The Somewhere Over The Rainbow Day...

Days come and go and so few of them are truly memorable. How many days from last year do you actually remember clearly? The fingers of my memory reach backwards seeking... here's one:

My friend Anna and I decided to spend a day listening to and watching as many different versions of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" as we could find on line. It started as a joke, but some kindly god of humility was laughing at us by the end of it. The quantity of cover versions alone tells you something about the quality of the song... then there are the artists: Eva Cassidy, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, Rufus Wainwright, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton... the list goes on. For me, as much beauty as this song manages pull out of everyone who performs it, Judy Garland's version is something beyond words. Not only because it is so closely linked to my childhood memories but also because you can hear the fragility in her voice... as if her voice knows that she's going to have a hard life and it's trying to say as much as it can before it is silenced.

Then I found Keith Jarret's version. In the video he's young young young, sitting at the piano all in profile. If you can find it on youtube, it's worth a look. And for anyone out there who can't find it or see it, I wrote this for you and for Keith, it's called "Jarret's Prayer":

Sideway on, I watch you spelling out the letters with your body, how young you were then, E, C, L, like a holy man, prostrating before the piano, kiss the keys with your fingertips - L, E, C . And I wonder; how could making love to you after this, not be a disappointment? You shine and sway and I cannot seperate you from what it is you are doing.

I think I love you.

I don't think, I love you.

I've heard you are cruel and difficult or, said more kindly, that you are exacting and hard on yourself - I would like to set you to music Mr Jarret - but you've already done that quite perfectly - so, I'll have to set myself to music and talk about you instead:

your invisible genius goes floating through the air... I breathe it in, and it goes straight to my heart...