Common Sense Dancing: Epilogue

Three weeks have passed, and we've journeyed through 20 pieces of music covering nearly 100 minutes of audio in the process. I thought that to close, I'd give a little background to the title..

The album's name, as explained on the CD artwork, is drawn from a quote in an essay by Clive James,

Common sense and a sense of humour are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing.

I first came across the quote attributed to Jon Snow (the UK Channel 4 journalist) as merely "A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing" sometime around 2008/9 and was really drawn to the idea. In 2011 it returned to mind and I sought to find out more about the context of the quote, finding it was actually Clive James from an essay he wrote in 1979 about television. Helpfully, the full text of the writing was available on www.clivejames.com. Sadly, since then the website has been restructured several times and the essay is no longer present (and I can't remember it's name to find it on The Internet Archive!); and even more sadly, Clive died on the 24th November 2019.

As mentioned in the post about Play's Cool, the album is dedicated to the memory of Mr James (as well as that of Mr Cant). Clive brought an underlying humour and understanding to often complicated issues surrounding the media, politics, relationships; and with the structure and form of this album I wanted to echo something of that outlook.

The sequencing of the tracks, when heard as intended on the album rather than the order presented in these posts, was designed to bring light and shade; to lift, inform, ponder, and bring relief; to have tensions and releases. Whether it's successful in that intent, really, is for the listener to decide.

I hope you've enjoyed this stroll through the album. It was very enjoyable to draw together music from the earliest days of my writing in 1989 and more recent pieces, and moreso to work with some fabulous people who brought the words and music alive.

Thank you for coming with me these passed three weeks. I now have three projects of my own starting up, and there is talk of another John Hackett Band album - hope to see you all again as they go public!