Should have been music at the Brook this evening: this dates from April 2016…
Our backdrop an encouraging sunset, we drive over to St Ishmaels –
Down in whose dimpsy valley the Brook Inn’s already aglow.
Local gig-gossip is exchanged as friends unload their cars:
Out come curvaceous black cases, overfed ring binders, tight-folded metal stands.
Entering the bar, ‘There will do us very well;’
And, that agreed, the set-up commences:
Quick, tonight, without amplification’s boxes and cables.
And so, soon, with a full glass stationed by each player,
His or her guardian against musical thirst,
It’s time for that evergreen question:
‘Who wants to kick us off?’
And we all know it: it doesn’t matter who, or what they choose;
Because it’ll always be something heart-learnt,
With neither key nor chords needing naming.
Indeed, doubly it matters not; for, whatever the tune,
Whatever the lyrics or lack of,
It’s this we’ve all come for, whether players or listeners…
The awakening, upon the first thrum-up,
Of these beer-golden guitar bodies:
This sudden effervescence of so many steel strings,
All astrum side by side –
That synchronous flowering of
Six-string chords and mandolin melody:
So many instruments, in this special moment,
Blooming into harmony.
For the listeners’ eyes, visual harmonies too:
The gleam of machine heads,
Brass frets striping finger-polished ebony, bright as loco firebars;
Lamp-glitter reflected in sleeve-polished veneers…
Lagers sparkling beady-cold as their tables rock, knee-nudged;
Fob-clouded stout, soot-darkly still on a gloomy inglenook ledge.
Now all the friends have arrived, other instruments can take their turns.
A box, there is, to squeeze out shanties from, and a harmonica, too–
But that’s not here, tonight, to blast out blues
Like a compressed air truck horn:
Restrained, it can feel its way deep into sentimental hearts…
As can, even more so, that age-kippered fiddle
Which is, all about its bridge, fogged with the rosin of many a gig.
Such is the skill of the musicians,
All the old tunes are newly made to feel at home:
I hear Fog on the Tyne; but, as my eyes rest, I see mist on the Gann,
And don’t know why.
When the bar-leaners, appreciative listeners all, hear novel compositions,
They concentrate, and applaud each clever weave of tune and lyric.
After a romping melody, no words,
Rich resonances waltzing round the low-beamed room,
Here comes Dirty Old Town; and I imagine myself out into the darkness…
There, where the clean night’s newborn vapour
Threads that rain-freshened rush of water –
Might an impulse-halted otter be listening, intrigued?
…Too soon, cloths going over beer pump handles, lights being switched;
And glasses, wanting draining, being called back to the bar.
Now, typical packing-up banter: ‘What key do you reckon
You were playing that last song in? One of your own invention?’
Next, voices fogging farewell by the dewy roadside;
And, as we click seatbelts, ‘Must get Steve and Sandy
To come along next time.’
© Christopher Jessop 2016