I Can’t Stand the Rain Album: Private Dancer Date: 1984 Genre: R&B/Soul Artist: Tina Turner
Tina Turner was a singer, songwriter, and actress. She rose to fame as the lead singer of the husband-and-wife duo Ike &Tina Turner before an even more successful career as a solo performer. Tina Turner was known for her powerful vocals, sensuality, and unstoppable energy. Tina Turner lived in Switzerland since 1994 and relinquished her American citizenship after becoming a Swiss citizen in 2013
It’s all a farce,—these tales they tell About the breezes sighing, And moans astir o’er field and dell, Because the year is dying.
Such principles are most absurd,— I care not who first taught ’em; There’s nothing known to beast or bird To make a solemn autumn.
In solemn times, when grief holds sway With countenance distressing, You’ll note the more of black and gray Will then be used in dressing.
Now purple tints are all around; The sky is blue and mellow; And e’en the grasses turn the ground From modest green to yellow.
The seed burs all with laughter crack On featherweed and jimson; And leaves that should be dressed in black Are all decked out in crimson.
A butterfly goes winging by; A singing bird comes after; And Nature, all from earth to sky, Is bubbling o’er with laughter.
The ripples wimple on the rills, Like sparkling little lasses; The sunlight runs along the hills, And laughs among the grasses.
The earth is just so full of fun It really can’t contain it; And streams of mirth so freely run The heavens seem to rain it.
Don’t talk to me of solemn days In autumn’s time of splendor, Because the sun shows fewer rays, And these grow slant and slender.
Why, it’s the climax of the year,— The highest time of living!— Till naturally its bursting cheer Just melts into thanksgiving
Paul Laurence Dunbar Born: 27 June 1872, Ohio, USA Nationality: American Died: 9 February 1906, Ohio, USA
Dunbar was a novelist, poet, and short-story writer, Dunbar was born in Ohio to parents who had been enslaved in Kentucky before the American Civil War. He was a child when he began writing stories and verse and his first poems were published in a Dayton newspaper when he was sixteen
It took the night for the moon and stars to cross the sky And in that time new moments surrounded me To become my future, my past, as the now goes by For the difference of one night, I can see You are here waiting to capture my sigh As we kissed and united something came to be For in that moment there something I have never seen As I saw how love is created deep within
It looks like Tchaikovsky is having an input on the prompt today – I believe it was he who called his inspiration a capricious guest.
‘So are we going to the ballet?’
Why not, but which one would you want to see? ‘Swan Lake,’ ‘Nutcracker,’ or ‘Sleeping Beauty’ – if we stick with his most famous ones.
‘Nutcracker, that always sounds fun. Besides, you went to see the Swan a few weeks back so don’t want you getting bored.’
I never get bored at the Swan. I might like some of the interpretations but that is my favourite number one ballet.
It is such a sad story, and always makes you cry. Why do you like it so much?’
Probably because it does make me cry.
‘Huh, that’s nuts.’
Nuts it maybe but I don’t cry easily so sometimes I have to inspire the tears to come and let those emotions go. I am not alone in that. Some people watch Bambi, and I watch Swan Lake.
‘That makes sense, I suppose.’
The Nutcracker is different but still an epic fantasy tale. It is one of the few things of any note that is based around Christmas, Christmas Eve to be exact.
‘You really don’t do Christmas, do you?’
Ya think, far more interesting things to do than that malarky but if I get the chance, I will watch the Nutcracker. So are you going to join me, Nige?
‘Will there be popcorn?
Of course.
I’ll be there.’
To get you into the mood a bit of Nutcracker and I have a photo of our mum in her costume as a Snowflake when she did ballet.
‘Best keep that between ourselves’
As if I would post that. Seriously! See you tomorrow, Nige
When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced The rich proud cost of outworn buried age; When sometime lofty towers I saw down-razed, And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, And the firm soil was of the watery main, Increasing store with loss and loss with store; When I have seen such interchange of state, Or state itself confounded to decay, Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate, That Time will come and take my love away. This thought is as a death, which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose