I loves you Porgy …
Written by duckrabbitEver since I discovered her in Bob’s Record Mart, a ramshackle second hand music shop down a back alley in Nottingham, I’ve always felt lucky to have Nina Simone in my life.
Alongside a battered copy of Raymond Carver’s poems, and a Peruvian blanket I inherited from my Sister Becky, Nina travels with me everywhere the world and its wind blows me.
I had tickets to see her once at the Liverpool philarmonic, but I bottled it.¬† I mean really, I bottled it.¬† ‘I loves you Porgy’ is my all time favorite song, a song that gets me through the loneliest of times, and I couldn’t bear the possibility that Nina in the flesh could kill the song for me.
Pathetic but true
I loves you, porgy,
Dont let him take me
Dont let him handle me
And drive me mad
If you can keep me
I wanna stay here with you forever
And Ill be glad
Someday I know hes coming to call me
Hes going to handle me and hold me
So, it going to be like dying, porgy
When he calls me
But when he comes I know Ill have to go
It feels like there is dark behind and dark in front.¬† The attacks in Mumbai are terrifying; there’s starvation aplenty in the horn of Africa (but we’re bored of that) and in Eastern Congo suffering is multiplying faster then rabbits. In Africa you might imagine that despair is the only commodity crop that survives.
I guess the song I loves you porgy is about feeling the sadness and the shame, the despair, but hanging on to love, hanging on to hope where it has no right to exist, hanging on to love, even in the knowledge that its ephemeral, that its gone just when you need it the most.
Perhaps that’s why tonight ‘I loves you Porgy’
I loves you, porgy,
Dont let him take me
Honey, dont let him handle me
And drive me mad
If you can keep me
I wanna stay here with you forever
Ive got my man
HANG ON IN THERE
Author — duckrabbit
duckrabbit is a production company formed by radio producer/journalist Benjamin Chesterton and photographer David White. We specialize in digital storytelling.
Discussion (1 Comment)
Your Laughter
Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.
Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.
My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.
My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.
Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.
Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.
Pablo Neruda