Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Beach scene



Stevie Smith reads her immortal poem inspired by a newspaper story of a man who drowned because  Phil Collins wouldn't save him.

Smith, it turns out, had a great voice, literally as well as figuratively. This musical lilt carries her through even when she's just explaining herself.

2 comments:

susan said...

I couldn't find a video or recording of Stevie Smith reciting 'In the Air Tonight' but did find her poem 'Not Waving but Drowning'. Was that the one you meant? It really was a lovely yet heartbreaking explanation and poem.

I wasn't familiar with the story of Phil Collins not saving someone who was drowning. Urban legends often seem to have the characteristics of the game Telephone.

Jer found this today - it made me laugh twice.

Ben said...

I meant from the beginning to embed the "Not Waving But Drowning" audio/video, but somehow missed actually pasting the embed code, ruining the joke. It is a lovely, sad poem, though.

And yeah, it was meant to be a joke. In the urban legend, it's actually supposed to be the case that Collins saw someone else not save someone from drowning, and somehow for some reason he's not responsible himself. Still, it's got to be insulting to him as a songwriter, like people don't think he's capable of metaphor.

That was a funny tidbit. Wonder how much time the owner spent getting the parrot together with the cat.