The powerful, the ruling class of any historical period has spread fear as an essential element in the maintenance of its social and political control. Hence I’m stretching a point to suggest that we are living through an unprecedented era of Anxiety. And yet, even today, I’ve been warned to beware a possible proliferation of epidemic-catalysing viruses, all given the COVID script being existential threats, and instructed to fill the larder with supplies sufficient to last 72 hours in case of war.

We imagine the world as unsafe, and then we dream the world as unsafe, and then feel in our bodies that the world is unsafe. And this is an inverted order of things, the opposite of how our bodies come to knowledge. Rhyd Wildermuth

Sometime, perhaps never, I will seek to explore the contemporary phenomenon of algorithmic- created anxiety. For now, in the past few weeks I’ve sought to escape being suffocated inside the virtual by way of being scared of reality, namely giving another solo concert in my Cretan village. The nerves did indeed jangle. If you are kind enough to watch the two videos below you might well discern my tension. In terms of the songs themselves, it’s most obvious in my rushing through the Schubert composition, ‘Der Leiermann’, losing on the way much of its ambiguous mystery. Next time…….

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A couple of people have asked for details of the latest programme. If I wasn’t so nervous about singing in the correct key I would relax and say more about the songs at the concert itself.

1. 0 Waly, Waly 

Somerset folk song

2. Somewhere a Voice’s Calling and Smilin’ Through

American Parlour-Songs recorded in 1914 and 1919 by John McCormack, the famous Irish lyric tenor and sung by me as a boy soprano in 1957!!

3. Unbelievable,  The Nearness of You and  Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

American classics and often jazz standards – Livingstone, Carmichael and Rodgers

4, Hands, Eyes, Heart  and Tired – Vaughan Williams and Now Sleeps the Petal – Quilter. 

English Art Song

5.  I am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger

North American folk song and spiritual

 6.  Ti eínai aftó pou to léne agápi from the Boy on a Dolphin, If I Loved You from Carousel and Summertime from Porgy and Bess

Songs from film and musicals – Morakis, Rodgers and Gershwin

Interval.

7. Im  Wunderschönen Monat Mai – Schumann, Das Wandern  and  Der Leiermann – Schubert

German Lieder 

8. Danny Boy

Irish folk song

9. My Funny Valentine, When I Fall in Love  and The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face 

Classic Love songs –  Rodgers, Young and MacColl

10. Whither do I wander – Vaughan Williams, Sea Fever – Ireland and Come Again – Dowland

English and Elizabethan song

11. One Little Quarrel and Guilty 

Tribute to Al Bowly and 1930s dance bands

12. Πάμε μια βόλτα στο φεγγάρι or Let’s take a walk to the moon

Greek classic – Hadjidakis

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There seems little doubt, in my mind, that preparing for and giving this little concert, despite the blemishes, kept me out of what Anthony Rella calls the ‘psychic pollution’ infecting our relation to the internet and social media. OK, I admit, the warbling kept me away only for some of the time. Certainly I would suggest that prioritising time away from the screen in all its forms is a necessary form of resistance to the Machine. Lately I’ve gone back to printing off copies of stuff I’d like to read and taking them to peruse in the village kafeneio. A precious bonus is that Georgos brews a fine cappuccino and I get to pass the time of day with our village’s motley characters.

I must close by thanking Ken Carpenter for filming and editing the videos – all out of the goodness of his heart.