Welcome to Letters from Quotidia 2024, Episode 14. Quotidia, is that space, that place, where ordinary people lead ordinary lives. But where, from time to time, they encounter the extraordinary. I love poetry for the exotic imagery only verse can supply. Romeo Oriogun, who works at the University of Iowa, provides a snapshot of a scene from a roadside bar in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso where he talks to an old man…

I didn’t know this man,/this bard from an old and distant city,/whose forehead was wrinkled like a couple/ of rolled up maps. Outside the open windows,/ women kept walking back and forth./ Pimps stood in dark corners, lighted by streetlamps./ A man in a dark coat jumped across a puddle of water,/ and on the other side, the black earth moved/ into the newness of things as a jazz band/ pierced the air, mimicking through music/ the movement of God, the elegy we all belong to…

Isn’t that a wonderful evocation. The often-fatuous travel shows which populate various media can’t offer anything close, IMHO! As the Letters from Quotidia near their end, I feel the weariness that November frequently laid on me when I lived in the dark and drizzle of that penultimate month in Northern Ireland.

As a teenager, I concentrated on the Irish folk tradition using the Clancy Brothers Songbook as my excavating tool, but I also had affection for the English folk scene burgeoning across the Irish Sea. Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and Pentangle were making a name for themselves and, in particular, I was captivated by the singing of Sandy Denny, Maddy Prior with Fairport Convention and Jacqui McShee with Pentangle.

So, when I was looking for a November song, who should I come across but Sandy Denny on the piano singing Late November– a tour-de-force that I will not attempt to emulate here but merely pay homage with the folk-rock arrangement that follows. The imagery of Late November brings back the dark romanticism of the 70s that I drew upon to write several of my  own lyrics at the time. Her tragic death in 1978 at age 31, following on from a fall down a staircase, robbed the world of a fabulous singer. Would she were still singing, as is the case with Jacqui McShee and Maddy Prior. Late November: [insert song ]

Hamlet examines what it is that we deserve. In Act 2 scene 2, Prince Hamlet feigns madness as a protective measure. His uncle Claudius, who has usurped the throne by murdering Hamlet’s father to marry his mother, has sent for a couple of Hamlet’s friends to spy on him. Hamlet, sensing treachery everywhere among the courtiers, escapes into flights of exquisite poetry such as the world has rarely seen before and rarely since, if you were inclined to ask my opinion.

 I could be bounded in a nutshell and/count myself a king of infinite space, /were it Not that-I -have-bad dreams./Earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most/ excellent canopy, the air,  look-you,-this-brave-o’erhanging/ firmament,   this majestical roof, fretted/with golden fire why,-it-appeareth-nothing-to-me/-but-a-foul-and-pestilent-congregation-of-vapours./What-a-piece-of-work-is-a-man,-how-noble-in/reason,-how-infinite-in-faculties,-in-form-and-moving/how-express-and-admirable;-in-action-how-like/an-angel,-in-apprehension-how-like-a-god:-the/beauty-of-the-world,-the-paragon-of-animals-and/yet,-to-me,-what-is-this-quintessence-of-dust?// 

A group of travelling actors visit the castle and Polonius, the chief counsellor for Claudius, is rather dismissive of their theatrical chops but Hamlet, speaking Shakespeare’s thoughts too, tells him: …will you see the players well disposed? Do you hear? Let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.

The supercilious Polonius replies: My Lord, I will use them according to their desert. Hamlet’s response is scathing, God’s body, man! Much better. Use every man after his desert and who shall ‘scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

It is a gracious and generous thought that finds echoes in scripture: In James, chapter 2 verse 13 we read, For judgement will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy, mercy triumphs over judgement. The book of Micah, from the Old Testament which was composed about eight centuries before James states in chapter 6 verse 8, He has told you, O man, what is good: and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.

So, what do we deserve? And will we find our judge to be someone like Polonius or someone like Hamlet? Such thoughts only task believers, for atheists believe that there is no postmortem blowback. So, I admire them for, by and large, leading exemplary lives regardless! I explore such thoughts in my song, All That I Deserve [insert song]

Next month, when the raven comes a-knocking, will you, like Edgar Allan Poe, say: Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor? Or has The Simpsons’ gloriously humorous interpretation of his famous poem rendered its eeriness moot? So much so that Dr Seuss seems profound in comparison: How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the year has flewn. How did it get so late so soon? How indeed.

Late November (words and music by Sandy Denny)

The wine it was drunk, the ship it was sunk,
The shot it was dead, all the sorrows were drowned.
The birds they were clouds, the brides and the shrouds
And as we drew south the mist it came down.

The wooded ravine to the wandering stream,
The serpent he moved, but no-one would say.
The depths of the waters, the bridge which distraught us
And brought to me thoughts of the ill-fated day.

The temples were filled with the strangest of creatures
One played it by ear on the banks of the sea.
That one was found but the others they went under.
Oh the tears which are shed, they won’t come from me.

The methods of madness, the pathos and the sadness,
God help you all, the insane and wise.
The black and the white, the darkness of the night,
I see only smoke from the chimneys arise.

The pilot he flew all across the sky and woke me.
He flew solo on the mercury sea.

The dream it came back, all about the tall brown people,
The sacred young herd on the phosphorus sand.

All That I Deserve (words and music by Quentin Bega)

Today as I am walking towards that blazing setting sun

I ask myself the question: Oh Lord, what do I deserve?

Is it condemnation or is there a pardon on the cards?

Will I sink in the lake of fire or find a hand stretched from above

That which I have often done and more often failed to do

Hurtful words I have spoken better words withheld from fear

Silence is not golden but makes those bullets fly

And it’s true that conscience doth make cowards of us all

Oh I have sought redemption in my woman’s loving arms

And if this isn’t heaven I don’t know where it may be found

Now touching the horizon and still the light flares out

Incarnadining the ocean track as we await the dark

Not much left that needs to be expressed this eventide

As the darkness falls around us like an inky cloak

We are dreamers made of dust enlivened by a spark

We are creatures made of clay who wonder at the sky

We fell out of Eden though yearning to get back

Searching for a paradise that might be out of reach

Oh I have sought redemption in my woman’s loving arms

And if this isn’t heaven I don’t know where it may be found

Credits: All written text, song lyrics and music (including background music) written and composed by Quentin Bega unless otherwise specified in the credits section after individual posts. Illustrative excerpts from other texts identified clearly within each podcast. I donate to and use Wikipedia frequently as one of the saner sources of information on the web.

Technical Stuff: Microphone-songs Shure SM58; (for the podcast spoken content) Audio Technica AT 2020 front-facing with pop filter); Apogee 76K also used for songs and spoken text. For recording and mixing down: 64-bit N-Track Studio 10 Extended used; Rubix 22 also used for mixing of microphone(s) and instruments. I use the Band in a Box/RealBand 2023 combo for music composition.