Tommy this, an' Tommy that

As mass-man and in a “ Complex society” we are attacked by ‘distance’ . A statement of the bleedin` obvious maybe but it is amenable to subtle application.
It has recently been discovered that less and less children are learning to play a musical instrument “ So what ?” Some would say , and you will guess I am not one of them The “So what “, is not ,as you might think to do with virtuosity and this gives me a chance to move seamlessly onto my favourite subject musically speaking ....DO RAY ME ME ME ME...and so on, which used to be called the singer’s scale.
I went through the trials and tribulations of Piano lessons not to say Cello lessons at which I had even less aptitude . Without ever having any exceptional ability I have got a lot of fun out of it over the years and our move to Lewes has allowed me to unpack the kit I once spent fortunes on in the so called “ Music Room”. I have a set of Keyboards mounted one above the other and various sound producing devices notable a superb Piano and some nice retro Organ tones .
Last night I watched “ Little Orphan Annie “and found it rather endearing . Certainly it has a couple of great shows songs , and I am also a bit of an amateur song writers as it happens . I immediately rushed of to the Piano to work out
how to play“Tomorrow “.It could equally have been any number of far groovier examples, I hasten to add , but I was struck by the architecture of the song . Its simple bodness you might say. Should anyone be interested in the key of C , from which I could easily transpose now , it goes like this as far as I can tell ( Oh I put the note in the bass in brackets )

The Sun`ll come out tomorrow bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow , there`ll be sun
C F maj A min D min7 Emin7 A min
F (G) G
Repeat with D ins bass at end
Chorus
Tomorrow Tomorrow I love ya’ tomorrow your only a day away
C Cmaj7 C7 F( A) C ( G) F(G) G C
Then there’s a minor middle eight with a modulated key which is satisfyingly traditional
C min Cmin7 A flat maj 7 B flat E flat E flat ( G) F (G) G..
And back into the chorus

Good bit of work that . Now the point is not my mercurial talent ( ho ho ) the point is that having grappled with song writing the rules , the difficulties the techniques I am able to appreciate those who are accomplished to a far greater degree . Remove the participation and you have a diminished experience. That part which goes though the process of creation and appreciates the achievement will die .
People, as Brecht observed, watch football in this understanding way , which is healthy but tend to watch drama in a docile empathetic way whereby you experience the emotion of the characters only . Our drama is therby coarsened. Most of our lives are similarly coarsened by having things served to us in handy sachet’s, in gloopy baby friendly easily digestible form. We cannot criticise because we do not develop the critical faculty crucially associated with real experience

In many other ways ,we are becoming Ipod listeners not players ., a cast of mind that will watch a film of a bonfire but not experience one as they did in Cornwall last year.

One of the ways we are detached is from the efforts of the fighting men and women who bankroll our safety. The recent ambush of Gordon Brown whose Government have treated the forces shamefully was widely reported but there is a scarcely the outrage that is due . This fighting is , after all ,a long way away and no-one has to look. We imagine that this land of peace and plenty is guaranteed by the Eurovision song contest. It is inconceivable we feel that you could have a war “Here” with such things to occupy us .


That’s why in its way I found the story of the wounded men at the Defence Services Medical Rehabilitation Centre at Hedley court as shocking a marker of our slither into infanthood as any. Two women complained about their presence at a local pool onthe basis that these men with mangled and missing limbs had not paid ..HAD NOT PAID !!!!! I think they have paid plenty. The depressed Servicemen say its difficult to fit in when everyone is talking about X factor and no-one cares what they have done .Perrhaps this will always be the way it certainly was in Rudyard Kipling’s day

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's ``Thank you, Mister Atkins,'' when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's ``Thank you, Mr. Atkins,'' when the band begins to play.”...

.... but for these women to complain the sight of wounds was upsetting is surely a new refinement in coarseness of apprehension. As if neither the fighting nor the men were real at all . No more so than a Television programme they might complain about .

For the sake of cultural life we should play instruments , write poetry and get real experience . We cannot live every life but our imaginations must be re-awakened before we slip into brutish inertia. I do not mean pointless empathising I mean a critical understanding of different experience. The sort of reaction that does not make you cry but makes you do something !