DESTINATIONS & DESTINIES
Driving on education business to Crewe,
a quarter of a century ago,
I stopped for petrol on the Nantwich Road,
and there in a rack with Blur, Celine Dion
and Bon Jovi was Fred Astaire, Volume 2.
How my life changed! So many favourites
on one disc! I put the CD in the slot,
drove off the forecourt, and pressed the switch.
‘Heaven, I’m in heaven, And my heart beats
so that I can hardly speak, And I seem
to find the happiness I seek When
we’re out together dancing, cheek to cheek…’
and the track finished with his immortal feet
tap dancing in my company car.
I thought of Israel Beilin – as I parked
at the college to provide advice
on pedagogical strategies –
leaving school at eight to sell the New York
Daily News on the Lower East Side,
plugging songs at eighteen in Tin Pan Alley,
becoming Irving Berlin, auto-didact,
maestro of the music and the lyrics,
making witty, eclectic American
art from those spirited, Yiddisher streets.
When I drove away the car filled again
with Astaire’s light, pellucid voice: ‘Before
the fiddlers have fled Before they ask us
to pay the bill And while we still have that chance
Let’s face the music and dance.’
Keith Johnson
October 30, 2020Ah – I was born in a house on the Nantwich Road at Wells Green [near the birthplace of Betty Mynshull, Milton’s third wife] – Paradise Lost!
John Huddart
October 30, 2020That list of three that precedes Fred Vol 2 [and in no way comes after him!] is so cleverly inserted. A hint of poverty in a field and poem of riches. Let’s face the music…….Indeed.