It must be the snow that is giving rise to this nostalgia. Wasn’t every winter as white and as angelic as this long ago when we all knew our sweet love of youth? I know that I then first came to meet the sweet Deanna Durbin when I was in my teens and just beginning my rebellion against the order of the day.
Of course, I would never then have admitted to anything more than a musical interest in her ; but lads don’t tell their mates everything, do they? At any rate, I was surprised and rather disappointed to learn that she had also been a favourite of my elders and betters. Good grief! She was old enough to be my mother. Born in 1921, she retired in 1949 to live in peace (near Paris) with her husband. As far as I know she is still there. I hope so, and I hope too that she reflects shamelessly on the pleasure her singing brought to so many.
Thomas Moore (1779 – 1852) wrote the lines that Deanna here sings. He was Irish and a poet ; what more need we say? Only that he was much more than that. He worked for the Admiralty at some stage ; he knew Byron ; he got into the most horrendous debt and had to flee to Paris until he had paid it off. And he must have known that Miss Durbin was on her way to the world ; for who could sing his poem quite like this?
’TIS the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
To give sigh for sigh.
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o’er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.
So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from Love’s shining circle
The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie withered
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?
Jamie
I have to confess that I didn’t know the lovely lady of your Post but when we were little like from 9 to 11 the boys all fell deeply in love with the new schoolteacher. We literally stood in queue for the favor of carrying her books after school. Did you have that kind of teachers too?
We used to swoon over her and jumped when she called one to come forward to clean the blackboard ….
I remember there was one; it nearly broke all our little hearts when she chose to marry one of the male teachers shortly after.
Morning Ike,
I only had lady teachers in the Primary School, and they were a bit dragonish ; but there was a handsome one whom I admired from afar. She, too, married after a short while. But all that didn’t matter because I was saving myself for Miss Durbin, who appeared when I was about thirteen and very impressionable. It’s hard to imagine that, with a voice like that, she a pop singer. I wonder at her career prospects today.
Well Jamie
I wish we could be together today and just talk away into the night and the entire week; it’s in my mood and your reply to my comment brought the old nostalgia along.
Sadly I think your Miss Durbin would probably not have made it today; nothing wrong with her qualities at all; just because the World has changed. Our elder brother probably had the largest collection of old music that he painstakingly collected and preserved over more than forty years; he had installed special recorders/amplifiers and all sorts of devices against the whole length of one wall in their family room and played some of the old 78 singles for us when the mood was on us but the young ones never showed any interest. He was a passive giant though and just smiled.
I do very little about new Posts now but want you to read my memories on a related matter, if you would. You may also delete this if it bores you but it is related; well, to the mood it is.
http://ikejakson.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/my-ole-grandpaw-had-a-donkey-cart/
Enjoy your old music; we old people have rights too and the young ones may just have to bear and grin it for a while if I have my way.
Yes, Ike, it’d be great to have a session just listening, talking and putting the world to rights as the corks pop and memories spill their tales. It’s odd how we talk of old memories, for in my experience, memories bring with them all the breath and the bloom of youth, not the worldliness of age.
I remember those 78rpm singles, also the 33rpm LPs and EPs ; my! they cost a fortune back in the early sixties, when I started my classical collection. I still have most of them, but the best got lent and then kidnapped. I still have a dozen or so 78rpm hard-pressed discs, though some got broken in my many travels. I also used to have a wind-up gramophone, but that went missing too.
I’ll be off to read your blog after supper. I have been more than long enough absent.
Jamie
Your reply prompted me to recalculate some dates and by Jove, 1960 was when Ouboet started his collection though he found some old 78 singles which must have dated back ten years then; he must have been at it for 50 years but he always lamented that he could never find the old wind-up gramophone. Old Grandma had one that she would take out of the cupboard where it was kept like brand-new in cloth wrapping and she was the only one in control. Then she would find the small tin of needles and Uncle Gertjie would play us one record, or maybe two before Grandma would hover over him to finish up.
And the memories must be of the bloom of youth, is that not so? I have had the ten best years of my life with Boetie after I resettled in the area of my birth when I retired before he passed on in May. We walked back to the barefoot days and did get to our middle twenties on occasions but boy; we covered every day from when we got to know each other at three or so. If he stayed with us we would have done it over and over because every time we did we discovered the odd day or event that we had missed on a previous time.
Bless you; I am pleased to see you back, even if it is only once a month or so. Let’s try to do that.
She’s not exactly Debbie Harry, is she? The Blondie singer was the unrequited love of my teenage years. I experienced the same shock to the system as yourself when I found out Debbie in her pomp was in her thirties. A nice link to the fact that research has told me Deanna began her career in the thirties.
Deanna is a lovely name and Moore’s words are touching. Good to see you back writing again, Jamie. There’s nothing wrong with looking back to go forward. Savour your memories of Deanna.
JW, I always thought that Debbie Harry was a brand of shampoo but it seems that she’s just another also-ran chasing my affections. Look, it’s like this : Deanna won my heart and ain’t gonna let it go, see? But I’ll check this Harry geezer out, just to please you.
Well, I checked. I saw that she was born in 1945. A mere child, JW. I would write to her, but I don’t want to find myself on some register … Now, Deanna … there’s a real lady.
It’s good to be back, and I really appreciate you dropping in. I’ll call in at yours when I am ready to face the Dark Forces again.