Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
A writer and broadcaster, best known for his witty television documentaries and criticism, and for his autobiographical books.
On the island
Eight records
Elsie Morison and Jennifer Vyvyan
The nice thing about Scarletti cantatas, as they are for two voices. This one was written in seventeen hundred and seven, when Scarletti was at Urbino, and it's called Floro etirsi.
It's played by a girl. It's supposed to be a man's role, but luckily it's always sung by women. And it's Carabino's aria, non so pure, and it's sung on this record by Teresa Berganza, who I think is an amazing singer who drills every note right through the middle.
It's called Louise. And this is an aria from it, and it's sung incomparably by Kalas. … I think she sung this marvellous, really marvellous aria with extraordinary sensitivity.
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Christa Ludwig, Teresa Stich-Randall
I simply had to have something by Richard Strauss… I can still remember the day I first heard the trio from Rosen Cavalier. I had never, ever heard anything like it in my life, and to day, now twenty years have gone by, the hair on the back of my neck still rises when I hear the trio.
This is a lovely, lovely melody, and it's sung by an amazing lady whose English Maggie Tate. … it's called Ensordine, which means muted, not much noise.
I didn't know which Billie Holiday track to choose. I ended up choosing Pennies from Heaven from 1936 because as well as Billy singing superbly, there's just a staggering group playing behind her. Teddy Wilson's on the piano, Cozy Coles on drums, and there's a clarinet solo from Benny Goodman in the middle.
Baby LoveFavourite
Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland, Eddie Holland
I ended up choosing one track from, I think, the greatest single rock record that exists, and that's The Supreme's Greatest Hits. And this is the original Supremes, headed by Diana Ross. This is Tamla Motown at its greatest, and I think this is one of their greatest songs. It's called Baby Love, and I think this is just sheer beauty from start to finish.
The lyric of the song is actually written by myself. It's sung by Julie Covington on the first LP she made… The music is by my collaborator Pete Atkin and I think some of the melodies are marvellous. Julie sings them with a wonderful simplicity and especially this one and I think it's an appropriate lyric for someone who is reflecting on his own life as he sits on a desert island… It's called If I Had My Time Again.
Jailhouse RockFavourite
Rock and roll had a huge impact on me back in the the fifties and and I had a huge impact on my environment when I started dancing to it. And real Presley fans like the Presley films, and Jailhouse Rock was my favorite, and there's one number in it actually called Jailhouse Rock.
Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers
And there was an historic moment in my life when uh someone at Sydney University said you should listen to New Orleans jazz because I've been rubbishing it. I've been sitting around pontificating and making the huge mistake of thinking because it was old it was over. And if it's old and you've heard of it, it's never over.
The nice thing about women singing is that you don't die of envy because you can't sing like a woman. But when I first heard Billie Holliday I wanted to anything I did to be as neat as that, especially in her early years. And she had a great love affair with the tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who was good for her and she for him, and together they were magic.
One of my favorite areas from opera, and I I did love opera from the beginning. Of hearing it. And once again, I was introduced to it. In London, I was introduced by a flatmate who said, Listen to this. Listen to this has always been an important part of my life.
It's not just that I'm a Frank Sinatra fan. There are many attributes of Frank Sinatra's character that I didn't approve of at all. But I just love the way he sang because it was so like speech. And one of the great lyric writers of his generation was Johnny Mercer.
Alison Moyet and Pete Glenister
I've loved the popular song. All my life. I love popular entertainment. And one of the problems of the song as we got into the 60s was that the recording artists, usually young rock and rollers with very questionable hairstyles, started to write their own gear. And it was really the end of the line for the professional songwriter... But you've got the occasional voice with enough sense to sing great songs written by other people.
I did ride hundreds back in uh the sixties and seventies with my with my friend Pete Atkin... we were not a great commercial success at the time, although we had six albums released commercially... But the strange thing was, our effort didn't disappear. It was remembered by the people who bought the records and has been remembered by the next generation.
But when you think about it, most of the great tangos I dance to are songs. And it's a great body of literature. The tango song is even better than jazz in that some masterly poets have worked in it. I've actually picked one out called Cambalace, which is a Buenos Aires word for swap shop, really.
In conversation
Presenter asks
14:11What brought you to this country?
Having learned that, I thought perhaps there wasn't anything more to learn in Australia at that time. This is 1960-61. … Australia was a very, very conservative country. … everyone who had any ambitions at all in the arts of any kind always thought of fulfilling those ambitions abroad. That was the way everyone thought. So one simply went and tried one's hand.
Presenter asks
16:28So you arrived in London, Clive. Had you contacts here?
None. I think I had one letter of introduction which I lost, together with the only ten pounds I had in the world. … I still can't decide whether that was the best thing that ever happened to me or was an unmitigated disaster. … I had about a hundred jobs, that many addresses, averaged about nine pounds a week, and I'm afraid was the kind of visitor to Britain which Britain has subsequently learned to regret, someone who's actually not really contributing much.
Presenter asks
17:05You got up to Cambridge. How did that happen?
Well, that was a strange business too, because I decided after a few years of absolutely getting nowhere … that I'd like to go back and study again and do it right … So I wrote to my professor in Australia … he wrote to a friend of his in Cambridge … I was invited to join them as an affiliated student … I was able to get a grant from the LCC. And I'm still very conscious of the fact that this was a supremely generous gift because I'd done nothing to deserve it.
The keepsakes
The book
How to Sing: Some Practical Hints
Enrico Caruso
I think I would take a marvellous book by Caruso. It's called My Method of Singing... In the the short time I'd be spending there, I could profit by a bit of voice training from the man himself.
The luxury
A pianola with Caruso piano rolls (voice missing so I could supply it)
there I would be doing what I would love best to do, but really can't, which is to sing.
Presenter asks
19:18When you came down from Cambridge, what was the first break you had?
Well, I had the break before I came down. I was still doing my PhD and I was invited by a marvellous man called Nicholas Tomelin … to write for The New Statesman when I was still at Cambridge. … I suppose that's how it started. … But then the time came when I was doing more work for Fleet Street than I was on my thesis and I had to make a choice. … I left my PhD undone and I walked away from it. Yeah, to Fleet Street.
Presenter asks
23:38Now, Clive, you've published three long satirical epics in rhyme couplets… What inspired you to tackle this what must have been a very, very difficult long drawn out tasks?
Rhyming couplets are difficult to write, and they're especially difficult to write if you're going to make them look effortless, which I strove very, very hard to do. … I simply like the idea of public poetry. … I think there's a good case for writing the kind of poetry that a lot of people can appreciate and understand and enjoy, especially if it can be humorous. So I just thought I would like to do a long, extended, humorous epic about life in London.
Presenter asks
33:12Now, you've described in detail in unreliable memoirs your childhood aptitude for demolishing things. How are you at putting things up? A hut, for example, on this desert island?
I spent a lot of time on the beach. When I was young, until I left Australia, I suppose I spent half of every day underwater. … But then the time comes when you want to put away all that and do something serious. … What's this leading to? This is leading to what kind of castaway you're going to be. … I was rather depending on having food flown in, actually. … I think I would try to get out at an early stage. Unfortunately I'm not much of a practical hand.
Presenter asks
4:51What happened [when your father died]?
Well, strangely enough, I haven't said it all that often. It's been it's been said for me. It's a subject I've tried to avoid or bury uh and I think for understandable reasons. But it's undoubtedly true that it's m my first big memory is uh is what struck me as an an ungovernable tragedy... He had survived, but he got killed on the way back from the war.
Presenter asks
6:15Why did [your father's death] turn you into, in your own words, a gross over-worker and overachiever?
It's a very, very good question, because I think I think I just there are only two ways you can go. One is to just lie there and wait for the world to change or the other is to occupy yourself. And maybe compulsive the compulsive... Busi busyness is a neurotic compensation.
Presenter asks
11:24Is the old ice chip in the heart still there? Because you were worried that you didn't feel anything.
I'm worried about having written the poem, because the ice chip in the heart enables you to use other people's griefs for material. And uh there is a terrible truth. that everything is on the agenda. Pushkin said that once. It's all material, and I think any writer has a moment of self loathing when he something terrible happens in his life or the life of someone near him, and at the very moment it's happening he thinks he thinks I can use this.
Presenter asks
14:34Did you get suicidal at one point [during your messy time in Tufnell Park]?
Yes, I did get suicidal at one point, but uh in fact But it never got to the point where I thought if I would actually jump. I never maybe I had never had anything high enough to jump off, if you give me. I was living in a basement, for one thing, and jumping out of a window in a basement is not the way to end it all.
Presenter asks
15:53What happened to your mum in those sixteen years that you didn't go back [to Sydney]? Did you see her?
She uh she got sent a lot of letters and got a lot of quite a lot of letters back, not quite as many as she sent... I saw her a couple of times, uh not not often, but a couple of times and I've seen her ever since
Presenter asks
16:12Did you break her heart?
Yes, probably. But it had already been broken several times. It was the fate of the women in that generation to have a a hard time and it made them very, very strong. And I think my mother was an extremely intelligent woman and knew that me going away was going to be part of the agenda. Because the alternative would have been to stay there. with her, and she wouldn't have wanted that.
“I think I love music more than any other of the arts. I can't sing even a simple phrase.”
“I've told so many lies in it. It's a pack of fibs from start to finish. On the other hand, I think the central story is probably true.”
“I think someone not being there is probably still the central experience of my life, even though I'm now forty years old.”
“I think if I had a fleet of tankers, I would have given them to her any day of the week, just on the basis of this track alone.”
“I think it would have to be the Supreme's greatest hit, because every track on it is so danceable, and I've got a feeling on Desert Island you do a lot of dancing alone. Especially towards sunset. Very sad.”
“I know damn well that I wouldn't be on that desert island long before a ship came on the horizon, or a helicopter landed... Because of my luck. No, opt optimism is is pretty well useless, I think.”
“I think any writer has a moment of self loathing when he something terrible happens in his life or the life of someone near him, and at the very moment it's happening he thinks he thinks I can use this.”
“To actually be yourself under that kind of artificial intensity of attention is quite a trick. It takes practice.”
“When I get accused of wanting to have my cake and eat it, my only answer is what else are you supposed to do with cake?”