, including the Anglo-Saxon one. When possible, a link will be provided, usually to youtube, but occasionally to Amazon, myspace or any other website where I believe you can enhance your knowledge.


I'll kick off with an all-time favourite. Sinéad O' Connor's 'Thank You'.This track appears on her album Universal Mother and closes what, to me, is a paean to the human condition of being Irish and female. The record is as intense as it can be, probably as a consequence of Sinéad's decision of tearing up a photo of the Pope on US television two years before. Ever the confrontational performer, O' Connor opens with an excerpt of a speech by feminist writer Germaine Greer, followed by a feral and passionate musical onslaught called 'Fire on Babylon'. The anger and ire do not abate, but change and become more nuanced. The perfect coda is 'Thank You', with its haunting strings and strong bassline, this track is a flawless exultation to the power of love. And for that I thank you, too, Sinéad.


My second track today concerns my city, but it's not about my city. Long before Gerardo Alfonso came up with 'Sábanas Blancas', Havana's unofficial anthem, many songs had been written about the Cuban capital. Yet, to me it was the beautiful voice of Barbra Streisand, first, and Billy Joel, afterwards, singing to New York that gave me that sense of pride that comes from being born in such a marvellous place as my Scorpionic city.


The first time I heard 'New York State of Mind', it caught me off-guard. I had just turned 15 or 16 and I was at my friend's when he played the Barbra Streisand's cover version. Having being acquainted with her oeuvre before, I knew what to expect, but the sheer emotion coming out of the opening lines left me speechless. It also helped that I was able to understand the words, Barbra's voice being so crystal clear, though slightly nasal. A few years later, and already in Uni, I got the chance to listen to the original by Billy Joel, included in his album 'Turnstiles' and I realised that he man who gave us 'Piano Man' and 'It's Still Rock and Roll to Me' had just written a song to my city, Havana. Yes, because, 'New York State of Mind' goes beyond its borders. It's not just about the Hudson, but about the Almendares, filth and all, it's not just about the Greyhound leaving the city, but about route 67 in 80s Havana, going to Saúl Delgado college and me hanging from outside the door. 'New York State of Mind' is for the person who loves the city they've been born in, warts and all.


The third track to close this first round of autumn songs was one which I e-mailed out a few months ago and provoked an overwhelming positive response to the point where a student approached me at the London School of Dance when I did Jackie's workshop in the summer to tell me how much she had enjoyed that clip. And I can understand why. It's got everything in it, or as we say in good Cuban Spanish 'todo como en botica'. It's Chucho Valdéz with his father, the great Bebo Valdéz, reunited after many years in the US and improvising on a Cuban classic, 'La Comparsa'. There is a reason why to me this is a typical autumn song. It's got that reddish-hue, nostalgia-tinted mood (at least, to me, I grew up listening to my Dad playing Lecuona and Chopin first thing in the morning), in this clip it's about two generations coming together, one passing the baton to another, just like leaves fall off trees, so that new ones can be born on their branches. And lastly, this track envelops you like the scarf that you, yes, you, my dear reader, have just brought down from the attic and dusted off and wrapped around your neck to keep you warm.


And I must dash off now, since it's not only autumn that makes precipitation increase, my keyboard is starting to get drenched now.


More to follow.


Copyright 2007