The Cottage Smallholder

Photo: Winter beach

I hate it when people say that they don’t like jazz, blues, opera. It sounds so final.

Everyone changes. To cut something out of your life forever, unless it’s going to kill you prematurely seems such a shuttered attitude to life. I try to fight doing the same. When I met Danny he loved Country music and Abba. I didn’t share his passion. How could he enjoy this? I even hated the covers of the CDs.

After a few years of D playing them in his car, I realised that I was being a stupid fool. I could be missing out on something great. This is why I started listening to Bob Harris Country two years ago, when I was working late.

It was a job decorating an empty house. I wasn’t enthused by the contract. Booked in for  January – the one month in the year when I envy the mammals that hibernate. If there is no one ‘at home’ I have a way of tackling this longing. I go to work late morning I return home at nine, so I can start my day with some quality time. Even if it’s just lying in bed with the Min Pins.

So each Thursday evening I forced myself to listen to Bob Harris’s hour of country music. Even though I thought that I didn’t like country music the first programme was O.K. By the fourth week I was really enjoying Bob’s selection of music and the gruff ‘fifty a day’ voice. That evening I heard a great track, it mentioned a boat and a pony. An inspirational song that has stayed with this ‘old dame’ ever since.

This evening I was listening to Bob Harris Country again. I decided to try and find out who wrote the song that had haunted me. Within seconds I discovered that “If I Had a Boat” was written by Lyle Lovett you can listen to him singing it here and it’s free. Wry Americana at its best.