Thursday 10 December 2009

They Fuck You Up, Your Mum and Dad (or: Bennett on Writing)

Yeah, it's way too late but:

I'm watching Being Alan Bennett
(you know the playwright-guy from the Talking Heads monologues? ... No? Well he also did an adaptation of Wind in the Willows and wrote the play The madness of King George III... No? Well he also did the narration for Winnie the Pooh... aahh! )



which is amazing... 

He just made an observation about writing using Philip Larkin's "This Be the Verse":


"They fuck you up your mum and dad, and if you are writing that is probably a good thing. But if you are planning on writing and they haven't fucked you up, well, you've got nothing to go on, so then they fucked you up good and proper."


He then proceeds to sing This Be The Verse to to the theme tune to Last of the Summer Wine

Why all that is funny???
mmm... I've had years of training listening to (mostly British) symphonic rock: Let's just say Bennett, like a good sympho-band is able to translate a minor problem like getting through another rainy sunday into a multi-part 20+ minute epic rock-anthem using mostly keen observations, folk psychological reasoning and an amazing mastery of the English language.

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