Nows and Forevers

What happens when you combine Levi Stubbs, The Four Tops, Holland/Dozier/Holland and the Motown Sound? You get this hands-down 2 minute and 40 second classic, which was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 59 years ago this week.

And, actually, I just looked it up, No. 1 two nonconsecutive weeks in a three-week period. How great a song do you have to be to reach No. 1, decline, and then coming roaring back?

Levi, the legend. That voice.

It’s hard to pick favorite Motown songs because so many of them still smoke, all these years later. You don’t think a song titled “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” would have this much going for it, but it’s anything but inconsequential lyrically.

And that bridge. Wow.

I wish I could write as punchy and as sharp as this song, all the time.

How did I miss this in the ’80s?

While I don’t speak Welsh every day anymore, Wales and the Welsh language still hit me in the heart. And this is an important video by Tudor Owen, a Welsh-language comedian and radio host. But he’s not being funny here and that’s what makes it all the more powerful. It’s a few minutes worth watching, if only for the beauty of Wales shining through.

There’s been a steady destruction of the Welsh language and culture over the last 100 years or so (let’s be honest, it goes back centuries longer than that). I joined the defense when I began to learn the language, as I did, in Welsh-language schools out of Merthyr Tydfil, Caerdydd, Abertawe and Sir Penfro. You know, like, America’s favorite, Wrecsam.

Yes, Welsh can be a difficult language. My primary tutor told me, no exaggeration, that Welsh is the language of heaven and I believe it. I’ve understood thoughts and feelings in the language that I can’t convey in English. And even years of French, and living in a bilingual French/English community, never gave me the same kind of immersion.

Cymraeg is beautiful, yes, but it’s also an ancient language full of mystery and wonder. Even in its place names possess distinctiveness.

“So it’s not just a name, it’s a story,” Owen said. He’s right.

Here’s the link:

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240412-in-history-the-man-who-survived-the-titanic-sinking

It’s hard to imagine more than be said about the Titanic but here’s the witness of Frank Prentice, one of the few surviving crew members of the Titanic, of this night in 1912 from 67 years later:

“I shall probably dream about it tonight; have another nightmare. You’d think I’m too old for that, but you’d be amazed. You lie in bed at night and the whole thing comes round again.”

For my money, one of the most touching scenes in all of “Doctor Who,” with Bill Nighy walking on with brilliance to honor Vincent Van Gogh: “He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world … No one had ever done it before. Perhaps no one ever will again.”

Happy birthday, Vincent Van Gogh.