Category Archives: Music
When solidarity matters
The story of the International Brigades, the foreign volunteers who fought against the forces of fascism in the Spanish Civil War , is one of the more noble, if tragic chapters of that terrible conflict. The majority of these volunteers , from a variety of national backgrounds including the UK,were motivated by a simple spirit of solidarity, and the belief that Franco’s military uprising against the democratically-elected Spanish Popular Front government, backed as it was by Mussolini and Hitler, represented a defining ideological battleground that would define the future of …
Thanks, Bob Dylan
As I read my newspaper over the breakfast table this morning, one news item more than any other today brought instant stirrings of nostalgia, faith , and mortality: Bob Dylan is 70. Thanks to Bob, I invested in my first guitar, wrote my first poem, busked as a student, turned socialist in my Christianity, romanced my first girl-friend and now wife, and kept believing in the benevolent artistic creativity of mankind, under God. His music drew from primitive roots, his words from the dramatic landscape of history and its mystical …
An evening with ‘Rocky’
As one gets older, I find some school memories sweeter than others and worth cherishing as part of that enduring, if precious, collection of good times. Let me share this one about my old school mate ‘Rocky’, and his revival. I remember Francis Rockliff- or ‘Rocky’ – as one of the more colourful seniors, two year older, born with radical instincts and music in his head. He was destined to walk on the wild side and thus never became a prefect but instead ended being beaten by one. My early …
