'A Day in the Life' of The Muse?

Have you ever wondered what inspires an artist to sing or write a particular song?

I've been reading Chris Knowles' series of posts about the late Buckleys, Tim and son Jeff and 'The Song of the Siren'.

Song to the Siren/Chase the Blues Away?

The posts also center around Elizabeth Fraser's musical career and romantic connections with the late Jeff Buckley, who died in a river 20 years ago.

Tim Buckley was born on the 14th of February, 1947 (the same year David Bowie...or Davie Jones was born), which of course is Valentine's Day.

"David Robert Jones was born on 8 January 1947, in Brixton, south London, England, Bowie developed an interest in music as a child, eventually studying art, music and design before embarking on a professional career as a musician in 1963.

The singer's debut single, "Liza Jane", credited to Davie Jones and the King Bees, had no commercial success.
Dissatisfied with his stage name as Davy (and Davie) Jones, which in the mid-1960s invited confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees, Bowie renamed himself after the 19th-century American pioneer James Bowie and the knife he had popularised.

His April 1967 solo single, "The Laughing Gnome", using speeded-up thus high-pitched vocals, failed to chart.

Cover of the 1973 Danish single

Released six weeks later, his album debut, David Bowie, an amalgam of pop, psychedelia, and music hall, met the same fate.

It was his last release for two years"

"Did someone mention Davy Jones?"

Released May 26th, 1967

How many (rabbit) holes does it take to fill the Albert Hall?-)

Chris Knowles mentioned in his post about a show that Elizabeth Fraser was doing on July 23rd, 2017 at the Royal Albert Hall.

I was reading this blurb at the site for the July 23rd Albert Hall concert/talk - 

"Two musical legends will appear in conversation at the Royal Albert Hall for a unique one-off event to mark 50 years since the Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalised homosexuality."
Which reminded me of The Beatles album from 50 years ago and the song 'A Day in the Life', which has the lines -
"I read the news today oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.
I'd love to turn you on."
Reading further about what inspired that song I found out it was written about the Guinness heir Tara Browne (Born March 4th, 1945) who died in a car crash in London, steering his car into a lorry and saving his model girlfriend Suki Potier, who would later die in a car crash while on holiday in Portugal on June 23rd, 1981.

Released July 23rd, 1978

"In 1966 Suki was dating the Guinness heir Tara Browne. On 18 December 1966, she was with him in his car when he was driving through South Kensington and collided with a parked truck.

Tara died instantly; Suki was not injured.

The Beatles song A Day in the Life is often held to be based on this incident.

After living with Brian Jones, the Rolling Stones guitarist, she married the Hong Kong business man Robert Ho, eldest son of Stanley Ho, one of the wealthiest men in Macau.

She and her husband died in a car crash while on holiday in Portugal in 1981"

Browne failed to see a traffic light and proceeded through the junction of Redcliffe Square and Redcliffe Gardens, colliding with a parked lorry.

A Walk of Art and Synch in Redcliffe

Redcliffe in Queensland Australia is where the Bee Gees would start to make their way into the music world.

23 km north of Brisbane

"At the beginning of August 1958, the Gibb family set sail for Australia from Southampton on a ship called Fairsea.

Also aboard was Red Symons, future guitarist of Skyhooks, as well as Kylie Minogue's mother.

In 1959, the brothers began singing at the Redcliffe Speedway between races to earn money, their vocal talent brought them to the attention of Bill Gates, a radio deejay.

Gates was also interested in Gibb's original material including "Let Me Love You" and 

"(Underneath the) Starlight of Love". 

After hearing those songs, Gates asked him for more original material for the tape." 

"The Bee Gees returned to England in early 1967.

On 24 February, the group passed a live audition with Robert Stigwood and later signed to Robert Stigwood Organization also the same day that "Spicks and Specks" was released by Polydor as a single in England.

Stigwood became the manager of the Bee Gees.

The result was their first international LP Bee Gees' 1st, the second single from the album "To Love Somebody", on which Gibb provided the lead vocal has become a standard song as covered by hundreds of artists consistently throughout the years since."

"Drown On the River"

"In 1967, Gibb was in The Speakeasy Club, a nightclub in London where he was introduced by Pete Townshend to John Lennon.

Lennon was still wearing his outfit for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band photo shoot earlier that day on 30 March 1967; after a couple of scotch and cokes, Townshend said to Gibb, "Do you want to meet John?" and he led Gibb across to a room where Lennon was holding court and Townshend said, "John. This is Barry Gibb, from the group the Bee Gees" to which Lennon replied, "Howyadoin'".

"So, I met John Lennon's back", Gibb says with a laugh, "I didn't meet his front".

Gibb earlier said in 2010 about the meeting, "It was virtually a closed club, and you went downstairs and there was a coffin and if you were someone they knew and you were supposed to go in, the wall would turn around... and in you would go.

There would be [Rolling] Stones lying around all over the place.

It was one of those days when I met John Lennon – from the back.

It was Pete Townshend who introduced me... [Lennon said], 'Pleased to meet you', and he carried on talking to his guest.""

1967: The Present Can Only Be Viewed from the Past?

1977: The Present Can Only Be Viewed from the Past?

"The Muses /ˈmjuːzᵻz/ (Ancient Greek: Μοῦσαι, Moũsai; perhaps from the o-grade of the Proto-Indo-European root *men- "to think" or from root *men- "to tower, mountain"), since all the most important cult-centres of the Muses were on mountains or hills."

"The earliest known records of the Nine Muses are from Boeotia, the homeland of Hesiod. 

Some ancient authorities thought that the Nine Muses were of Thracian origin.

There, a tradition persisted that the Muses had once been three in number.

In the first century BC, Diodorus Siculus quotes Hesiod to the contrary, observing:
Writers similarly disagree also concerning the number of the Muses; for some say that there are three, and others that there are nine, but the number nine has prevailed since it rests upon the authority of the most distinguished men, such as Homer and Hesiod and others like them.
Diodorus also states (Book I.18) that Osiris first recruited the nine Muses, along with the Satyrs or male dancers, while passing through Ethiopia, before embarking on a tour of all Asia and Europe, teaching the arts of cultivation wherever he went.

According to Hesiod's account (c. 600 BC), generally followed by the writers of antiquity, the Nine Muses were the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (i. e. "Memory" personified), figuring as personifications of knowledge and the arts, especially literature, dance and music."

Jeff Buckley 
(November 17, 1966 – May 29, 1997)

1997: The Present Can Only Be Viewed from the Past?

"To "drown on the river" is to lose a poker hand because of the last card drawn."

"The Deal film was scheduled to release in September 2007, but it was released direct to DVD in Europe around February 2008, and to ‘select theaters’ in the United States at the end of April, when the soundtrack CD also appeared."

Or poker with the Joker, more like it.
Is This a Joke Robin?