Wednesday, July 18, 2007

a poem from my friend philip. he sent it into the group
after a chance word or two brought the words to him.
i asked if i could post it and he agreed. thanks philip!











Me, Tom Petty, Sherry Pasquarello and Bob Harris


out of that
cheshire cat
grin


into the great wide open

Tom and myself are hard at work
the skirl of his guitar
on

the airwaves

my song is a mystery born off the lips of a lady
in Pittsburgh

as the three of us craft in discourse of the old Brill Buildings

and in weight

of
the old grey
whistle

test










(from philip)


For information:

The Old Grey Whistle Test was a very popular contempory music programme on BBC 2 TV by a host whose voice was so quiet he earned the nick name "whispering" Bob Harris.

I recently heard Bob reveal in a discussion about the Brill Buildings and Neil Diamong, Carol King and others that the title for the OGWT came out of a myth that all truelly good tunes with prospects of longevity would be those which were picked up by the men who worked on menial tasks within the Brill Building complex and would whistle them repeatedly - the old grey whistle test.







Philip Johnson @ moon a'la monde
http://www.philipjohnson.org.uk

2 comments:

LSqrd said...

You can get OGWT on DVD, it is awesome. I have one of the discs right now, via Netflix.

Sherry Pasquarello said...

philip is a gem. a good friend and a grand poet.

i never realized until i came into the pk list just how very different english life is from ours. there are poets in my group from all over the world and i have learned far more than poetry from them.