Father Abraham - d. November 8th 2022

Where are you all going to?

Off to write more songs for you.

What’s the point of all these songs?

Simple tunes are never wrong.

When will we hear you again?

Sadly I do not know when. 

Why does your death make me sad?

You remembered me. I’m glad.

Read about Pierre Kartner (‘Father Abraham’) here

Maxi Jazz - d. December 24th 2022

God has drawn up his sad setlist:

you are on it, toasting epic poems

until the breakdown of all things.

Better get some sleep, get ready for 

the long dark all-nighter of the soul.

Read about Maxi Jazz here

Thom Bell - d. December 22nd 2022

Consider this mind blown,

strung out by strings, buried

under layers of silken brass. 

 

Consider this heart stopped,

this soul soothed by a look,

these ears yours at one listen.

Read about Thom Bell here

Mike Hodges - d. December 17th 2022

Let me go north again to seedy towns, 

dark as anthracite, where casinos throb 

and men circle like hawks. My life is a

tracking shot in saturated colour; for you

it’s a full-time job. Now, behave yourself.

Read about Mike Hodges here

Terry Hall - d. December 19th 2022

How I wanted to be you, tonic suit 

and sad eyes, playing Jerry's songs, 

blank expressions of a hollow world. 

The town has changed; you wouldn't

know it these days, not now that 

your band don't play no more.

Read about Terry Hall here

Angelo Badalamenti - d. December 11th 2022

I hear the strangest music;

out-of-focus, out-of-frame,

the score for a world slowed

down, spaces sounding louder

than notes, broken instruments

played by a band of bad angels.

Read about Angelo Badalamenti here

Chris Boucher - d. December 11th 2022

I heard the rumours of death,
thought I saw a corpse-marker
on his cold body: a writer killed
by his own imagination, his final
script all pyrotechnics and betrayal
...and yet, I never saw him die.

Read about Chris Boucher here

Herbert Deutsch - d. December 9th 2022

VCO to LFO to Pulse Width 

to Frequency to Resonance

to Modulation to Cutoff

to Square Wave to Sine Wave

to Synthesis to Synapse to Song

to Sensation; this is the great 

Patch Sequence of the world.

Read about Herbert Deutsch here

Ruth Madoc - d. December 9th 2022

We assemble all in yellow,

to mourn and play bingo.

We go down on our knees,

knobbly as they are. Tears

drip like 50’s drizzle; the toll

is three notes on a xylophone.

Read about Ruth Madoc here

Jet Black - d. December 6th 2022

A grizzled hulk haunts the riser,

picks up a pair of sharpened sticks,

pounds his kit till it is only splinters 

and spittle. The rhythm of anger  

is not reserved for youth, and besides,

we are already too old to die young.

Read about Jet Black here

Kirstie Alley - d. December 5th 2022

Life is a Kobayashi Maru test:

a no-win scenario, with oblivion

the only endgame. Smart people

re-programme their world, face 

death, rescue themselves from

obscurity, the great Neutral Zone.

Read about Kirstie Alley here

Christine McVie - d. November 30th 2022

Welcome to Sausalito-in-the-Sky,

where the walls of an old studio

ring with reverb, sunset ballads 

we all know but cannot sing, songs

some of us need like never before.

Read about Christine McVie here

Doddie Weir - d. November 26th 2022

My name’s Dauntless.
My name’s Dig in and drive.
My name’s Defence into attack,
Defeat into victory, Dark into light.
My name’s Dogged. Dreadnought. 
Die-hard. Dare. Defy. Dream. 
My name’s Deathless.

Irene Cara - d. November 25th 2022

Live forever? Maybe through a song,

a move, a moment of sad sunshine.

Fame is not that they remember

your name; it is that they remember

who they were when they heard it.

Wilko Johnson - d. November 21st 2022

It’s tense by the jetty, down in the delta

where waters seethe with chemicals.

We set afloat a bluesman and guitar,

a man who could not bear to stand still,

a man we thought could not be killed.

Read about Wilko Johnson here

 

Atarah Ben-Tovim - d. October 20th 2022

I wake in a tuneless limbo

among the tin-eared dead.

A woman speaks giocoso,

opens up an instrument case,

hands me Joshua’s trumpet;

Go on, blow. You never know.

Read about Atarah Ben-Tovim here

Keith Levene - d. November 11th 2022

What’s your name? It is more 

than angry noise and image,

more than unlearned chords.

It is the sound of the edge

coming in to smash the centre.

Read about Keith Levene here

Bill Treacher - d. November 8th 2022

Let us come along with you,

up the Allotment, down the Vic,

or wherever families fall in front

of the telly, wondering how a story

might end, yours and ours. 

A Christmas is coming,

and we will all pay for it.

Read about Bill Treacher here

Leslie Phillips - d. November 7th 2022

This world was once just a lark,

an excuse for calculated charm, 

the carrying on of carrying on,

and silly was a serious business. 

But lumme, is that the time?

He-llo. And yes, good-bye.

Read about Leslie Phillips here

Jerry Lee Lewis - d. October 28th 2022

I have one foot up on the keyboard

as I type this. I am pure trouble, bad 

to my Louisiana bones, and when 

I’m gone all that will be left is a shot

of whisky, a glissando and a loaded gun.

Read about Jerry Lee Lewis here

James McDivitt - d. October 13th 2022

The surly bonds of earth slip away,

and stars breathe themselves awake.

Quietly the best version of a man,

you step outside the capsule of yourself 

and swim out into all that darkness.

Read about James McDivitt here

Austin Stoker - d. October 18th 2022

Bravery is at its sternest

in its quietest moments;

to be it or to play it, both

light up the unlit scene.

I saw you laugh off the cholo;

now, it would be a privilege

if you'd walk outside with me.

Read about Austin Stoker here

Wolfgang Petersen - d. August 12th 2022

Alarm! Alarm! Spannung entdeckt 
Richtung eins neun acht eins. 
Bring uns runter, Chief, runter 
unter der Oberfläche der Geschichte 
dann wieder runter, tiefer, bis 
wir halten keinen druck mehr aus.

Alarm! Alarm! Tension discovered
direction one nine eight one.
Take us down, chief, down
beneath the surface of history
then back down, deeper, until
we can't take any more pressure. 

Read about Wolfgang Petersen

Stu Allan - d. September 22nd 2022

You set my young city on fire,
busted a new sound straight 
from warehouse to your house 
to my house, brought the noise 
from Brooklyn to Moss Side
Chicago to Salford to the phuture.

Read about Stu Allan here

Robbie Coltrane - d. October 14th 2022

Life is tragicomedy, played
not for laughs but for depth
and breadth. Keep it smart,
tender, real, heart weighed
against mind even in death.
Be big, always, as is your art.

Read about Robbie Coltrane here

Angela Lansbury - d. October 11th 2022

It's all there on exposed stock;

sand running through a glass, 

a different face on each grain

as they pass through the neck 

that separates the golden age 

from the age of not believing. 

Read about Angela Lansbury here

Kitten Natividad - d. September 24th 2022

Into the last valley, honey;

a place for trash pussycats,

ultra-vivid and super-fixated,

shaking what mama gave you

and the surgeons enhanced,

faking it in tassels and a pout. 

Read about Kitten Natividad here

 

Loretta Lynn - d. October 4th 2022

Life hands round some bitter pills;

a black lung and a blue voice,

three slices of poor for one of rich,

but here's a number you may know;

we call it heartache. Are you woman

enough to sing it through to the end?

Read about Loretta Lynn here

Coolio - d. September 28th 2022

Not many gangstas in my hood,

and yet you gave this boy a taste

of paradise - like hell with beats.

I take a look at my life and realise

there's not much left, though I’d be

dead as a shadow on your streets.

Read about Coolio here

Hilary Mantel - d. September 22nd 2022

I drink to literature as an ear,

eavesdropping in the dark.

I drink to literature as an eye,

sharpening what is vague.

I drink to literature as a hand,

overpainting the faded.

I drink to the past as a present.

Read about Hilary Mantel here

Eddie Butler - d. September 15th 2022

This will be the final phase;

no time now for rolling maul,

but a cool head, a tap-and-go,

Yet here's a voice to take the ball,

sure as the Pontypool Front Row

or the whistle blown at end of play.

Read about Eddie Butler here

Jean-Luc Godard - d. September 13th 2022

This is a story of narrative

told out of order, a camera 

for a pen. The story cannot 

breathe for itself; it requires

the breath of an outsider, 

an eye that edits as it shoots, 

a new vocabulary of telling.

Ceci est une histoire de narration

dit dans le mauvais ordre, une caméra

pour un stylo. L'histoire ne peut

respirer pour lui-même; cela requiert

le souffle d'un étranger,

un œil qui édite en même temps qu'il tire,

un nouveau vocabulaire de la narration.

Read about Jean-Luc Godard here

Gwyneth Powell - d. September 8th 2022

A small body is lain 

across a catafalque 

of school-desks. 

Chalk like incense settles 

on every surface. 

A school bell tolls the hours. 

Term is over, 

but I cannot bring myself

to go home.

Read about Gwyneth Powell here

Frank Drake - d. September 2nd 2022

N = R* x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L

R∗ = the rate of geniuses in the population

fp = the fraction of those with something to say

ne = the average number of minds that care

fl = the fraction of those that understand

fi = the fraction of those that appreciate

fc = the fraction of those that celebrate

L = the length of a poem that does so

Read about Frank Drake here

Mark Shreeve - d. August 31st 2022

We are all circuitry.

Pass voltage through us;

do we not oscillate?

In the end, everything 

is analogue, and death 

just a higher harmonic.

Read about Mark Shreeve here

Bill Turnbull - d. August 31st 2022

The world has want of warmth 

these days, and we have to take it 

where we find it. I fire up 

the morning coffee, the telly.

The sofa is dented where a man

once sat, a halo of bees buzzing,

lost now under the studio lights.

Read about Bill Turnbull here

Mikhail Gorbachev - d. 30th August 2022

What courage to open curtains

though your house is full of dark, 

to make peace with neighbours

while family changes your locks,

to shop for days of hope when 

mistrust is all we have in stock.

Read about Mikhail Gorbachev

Vincent Gil - d. August 21st 2022

Somwehere between the unrighteous 

and the unroadworthy are scags like you;

tailgaters, jailbreakers, petrol-blaggers, 

the sort who'd cut you up, leave you 

for dead. Oh yes, I'll remember you 

when I look up at the night sky.

Read about Vincent Gil here

Jerry Allison - d. August 22nd 2022

Downtown rings with songs 

the sort they don't play 

anymore, except this one, 

on this day. If you knew 

that shuffle on the snare

was the sound of goodbye, 

maybe you'd be blue too.

Read about Jerry Allison here

Josephine Tewson - d. August 18th 2022

There are leads and there are players;

some front of shot, others just in frame.

A troupe of neighbours, sisters, wives,

playing small truths, over and again.

Here’s to you, the ensemble of the world,

whose faces we know but cannot name.

Read about Josephine Tewson here

Duggie Brown - d. August 16th 2022

I hear sounds; a pickaxe on coal,

the whine of a milkfloat at dawn, 

the crackle of terylene under velvet,

the crackle of a cheap microphone,

a working man among working men,

chiselled from old grit and old jokes.

Darius Campbell-Danesh - d. August 16th 2022

Sometimes it’s just not our time,

baby. Sometimes the light shines

on another face in the chorus line, 

sometimes the songs don’t rhyme.

Keep singing, baby. You’ll be fine.

Joe Turkel - d. June 27th 2022

Revel in your time:
your lugubrious face,
the pouring of a bourbon 
in a darkened place,
the bioengineering of magic
from short scripts of wonder.

Nichelle Nichols - d. July 30th 2022

Hailing frequencies open;

the sound of a trillion voices 

singing strange new songs 

across the ebony of space. 

You kiss me in the darkness, 

a promise of new civilisation.

Read about Nichelle Nichols here

Raymond Briggs - d. August 9th 2022

Blooming stories! Yours to tell

in line and colour and little else.

You held our hands. We never fell.

The wind blows. The snow melts.

Read about Raymond Briggs here

Lamont Dozier - d. August 9th 2022

Every day is like a new song:

What are you writing today?

Will it be an itch in my heart 

or a twitch in my heels? 

Either way,  

it’s love, here and now, 

even though you’re gone.

Read about Lamont Dozier here

Olivia Newton-John - d. August 8th 2022

That final reel was my adolescence frozen,

a teen ache made physical. There was

no getting over you, only unripe emotion,

nothing but a guilty crush to admit to.

Oh, we boys and our hopeless devotions. 

Read about Olivia Newton-John here

Judith Durham - d. August 5th 2022

Somewhere 

there is a fleeting voice,

half-sunshine, half rain. 

Somewhere

they are packing the sound 

of a carnival into boxes. 

Somewhere 

there is a mourning town,

many miles away.

Read about Judith Durham here

Roy Hackett - d. August 2nd 2022

I will not pay to ride your bus. 

Today I’ll walk. I may not know 

the way, but I know there is a way. 

Another bus is coming soon, bright

with smiles and manners; you and I 

and all of us will find a seat inside.

Read about Roy Hackett here

Bob Rafelson - d. July 23rd 2022

The cinema is the road. 

Drive me somewhere 

I don't know, with drifters,

pianists and fake pop stars  

for company. Drive me away

from the heat of the drama

to a place colder than hell.

Read about Bob Rafelson here