ASK ROD

I'm delighted to find this Rod McKuen WebPage! I'm looking forward to visiting your "Safe Place to Land" regularly. Something recently brought to mind a poem I'd read long ago. It was in a paperback publication of McKuen poems, which I read from cover to cover as a teenager. That book fed my young imagination about love and sex and romance. I've been surfing the net trying to figure out what book it was in....I've also checked libraries, book stores, etc., and can't find it. Can't find my old paperback either...I'm sure I loaned it to a friend who never returned it.

Part of the verse in the poem I'm searching for is: "I have loved you in so many ways...In crowds and (or?) all alone....While you were sleeping beside me...." If you can tell me where I could find that collection, I'd be so grateful! Thanks. Happy to see you out here in "cyberspace," Mr. McKuen, I am, Admiringly...a fan, Deb

Dear Deb, "I Have loved You In So Many Ways " is from the hard cover pocket edition of "Listen To The Warm" where it is entitled "Three." "It is also on the recording of "Listen To The Warm" and both can be purchased from Stanyan Mail Order. The address, costs and Bill Learning’s new order form can found on the home page of ASPTL. The paperback you referred to, "Seasons In The Sun", is out of print. All of us at Stanyan are delighted that you like the site and you can look for lots of changes and additions in the coming year, not to mention a holiday surprise from Ken. Rod.

CHRISTMAS NOW

Dear Rod, I am amazed I found you here, having typed your name totally out of thin air. I hope that this email may begin a dialogue concerning a Christmas Poem you once wrote about 15 or 20 years ago, which I memorized and begins, "There's tinsel in the town already, and wreaths so fragile, I doubt they'll last through Christmas Eve".

I am interested in getting your permission to use it as a forward in a book that I wish to publish. I hope that I will be able to
eventually convince you to grant me the right to attribute and
reprint it, pending your conviction that I will use it with dignity.

Your website says I should bookmark this so that I can read your
reply. Actually I haven't a clue how to do that, and I hope that your reply will be here if I come back to your site, which somehow doesn't seem likely. As you can see, I have a simple Prodigy address at which I may be reached.

I assume that you hear from many people, some of them crackpots, and that you have reservations about direct communication. If you choose to have someone else contact me on your behalf, I will welcome this communication. I am so thrilled that I found you, and I hope that it is a good omen. Sincerely, Jane

Dear Jane, the poem is entitled "Christmas Now." As far as I know it has never appeared in any of my books including "Twelve Years of Christmas" and "The Carols of Christmas." It was written for the 1975 Animal Concern Calendar & Datebook & dedicated to my brother Edward.

To include it as a preface to your book, send a description of the book & the publishers name to Edward McKuen, Box 2783, Hollywood, CA 90028, or E-mail edwardStanyanR@aol.com . If the request is approved Edward will ask for a check made out to The Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation for $100.00.

Incidentally, "Christmas Now" will be reprinted later this month in the Flight Plan. Thanks and good luck with your book. Rod

SUNDAY

I have the album that contains "Sunday", but haven't been able to find it in written form. Is it published in any one of your books of poetry? I have 20 of your books, but don't find it in any of those.

I am thrilled that you are going to publish a new book; I have been asking at the bookstores whether anything has been published since Valentines in '86, and always went away disappointed. Will you notify your fans on the web site when it is available? P.S. I like the beard! mwideman

Dear MW, When the new book is published next year, friends of A Safe Place To Land will be the first to know it. Glad you like the beard. God blessed me with terminal acne and it helps cover up the scars one gets from still being a growing boy.

"Sunday" is from the album "The Earth," and is also featured on another LP, "Pushing the Clouds Away." The music was written & scored by Anita Kerr. It’s meant to be a prose/poem. I think the real poetry in it comes from the way it is read against Anita’s music. Here are the words.

Sunday

It's hard to believe it can be so quiet after such a noisy Saturday night. There were so many words I wanted to use last night, words I'm afraid of, like tomorrow, and together . . . and love.

If I say I love you I want it to mean more than I love peanut butter or James Bond movies. I want it to mean I'm letting go for always, that I won't turn back.

I never used the word before, I've been afraid. Once you say you love somebody, you can't take it back. But let's not talk about love, let's talk about dogs, or summertime. We can read the funny papers out loud or go to the zoo, or just stay here like we are.

Come out along the trees with me. You never knew my middle name, I haven't told you that. Do you know that I can stand on my hands . . .? Well, almost. There's probably a mole somewhere down your back that escaped my eyes in darkness.

We need to know it all. Everything that brought us to each other--and why. All those mysteries we save for no one we can give to one another. Where did the night go? Already it's Sunday. I love you.

For the most part the words and music to "The Earth" are pretty tight and contrite, as, for instance, in "The Day They Built The Road." When love words come up they are meant to be almost offhanded and set against the long lines of Anita’s flowing melodies as merely conversational. It seems to me that love is almost always accidental and in "The Earth" I was trying to write about those happy accidents in a very off-handed way. I don’t know how objective I can be but of all the San Sebastian Strings albums, it heads my list as the perfect wedding of words and music. It hasn’t been included in any of my books, because I consider it more of an impression than a poem. Regards, Rod.

THE STORM from THE SEA & LISTEN TO THE WARM

The remarks I made above apply to "The Storm," though I think of it as more of a conventional poem. Still it was meant to be read aloud and is done so with the conviction and passion that Jesse Pearson always brought to "The Sea Trilogy." I ran across it on a web site recently with the following preamble quoted verbatim;

"An Introduction to Modern Poetry."

I mentioned I was a literature major. One of my favorite writers is Rod McKuen. His words, often song lyrics, really delve into human emotion. I don't know how anyone could not find at least one of his poems or songs and think "I know exactly how he feels." He has not done any work in a while, and perhaps that is why I had never heard of him until recently when I was going through some of my mother's old books and I found "Listen to the Warm", a compilation of many of his poems and lyrics. I spent a whole Saturday reading this book, and when I finished, I started all over again.

He talks not only of the love of a woman, the love and loss I
should say, but he also speaks of the love of his cat. I know where he is coming from in almost all of his words, and I felt bonded to this man I had never even met, or saw. For that to happen, after reading just one of his books, I have permanently put him on top of my favorite artists list. (A list which contains writers, performers, actors etc.) I am not alone in my respect and admiration for this man, others have whole pages devoted to him and his work [on the net].

His work is very hard to find, but I am going to keep trying to find all that I can. I can't help but include one of his poems on my page:

The Storm / Fourteen

How can we be sure of anything
                             the tide changes.
The wind that made the grain wave gently yesterday
          blows down the trees tomorrow.
And the sea sends sailors crashing on the rocks,
as easily as it guides them safely home.
                        I love the sea
but it doesn't make me less afraid of it.
                      I love you
but I'm not always sure of what you are
and how you feel.

I'd like to crawl behind your eyes
and see me the way you do
        or climb through your mouth
and sit on every word that comes up through your throat.

Maybe I could be sure then
                       maybe I could know.
As it is I hide beneath your frowns
or worry when you laugh too loud.
                         Always sure a storm is rising.

This is just one of his many beautiful works. I encourage anyone who has the time, or the interest in a wonderful man's art, to find a book or a record by Rod McKuen. Abhijit Sengupta"

           -from A Glimpse of Modern Poetry by Ahbijit Sengupta

Dear Abhijit, Thanks for the kind words. You will never meet a writer who doesn’t need encouragement. Rod

THE WORLD I USED TO KNOW

I am a Swedish doctorate in literature trying to write a thesis about a Swedish songwriter and poet who was inspired by your song "The World I Used to Know". How do I find the correct lyrics and music? How do I find out some facts about you? I love your poems, so I want to quote you right. All the best from Charlotte Ulmert

Dear Charlotte, I wrote "The World I Used To Know" in the late 1950’s. For a long time it was entitled "Song With No Name." Jimmie Rodgers was the first artist to make a commercial recording of it and at the session his producer & head of Dot Records, Randy Wood, said there was no way he would release a song entitled "Song With No Name." I arbitrarily changed it immediately to  "The World I Used To Know." An odd choice since at the time it only appeared once in the song.

Jimmie's recording edged onto the charts enough to have an album named after it but it never made the national top ten. It has become a standard around the world and here in the US Johnny Mathis, Glenn Campbell, Eddie Arnold, The Smothers Brothers, Tom T. Hall and Glenn Yarbrough are some of the artists who have recorded it. I love singing it and wouldn’t do a show without it. Here are the words.

The World I Used To Know

Someday some old familiar rain
Will come along and know my name
And then my shelter will be gone
And I’ll have to move along
But till I do I’ll stay awhile
And track the hidden country of your smile.

Someday the man I used to be
Will come along and call on me
And then because I’m just a man
You’ll find my feet are made of sand
But till that time I’ll tell you lies
And chart the hidden boundaries of your eyes.

Someday the world I used to know
Will come along and bid me go
Then I’ll be leaving you behind
For love is just a state of mind.
But till that day I’ll be your man
And love away your troubles if I can.

And here’s an alternate verse I sometime sing on stage.

Someday if ever I’m alone
I’ll think of worlds I used to own
A nickel for the picture show
Part of the world I used to know
Until that day before I go
Help me forget The World I Used To Know.

Another verse I’ve never sung and one that hasn’t been published.

Someday if someday ever comes
I’ll go down where the rivers run
And wash my sorrows all away
So I can come to you and say
"Lets pack our bags and off we’ll go
to that old wondrous World I Used To Know".

And if I were to sing it today I might write an ending verse that goes something like this.

Someday has finally come around
I look about at what I’ve found
I’m not the man I used to be
But I thank God that I’m still me.
As on and on, and on I go
I’ve finally found The World I Used To Know.

Thanks Charlotte and good luck with your thesis. Hope you got this in time to help. Rod.

Note:

The following, for those who know it, is to be sung to the last 8 bars of "The World I Used To Know."

"It’s seven-ten as off I go, to watch the 60 Minutes TV Show".

Make this an easy Monday, see you tomorrow.

                                - RM 12/6/98

THE COMING OF THE RAIN

                                - from "And To Each Season" 1972