12th & 13th December, 2005
San Sebastian Strings
albums now available on CD! Order
now!
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Rod at BB Kings 5/17/02 Photo by Jay Hagan
A Thought for Today
One life will always
make a difference.
UTRECHT FEEDBACK
Joke Vervelde, our intrepid
reporter from Utrecht, is making sure we're up to date with all the
happenings this past weekend. Here's the latest report:
Môre Ken,
Hierdie plaatjies van die aand, gister...
Excuus, my Afrikaans is nie so goed as my Engels nie ... and I really do
hope that you can understand my "English" too, if necessary please
translate for the site!!!
(Both your English and
Afrikaans are a helluva lot better than my Dutch, Joke!)
Yes, the concert was GREAT, Rod sang very well and I can hear that a lot
of Dutch people does love him still!
He did sing these songs:
* Soldiers who want to be heroes
* If you go away
* Without a worry in the world
* What a wonderful world
* So my sheep may safely grace
Soldiers and Without a Worry where number 1 hits in Holland a long time
ago, and the people sang it all with him, sounds nice! Rod had a big
smile!!!
After the concert Rod sign his new CD "The Amsterdam Concert (1971)" and
a lot of people bought one. He wrote on my CD: "With love for so many
years & so many good times. Rod, Dec.'05"
I've lots of photo's and if you want I'll send them. And this is a first
and short letter, I will write you tomorrow. Now I have to go to the
station, my train is leaving in 20 minutes, because Lydia, Inge and I
will be at the Sunday Concert too!
Bye for now!
Joke.
Joke was also kind enough to
send through some pics for us to enjoy. Sorry, no captions but they do
give us an idea of the goings on at what was, I think, the rehearsal and
the Saturday show.
Joke has sent through some
more pics from the Sunday show which I'll be posting over the next day
or so - please join me then.
-Ken, Johannesburg, South
Africa, December 12
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Catch Rod McKuen live!
Click on the links below for details of
concerts and appearances.
ROD McKUEN
CONCERTS
ROD
McKUEN APPEARANCES
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Monday
12 December
Virgin of Guadalupe (Mexico)
Madchen Amick o Tracy Austin o Bob Barker o Mayim Bialik o Sheila E. o Gustave Flaubert o Connie Francis o Bridget Hall o Wings Hauser o Ed Koch o Liesbeth List o John Osborne o Cathy Rigby o Edward G. Robinson o Frank Sinatra o Harry Warner o Dionne Warwick o Grover Washington, Jr. o Joe Williams
Tuesday
13 December
Steve Buscemi o Christie Clark o Marc Connelly o John Davidson o Tom DeLonge o Jamie Foxx o Michael James o Mary Todd Lincoln o Ross MacDonald o Clark Mills o Edwin G. Monk o Archie Moore o Ted Nugent o Larry Parks o Nicolas Petrov o Christopher Plummer o Lillian Roth o Dick Van Dyke o Richard Zanuck |
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‘One of a kind’ is a phrase overused, but not in the
case of Sinatra.
Is it possible to do a better service to the world than to
fill it with song?
In choosing a path, always choose the most challenging. The
easy road is crowded and boring in the bargain.
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FOUR SETS OF WORDS &
A POEM/SONG FOR SINATRA |
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This is not poetry or exactly
prose. When I was writing "A Man Alone" for Sinatra I wanted there to be some
connecting words between the songs that helped advance the story line. This was to be a
personal album for me and for him, so it was important to try and get inside this
seemingly inscrutable man who turned out to be a lot less complicated than some
biographers have intimated.
Frank was honest, romantic, only impatient with delay and incompetence. Some people forget
what an intuitive and intelligent actor he was capable of being. He didn’t change a
word I wrote for him to speak. I confess that I made changes later when some of these
words were reprinted in "In Someone’s Shadow." On the album, they are
perfect, because Sinatra, like any great actor, made them his own. I’d love to say
that I directed him in these performances, but I can’t. With the exception of one
paragraph, I made no suggestions at all.
Other than a couple of hundred books I made up for Frank to give away to friends, this is
the first time these words have appeared as they were originally spoken and written.
- RM 12/11/98.
Out Beyond the Window
My window looks out over the park.
Every year I’ve move another story up,
‘Till now
I’m almost close enough
To the roof of the sky
To touch it.
I could even move the clouds aside,
But no clouds come.
If they did,
I’d welcome them,
For I have few visitors here anymore.
There must be highways somewhere,
Roads I’ve missed.
Something more than sky
Out beyond the window.
Night
I can just about
get through the day
but the night makes me nervous.
Not for any reason
except maybe that it catches you
unaware.
and follows you
the way a woman follows
when she wants something.
I’ve been in every kind of night
so I shouldn’t be afraid
of darkness.
But for some reason
the night makes me nervous.
Some Traveling Music
How can you say something new about being alone ? Tell someone you’re a loner and
right away they think you’re lonely. It’s not the same thing, you know.
It’s not wanting to put all your marbles in one pocket. It’s caring enough not
to care too much.. Mostly it’s letting yourself come first for a while.
One day I’ll find an island, a think place. Go there with a mess of records
and a ukulele and just sit strummin’. I might even do some thinkin’. About the
women, and the towns I’ve left behind.
From Promise To Promise
I sometimes wonder why people make promises they never intend to keep. Not in big things
like love or elections, but the things that count. The newspaper boy who says he’ll
save an extra paper and doesn’t, the laundry that tells you your suit will be ready
on Thursday. . . and it isn’t.
Love? Well, yes.. But like everything else as we go from day to day we move from promise
to promise.. I’ve had a good many promises now so I can wait for the harvest and some
of them to come about.
Empty Is
To catalog empty,
You need a big book.
Empty is
the sky before the sun wakes up
in morning..
The eyes of animals in cages.
Empty. The faces of women
In mourning.
Me ?
Don’t ask me about empty.
Empty is a string of dirty days
held together by some rain
and the cold wind drumming
at the trees again.
Empty is the color of the fields
along about September
when the days go marching
in a line toward November.
Empty is the hour before sleep
kills you every night
then pushes you to safety
away from every kind of light.
Empty is me.
Empty is me.
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From the album and the privately issued book, " A Man Alone", 1969. Revisions for "In Someone’s Shadow", 1969. In addition to the above spoken word selections, the songs
for "A Man Alone" consisted of the title song and a reprise of it written on the
recording date, "The Beautiful Strangers", "The Single Man",
"I’ve Been To Town", "Lonesome Cites" and "Love’s Been
Good To Me". |
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