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!

Common Sense Dancing: Play's Cool

Even as a teen, I would have nostalgic conversations with friends about the television we watched during our younger years.

Coming from different households there would be common programmes, and fringe shows that only a few watched and none of the rest of us remembered. Taken together, they all brought humour, song, teaching, different ways of telling stories, different styles of presentation - real world, puppets, cartoon or stop-frame animation, mixtures of all of them. They would engender laughter, fear, questions.. But they all left a huge impression on us, and even now as I find myself rather older than the teen I once was, those programmes still live me.

It was another BBC documentary which gave me the idea for this song, one concerned with 'The Golden Age of Children's Television.' It defined this era, for the UK at least, as being from the mid 50s to the late 80s - essentially when the broadcasting companies had their own in-house children's programming departments. And this, rather neatly, included my childhood.

Once I had the chorus, I wrote out all the children's television programmes I remembered, and sought to include as many as had made an impression on me without it seeming just like a list. There needed to be context, a story. Many didn't make it in, for reasons of scansion, song-length, relevance to the emotional mood, etc.

Every so often after gigs it gets suggested that I should do a verse about such-and-such a programme, and I sympathise with the suggestions these people make. But I am happy with what I have written, it works for me, describes my experience, and am pleased that it has resonances for others; and I would be utterly delighted to hear of their songs, poems, stage plays, short stories, paintings, interpretive dances, etc. of their experiences of the art of children's entertainment and broadcast education through their formative years.

There's enough art in the universe for everyone to have a go.

Many thanks to Sarah Sharp for playing violin on this.

I had hoped to get Brian Cant to appear on this tune, speaking where the violin solo comes. Though his agent thought he might have been interested to do it, sadly, he was too ill at the time, so the playful, nostalgic melody that was written as a contingency ended up being a necessity. He died later that year. As well the late Clive James, Common Sense Dancing is also dedicated to the memory of Brian. He brought so much happiness to so many millions of children for many, many years.

So let your eyes mist today, and I'll see you tomorrow for a bit of a change of gear!