One little song

There’s gotta be a song left to sing
Cause everybody can’t of thought of everything
One little song that ain’t been sung
One little rag that ain’t been wrung out completely yet
Gotta a little left

One little drop of fallin rain
One little chance to try again
One little bird that makes it every now and then
One little piece of endless sky
One little taste of cherry pie
One little week in paradise and I start thinkin’

There’s gotta be a song left to sing
Cause everybody can’t of thought of everything
One little note that ain’t been used
One little word ain’t been abused a thousand times
In a thousand rhymes

One little drop of fallin rain
One little chance to try again
One little bird that makes it every now and then
One little piece of endless sky
One little taste of cherry pie
One little week in paradise and I start thinkin’

Gotta be a song left to sing
Cause everybody can’t of thought of everything
One little song that ain’t been sung
One little rag that ain’t been wrung out completely yet
Till there’s nothing left


Gillian Welch, 'One Little Song', from the album Soul Paradise




The words alone don't give a true impression of the yearning nature of this song, or its beauty when sung in Gillian Welch's perfect voice. 


You might think there's nothing new that can be said, but there are things in the world - perhaps only little things - that haven't been written about. If you look at the world from your own perspective, you can always winkle out something original. I think this song has a message for all writers.


And it's very humble, too. You don't have to set the world on fire, you just have to find this little thing that is yours to say. I love this song - Gillian Welch is inspiring, always.

"That would fix a lot of people."

The more I thought about it the better I liked the idea of being seduced by a simultaneous interpreter in New York City. Constantin seemed mature and considerate in every way. There were no people I knew he would want to brag to about it, the way college boys bragged about sleeping with girls in the backs of cars to their room-mates or their friends on the basketball team. And there would be a pleasant irony in sleeping with a man Mrs Willard had introduced me to, as if she were, in a roundabout way, to blame for it.

When Constantin asked if I would like to come up to his apartment to hear some balalaika records I smiled to myself. My mother had always told me never under any circumstances to go with a man to a man's rooms after an evening out, it could only mean the one thing.

'I am very fond of balalaika music, I said.'

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, (1963)

What I like about Sylvia Plath's novel, after rereading it just now, is not only the vivid imagery and the huge number of quotable quotes about the poisonous effect of American society on the lives of women - it is the tone: the angry humour and the ultra-real depictions of the world. It is obviously the work of a poet, in the compression and precision, and in the structure, the frequent use of one word paragraphs that say much in few words.

On the verge of a mental breakdown, the narrator Esther Greenwood, after being turned down for a summer school writing course with a famous writer, ponders on what she will do with herself:

"Then I decided I would write a novel.

That would fix a lot of people."

The Poetry of Kitchens

The place I like best in this world is the kitchen. No matter where it is, no matter what kind, if it's a kitchen, if its a place where they make food, it's fine with me. Ideally it should be well broken in. Lots of tea towels, dry and immaculate. White tile catching the light (ting! ting!)

I love even incredibly dirty kitchens to distraction - vegetable droppings all over the floor, so dirty your slippers turn black on the bottom. Strangely, it's better if this kind of kitchen is large. I lean up against the silver door of a towering, giant refrigerator stocked with enough food to get through a winter. When I raise my eyes from the oil-spattered gas burner and the rusty kitchen knife, outside the window stars are glittering, lonely.

Now only the kitchen and I are left. It's just a little nicer than being all alone.

When I'm dead worn out, in a reverie, I often think that when it comes time to die, I want to breathe my last in a kitchen. Whether it's cold and I'm all alone, or somebody's there and it's warm, I'll stare death fearlessly in the eye. If it's a kitchen, I'll think, "How good."

Banana Yoshimoto, Kitchen



I love kitchens, and I love Banana Yoshimoto's writing, so this is one of my favourite book openings. Like Haruki Murakami, there's something addictive about the way she puts words together. Apparently simple, straightforward, and colloquial, there are depths there, and a lyricism.

When I wrote My Candlelight Novel, I gave my kitchen loving side to Sophie, who wonders about 'the poetry of kitchens', and where it is. In the kerfuffle about the best title for that novel, I suggested 'The Poetry of Kitchens', but it was turned down. (I had always wanted to call it 'Candlelight Novel' and we ended up coming close to that original title.)

But if you're wondering about the poetry of kitchens, it's all there, in Banana Yoshimoto's beautiful book about mothers, loss, transsexuality and love.

Miss Eyre

'Besides,' said Miss Abbot, 'God will punish her: He might strike her dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go? Come, Bessie, we will leave her: I wouldn't have her heart for anything. Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself; for if you don't repent, something bad might be permitted to come down the chimney and fetch you away.'

Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre