Ivy

On Friday I dedicated the day to my garden. I’m not as green fingered as my dear sister who has planted and maintains a beautiful garden. On any given day she’ll show you round what’s what in the beds surrounding her  curled lawns and a show satisfied smile about a plant that has finally come through. This year it was Camellias (a beautiful pink blossom) where for us the Magnolia decided to make a full entrance despite a no-show since it first was planted. It’s not quite Augusta…but its a start and the flowering is beautiful.

My main task was to prune the ivy. I clipped back all the new growth last year after too long leaving the creepers to gnarl their way into the walls of the house. I had spent some precarious hours leaning off the ladder and knew the only sure way not to risk a future tumble was to trim any new growth as soon as it showed its green shoots. It still took a good long morning.

Up the ladder I found myself  thinking over favourite songs and for no good reason started mulling over one that had been in my head for over fifty years.

Thunder Road

Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road is still perhaps the artist’s key song. So many fans adore it and it never quite feels as if the gig is complete without it. It captures all the dynamics of the E Street band’s energy and yet still has an intimacy that makes the evolvement of the song completely personal.

The first time I saw Bruce I arrived early and took in the pre show mix tape. I was struck by the inclusion of Billy Ocean’s ‘Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car.’ A little later on I bumped into Bruce’s biographer, Dave Marsh and I asked him about the unusual inclusion of the Billy Ocean song. ‘It makes total sense,’ he responded. It’s the opposite of Thunder Road…that’s ‘Get into my car and out of my dreams.’ A good observation.

But Thunder Road is so much more. In the early days I was haunted by the biblical imagery of so much of Springsteen’s repertoire. ‘Spent your summer praying in vain for a saviour to rise from these streets.’ But then there was also the detail of the story telling; laying it out like a film script….the screen door slams, Roy Orbison on the radio…then that line that even one of my best friends used indirectly about a girl he was seeing that would surely destroy any human being….’you’re not a beauty but, hey you’re all right.’ Dear God!

But the thing that got me was the detail and endless revision. No song this good comes straight off the pen and this one was called something else, changed around, added to and drafted and redrafted again. It shows. I say all this because if there’s one thing I think we value more than anything else on the AC it is the craft of the song. This week we’ve got some great crafters….

But before we leave this subject, a favourite version.

This Week’s Another Country

Listen out for  songs written by Miranda Lambert, Shane McInally and Brandy Clark where they don’t even feature on the recording. Listen out too for Charley Crockett as heard by the Artemis II Crew.

We’ll also celebrate the late craft of Willie Nelson as he reflects on his apprenticeship in the early days in Nashville. We’ll celebrate Neil Diamond (as promised) and we’ll give a shout to those who warn that everything that glitters in Nashvegas is certainly not gold. It all starts at five past eight this Tuesday evening on BBC Sounds or BBC Radio Scotland. Join me if you can.