And I guess that’s what The Big Fiddle is all about, the largest in the world.
Mad George’s wife’s town
Skip to it: King George
Charlottetown, named for Mad King George’s wife, has echoes of an olde world, with what looks suspiciously like jarvie racing (they call it harness racing) at the Red Shores Horsetrack.
Don’t hang around though, get a gallop on, because you know the ship won’t wait for you.
And the Big Apple
Laddie and Lady: On the Hudson
Whether you’re a prince or a New York Princess.
The Big Apple is waiting and there’s no time to waste.
Hoppy 4th July… let’s celebrate American Independence Day the way the founding fathers would have, with good ale.
Because while we think we can drink we have nothing on Washington, all the Adamses, Franklin and Co.
Colonial Americans drank roughly three times as much as modern Americans, primarily in the form of beer, cider, and whiskey.
And uisce beatha (Gaelic for water of life) is probably what the Spirit of 76 was all about.
Our old friends at Westward Whiskey in Portland, Oregon, have already been on.
And they’ve been showing off their wares with a new product for Independence Day.
And they remind us (OK, we didn’t know) that they begin their process by brewing an artisanal American Ale from scratch.
They use locally malted barley, ale yeast, and a slow, low temperature fermentation.
We love our American whiskies and we will return to them in due cours.
But to make the tortured pun in the title of today’s blog work it’s all about the beer on today’s Independence Day.
Drunken Sam
A bucket of booze: In boozy Boston
Sam Adams: Now the great Bostonian rabble-rouser spent so much time swigging ale in radical public houses that his enemies nicknamed him Sam the Publican.
Sam, of course, took it as a badge of honour, and the Bostonians repaid him by putting his badge on their beers.
I often think I was born out of my time… not ahead of it, more behind it, which is why when my peers were expressing their angst through Joy Division I was finding meaning through Paul Simon, 80 years young today.
As the youngest of three boys with a five and eight year gap between us my early influences were The Beatles, The Stones, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Pink Floyd, Heavy Metal… and Simon & Garfunkel.
And as a gangly shy adolescent I find solace in the longing, introverted, wanderer music of Paul Simon… I still do.
The man: Paul Simon
Now there have been rockier, wilder concerts (The Killers, The Proclaimers), equally as iconic singers (David Bowie). and more celebrated venues (OneRepublic in Red Rocks, Colorado) but there have been no more rewarding gigs than Paul Simon on his farewell tour which touched down in Dublin.
So how does your favourite Travel blog mark the 80th birthday of the Poet Laureate of Pop?
Well, by shining a light on the places Rhymin’ Simon loved the most and whose musical influences burst out in his timeless songs.
Apple of his eye
Remember him: ‘The Donald’ in New York
New York: A proud son of Queen’s borough, Simon’s songs about New York are some of the most recognisable about the Big Apple.
The Boxer is a plaintive exploration of down on your luck New York life which includes a reference to the ‘whores on 7th Avenue’.
Simon told the story at a concert of a fan who told him she would sing the song to her child only she changed the words to ‘toy stores’.
There’s something quite playful too about the 59th Street Bridge Song and I referenced it too on my route to the RDS for that 2019 concert.
You’ll find, in truth. New York references in numerous Simon and Simon & Garfunkel songs, some with NY in the title as in The Only Living Boy In New York and the Statue of Liberty in my own favourite, American Tune.
Rainbow Simon
Cool for cats… in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
South Africa: Now, how many of us, hand on heart can say that they knew much South African music before Paul Simon introduced it to a Western audience with his seminal album Graceland.
And, before we get to that, let’s just reference the titular song Graceland, a tribute to Elvis, which Simon revealed was his favourite piece of song-writing (few arguments here).
Of course none of us outside of South Africa knew of Ladysmith Black Mombasa either… but once heard never forgotten.
Simon also opened up the joy of South Africa at a time when understandably we associated the country with injustice, bigotry and hopelessness.
Brazil: And once Simon had got on a roll (or a rock’n’roll if you like) he was off to South America.
Who can forget those huge drums on The Obvious Child. Nothing obvious though about the drummers’ talent or Simon’s songwriting.
And finally in an English train station
He was here: Widnes Railway Station plaque
Widnes, England: And, of course, unless you’re a Rugby League fan, you’ll never have been to Widnes in Merseyside.
Unless you’re a budding New York musician (Paul Simon) who was feeling homesick here and penned the classic Homeward Bound. There is a plaque there now.
Or if you’re another budding wordsmith, en route to Liverpool from Scotland (you have to wait here for the next connection) to take the next rung in his celebrated writing career.
It’s one of those annoying Government buzzwords so let’s claim it back with a Rainy Days and Songdays Green Lighting megamix around the world. Our favourite songs with ‘green’ in the title and the countries where they transport us.
As a recruiting call for Ireland our pals at Tourism Ireland would have been proud as in true singer style Johnny namechecks everywhere on the Emerald Island.
Quite who the girl from Tipperary town with the lips like eiderdown is Johnny would never say, perhaps because June would have killed him.
The old rogue Burns was pure rock’n’roll and could pen a lyric and a tune which is probably why he is held in such high regard by the greatest singer-songwriters of the latter half of the 20th century.
With Bob Dylan, no less, crediting the Scot as his greatest inspiration.
The Milanese Verdi had the support of Gaetano Donizetti from nearby Bergamo whom he visited in Vienna which, of course, was the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
And that included Bohemia, or the current-day Czech Republic where the thing to do when you’re in Prague is take in a production at the opera house.
Every nation sacrificed its most promising generation in No Man’s Land but for those from the furthest outposts of Empire… well, it just seems to be all the more pointless to modern sensibilities.
Eric Bogle, a Scots-born Australian, explores the pyschological cost to one survivor ‘young Willie McBride’. And it was all the more poignant after I’d seen the statue of the Scots soldier in northern France.
The story goes that the Stax house band were waiting around for the Sun artist and rockabilly singer Billy Lee Riley to turn up and developed the song.
And why Green Onions? Well Booker T. Jones self-deprecatingly said it was because green onions were the nastiest thing he could think of and something you could throw away. We never would.
Either way it’s flag-waving, Americana. And even if you don’t know the song you’ll recognise the tune.
Particularly if you’re a fan of Celtic FC who famously play in green and white hoops and who have adapted the song and lyrics into a favourite fans’ song With a Four-leaf Clover on My Breast.
The evergreen Cliff belts this one out from the Seventies.
The Peter Pan of Pop who was born in India, grew up in England, and has had homes in Portugal and Barbados, though he is selling up in Bim (and yes I’m interested).
No me neither, nor the singers Clifton Webb, Dorothy McGuire and Jean Peters who each sang the titular song.
But anyone who has ever been to the Trevi Fountain in Rome will either hear someone singing it there while throwning coins over their head into the water.
The beauty of a good song is trying to recreate it in your bedroom which is what hairbrushes were made for, although Patrick Swayze’s quiff just came naturally.
Just like watching the detectives don’t get cute, just like watching the detectives, I get so angry when the teardrops start, But he can’t be wounded ’cause he got no heart. – Elvis Costello, Watching the Detectives
And with apologies to the Poet Laureate of New Wave.
But it’s not the bespectacled one but the new run of Line of Duty, shot in Belfast, which has got me thinking.
About my favourite detectives in the cities they are associated with.
So here are seven deadly detective shows, their music and their cities.
Can I be trusted on a bike? In Amsterdam
Nylon Pool, Tobago