Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A songwriter and poet best known for the jazz standard 'Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most' and her sardonic, rhyming style.
On the island
Eight records
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
My first record is a song that I used to sing to my children when they were little. It's called Brother, Can You Spare a Dime from the Depression? And the boys used to say, Mommy, sing Dime song. And then they'd try to press a coin into my hands while I did this affecting number.
when I met J. Irving Landesman and he took me to his flat with one Eames chair and a Jackson Pollock spattered floor, he had one record, and it was the three-penny opera. It was in German, and I'd never heard this song before, and it sounded wonderfully kind of sexy and decadent and all that.
The Ballad of the Sad Young Men
It's the title of a collection of short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Most people don't know that or or or they will accuse me of stealing it and I say I assume that anyone who's literate knows that.
Well, we did know Miles. He lived across the river in East Saint Louis. And we used to listen to this record by the swimming pool. We had the speakers outside, and I just remember that wonderful horn of his drifting. over the pool as I lay there in the sun.
I wanted to have something in temporary. I like to hear new songs, songs that I've never heard before, and I'm not that familiar with Pulpit on this desert island. Maybe if I took this record I would get to know his work better.
This is a song I used to sing to my children. Somebody said I used to sing very depressing songs to them, but they used to say, sing that song about the bulging eyes and the twisted mouth.
Fran Landesman and Miles Landesman
this is a cut from that LP with my son Miles, who I do a lot of gigging with, playing guitar for me. And it's his setting of a poem of mine called White Nightmare. Also, it attacks the question of n racism.
DownFavourite
My last record is the fruit of my collaboration with Simon Wallace. And it's sung by a wonderful girl, Nikki Leighton Thomas.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:43Where did [the line] 'Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most' come from?
Well, I had Just started hanging out with jazz musicians and listening to the way they spoke. And I realized one day, I was thinking about April is the cruelest month, mixing memory with desire, those lines of Elliott's. And I thought the way the jazz musicians would say that would be, spring can really hang you up the most.
Presenter asks
5:53What was Woody Allen like [when he performed at your nightclub]?
Woody Allen, terrified. Every single night, I couldn't believe it. He would pace up and down his dressing room and I'd hang out with him. He'd say, I hope they're going to be nice tonight. I do hope they're going to be nice tonight.
Presenter asks
9:07What were you rebelling against [when you met Jay]?
My mother tells me that the first word she ever remembers me uttering when I was a tiny little child was, Mommy, when am I going to get my freedom? I didn't want any kind of restraints.
The keepsakes
The luxury
But actually if I could grow myself some grass, I would probably not miss the bed as much as I'd miss the smoke.
Presenter asks
Are you still in love [after forty-six years of marriage]?
Yes, I think we are. More than ever, as a matter of fact.
Presenter asks
16:14Do you still have affairs?
No, definitely not. Neither of you. I felt that, well, maybe he does a bit, but men can get away with that. ... there is a cut off, and I think the big six O is where I would personally cut it off.
Presenter asks
20:43What sort of parents do you think you and Jay made?
Both of my boys are healthy, not they haven't been to jail, they're not drug addicts. And Cosmo ... s said in print that I wasn't all that bad of a mum, although I I embarrassed them.
“I never call myself a poet and I I am very honored when somebody else uses that word, but I think of myself as a songwriter.”
“I think the idea of limiting yourself for all of your life to one person, they can't do everything. ... It isn't all about sex, which is what people think it is. It's about all the things that other people can bring into your life.”
“I practically do everything on that bed. It's my raft in a sea of dreams.”
“I think that separate rooms is the secret of a happy marriage, but I recognize it's a great luxury. ... Because then you're always glad to see the person. They're not just somebody that's there. They're a welcomed and honored and treasured guest.”