New Statesman -- musical authors -- November 15 deadline
 

No 4252
Set by Adair R Fyn
The musician Nick Cave has written a couple of worthwhile novels, “And the Ass Saw the Angel” and “The Death of Bunny Munro”. We’d like extracts from the fiction of other notable figures from the music world.
Max 150 words by 15 November comp@newstatesman.co.uk

John Cage: “433 pages”
















Author’s note: This is a work of fiction. The pages can be read in any order.

I shrieked with laughter - then felt a bit let down when you








gave the game away.

Dare you do it without the "Author's Note"? Or at least stop after "fiction"?

You're right, Ann - but damn, I've already sent it. I think the author's note should remain, just as in the composer's instructions for the original "composition", but I've deleted the phrase "since they are blank". Sorry to have been over-explicit the first time. I suppose I wanted to be sure that the people at the NS "got it".

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night by J.S. Bach

It was a dark and stormy night a dark and stormy night it was a dark and stormy stormy night it was it was it was it was a night a stormy dark was it a night a stormy dark was it was it was it was it was it a stormy dark and stormy night a night a night a night a night was dark was dark and stormy was night stormy and a dark it was a dark and stormy stormy dark a night a dark a stormy stormy storm night night stormy and dark a was it it was a dark and stormy night (bis)

THE ANSWER, MY MOTHER, by Bob Dylan

When I was a boy and played with toy guns in the schoolyard, my mother disapproved and asked me how much longer I would be playing. "Mom," I said, "come with me," and I led her by the hand up a trail that sloped through the endless forest at the edge of town. We walked and walked for hours until we reached the top of a peak overlooking our tiny, peaceful hamlet. My mother was confused, but before she could say a word I put a finger to her lips and told her to hush and listen. The rustling leaves grew louder as a mounting breeze passed through them, and a loud wind made a whooshing sound as it whipped by our helpless ears. "There is your answer, mother," I said.

Jesus, Roger, a whole book of that. Beautiful in its ghastliness.

John, forgive my obtuseness, but what on earth has that got to do with Bach?

Quite right, Brian. Handel's the man. So a capo.

The Weather in the Streets by G.F Handel

It was a dark and stormy a dark a dark and stormy it was a dark and stormy a dark and stormy night a dark and stormy night it was a dark and stormy night a dark a dark and stormy a dark a dark and stormy it was it was it was it was a dark and stormy night the rain it fell in torrents it fell it fell in torrents in torrents fell in torrents it fell it fell it fell it fell in torrents fell the rain it was a dark and stormy a dark a dark and stormy it was a dark and stormy a dark and stormy night in torrents torrents torrents the rain it fell in torrents in torrents torrents torrents it was a dark and stormy night in torrents fell the rain

Ah, now I begin to see what you're driving at. Reminds me of that chorus in the Messiah - "All we like sheep". Is it an amorous declaration by a bunch of sheep-shaggers, or is it a general instruction to urinate in an ovine manner?

No, it must stay as Bach. Totally Die Kunst der Fuge or "A Musical Offering". Check out the crab canons that repeat themselves over and over.

Good to see I'm right in spades, Orwn, but surely Handel does just as well. Imagine writing a divine piece of music on a single word. Actually I confess I come to it through W.S. Gilbert. And Lord Peter Wimsey who does a bit of this somewhere. I'll toss a coin, then. Which would the 'orrible lefties prefer. Not great music lovers in general, though there is George Bernard Shaw.

Music is essentially conservative, music anyone listens to that is.

Rampart Street Parade, by Louis Armstrong

You don't remember nothing if you don't remember Storyville the day Josie Arlington died. She had the best house in the district; the parlor had them big brass chandeliers with frosted glass globes that looked like breasts, red plush sofas, pianos going all the time. "No girl was ever ruined at Josie Arlington's" she used to say, so the ladies were professionals every one. And something about her death brought everybody together. Cora Pearl, she that ran the second-best house, went to the funeral parlor and dressed Josie for the grave and did her hair. And the funeral procession had all the jazz bands and a mule-drawn hearse and was two miles long. Nobody knew, starting out, that before it came to the burying ground there would be a murder that the city would sing about for ever afterwards…