1 July 2013

Geraldine

Perhaps I am unusual in that certain songs from my past will sometimes rise to the surface of my consciousness so that I find myself humming them, whistling them or singing little fragments from them. Are you the same?

One of my flotsam songs is "The Ballad of Geraldine". Though it's delivered to us by a man, he's singing it in the role of a young woman who is "with child" but finds herself, rather tragically, deserted by her lover. I first heard this song when I was fifteen and for some reason it struck a chord. It's not one of Donovan's best known songs. "Oh I was born with the name Geraldine..." is of course a lie - for he was born with the name Donovan Leitch - but I guess I rather liked that idea of an artist adopting a persona - imagining himself into somebody else's situation. And the theme is surely timeless - young women left holding the baby.
Co-incidentally, it partly echoes a recent episode of the ITV's tear-jerking series, "Long Lost Family" in which a Sheffield woman who is incidentally known to us - finally makes contact with the boy she gave up for adoption thirty two years ago. He was conceived when she was only sixteen. Her outraged father had pressurised her into letting go. Only a codfish would fail to shed a tear or two as we witness the reunion of a mother and her grown up son in a Sheffield centre hotel. You think of all the lost years and the quiet regrets - living lives with vital jigsaw pieces missing..."but all my love I was saving".

6 comments:

  1. I am laughing Sir YP, you did not issue a drug warning before watching the music clip. How times have changed ~ forced adoptions I mean.

    ReplyDelete
  2. They must be very poor people having to share a roll up between five. Times were hard back then.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I had never thought of this concept of saving up love. I suppose people do though because there is that saying about "absence makes the heart grow fonder."
    Love is kind of like fond isn't it? Sometimes love is a whole lot like fun but fun is not like fond, well maybe. Reckon my logic is flawed?

    ReplyDelete
  4. CAROL IN CAIRNS I will take your word for it - drugs I mean. You seem to know a lot about it - but didn't you say you were a teacher?
    ADRIAN Like Carol above, you seem to know rather too much about the world of drugs. No wonder you look drug-crazed in your profile picture!
    DAVID OLIVER-TWIST Slightly flawed but not by drugs like the two commenters above. Yes I think "fondness" is love's equivalent.

    ReplyDelete
  5. YP...you mean there were herbs in the roll up. I suppose there were, tobacco is an 'erb.

    I really thought they were a bit strapped financially.

    Taking the piss out of my appearance is acceptable....anything for attention.

    Always good for a laugh are your posts even when you try to be serious.

    ReplyDelete
  6. ADRIAN Step outside for a bare-knuckled fight. Push! Shove! Wallop!

    ReplyDelete

Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

Most Visits