Bottle-Diddle-Lee-Do
This is a cute, genuine album from 1986, one that could have
been quite pretentious and/or disastrous, but Greg Brown places the poetry of
William Blake within simple, delicate folk melodies, or, as with The Echoing Green, jaunty blues which
really does add a sweet lightness – especially the harmonica, fiddle and bottle-diddle-lee-do [an approximate
translation] vocalisation.
The Tyger gets a
swamp-blues presentation, the harmonica and fiddle again dancing provocatively as
musical backdrop. It’s not so much threatening as - cool. The warm baritone [now
rather grizzled] of Brown’s singing adds warmth to Infant Sorrow; and Ah! Sun-Flower
makes an interesting comparison with the version by The Fugs: the latter played
to my class in secondary school by a dynamic supply teacher which ignited a
teenage interest in poetry, as well as that iconoclastic band/ensemble, and if I was still teaching today I’m sure I’d be
in a different classroom armed with both versions. The Little Vagabond has a pretty country folk melody with harmony
vocal and is another example of these Blake poems re-presented with Brown’s
careful creativity.
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