Last night, whilst planning for my holiday, I began thinking about having ‘my bags packed and ready to go’ and this triggered a series of memories which resulted in me excavating my John Denver CD from the bottom of the storage boxes in the living room. Having triumphantly retrieved it, and using the stool in the kitchen to reach the top of the dresser, I popped the CD into my ancient ‘ghetto blaster’. Soon I was singing along whilst doing the washing up, and smiling to myself remembering my ‘big John Denver phase’ of about 10 years ago – when I even thought about setting up a fan-website, which I would wittily call ‘Rocky Mountain high’ – until a quick search revealed that several others had beaten me to it! John Denver, it seemed, was a much bigger star than I had first thought – probably because his music is very much about country life in America, whereas here in the UK, especially in people my generation, his music is more of a specialist niche.
Cringing, I remembered the time when John (Hanlon) and I were giving an introductory talk to the new intake of international students – we were sabbatical officers in the students’ union at the time. Most of the students were from the 18 – 21 bracket, from Spain, Germany or Malaysia, and so the talk was mostly all about student life in Limestone City – the bars, student nights, coach trips etc. When we’d finished and most of the students were filing out of the large committee room, we got talking to a mature student from America. He said he was from West Virginia, so naturally I, quite excitedly, asked if he had heard of John Denver. John scoffed and the student laughed heartily, nodding. I instantly realised my faux pas and felt mightily embarrassed, and mumbled something about very much liking the song ‘Country roads’.
But it wasn’t all bad, because upon hearing this the student then got a misty look in his eyes and said that it brought back a memory from a few months before, when he and his friends were in a bar (back in West Virginia) and Country Roads had come on the juke box, and the whole bar had started singing along. This was a really nice shared moment and only a minimal-Miranda-moment on my part, of which I can now see the funny side and which all ended well, probably spreading some happiness in the process.
On a slightly more melancholy note, as the album played out, I was thinking about the part of The John Denver Story (bio-pic) when his wife is counselling a client, and they tell her how Poems, Prayers and Promises came on the radio, just as they were considering ending it all, and that it convinced them not to. Although it’s a gentle little song, the words are strangely apt for convincing someone that life is precious and that it ends too soon anyway – with added poignancy since John’s own story ended too soon, heddwch ei lwch.
It then occurred to me that this would be a nice song for my funeral…since it combines many of the elements that are important to me – poems and rural life generally; then I had to smile at myself as I started bringing in associated rural life details, including a patchwork quilt over my coffin, where some people would have a flag. Anyway, hopefully this will not be for a long time yet, at least so that there’s plenty of time for me to learn how to ‘quilt’ properly, and fashion something suitable…
Gadael sylw