WILDERNESS TRACKS ELIZABETH ALKER

RESOURCES Here are some resources linked to projects and topics discussed during this episode.

Track list from this episode: See all the tracks mentioned in this episode here. https://timberfestival.org.uk/the-wilderness-tracks/ Unclassified: Tune in to Elizabeth’s show on BBC Radio 3, where she celebrates a new generation of unclassified composers. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b02sl2

SPEAKERS Elizabeth Alker, Geoff Bird

TRANSCRIPT

Geoff Bird 0:09 Welcome to Wilderness Tracks recorded at the Timber Festival in the National Forest. In each edition a writer, artist or musician, tells me Geoff Bird about six songs that somehow connect them with nature. Elizabeth Alker broadcasts on BBC Radio Three and Six Music. She's a great champion of those artists taking the best from both classical and pop traditions to find new and exciting ways of creating music. The reason I was really keen to get you to do this is because you seem to me the future somehow, in that you work as nimbly on six music, as you do on radio three. And maybe it's something to do with my age. But that's exactly where my crosshairs at the moment is a past in popular music and a future into more classical stuff that's borne out by these selections. And I'm wondering, how conscious are you of the fact that you kind of seem to be straddling all sorts of musical worlds in the work that you do?

Elizabeth Alker 1:13 Yeah, I'm aware of it. I think it's always been part of my life, because my parents are both classical musicians. They're both music teachers. So I was raised kind of listening to classical music and playing classical music. And there was always classical music played in the house. And, and, erm, but my parents were kind of punks. They were sort of teenagers at that time. And, and they were very young when they had me. So those things have always been, to be a fan of both things has always made sense to me. And I've never seen any, I didn't understand why it was almost like you couldn't be a fan of both and, and why classical music seemed to be for a certain type of person. And rock music seems to be for another type of person, which it is, strangely, I didn't think that until I started working at the BBC. And then I realised that's how it was, kind of how people thought about it. So that's it felt quite, it feels quite natural for me to be kind of listening to both. All kinds of music.

1

Geoff Bird 2:19 I found it really interesting because I didn't listen to classical music growing up, we had an anonymous story and there was no music in the house really. And I had a bird spotting panel on earlier on and all the panel was saying how kind of slightly embarrassed they were about the fact that they were bird spotting into bird spotting, when they discovered it for themselves. That kind of that day, they looked in the mirror and said I am a bird spotter. I'm a twitcher. And when I started getting into classical music, I wasn't I wouldn't say I was ashamed of it. I just didn't know what to do with it. And it was only because... but it's become very important to me and, and then I think back to, we grew up in similar places. I grew up in Preston. And in the 80s it was very factionalized, you go to the flag market and there'd be the punks. And then they'd be the Goths and then they'd be the sport casuals and then they'd be the hippies. And there would never be any kind of communion between any of them and and and you would join your tribe, you take your choice, in my case that donkey jacket and Doc Marten boots and The Fall. And you would never move around. And I find that really annoying now looking back. And now that I'm that listening to your programmes and hearing all those wonderful things.

Elizabeth Alker 3:37 Where were the classical music kids, what are they doing?

Geoff Bird 3:40 They were the..

Elizabeth Alker 3:41 What corner were they in?

Geoff Bird 3:42 ​ ​ See I'm doing that now I'm calling them the weedy ones. Terrible. It's really terrible. But anyway, that's all by way of preamble to your first track. If you'd like to tell us about it.

Elizabeth Alker 3:56 Peter Warlock and the Curlew and I chose this. A lot of the tracks that I've chosen actually kind of to me completely of all the composers that I've chosen. And the people that I've chosen, the artists, they're completely evocative of a landscape and I'm really interested in how music can kind of conjure a landscape immediately. And I'm not sure whether some of it is, because we're so used to associating that music with that place and the two become kind of inseparable, but I'm sure there's something about the way certain composers write and and the place where they are that just finds itself into the music in a way that's magic. And, you know, Vaughan Williams, we were hearing Erland talk about his Tallis Fantasia, that's all his music. I mean, his English folk songs suite as well. I guess part of it is he's quoting folk songs and there's instruments that can kind of mimic animals and, but there's something about them. Just, it just sounds like England. It sounds like that countryside. And...

2 Geoff Bird 5:01 This particular piece Warlock's Curley which landscape was he evoking, what landscape do you see?

Elizabeth Alker 5:06 He was in Wales when he was writing this. He wrote it in Wales. And I think there's something about all those composers though those kind of first world war time composers, R.O. Morris and Butterworth, my Dad listened to them a lot. He was a big fan of those of composers of that generation. And I think there's something about all those composers that and Bolton as well that is immediately just very English. And I think Warlock evokes the countryside. I chose him. He's kind of the bad boy of that generation well I mean, that's under slightly...

Geoff Bird 5:37 Understating it.

Elizabeth Alker 5:40 And he's actually called Philip Heseltine, but he was, he became interested in the occult and black magic and he changed his name to Peter Warlock. It's got associations with the occult, and he lives in Eynsford for a time, he certainly dragged Moeran off the rails. And, yeah, and it's a sad story. He was very young when he died and got up to all sorts that we can't say while there's children around.

Geoff Bird 6:08 I love the fact that there are these characters who disprove this silly idea that sex and drugs and rock'n'roll were invented in 1963, after The Beatles you know, that he was kind of doing all of that stuff way before then and there are plenty of those individuals around who disproved that.

Elizabeth Alker 6:26 Yeah, and I mean, a lot of my favourite artists and for better or for worse, pushed themselves to the edge and I think sometimes that's where the most interesting work is made often, maybe they go too far. And he's a very personal composer, I think. I think we get highs and lows with him. He's capreol sweet. It's very sort of light and a bit more pastoral. This is quite dark, the Curlew kind of represents unrequited love it's in the Cor Anglais as well in the English horn so you can hear again, there's that kind of, there's a sense of Englishness or I don't know he was he wrote in Wales. So music of the British Isles, I suppose. But, um, yeah. And also, Yeats, poetry.

Geoff Bird 7:12 I was gonna say you've done it, depending on which way you look at it. You've cheated magnificently.

Unknown Speaker 7:15 Yeah, I know.

3 Geoff Bird 7:17 You know, sneaking in Yeats there. All you could say is it's a glorious economy you've only got six choices so load them up as much as you can.

Elizabeth Alker 7:25 I was quite keen to pick ones that were actually about nature. Not that I'm like getting annoyed with Erland, who didn't.

Geoff Bird 7:32 Oooh, oooh.

Elizabeth Alker 7:35 I thought he was just an interesting person to kind of connect to that to that whole world. And, and the Yeats poetry is about unrequited love as well. And I just think it's, it sounds so beautiful. It's in the Severn Woods and Wind Amongst the Reeds are the poems, I think. And they met while they were both escaping conscription in the First World War. He was a conscientious objector Warlock, he fled to Dublin. So yeah, I think....

Geoff Bird 8:05 Should we have a listen?

The line that goes into there, 'there is enough evil in the crying of wind'. And I'm really, what I'm really interested in, is the fact that this weekend, all three of you have chosen composers, and in some cases, a couple of composers from within a kind of five year, four year.... Well, we're talking about the First World War. And I just wonder why you think that time is so important in this in, obviously it's important for that alone, but in terms of our idea of pastoral we've got, there's something about that moment in time. There's a Larkin poem about it as well. Which is fantastic. Why do you think it's so loaded?

Elizabeth Alker 9:53 Why do you think they were looking to the countryside for inspiration, do you mean?

Geoff Bird 9:56 Or why do you think we and you have chosen, all three of you have chosen that period and the works that are coming out of that talk, to represent or to, to somehow talk about nature and the pastoral somehow.

Elizabeth Alker 10:12 The First World War period?

Geoff Bird 10:14 Yeah,

Elizabeth Alker 10:16

4 Erm...good question!

Geoff Bird 10:17 Sorry. That's a big question for Sunday afternoon, bloody hell.

Elizabeth Alker 10:20 Perhaps because I don't know, there was an increase in nationalism or a sense of place and celebration of our countryside or it's...I don't know.

Geoff Bird 10:36 And nor do I, I think it's fascinating to me, it hadn't occurred to me before these selections started coming in.

Elizabeth Alker 10:41 Erland chose Vaughan Williams didn't he?

Geoff Bird 10:43 He did, he did, I can't remember what Robert chose, a piece that was actually Chopin, but it was based around the First World War and it was, we talked about that very much. And maybe it's that contrast between the utter horror of the trenches, and what the contrast of that, the ultimate contrast of that might be, that they might see, look towards and that, I guess, is the beautiful countryside. Yeah,

Elizabeth Alker 11:11 Absolutely. An antidote to the trauma. And I mean, yeah, and that, like they were a largely traumatised generation weren't they and I guess you don't hear that, particularly in the music of Vaughan Williams, I don't think. I think Warlock was far more angsty.

Geoff Bird 11:30 We'll come later on to talk a little bit about faith and the spiritual, but he is a wrong un. I was a bit surprised that this was your first choice. Frankly. He he dabbled in the dark side. Had a devilish beard, didn't he?

Elizabeth Alker 11:50 Oh, yeah. I don't condone his behaviour. I don't recommend getting up to what he did on a Friday.

Geoff Bird 11:57 I don't think it was just on a Friday by the sounds of it.

Elizabeth Alker 11:59 No, it wasn't it was all the time, wasn't it? I mean, those orgies basically in Eynsford weren't they?

5 Geoff Bird 12:06 Have my children gone home yet? Might be time to go Esther.

Elizabeth Alker 12:13 No, I mean, yeah, I don't condone that. I mean, there's, there are plenty of artists that I like who get up for things that I don't agree with? And I don't know if separating the art from the artist... You can get onto a slippery slope, can't you, when you start to do that, and, or when you start to kind of dislike someone's work because of who they are.

Geoff Bird 12:34 The whole cancelled movement. That's coming out.

Elizabeth Alker 12:36 Yeah.

Geoff Bird 12:37 Yeah, it's very interesting. And maybe we could talk about just that, but okay, move on. But I do find it fascinating. He was born, to be born in The Savoy, and then to end up you know, I mean, he killed himself in the end.

Elizabeth Alker 12:48 And went to Eton as well. And yeah. Interesting story.

Geoff Bird 12:52 Interesting stuff. Interesting. So, we're gonna move on to the second clip by an artist whose name I can't pronounce. So I'm going to hand that one over to you.

Elizabeth Alker 13:01 Which one?

Geoff Bird 13:02 Mina.

Elizabeth Alker 13:02 Mina Leinonen, yeah, yeah.

Geoff Bird 13:04 Yeah, what's the title of this then, Elizabeth?

Elizabeth Alker 13:10 It is Lat Mig Vara Den which I think is in Finnish, you are beautiful. And she's a Finnish composer. And I'm really interested in, there's such a rich kind of Scandinavian scene, particularly female composers as well. And Kaija Saariaho, Hildur Guðnadóttir's another who worked with Johan Johansson, actually, and, and I just think there's something really sort of

6 ethereal and different and is very female about those composers. I think that part of the world is quite interesting, because it doesn't have so much of a rich tradition as other parts of . So I think they're kind of free to do whatever they, whatever they want. And, and again, this is complete. She did, she premiered a piece with the BBC Philharmonic a few weeks ago, which was called The Raven. And it was interesting Chris was talking about The Raven this morning actually, because it's all about the kind of things that the meaning that the rav- thing or the things in folklore that the Ravens come to represent. And it's just the most strange kind of but Finnish dark Scandinavian piece, and she was saying that bird song has hugely influenced her work and I think you can hear there's something about nature I think that is so sort of familiar and recognisable, but also completely otherworldly and misunderstood and we don't, we know so little about it. And I can hear that in her music, both those things. There's a sort of beauty to it and also something that's a bit unrecognisable or strange and mystifying, too, and she said she is a bird spotter, she records bird songs, and I'd be interested to see if people think they can hear that in this piece.

Geoff Bird 15:57 That's extraordinary, isn't it? Yeah,

Elizabeth Alker 15:58 It sounds like a murmuration to me.

Geoff Bird 16:00 Yes.

Elizabeth Alker 16:01 In a little bit kind of directionless but also with a clear sense of direction if those two things are going on.

Geoff Bird 16:09 I'm very curious about the kind of relat-, our relationship with that whole area. There seems to be some there's we can we treat it as a kind of well, I imagine is quite exotic, it seems to me in a way that you know, exotic landscapes are usually kind of hot, jungly places perhaps but for me, it's it's cold, barren mooney places. And there's my favourite quote about this kind of part of the territory of the world. I'll have to read it. I'm not that clever, frankly. But Louis Macneice went to Iceland with W.H. Auden famously. And he wrote a letter back home and he said, 'please remember us so high up here, in this vertiginous crow's nest of the earth, perhaps you'll let us know if anything happens in the world below'. And I think I just wonder if you think there's somehow a sense that it's in our imaginations, at least somehow a separate landscape up there. And it serves some particular kind of imaginative function.

Elizabeth Alker 17:12 Certainly, yeah. And I think Mina said, for sure, when I spoke to her that there was something very particular to that place that she could hear. In fact, the person who I interviewed her with was the conductor that evening and the conductor was Swedish. And she said she could hear

7 definitely the difference between Minas Finnish music and, and music of Swedish composers. Like there was something very kind of particular to Finland even. So absolutely, I yeah, I mean, it sounds sort of sparse and dark, doesn't it and eerie and those are all the things that I associate with that part of the world. So I think it's definitely found its way.

Geoff Bird 17:57 And are you going to Iceland in a couple of weeks, next week? actually,

Elizabeth Alker 17:59 I am for the first time. I'm quite excited.

Geoff Bird 18:01 Yeah. You get there and everyone's lovely, and you think, well?

Elizabeth Alker 18:03 I thought you were like Vikings or something.

Geoff Bird 18:06 When we walked through duty free and there was a bloke in a big Viking hat and that which was fantastic.

Elizabeth Alker 18:11 I've got mine to take.

Geoff Bird 18:13 Fantastic. Okay, the third track we're gonna play Jonas Bonnetta, Deep Bay.

You couldn't dance to it going out on a Friday night, but it's obviously very beautiful. What, why, why did you choose it??

Elizabeth Alker 19:29 I came across Jonas through making a series that I made recently for Radio Three called Unclassified. And he's Canadian. And this album is called Are We Here? I think it's called. It's his latest album anyway. And he went to Fogo Island, which is off the northeastern tip of Newfoundland and recorded, he made field recordings and then created what he called environmental music which is this, so completely evocative of that place. And, again, I just think it's got that kind of, it sounds cold. And he's heard the sound recordings and the sort of field recordings, they're made something that I don't know complements that or is the soundtrack to that space. And yeah, I think it's beautiful. And yeah, I think it's lovely.

Geoff Bird 20:24 It's interesting because Robert McFarlane, when I asked him about that kinda relationship between music and landscape and whether or not I'm talking about that notion of the composer as cartographer as Peter Maxwell Davies described himself, he was quite reluctant to kind of go

8 with that, he seemed to say it was suggested it's quite limited. And you seem to be indicating that you think it is quite possible. And these offer great examples of, of the landscape actually musically evoked?

Elizabeth Alker 20:50 Yeah, I think so. I think most of the music that we hear from Manchester sounds like Manchester and Sheffield sounds like Sheffield and I, yeah, I think I'm not sure why that is, I don't really know. And I don't know why that sound is particularly English or German music sounds German, you know, I'm not sure. It's probably something to do with the spirit of a place. And the people, in fact, Mina Leinonen said there was something when the conductor said that she could tell the difference between the Finnish and the, and the Swedish music, she was saying that she thought it was the character of the Finnish people, they were slightly darker, slightly more cynical, and inward looking then Swedish people, and she could hear that in the music. So I think the character of the people, the character of the place, all those things find themselves in a music that's made in wherever, you know.

Geoff Bird 21:47 It puts me in mind of some composers in , I was told about somebody in an interview, Peter Calthorpe? Sculthorpe? And, and they were talking about this, this guy's work and insanely evokes the vastness of Australia and the heat of Australia. And I guess it's kind of the polar opposite, almost, literally, of these kinds of Icelandic composers. And I was listening, thinking is very interesting, I must go away and have a listen, I listened and it absolutely seems to take you straight into that space, and evoke that space, more importantly.

Elizabeth Alker 22:23 I thought it was interesting. Chris Watson playing those recordings this morning. And a lot of them sounded electronic or electronically generated? And actually, we would say that the only reference that we have is nature for sound, isn't it a natural sound and that all our sort of electronically generated sounds have come from that, yes. And surely something to do with it as well. That's a cold sounding sound. And that's more of a warm sound. And...

Geoff Bird 22:56 There was something I read the other day, about one strain of musicology that suggests that rhythm every, all rhythm comes back to the pace of walking. So the four to the floor kind of...is from walking, and one of the Italian terms in music is very slowing down the pace of the feet. Yeah, I don't know which one it was...

Elizabeth Alker 23:21 In Flamenco as well there's that rhythm that's very kind of well, closely associated with Spain and Latino. Yeah, so I think.

Geoff Bird 23:30 One thing I was intrigued by you talked about, when you when you suggested this piece, you said I love listening to it in my city centre apartment listening to this, and I love that, because

9 what gets on my wick a bit sometimes about nature writing and so on, is it feels like, you know, the vast majority of us live in towns and cities, and we go to the parks and stuff, but then when you get one of those, that great divide between nature and the rest of us, and it's only really for the people who wear wellies all the time and are out there and have the privilege of that kind of gets on my craw. And so I love the way you describe listening to it in a city centre environment.

Elizabeth Alker 24:12 And it's transportive, isn't it immediately and that's what music you know, someone has to Stuart if he listens to music while he's walking and I wouldn't listen to music that was about nature while I was outside in the outdoors, and...

Geoff Bird 24:27 Is that because it's not as good as the original thing?

Elizabeth Alker 24:30 Probably, or there's more to enjoy while you're there isn't there? but if I want that kind of feeling in my flat, then I can listen to music that takes me there and brings that sense to the to the yeah, to the city.

Geoff Bird 24:42 You wouldn't walk down Market Street in Manchester, with the city's soundscape in your ears, what's the point?

Elizabeth Alker 24:48 Yeah, exactly.

Geoff Bird 24:50 Get a different accent, maybe. That might be welcome, but sorry Mancunians. Which takes us neatly on to on our next track which is a nice continuation from Stuart's talk earlier Ewan MacColl, The Manchester Rambler, which featured in the first ever gig I ever went to as a youngster, I went to the Five Penny Piece at Preston Charter Theatre, and I remember him singing this so...

Elizabeth Alker 26:27 We honestly didn't plan that. No, it was good that Stuart's talked about it because now I know all about it.

Geoff Bird 26:33 We can look eloquent, yeah, he came from Sheffield and Manchester, apparently and met in the middle.

Elizabeth Alker 26:40 I mostly chose this because that line, I get all my pleasure the hard Moreland way, which I tweeted and one of my friends pointed out could be like, you know, interpreted in many ways

10 anyway. And I just it's so true. When I was brought up and every single Saturday, my parents, whatever the weather used to wrap us up in really itchy balaclavas that my dad had got from the Army and Navy store, and we would be like, belly aching as my dad called it, and he's stick us in the back of his, of our Fiat Uni, you know, and we'd always end up walking up Studley Pike or somewhere like that, which is in Todmorden. And we'd go on our holidays to the Lake District while all my friends are going to Disneyland we'd be at Ambleside youth hostel. And we went to Hadrian's Wall one year. I'm like I don't, I can't believe my mom and dad persisted with it because we did scream our heads off all the way round and cried like 'carry me!'.

Geoff Bird 27:32 I'm the parent, I've had those screams.

Elizabeth Alker 27:36 And now we love it. I'd choose to go walk, I'd choose to do Hadrian's Wall over Disneyland any day. So I guess they eventually succeeded and persistence paid off but and Kinders Scout is just that's what Edale is one of my favourite places to go. And, it's just so beautiful.

Geoff Bird 27:52 Did you have to apologise to your parents and say no at some point. All right. I like it now. All your belly aching, I take it back.

Elizabeth Alker 27:59 No.

Geoff Bird 27:59 No, good. I hope my children aren't listening to that.

Elizabeth Alker 28:02 Yeah.

Geoff Bird 28:03 Well, what one of the things I love about this tune when I listened to it, the reason it stuck in my head from all those years ago with a Five Penny Piece is because he's got that lovely, lilting chorus and 'i'm a rambler' and you think that's a nice song, isn't it? And then you listen back to it as an older person, you think bloody hell that's got teeth?

Elizabeth Alker 28:20 Yeah. And they were brave. Yeah, in those days to do that sort of thing. I think that's, that was key to it for me. And, you know, to kind of organise something like that, that would cause civil unrest I think was just really brave thing to do. Punishments were harsher than, weren't they?

Geoff Bird 28:38

11 It puts me in mind of kind of almost like a sibling song, which is the big rock candy mountain. And again, as a kid, you think 'it's the big rock candy mountain', but then you listen to the track and the lyrics and you think, wow, that this is, this is a protest song actually.

Elizabeth Alker 28:52 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. He organised all the publicity, Ewan MacColl for the mass, mass trespass of Kinder Scout.

Geoff Bird 29:00 Is that right, I didn't know that? You interviewed Peggy Seeger recently about him didn't you?

Elizabeth Alker 29:03 I did, yeah. And she described their meeting. And it was really moving. She was obviously still kind of, still felt it and just his charisma and he was married at the time. And she was very young, wasn't she? And then he just decided he was having her and I think that was it. I think she was a bit unstoppable.

Geoff Bird 29:23 So we've got Peter Warlock, we've got the unstoppable Ewan MacColl. There's a pattern emerging here.

Big characters. Yes.

Yeah. But I mean, it is an extraordinary song. And I think it should be kind of compulsory listening.

Elizabeth Alker 29:37 Yeah. I didn't know about it until well, until I was an adult. We were never taught about these things at school. And actually that was, that was my life, was walking every weekend. So I'm curious.

Geoff Bird 29:50 My children are in and I'm just very curious because I wasn't told about Kinder Trespass at school. Any other children? Tilly, Esther have you ever been told about the Kinder Trespass, you're 15 and 12. Ever heard of it?

Child's voice 30:02 No.

Geoff Bird 30:04 That's shocking, actually for something. So have you ever heard of Peterloo? It's just anyway, we could go on about that for a long time as a bit of a diversion from the theme. Too much beer perhaps but, but I think it's the older I get the more kind of passionate about that stuff. And all

12 the stuff that Stuart was talking about how it's down to the individuals and people at our level to kind of grab hold of things. And make it happen.

Elizabeth Alker 30:34 My parents took us walking every weekend because it was free.

Geoff Bird 30:37 Yeah.

Elizabeth Alker 30:37 So it was healthy and wholesome and edifying and free. Yeah. And they, what else would we have done? I don't know what we would have done in the 80s. Watched telly?

Geoff Bird 30:52 We, we, I'm ashamed to say we used to take the kids on walks. And we'd go on routes that deliberately avoided the places where the tea cakes and the drinks were because we couldn't afford to stop sometimes.

Elizabeth Alker 31:03 We never got anything like that. We went on holiday in , we used to like whinge about going around churches, because my dad would just walk around churches because they were free to go in.

Geoff Bird 31:13 And the other thing is, I mean...

Elizabeth Alker 31:14 I remember going to Portmeirion once but not paying to get in there. We like drove especially to go.

Geoff Bird 31:23 The final point I would make thinking about this, we talked about the exotic nature of the landscape in Scandinavia and Australia. But there's something to be said for songs like that, for reminding you of that. And that one of the great thing about growing up in the industrial towns and cities of the North is that, that although you know the image of the places is grim and dark, and all that, all those kind of cliches, most of those places, you can see the hills from where you are from the high street. And it's like Kes. I was over making something about Kes recently. And and there's a beautiful scene in it, where he escapes the drudgery of the Comprehensive School he's at and he goes out for a walk in the woods and it's almost transcendental this, this moment in the film where the music suddenly comes very beautiful.

Elizabeth Alker 32:09 Yeah. Well, you're from Preston and Rochdale. And they're both places like that, aren't they? Where you're sort of caught between this really industrial sort of miserable?

13

Yes. Yeah.

Industrial landscape. And then these epic moors. Yes. Yeah. And I suppose that's quite unique. And you're not from the countryside or you're not from the city, you just know.

Geoff Bird 32:28 Bit crap. Yeah.

Elizabeth Alker 32:29 Backwaters.

Geoff Bird 32:30 Yeah, woollybacks. So moving on to the next track, I'm conscious of the heat. So let's move on to the next track, which is going to be well, it's The Watersons and which song, which track is it from the fantastic The Watersons?

Elizabeth Alker 32:44 It's Sleep On Beloved, and which is a lowering hymn. And I first came across this because I made a series of programmes with Richard Hawley about the ocean, which shaved years of my life, and I'm actually only 19 but that programme made me look a lot older. And one of the things that we had to do, so the series is about the way that the sea has kind of inspired British culture and that's from you know, from 500 years ago to to the current day, and we drove around, I had to pick up his friend Tetley Dave in Filey. He's president of the George Formby society. And I remember we got to this, this kind of pub thing. Working mens club kind of thing. With all these Methodist fishermen and Methodist fisherman's choir. Apparently, Methodism was very popular in those seaside fishing towns because John Wesley could get from town to town on a boat. So it was easier to kind of spread the word along that coast. And so there are Fishermans choirs almost in all the fishing towns up there. And Methodists don't drink. And Richard does. Yeah, and so does Tetley Dave. Anyway. I was driving!

Geoff Bird 33:59 Does Tetley Dave get a discount from?

Elizabeth Alker 34:14 He's doing a lot to, yeah, to advertise that brand. But anyway, and we got to this pub, and these fishermen were all sitting in the back room, cut stone cold, sober. We'd done a pub crawl from Scarborough wherever my Geography is not great in that area.

Geoff Bird 34:29 Particularly after a Pub Crawl with Richard Hawley.

Elizabeth Alker 34:31

14 And Richard and Tetley Dave started listening and they started singing a song and both Richard and Tetley, Dave started sobbing their hearts out, and it's just so moving. Anyway, the next day, we went to see The Watersons in Robin Hood's Bay, and we asked them about this song. And what's really interesting about it is apparently it's very popular. The lyrics don't refer to fishing at all, but it's popular in fishing towns and in this country in North Yorkshire, but also in the Bahamas, and in the fishing communities there. And I've not been able to find out why that is why that was found in those two places, but it was, you know, it must have travelled from North Yorkshire to the Bahamas somehow. And it's so sad, but there's so much hope in it as well. And I think there's just some, I mean, the way The Watersons sing it, the way they think everything is so completely moving, isn't it, but the lyrics in this? I don't know, there's some, you can just imagine that this is a community that was used to burying young men and young fishermen and the way they, that they had songs to deal with it. And I think you can hear that, you can hear the pain and the grief in this.

Geoff Bird 36:56 Loads of things occurred to me with that, but one of them is just thinking about what you said about the Bahamas. I've interviewed or spoken to lots of ex miners for one reason or another, including with Stuart. And one of the things they said that day was how they feel more in common actually with other miners from Kent and from areas in France then they do with people who lived half a mile down the road who weren't miners.

Elizabeth Alker 37:22 The communist struggle is international. Yeah.

Geoff Bird 37:26 I just wanted in terms of going back to this idea of landscape influence, whether or not you think actually, that those communities are likely to share some sort of musical kind of topography as well to be pompous about it.

Elizabeth Alker 37:39 Yeah, the same struggle and also about sort of untrained naivety and I don't know, it just an unspoiled way of performing, isn't it? Sort of untrained, I suppose but there's something really nice about that isn't there?

Geoff Bird 37:57 The way I heard an interview with one of The Waterson's I don't, I was only half listening, I was busy. But she said that when they were trying to work out how to harmonise the, kind of, the chief Waterson turned around said, just sing any note that the person next to you is not singing. And if anyone saw me singing with my daughters earlier on, they'll know that that doesn't always work. But, and in their case, it works fantastically. And it is that kind of untrained, but full blooded, full hearted.

Elizabeth Alker 38:26

15 Absolutely. Yeah. And sincere. And we went through there, we went to Norma's house where she lives with Martin Carthy, of course. And Mike and her brother were there and sang, Mike has sadly since passed away, but they sang for us. And Richard was crying again. But it was okay that time was not because of the beer.

Geoff Bird 38:45 And faith is mentioned in that. Yeah, and say as much or as little as you want, frankly, but it plays an important part in your life, I know. We don't need to dwell on that. But I'm just maybe from a musical point of view. Does that, does that tradition make, give songs a level of richness that otherwise they might they might lack?

Elizabeth Alker 39:08 Absolutely in the lyrics in that are we'll meet again enjoying, you know, robes, royal robes? And that's the hope for me, I suppose, because that's where, that's my faith background and Christianity, which is that there is this, you know, a life beyond this one and, and I guess I can hear that kind of the hope in that. That you must have, you must cling on to if you are, you know, burying your child or your son or your you know, so I think Yeah, definitely. And also going to church every week you're brought up singing, aren't you? So that music is a big part of it as well. It's just another place where music is part of life. So definitely.

Geoff Bird 39:39 I think, I think yeah, music has a spiritual significance. And that maps onto, onto landscape. You know, it's come up a few times. You were talking to Chris this morning about it, Chris Watson the sound recordist, about the awe I suppose and Robert McFarlane was talking, we're talking about his line about our mountains induced a modesty in him. And he talked about those thin spaces where, and musical spaces and physical spaces where it's possible to kind of make some kind of connection with, with whatever you want to call it the transcendent, the spiritual, the religious, whatever version of that you, you buy into and, and a song like this seems to me to do that brilliantly.

Elizabeth Alker 40:37 Yeah, and especially if something is, if music is evoking a really glorious landscape and you just think this is so wonderfully made then for me that points to something higher. And so yeah, that's how I would, that's probably how I would enjoy definitely.

Geoff Bird 40:56 Fabulous. And our final track, we got, we got in a bit of a pickle about this two minutes before the gates opened. lt was a tussle, a bit of a fight between Elbow and Joanna Newsome. And I can't imagine, well, Guy Garvey, I'd imagine is fairly, you know, good in a tussle. But Joanna Newsome won out, right? So...

Elizabeth Alker 41:22 She's just someone who connects so many things for me. And she wasn't, it kind of it took me a while to get used to her voice, which I'm ashamed to say because there are lots of other things

16 that I liked with characterful voices, and yet has just took me a little bit longer. But she can act. I don't know the baroque. I mean, the Harp is one of the world's oldest instruments that dates back to biblical times doesn't it, you know, the angels play Harps. So obviously, it's a really ancient instrument, and you can hear that in her music but in this, on this album with it's You and Me, Bess we've chosen, isn't it? Which is off Have One on Me, which was her third record, I think. On that record, especially she was compared to . Interestingly, she said that she wasn't really familiar with Joni Mitchell's work when she was writing that album. And but she obviously you know, those people are references when you listen to her music, but also kind of strange, Appalachian folk singers like Texas Gladden after she cites as an influence Judee Sill. And so they're more freak folk elements and obscure folk singers and Texas Gladden has a very characterful voice as well. So I think she just brings that all together. And it's, it's wonderful. I think she's a genius. I love her.

Geoff Bird 42:41 Well, I confess I wasn't familiar with it until you mentioned her.

Elizabeth Alker 42:44 And the lyrics, I mean, they sound, they sound like a kind of it could be Woody Guthrie, couldn't it? Or it could be one of those sorts of classes. There's such a strong narrative, sense of narrative and a rambling in a folk way that's just effortlessly tells the story, but it's so rich. Yes, it's brilliant.

Geoff Bird 43:04 I struggled with her voice at first it was, but it's one of those idiosyncratic voices that you it's like, I'm trying to think of an analogy here, but like, her voice is some kind of nightclub and you keep going back to it and the bouncers saying, no, you can't come in, you can't go in yet, you go back next day with a moustache, no go away, and then suddenly get in and you get it. And then, you know, so suddenly, I heard it and kept on playing and playing the whole album and things and, and there's a moment where you well, for me, it was, yeah, okay. I see. I see now. And, and those idiosyncratic voices for me, I'd much rather listen to one of those type voices then, than a very polished baritone, every time.

Elizabeth Alker 43:44 And I mean, she talks about her lyrics, because I think her fans are often trying to find meaning in her lyrics. And she's very kind of, they're quite oblique on it, you know, she doesn't really go in she doesn't talk about the meanings of the songs. And I thought I read an interview with her and she was talking about I Am The Walrus and just how sometimes you can just find your own meaning in a song and that's okay. She quite likes that with her, you know, with listeners that they can do that. So I think this is just be- I have this, I've printed them off. Shall I just say some of them,

Geoff Bird 44:17 Please do.

17 Elizabeth Alker 44:18 Okay. And also, this is Nate. I chose this one because it refers a lot to nature.

Geoff Bird 44:23 Yes.

Elizabeth Alker 44:28 Yeah, she talks about my heart made the sound of snow falling from eaves, you me Bess, we was as thick as thieves. So she's kind of like quoting that folk way of writing. And I saw I swore nonetheless, up and down. It was only me, so they took me away and after some time, so do you, my case, must have made up their minds. By the time you realised I was dying must have been too late. I believe you're not lying. I don't know. There's just some things kind of very, it's got a rhythmic ease. And...

Geoff Bird 44:56 Yes, we don't want to go into, I don't want to go into. It's got that the rhythm makes it easy to approach. And then you get there and but then the words, particularly in some of the more oblique passages, you kind of go hang on what's going on here? This is very, very strange. But it's a very different landscape to some of the kind of more bucolic pastoral ones from, you know, earlier on Peter Warlock, all the kind of Mooney ones or the Lunar ones from the Finnish composer.

Elizabeth Alker 45:22 A lot about the words with , and I think. But, I mean, yeah, if you're talking about the way lyrics are different to poetry, I think her lyrics are really interesting that way would they standalone on the page, or do they work well with the music? Or?

Geoff Bird 45:38 That's gonna be the subject of a panel discussion next.

Elizabeth Alker 45:40 Yeah, it's a whole other thing.

Geoff Bird 45:42 Let's have a listen, Laura.

I've considered that some kind of weird gift, because I wasn't really familiar with her before. And I'm going to take it away and build.

Elizabeth Alker 46:52 It's fantastic.

Geoff Bird 46:53

18 I've not done this with the other two, for fear that people might notice that actually, this is just a ripoff of Desert Island Discs. I mean, otherwise, they've never guessed that. But I'm going to, I am going to ask you. If you can only choose one of these six. And I'm also going to have a little bet with myself as to which one it's going to be which one of those six would you choose? And why?

Elizabeth Alker 47:20 It would be the Watersons, I think. Which one did you think?

Geoff Bird 47:25 I thought was gonna be the Manchester Rambler?

Elizabeth Alker 47:26 Oh really?

Geoff Bird 47:27 Yeah, Kinder Trespass is really important. Are you saying it's not? Go on, why the Watersons?

Elizabeth Alker 47:33 I can just listen to it over and over again. The words mean so much to me, I think. And the way they sing it it's this of course, could I take this recording? Yes. Yeah. And honestly it moves me every single time. And I'm not, I'm not hugely sentimental. Maybe I am actually. I feel very sentimental and close to this song.

Geoff Bird 47:56 And I don't want to put words in your mouth, obviously. But it seems to me they bring lots of things together for you, the faith and the family, your family background and and, but also your work and your career. And the work with that, and so on.

Elizabeth Alker 48:11 And having met them as well, I think you know what it's like in this industry. Sometimes if you meet people, then their work means so much more to you doesn't it? It just has that, you know, we're lucky in that way. I think.

Geoff Bird 48:23 We are. Sometimes it means less to you, I feel.

Elizabeth Alker 48:25 Yeah, that's true.

Geoff Bird 48:27 But when it, when you meet them, and you think yes, yeah, you're wonderful. And that's why it's wonderful. Yeah. Fantastic. That was wonderful. I'd like everyone please to give a very hot Sunday afternoon round of applause to the wonderful Elizabeth Alker.

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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