23. Residency Confirmed at BAC / Ideas

Kings of England have a confirmed residency at Battersea Arts Centre in January (26th-31st) as part of their New Year, New Spaces initiative, which gives me space for a week and open doors on the last two days so that Audiences can see our process and a showing.

So I need some ideas. I have been working on some new texts for K of E, concerning decisive moments in our family's history, the things that escape ellipsis and make ot into the chronology.

How to leave or get left, and how to recover (the work has already begun to concern recoveries). And I want to show that some were possible, were achieved. But each recovery we make is miraculous, singular and exceptional, learnt from experience, so consequently it is hard to teach how-to-recover.

The 2008 scratch shows (BAC / You and Your Work 5 / Greenroom / Bluecoat / Custard Factory) concerned loss of memory. We performed to raise a question against the forgotten. So father sang for us "The Aeroplane Over The Sea", whistling in the wind.

But my interest is turning toward other, earlier recoveries. John Berger wrote something like (and I'll check this later): "the world of circumstance and contingency into which I had been born long ago". I can look at my father's life and see the proprieties, circumstances or contingent events that had to occur in order for the story, or the chronology, to be what is is. Were it not for ABC, no XYZ. And that chronology, at a certain point, permitted me.

From "Chapter 2": 1970.

The year sounds more recent that we might have initially supposed, although we are sure that the maths is accurate. Very well, grant us this moment, which, very well, elapsed in 1970. Forgetful of the precise date, so we elect April 17th.

* * *

There are thousands and thousands of songs we could pick, to sound out this moment, since the disappointment is of a very common type. And yet: it is singular, exquisitely and painfully so, so that his could never be like mine, and mine could never be like yours. And perhaps in this respect there is no need to debate particulars.

Top 5 All-Time Undisputed Best Breaking-Up-and-Getting- Over-It Songs (by Male American Recording Artists):

5. “Adieu False Heart” by Arthur Smith Band; 4. “Headless Horseman”, by The Microphones; “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright” by Bob Dylan; 2. “Martha” by Tom Waits; 1. “It Doesn’t Matter any More” by Buddy Holly.

He doesn’t even like Buddy Holly, but these songs, they somehow are sufficient, useful, and for those of you in the audience with a broken heart, please, take instruction. These are the songs that you need.