Friday, December 09, 2005

If Life Was Real


If your life was on celluloid
What film would you be in?
If your life was a song
How would your chorus begin?
If your life was laid out on a plate
In the best restaurant in town
What first course would you choose?
And if you woke alone
In the empty hours
And couldn’t sleep
Would you turn on the TV
Or listen to jazz on the radio
Or pick up your guitar
And quietly sing the blues?


Please also leave comments for the Tony Meehan poem here.

19 comments:

Roger Stevens said...

It's been a sad time for icons. Yesterday was the anniversary of Lennon's death - my all time hero. And amidst all the fuss for George Best I learnt that Tony Meehan died in a domestic accident. Those of you who are not from the UK may not have heard of him. But he was in a band called The Shadows in the 1960s. They had a profound effect on the the Nation's youth - everyone wanted to buy a guitar and play like their leader Hank Marvin. The Shadows were also Cliff Richards backing group.

So - if you were in a film...???

Wastedpapiers said...

I'd be in "Amelie" for sure. What a great film and one I never get tired of watching. Audrey Tautou is quite stunning too.
I was a Shadows fan too though didnt go and get a guitar - I got their first LP for Xmas once though. They are all on the front on very loud hairy jumpers. I wanted a very loud hairy jumper and got one with metallic bits woven into the thread to go with my winkle -pickers!
I taped most of 6 musics Lennon day and going through it picking out the relevant bits to put on a CD-R for my Beatle mad chum Pamela in Scotland.

Russell CJ Duffy said...

i'd be in kill bill 1&2 and yes i would and do sing the blues but never quietly.
tony meehan was a drummer. i mean a REAL drummer and yeah, i bet he could play paradiddles. i tried in my group and sounded like a spastic one legged dog with palsy. great band. great musicians but somehow never rock 'n roll.
hank and the shadows were a big influence on neil young. one of the few serious modern stars who actually said he liked them.

don't you hate 'cool'?

as for lennon, what can i say that you haven't said (see my october music blog on his birthday). i wish that the lenner rolling stone interview hadn't been aired though. made lennon seem neither cool nor even arrogant but rather stupid and bitter and stupid was the one thing he wasn't.

two fine poems that wouldn't make good songs!

Anonymous said...

What a lovely poem for Tony Meehan. Thanks for sharing that with us. I was very sad to hear about his passing - somebody dropped the news on me at work. I think everyone should have a little bit of The Shadows in their collection.

Anonymous said...

...Oh, and I meant to say, I remembered Lennon yesterday by sitting at my keyboard and singing Jealous Guy and Isolation, my two favourites.

John Lennon inspires me in all sorts of ways. I think my life would have been a lot different, and achingly empty, without his mark upon it.

...as for the film, I'd be Buster Keaton in 'Sherlock Jnr.'

Roger Stevens said...

ML -The Shads first album has one of my favourite Shadows' tracks - Nivram. A fabulous bass solo with superb guitar. The young Marvin could show today's guitarists a thing or two.

JC - Tony was a superb drummer. Almost too good for the band he was in. In Kill Bill? Are you crazy? You might start out in KB1 and never get to reach KB2. Maybe you fancy being Ulma...

LW - Isolation - one of my favourite Lennon tracks - and a lesser known one. A gorgeous chord sequence.

Sue hardy-Dawson said...

My Nan was keen on the Shadows, Cliff and the Beatles and as my middle name's Michele (yes the Vicar spelt it wrong not me this time) she used to put on Michelle Ma Belle over and over just for me. All on one of those fantastic old record players that greatly resembled a side-board. So when I hear them I'm there in the lounge with her and my grand dad, he used to mend whatches stood by the windowsill with a minny telescope thingy squeezed into his eye. I know I'm waffeling but those icons were the grown ups then (more mysterious somehow than todays celebraties), and now I've grown up a lot of the famouse people I grew up looking up to are dead it's a wiered feeling.

As for a film perhaps 'Anne of a Thousand days', I've always fancied wearing a breath restricting dress and seeing if I could charm one of the most despoticaly ruthless and childish, yet still some how fasinating rulers in british history (here there is competition) but best of all I'd get to look like Jayne Seymore (the actress not Henry's 3rd wife.) I might beam up to the late night jazz just before the beheading though.

longblackveil said...

Kill Bill for me as well. I think roaring rampage is just about what the doctor ordered.

But lovely poem again. I love it when I hit your blog once in a while. Yay.

Pincushion said...

Ahhh I wish I could say something profound musicians you've mentioned..but all I can say is that I can't imagine living without music...

As for a movie(or a book maybe?)I would be Anna Karenina :))

P.S: A request to you, I would love your opinion on my poem 'The lover'..its a ballad(i think..lol..my first attempt at that kind! Thanks!

Jonathan said...

Hell, I think that I AM in the movie "The Horses Mouth"... "Be anything, but don't be an artist".
Gulley Jimson is my hero...

amiethinggoes said...

i don't know Tony Meehan but i like some of the songs of John Lennon. As for the movie...can't think of one...but maybe in HP. simply because i'd like to ride a broom. lol

Shubhodeep said...

very touching and moving poems. you know what, you are perhaps one of my greatest inspirations. keep on writing!

Argentyne said...

beautiful :)

Anonymous Poet said...

If my life was on celluloid, I would be in a "Damn Right I Got the Blues" video!

Roger Stevens said...

Hi y'all

Sorry I've not been around again - so busy with festive whatnots. Thanks for all the kind comments.

Hey - I'd like to be in the Damn Right video too.

sylviasometimes said...

Ah, Roger...would probably pick one of the old movies..."Out of Africa"...just for the landscape,human drama...and Oh to look out at those skies with an old turntable playing Vivaldi. But then I have my Pulp Fiction days too lol. BTY, have been listening to some collaborations between Keith Bates and yourself...wow!
And if I don't catch you later, Merry Crimps to you and yours.

Nan said...

Today I would want to be in Holiday Inn with Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, dancing and singing in the beautiful snow scenes and enjoying a Vermont Christmas.

Merry Christmas to you and yours, Roger.

Nan said...

Oops, that's Danny Kaye, not Fred Astaire.

Chamki said...

i liked this a lot.
searching for blue sea glass?
i've actually
looked for pieces of broken
wine bottles that
come to shore so
your blog sure caught my eye!
I'll like to be in many films but i often feel like i am in one right now...
im going to get up from the seat one day and see the credits role..
but for now i look at the veins of my hand and think that trick myself to believe i am living.