gauchecritic
When there are grey skies
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2002
- Posts
- 7,076
Couple of things, in last Sunday's episode of 'Torchwood' a guy had got killed and the story focussed around his ghost, about halfway through, the soundtrack was Antony and the Johnsons: Hope There's Someone.
Before I was married, so we're talking seventies here, I lived at home with my parents and younger brother and sister. One night my uncle came dowstairs in his dressing gown and my sister's fiancee made a remark about "Wee Willie Winkie" etc, we laughed, my uncle finished what ever he was doing in the kitchen (getting a drink of water or whatever) and eventually went back upstair.
After my parents arrived home my dad heard some sort of commotion going on upstairs, he went up to speak with him and my uncle was behaving as though he were drunk, singing loudly and recalling events from his youth on the farm in 'the old country'.
Everyone had a go at talking some sense into him but he was only speaking Lithuanian, throughout the episode we kept asking my dad what it was that his brother was talking about. He wouldn't say but decided to call an ambulance.
We got him to hospital where they did some tests, got him comfortable and bedded him down for the night. The family went home.
I couldn't sleep and stayed awake all night playing patience/solitaire with a real deck of cards (no PCs in those days)
Earlier that week (maybe months before, I can't remember now) my uncle had expressed his liking for a song by Neil Sedaka, and having only heard the song and not the singer's name, he thought that it was a female. I went out and bought him a copy (on vinyl).
Come two o'clock in the morning, my hands now slippery with residue from the deck, marked and reddened by their sharp edges I thought of the record I'd bought him and began singing it to myself, quietly so that I didn't wake anyone.
Days of devils, kings and crowns
Magic songs and birthday tunes
Sha lalas and doobie downs
The sounds to take away our blues
I continued playing and a while later the phone rang, someone wanting to speak to my dad.
The rest of that morning was spent in deep shock, my sister's fiancee drove me round to my older brother's house (he insisted that he drive) where we waited awhile until he came home from the night shift so that I could break the news. Our uncle had died at 2 o'clock.
This will be our last song together
Words will only make us cry
this will be our last song together
There's no other way, we can say goodbye.
Before I was married, so we're talking seventies here, I lived at home with my parents and younger brother and sister. One night my uncle came dowstairs in his dressing gown and my sister's fiancee made a remark about "Wee Willie Winkie" etc, we laughed, my uncle finished what ever he was doing in the kitchen (getting a drink of water or whatever) and eventually went back upstair.
After my parents arrived home my dad heard some sort of commotion going on upstairs, he went up to speak with him and my uncle was behaving as though he were drunk, singing loudly and recalling events from his youth on the farm in 'the old country'.
Everyone had a go at talking some sense into him but he was only speaking Lithuanian, throughout the episode we kept asking my dad what it was that his brother was talking about. He wouldn't say but decided to call an ambulance.
We got him to hospital where they did some tests, got him comfortable and bedded him down for the night. The family went home.
I couldn't sleep and stayed awake all night playing patience/solitaire with a real deck of cards (no PCs in those days)
Earlier that week (maybe months before, I can't remember now) my uncle had expressed his liking for a song by Neil Sedaka, and having only heard the song and not the singer's name, he thought that it was a female. I went out and bought him a copy (on vinyl).
Come two o'clock in the morning, my hands now slippery with residue from the deck, marked and reddened by their sharp edges I thought of the record I'd bought him and began singing it to myself, quietly so that I didn't wake anyone.
Days of devils, kings and crowns
Magic songs and birthday tunes
Sha lalas and doobie downs
The sounds to take away our blues
I continued playing and a while later the phone rang, someone wanting to speak to my dad.
The rest of that morning was spent in deep shock, my sister's fiancee drove me round to my older brother's house (he insisted that he drive) where we waited awhile until he came home from the night shift so that I could break the news. Our uncle had died at 2 o'clock.
This will be our last song together
Words will only make us cry
this will be our last song together
There's no other way, we can say goodbye.
