Rod McKuen - Flight Plan


TUESDAY		Edward & Rod: The Brother's McKuen. Photographed by Diane Kopperman, May 2002 at BB King's New York City A Thought for Today I'll try anything once and anything that doesn't hurt, more than once. .ASK ROD Tuesday and on with the mail. SEASONS IN THE SUN Mr. McKuen, Hi, What I am curious about is the song "Seasons in the Sun," obviously you wrote it and I assume sang it first. I'm sorry to say that I have not heard your version (Something that I will rectify in the next day or so). But A friend of mine was trying to tell me that Terry Jacks wrote it and performed it first and I knew that wasn't right but I thought the Kingston Trio was the first to perform it after you. Could you help me out on this? As petty as it might seem I would still really like to know. Thank You, Dan Dear Dan, Jacques Brel wrote the original song "Le Moribond" (The Dying Man). I adapted it into English and retitled it "Seasons in the Sun". In addition to my early recordings of it The Kingston Trio were the first to cover it. About five years later Terry Jacks had a worldwide hit with it and there have been dozens of other recorded versions including those by Andy Williams, Pearls Before Swine and Ray Conniff. Hope you had some money riding on the bet, because you win. All my best, Rod SAN FRANCISCO MEMORIES Rod, What a nice surprise to learn of your website. I have wonderful memories of a performance I attended in San Francisco during the 1960s. My mother (an English teacher at S.F. State) made the reservations and my Dad was my date! I was thrilled! I enjoy sharing your books, music and poetry with my daughters. I know they will hand down similar writings and music to their loved ones. Thank you so much for all you have shared. I'm delighted to know I can go to your website and I won't lose touch again! Fondly, Molly Dear Molly, I'm glad that you stumbled onto A Safe Place to Land and I hope you visit it often. Though it doesn't seem like it, all of us involved in the site started our fifth year at the end of April. Thanks for the San Francisco memories and for turning your daughters on to my work. Warmly, Rod WILL THE REAL GLENN YARBROUGH PLEASE STAND UP? I’ve been in love with you my whole life. Well, since age 18 and now I find myself at age 58. But this is funny, for the longest time, I thought you were Glenn Yarborough. I was in love with his voice and then found out you wrote many of his songs which are my favorites. I am a slow starter, just began writing about 2 years ago, but your words have kick started me many times. I have an old album, The Sounds of Day, the Sounds of Night. I play it when I have a block and it gets me going again. Thank you for that and thank you for your gift of an irrepressible, incomparable voice....even the teenaged poets know of you, did you know that? Thanks again, Susan Dear Susan: Glenn began to sing my songs at the very beginning of my career (and his) as a soloist after he left The Limelighters. So, I'm not surprised that you thought we were the same person. Yarbrough, Jimmie Rodgers and The Kingston Trio recorded so many of my compositions that it helped create an audience for my own recordings and concerts. But me with a voice like Glenn Yarbrough? In my dreams. While Glenn has moved on to other material he still has those golden pipes and continues to perform. And while saying thanks to Glenn and the other performers who spread the word about my songs, I owe more than I can say to the parents and teachers who continue to turn succeeding generations on to my work. Every author needs an audience and it’s a comfort to know mine is spread over various age groups because my only target is people and not demographics. Good luck with your writing Susan and thanks for being there down through the years. With affection, Rod APRIL PEOPLE I heard this poem many years ago and wondered where I could find a copy of it. I enjoy all of your works but especially this one . Thank you Dear Harriet: Thanks for the kind words. The song April People can be found on my CD "Early Harvest." Thanks for asking and all the best. Rod A KIND OF LOVING In 1968 - I studied and worked in Paris in that revolutionary year - an American girl from Illinois (Susan W. - she was my age then, and still now, I hope) - gave me your book "Listen to the Warm". "Perhaps this can say many things I never could" she wrote in it. Today my 15-year-old son had to make a compilation of poems in four different languages for school, and also had to translate them. Poems on the aspect of "Love". He asked me to supply him with an English poem. I was happy to give him that - meanwhile - 34-year-old book, and let him make his own choice from the collected poems. Great! - he made his choice for "A kind of loving". This brought me to the question whether this poem was actually translated into Dutch (our language) by some pro artist? Can you give a clue to that, and also give me the name of a site where I can download this poem as a song? Johan, The Netherlands Dear Johan, Wow what a difficult assignment. I wish I could give your son a head start by providing him with a Dutch version of the song. A Kind of Loving is the lyric for a song with music by Mort Garson. It became the title for singer Toni Lee Scott's autobiography. The lyrics were printed in Listen to the Warm and while all of the poems were translated into Dutch by Cees Nooteboom (Liefde in Woorden, J. H. Gottmer, 1971) the lyrics in the book were only included in English. As far as I know there are no sites where the song can be downloaded. Certainly none that are authorized to do so. The song will be included in the forthcoming RCA/Bear Family boxed set McKuen: The RCA Years. All the best and say hi, thanks and good luck to your son. Warmly, Rod ANITA KERR Where is Anita Kerr now? I have "The Sea" album you recorded with her. Stanley Hastings. Dear Stanley. For all intents and purposes Anita has retired and lives in Switzerland, but she can always be coaxed back into the spotlight if the project is right. A couple of years ago she came back to the states to conduct her Country Symphony and to reunite with both the Nashville and Hollywood members of her award winning Anita Kerr Singers. Every year or so she returns to the USA to visit relatives in Tennessee and New York and her many friends in the Los Angeles area. I think American music misses her as much as I do. Best Regards, Rod Please join Ken tomorrow for his weekly This One Doe It For Me. Sleep warm. RM 10/21/2002 7:50 PM PST 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 new details (posted 09/28/2002). ROD McKUEN APPEARANCES ROD McKUEN CONCERTS



		Constance Bennett o Sarah Bernhardt o Brian Boitano o Patti Davis o Catherine Deneuve o Joan Fontaine o Annette Funicello o Jeff Goldblum o Zac Hanson o Curly Howard o Alan Ladd, Jr. o Timothy Leary o Doris Lessing o Jonathan Lipnicki o Franz Liszt o Christopher Lloyd o Dory Previn o Robert Rauschenberg o Tony Roberts o Shaggy o Leon Trotsky o N.C. Wyeth

		The true believer always questions; only sheep are silent. To love somebody truly, it is not necessary to be false to all other relationships. Need is only wonder set in motion.

GOING HOME: A QUESTION OF BALANCE		Beretta's gone. That voice so haunting in the Porter / Coward song has not been stilled but now fills other halls, sends new lovers home to fresh-made bed and breakfast in eastern cities. Ginsberg comes home on occasion and Snyder carries North Beach ever onward – not so much a tattered banner (the City Lights have never dimmed) but now it's more a whim to him than cause. Because the old haunts haunt us I go back. And yes you can go home again – sameness, once allowed to set will supercede each change and what we find and name-call strangeness. Those of us addicted, infected with dependency of time and place, will always have a home here, if not homecoming. What serves and saves us is our own hard overriding need forever pumping adrenaline into the landscape. I arrive furlough like on R. & R. without the hell-raise bent knowing no one anymore but knowing there are those convinced beyond mere reckoning that they know me. It's true you are not a hero in your own hometown unless you've got a weekly series running or rerunning every day. But even that is danger-bent. The mask must never slip. The dancer must waltz endlessly, he's not allowed to dip or turn or do-si-do, without rehearsal. Still San Francisco always gives back better than we give. It is a luxury to merely walk the wharf. Day workers jingle take home pay that would stagger millionaires, front pocket billfolds tangoing below low hanging bulging balls, coin of the realm in ambiance. But none of us are heroes in a hero city. Praise singers only. Caen's Baghdad or Dong Kingman's splashy thrust are pastel backdrops for the Ferlinghetti muse, mad or merry. Every Delaplane postcard home is not greeted with surprise and Pike went mad at sunrise. O'Flaherty will talk convincingly of how the old town's gone, Keene eyes no longer look from every gallery, (ample argument for plus and minus still). Sparky's strip's been quartered, cut apart, analyzed more often than Miss Doda's: Does mammary equal memory? He survives, we all do. It is the city and surrounding squares that give us give and take. Being in and out of one another's favor and embrace cause each of us to try the longer stride next time. Jose, that Sunday diva with soprano reach should set it all to music. Butterfly in one act only. Can you imagine Ginsberg not yet declared a monument by government? It's a tantamount to winking off Niagara and Grand Rapids in a single blink or wank. So he comes home to San Francisco, now and then. Lots of give and take here, not just take. When I was younger, way back when, Willie Kapell slam-dashed into a San Francisco mountain top. No one's made a painting or a poem of it yet. (Not even one of eighteen variations.) Most San Francisco tragedies stay unadorned. This lack of advertisement is what makes The City great. True, the Chronicle chronicles, Examiner examines, each leap from bridge, keeps count. But names of divers are not etched on pilings. Death is not always dignified by chisel as life is not propelled by good words only. Oh, but we love the adjectives and we should do so while we can. They are the perfect lovers every time. And when they change to fast friends or to worse they needn't cause an early death or banishment. It's only time to go away again. This is the city that remembers to forget. Wasserman tests have gone the way of rabbits, truth has a good name bay to bay. Have I been too gentle with the neighborhood, perhaps. But there'll be letters, sub-headlines – that will tell me if I went too far or did not venture far enough. Never gossip, through. (Perhaps a whisper in Marin). It's too fragmented up here for all that and it's the fragments come together that have made the rock on which to build the home for visitation. Beretta's gone, but she'll be back. Meanwhile the lovers each make private plans for bed and breakfast and attack. And those of us who travel from the city know the best credential we can trot out in fast company is news of where we came from. - from "Suspension Bridge," 1984

Birthday research by Wade Alexander o Poetry from the collection of Jay Hagan o Coordinated by Melinda Smith o Sound & Fury Dr. Eric Yeager o Webmaster Ken Blackie

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