|
A Thought for Today
To love is to live
out among the giants.
This
One Does It For Me!
Ken,
I promised a note I never got out to you, now I've lost my lil' notes I
brought from home. It was about the book, "World of Rod McKuen", which
Hootie! gave me for my birthday, as I mentioned.
In reading Rod's author's notes, it was interesting to read 1978 (I
think!?!) comments about his not intending to be a writer (wrote songs
because others' words didn't reflect how he felt).
He's mentioned it before, but oh! how fortunate we are that Rod's pen went
to paper and he hasn't stopped.
Hope you / he well.
Appreciate ya',
Sherilyn
Thanks for this contribution, Sherilyn. We are indeed fortunate that Rod continues to put pen
to paper to this day and long may he continue doing so.
Here, for the benefit of readers who don't have a copy of this book, is
the introduction Sherilyn refers to.
The World of Rod McKuen
For Joe Smith
A Note
I write to find out about myself; what makes me turn. I never wanted to be
a writer - or planned to be one. I have always been a singer who needed
songs that reflected how he felt about himself and his surroundings in
order to make his performance of them believable. In desperation I had to
write my own material. There just weren’t enough songs reflecting me,
written by other people.
This book contains twenty-two songs - all of them personal, some of them I
think are pretty good. Ben Kendall’s arrangements have captured the songs
as I wanted them to be. The photographs were taken by Helen Miljakovich.
She has invaded, perhaps, a bit more of my world than I’d planned. But she
has done so with kindness, intelligence and talent.
People ask me what I like to do best - write poetry, songs, sing,
whatever. I don’t play favorites. My work, if I can call it that, is all I
am. What I write and perform is an extension of myself. The World of Rod
McKuen is limited to what I know and what I continue to find out about
myself and the people and places and thoughts that take me out of myself
and into the larger world. I’m not very far into that world yet, but I’m a
little further along than I was yesterday.
These songs and this book are a gift to those who’ve enabled me to have a
world at all.
Rod McKuen, London, June 1968
A note for readers not
familiar with Sherilyn; Hootie! is her faithful four legged companion who
obviously has impeccable taste as far as birthday gifts go. Also, as I
write Sherilyn is at home recovering from surgery to her vocal chords and
we hope she's making a very speedy recovery.
The choice of song from this songbook was pretty easy as it's one of my
all-time McKuen favorites. Hope you enjoy it.
Got a favorite McKuen song, poem or story you'd like to share? Send it to
kenb@mckuen.com and you can look for
it to be published right here one Wednesday soon.
- Ken, Johannesburg,
South Africa, October 1
Click on the heart logo to
buy Rod McKuen books, CD's and lots more
Click
on the Stanyan House logo to subscribe to the McKuen Mailing List
Catch Rod McKuen live!
Click on the links below for details of
concerts and appearances.
ROD McKUEN
CONCERTS
ROD
McKUEN APPEARANCES
|
