pensnest | Sunshine Challenge #5 (Reply)

A few songs on the subject of Blue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqwSde_eEv4 The incomparable Ella Fitzgerald singing Blue Moon. The song is Rodgers and Hart, a combination I generally prefer to Rodgers and Hammerstein because Hart's lyrics are more… more pointy. I bought several 'songbooks' by Ella and have spent many, many happy hours singing along. What a Voice. A voice that makes a reasonable argument for the existence of God.

By contrast, Louis Armstrong isn't exactly a singer. But he too has a Voice, and can put a song across as well as many a vocalist with a purer sound. Having a Voice is better than being a singer, in terms of being listenable. He's also a pretty damn good trumpet player. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8GjJD826vc Basin Street Blues.

This one's definitely in the Ella category, being a Singer with a Voice. I missed Cleo Laine's heyday, but I have seen her live on stage, in a brief performance during a Sondheim retrospective at The Stables. She has astounding stage presence. Here, singing Primrose Colour Blue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDQ9jT9Q_sU

Songs that have a more personal relevance, on some level:

I remember this one from the Eurovision Song Contest, which is frankly a bit weird as it was such a long time ago! But it is an enduring and lovely song: L'amour est bleu, sung by Vicky Leandros. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD4ib9-laGY My, how Eurovision has changed.

This one reminds me of my teenage years. I like it more now, I think, than I did then: Venus, by Shocking Blue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LhkyyCvUHk

Blue Mountain by Quantum Jump is from my university years. My college boyfriend owned this album (Barracuda, and I particularly liked the song with two men and a snake, so he gave me a copy for my birthday. It's an excellent album and worth a listen if you have the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQn1mFq_OQk

An up to date reference now: Blue Skies is a song my chorus sings. Not, though, as well as this lot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBzVxsQtzxk Ringmasters, sometime quartet champions, although they are babies here. Babies!

And finally, just for fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1Ond-OwgU8

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Blue. It's somehow a colour I associate with COVID-19. Perhaps it's because the little Symptom Study app which I fill in dutifully every day is a dark blue icon on my phone screen. Perhaps it's because the sky has been regularly bright and rainless for most of the time since March. It's fortunate for the sake of the garden that there has been some rain recently.

But I think it's that coronafeeling. That weird mental numbness that comes from the combination of isolation, uncertainty, threat, change and so forth. That thing that means all those jobs/hobbies/special things that we just needed the time to do… still haven't been done. That thing that lets me sit on the sofa reading AmIThe Asshole on my phone instead of getting to my computer and finishing my story or sorting out my painting box and doing some acrylic work or going into the garden to make a start on achieving what I have in my head.

It felt better, I'd say, when the whole country was in lockdown. Not that everybody was confined to quarters, of course. Some people have had to get out there and work, for the sake of the rest of us. But those of us who were in lockdown were *IN* lockdown. Streets were silent and empty. And there was a sense of solidarity about it. For most of us, there was not much we could do to help, but we could stay at home and we did. And the community feeling of the Thursday Night Clap was really re-moralising. It was oddly comforting to hear the noises from other households as we clapped (or played the clarinet).

Now, there isn't that solidarity. Lots of people are still staying at home, not resuming normality, because we're still at risk (or living with someone at risk) or simply being cautious. And becoming increasingly restless about things that we've had to substitute for our 'real lives' (I'm thinking of my chorus, rehearsals on Zoom are just not the same—it's good to have a sing, and to see those faces, but it's not like singing together, and we're all itching to find some way of making it possible to sing together again, which we can't yet do). Still, we're sticking to our purpose.

But so many seem to have decided that because lockdown is 'easing', our troubles are over and there's no need to take precautions. I sympathise with people who, say, work in shops—and businesses seem by and large to be doing their best to enable social distancing and to look after their staff to whatever extent they can. But now, I no longer trust my fellow citizens to be doing the right thing. I see them walking carelessly in groups and making no effort to step aside the way everyone did a couple of months ago, I hear about them going in crowds to pubs and other social arenas, and I don't trust them. I miss that feeling of solidarity. I'm still scared. I'm still angry. I'm still… blue.