Cock in a bantam egg; or, Who wrote the songs of Richard Thompson?

[ron_drummond]

I had the wonderful honor of seeing and hearing Richard Thompson perform at the smaller of the two theaters in The Egg in Albany NY tonight, from the fifth row. It was the first time I've seen him live and I dearly hope it won't be the last. I've been hearing his tunes off and on for over thirty years, usually when friends played me his music. I

Comments

[nineweaving]

Dear gods. I never thought Thompson was a fool.

How inutterably depressing.

Nine

[nineweaving]

And good for you, speaking truth to power.

Nine

[nineweaving]

Well, I hope it was genuine curiosity. Otherwise, I'd be appalled.

It's damned hard to speak up in such an intense crowd of admirers. I'll bet no one wanted to contradict the Master, so neither side spoke up for fear he was on the other one.

You did well to speak at all.

Nine

[ron_drummond]

Oops. Sorry to revise my comment out from under you. But it's back now, in a different position.

I'll bet no one wanted to contradict the Master, so neither side spoke up for fear he was on the other one.

That's a very good point, and quite probably the case -- a relief, if so.

[ron_drummond]

You did well to speak at all.

Thank you. I felt so good earlier, before the show, making my case with passion and really nailing it, that my later "I do" to RT's first question just felt horrifically inadequate. And yet everyone there heard me; there was fraught but total silence when I spoke.

[ron_drummond]

Thompson very carefully did not express an opinion on the Question, or give us his own answers to any of the three questions he asked. He only posed them, and made no comment -- it was almost as if he asked us in genuine curiosity. Afterwards, I said to my companions that I suspected Thompson understood that WS wrote WS; but one of us disagreed with me, thought that Thompson believed it was someone else. I may just have to drop RT an email, and ask him to spill. But for me, what I found unutterably depressing was the audience's silence. And I wished I'd spoken up a bit more.

[madrobins]

If you hear back, please share. I adore Thompson's work, and would be sad to think he had gone over to the nutbar side of the question.

[ron_drummond]

Your request gives me heart to follow up on this as best I can, thank you. I will write more as and if there's more to be written.