Welcome to Letters from Quotidia, 2024 Episode 9, the August edition. Quotidia, no matter the season, no matter the hemisphere, is that space, that place, where ordinary people lead ordinary lives. But where, from time to time, they encounter the extraordinary.

For my first song, it doesn’t matter much the season or the hemisphere because it’s indoors at a nightclub where a bossa band is playing for a clientele who prefer to shun the outdoors and healthful activities for a gloomy interior redolent of strangely smelling smoke as bar staff pour drinks from unlabelled bottles taken from under the counter. Ah well, to each their own!

Several months ago, in Episode 3, I referred to the poem Sport by Langston Hughes. Here it is again to set the stage, Life/For him/Must be/The shivering of/A great drum/Beaten with swift sticks/Then at the closing hour/The lights go out/And there is no music at all/ And death becomes/An empty cabaret/And eternity an unblown saxophone/And yesterday a glass of gin/Drunk long/Ago. Something in the poem piqued my interest- did I identify with the ageing Sport of the poem? Perhaps.

The worldwide 1965 hit The Girl from Ipanema introduced the cool, sophistication of Bossa Nova to a wide audience. Inspired by a 17-year-old girl, Heloisa Pinheiro, who walked past a particular bar every day on her way to the beach. The writer of the original, Portuguese lyrics, Vinicius de Moraes, who was seated in that bar with his friend, the musician Antonio Carlos Jobim wrote later, she was “the paradigm of the young Carioca- a golden teenage girl, a mixture of flower and mermaid, full of light and grace, the sight of whom is also sad, in that she carries with her, on her route to the sea, the feeling of youth that fades, of the beauty that is not ours alone—it is a gift of life in its beautiful and melancholic constant ebb and flow.” What a lovely recollection!

Something about Langston Hughes’ Sport made me think of an old guy, an habitué of the club, dancing with a pretend partner as the last number of the night is played by the band and the bouncers move in to move him along. Here now, is Just Call Me Sport, my Bossa tribute to the Langston Hughes poem, [insert song]

The next song is, arguably, the most overplayed, over sung, over loved and over hated of any Irish ballad. Its antecedents are not entirely Irish- I have even read somewhere that it has Korean origins- but let’s not go down that particular rabbit hole.  I speak, of course, of Danny Boy and I’m sure a lot of you knew that before I named the culprit!

Jane Ross, a member of the Anglo-Irish ascendency, born in Limavady, County Derry in 1810, was a music collector and in 1853 she sent, among other songs, The Londonderry Air to George Petrie of Dublin, a bit of a polymath, who published it with other songs in 1855 as Ancient music of Ireland. From that time its popularity as a piece of music has been undimmed: the subject of many arrangements in many places.

But it wasn’t until 1913 that it reached its apotheosis when English barrister, Frederic Edward Weatherly, KC wrote the words that are still sung today. And it wasn’t a one-off- it is estimated that he wrote the lyrics to some 3,000 songs, including that World War I favourite, Roses of Picardy. This song, with music composed by Haydn Wood, became so popular in Britain and with soldiers on the Western Front that the sheet music earned Wood today’s equivalent of more than a million dollars!

That Danny Boy has been co-opted by Irish nationalists as a rebel song is an historical irony worthy of note! And as to the melody’s originator? Well, we just don’t know who that is or what thoughts may have underpinned its composition. We just know that Jane Ross heard an itinerant fiddler playing outside her house in Limavady and asked if she might notate the tune.

The rest is history. The song is popular at funerals and memorial services. Although, not at Catholic requiem Masses where it is banned as secular and sacrilegious- another irony, perhaps? Opera star Renee Fleming sang it at Washington National Cathedral in 2018 during the memorial for US Senator and war hero John McCain. It was at his request- in acknowledgement of his Irish ancestry.

So, under such a weight of contested history, opprobrium, and adulation, why would I choose to cover it? Because- in spite of all the reasons I should avoid it, not least being my questionable vocal adequacy for the task, the song has power. There is a magic that happens when the right words meet the right melody, as was the case with Danny Boy.

Every listener has the right to read into the song what he or she wishes and for me the themes of longing, love and land resonate strongly within the song. I use an arrangement for my version which I found on the site Ultimate Guitar, and I thank the anonymous contributor from the Netherlands for the wonderful chord sequence that I have used for this great song. [insert song]

In September there will be no blue moon, instead (poor substitute though it may be) there will be two podcasts separated by four weeks within that month! So, until then, may I leave you with the well-worn quotation from the King James’ Version of John chapter 15 verse 13- Greater love hath no man that this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Volumes have been written about these words, but I believe it can stretch to encompass acts as non-life-threatening as being kind, taking time to say hello or sharing a smile to brighten another’s day.

Just Call Me Sport (words and music Quentin Bega)

O baby baby just call me Sport

Listen to that bossa band playing for us both

Before we dance let’s share a glass or two

Then spin around the floor just like lovers do

And if they say what fools we be

Don’t get flustered just follow my lead

Take my hand and sway and softly sing

We’re just having fun we’re just doin’ our thing

 And if anyone happens to object

Just shine them on- they won’t have any effect

And so it goes but as I know

This is just a dream I’m having as I’m sent

Away Sport time you’re on your way

We’ll see you again tomorrow the doormen say

So take my hand and sway and softly sing

We’re just having fun we’re just doin’ our thing

 And if anyone happens to object

Just shine them on- they won’t have any effect

And so it goes but as I know

This is just a dream I’m having as I’m sent

Away Sport time you’re on your way

We’ll see you again tomorrow-maybe- the doormen say

Danny Boy (lyrics Fredrick Weatherly, music trad Irish)

         C Cmaj7     C7                   F        Fm

Oh Danny boy,    the pipes, the pipes are calling

             C         Am               D7   G

From glen to glen and down the mountain side

             C Cmaj7  C7            F     Fm

The summer’s gone and all the roses falling

               C   Am      Dm     G      C

‘Tis you, ’tis you    must go and I must bide

G   Am   G/B  C         F               C

But come ye   back when summer’s in the meadow

G  Am   G/B  Am      F          C          D7   G

Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow

            C C/E   F        D/F#   C  Em/B Am Am7/G Fm

And I’ll be here in sunshine or in sha-     dow

         C       Am    Dm    G        C      G7/B

Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy I love you so

          C Cmaj7  C7            F     Fm

But if he come and all the roses dying

         C G/B    Am     Am/G     D/F#    G

And I am dead, as dead I well may be

                C Cmaj7  C7               F     Fm

You’ll come and find the place where I am lying

              C  Am    F   G         C

And kneel and say   an Ave there for me

G  Am G/B   C            F               C

And I shall feel, though soft you tread above me

G   Am   G/B Am Am/G   F       C/E       D/F#   G

And then my grave will richer, sweeter be

G   Am7 G/B  C    C/E F       D/F#     C   Em/B  Am  Am7/G  Ab7

For you will bend and tell me that you lo- ve    me

            C       Am      Dm      G       C   G7

And I shall rest in peace until you come to me

            C       Am7     Dm7     G11     C/G

And I shall rest in peace until you come to me

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.