THE DEEP POOL - FEBRUARY 2006

A most fantastic ancient covered Romany wagon has appeared in Frank's horseyard in the next lane up from Donkey Lane. It has an elaborate embroidery of dull gold wood, but in three separate panels at the front there are wild crimson suns, each one becoming larger, rising, than the one before. I've seen many such caravans in my life, but this one has something very special about it, and i would like to talk to Frank about it, but i don't know him because he doesn't want to know me, so i'm admiring it from a distance, which, if you live locally and you're going to have a look, i advise you to do as well. Otherwise you may well get a spade smacked across your head by one of the chavs who are always working in the yard. That's using chav in the original sense - Romany for young boy, or more correctly, young man of noble birth. Young woman by the way, is 'shebari'.

Before Christmas Deborah and i were having brunch in The Ubiquitous Chip in Glasgow with our friends Ross and Jenny. At one point Ross was talking about someone who he said had royal blood. Jenny, half to herself, and in a slight trance state (i felt) said 'all blood is royal'. It was a great remark, and i was going to ask her what she meant by it, but then i didn't. Ross and Jenny have just been down for a wild weekend and i again forgot to ask her what she meant by it - it would make an excellent album title, but i would of course have to get a little background, like what did Jenny mean, before i could start to invent a massive story about why i called the album this. The story would then, eventually become true.

I played a private concert in London a few days back, and on an early train home from Waterloo the next day, the morning sun was a hard bright gold/yellow and there was a lingering frost on the ground. The train passed Sandown horse racetrack just outside Esher, and as i watched it speed by i had a wonderful feeling of optimism and was overcome by the very greatness of being alive. The feeling lasted nearly to Woking where a man had to be manhandled from the train by police officers, after which our train guard apologised for the train leaving Woking late - 'this was due to a passenger becoming aggressive in the buffet to the point where it was necessary for us to have him forcibly removed'.

'Suspicious of humans, it was a bird of high sheep-walks, rugged mountain and rocky, remote coasts. But the same bird is now seen in the heart of our cities, on lowland farms and in other unexpected places'. This is a piece of writing by John Lawton Roberts about the return of ravens to the UK. The raven is a big big charcoal grey raptor - i remember an old manager of mine, Ian Flooks, becoming very embarrassed when i played him a new song which included the word 'raven'.

'You just can't have the word raven in a song Jackie' he told me - 'it's a total cliche and will mark you out as a dim-witted folkie -also, i couldn't help noticing that the song includes the word desert - raven AND desert in the same song? - unforgivable'. I was surprised by the depth of his feeling on the matter, but accepted he was probably right and started feeling foolish.

'What's wrong with desert?' i asked.

'What's wrong with it is that nobody who puts desert in a song is ever thinking of an actual desert, they're just using the word as a godawful metaphor, like Jesus in the desert in the Bible. If you were talking about a particular desert and could identify events in the song as pertaining to that desert, then it would be okay, but nobody ever does this, so pop and country songs are littered with fucking non-existing deserts - it's not fair on real deserts'. This is probably the best piece of managerial advice that i've received in thirty years, or at least, the only bit i seem to remember.

I mention this because i was talking to poet and singer Frank Bangay the other day about contributing a song for an album of people performing the songs of Kevin Coyne, to be released by my good friends the Mad Pride organisation. I asked Frank if i could do a song ABOUT Kevin as opposed to by him. Frank said yes, so i began to think about starting such a song. This was when i read about the return of the ravens, and i thought 'of COURSE! - Kevin Coyne is coming back to the world as a new and special strength that ravens have, and it took ME to notice this! It's amazing that i spotted this, and of course, far more amazing that Kevin is able to achieve this highly unusual transmigration. You see how songwriting works? Obviously if my song had been about Warren Zevon, then ravens would have made no appearance at all, as that would be an entirely different situation, requiring me to notice other transmigratory qualities that would be signifiers of Warren, not Kevin.

I'm currently singing a new song on stage, a kind of hymn, about Judee Sill, called 'The Silver In Her Crucifix' and at one point i sing 'and the shadow in her crucifix kept warring worlds apart'. When she died, the shadow in her crucifix went somewhere else in the world where it could no longer have the same power to keep warring worlds apart, and this, of course is a crying shame for the rest of us left alive. However, a word of warning - should you be passing some remote corner of your life, and suddenly feel sure that a shadow you see there may well be the shadow that was in Judee Sill's crucifix, do not, i repeat, do not, put your hand in that shadow - it would almost certainly be a non-survivable experience for you. Much better to alert a specialist, like the American singer David Thomas, who knows how to deal with such phenomena - he has an amplifier with no controls whatsoever, other than an on and off switch - there is a line in an old John St Field song of mine which goes: 'a phantom stole my amplfier and fed it to the lonely'. Between us, David and i, we should have the tools and imagination to deal with any lingering Sill shadows you may encounter. (I feel better now).

Strange moments in time (the nows of yesteryear) keep coming into my head unbidden. I remember when i was very young i lived on a house on a slope above the railway station in the town of Leslie, Fife, Scotland. Only the occasional freight train came to or left the station which was at the end of the line. In my mind's eye i see, looking down at the turning square in front of the station office, in intense summer heat, the old black Riley car which belonged to the old man who lived up the hill. He would come down to the bottom of the street by the station and do a laborious turn, then drive back up the hill, so that next time he drove off his car was already facing the right direction. Even on the hottest day the old man wore a tweed cap, and the turning of this huge car always looked like very hard work, with him repeatedly wrenching the driving wheel left and right, forward and back.

I remember finding a rusty old tool in a large pile of tar-stained railway sleepers. On its side it said 'break adjusting spanner', and i loved this big rough bit of metal which left your hands a deep metallic brown whenever you touched it - the shimmering tar-filled midday heat hanging around the deserted marshalling yard, while in the distance, out of sight, you could hear the steady thrum of heavy machinery at Fettykill paper mill - 'Welcome to Leslie - a paper making town'...

A wonderful place to have a drink of a summer Saturday morning is the Robinson Crusoe hotel in Lower Largo, Fife (i'm freeforming here - this has nothing to do with anything). Lower Largo is an enchanting tiny village where a small river meets the sea by a little harbour, more a sea wall than a harbour. You can buy the newspapers, order a drink from the endarkened bar which has one of Robinson Crusoe's footprints sealed into the floor, go outside, find a table and just drift away with seagulls screeing around, and far over the Firth of Forth to the south, the faint outline of the city of Edinburgh appearing and disappearing like a mirage through creamy blue crested waves. Many is the happy hour i've passed here, sitting contentedly, sometimes going round to the other side of the hotel to where there is a long beach of rock, sand and tough wild grass, curving for miles round to the further east seaports of the East Neuk of Fife - Pittenweem, Crail, Anstruther, Shithaven - ahh! - how far away it all seems now as i plan the rest of my year - album releases, tours, times alone, and wondering if the plum tree will be as sickly this year as last year....

Anyway, i just happened to re-read a short poem by Louis Simpson which contains a superb use of 'desert' - i'm trying to work out how he gets away with it...

AMERICAN POETRY

Whatever it is, it must have
A stomach that can digest
Rubber, coal, uranium, moons, poems.

Like the shark, it contains a shoe.
It must swim for miles through the desert
Uttering cries that are almost human.

Louis Simpson

jl