Tag Archives: Wendy Welch

Friends Care And Do–

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Writer Wendy’s weekly blog

Today I am going to Biltmore to see the Christmas lights. Today is Epiphany, the proper day on which to mark the end of the 12 days of Christmas. Tomorrow Biltmore will take down the lights.

It is bucketing rain today. A dear friend widowed during COVID has on her bucket list to see the mansion decorated for the holidays. She has a ticket. She meant to go last week, and everyone going with her got sick. Today is the last day she can go. Being a widow means finding the courage to do many things alone that you would have done with a partner (or even over a partner’s objections). My friend took up salsa dancing. She went back to work, taking diverse jobs using all her considerable skills both in office work and in compassionate human care. (She is my parents’ weekly home care assistant.) She does not want to go alone, because Christmas lights on Epiphany are a thing to be enjoyed with a friend.

I dislike Biltmore. But I like my friend. She isn’t a victim; she’s a survivor who helps other people survive. She won’t care if I make fun of some of the opulence she will be so richly enjoying, and I’ll try to tamp down my natural sarcasm about the excesses of rich people’s stuff. These are the spaces we make for one another. These are the things we do for one another.

I am going with her because she does not want to go alone. She has shown kindness to my family, courage in the face of devastating losses, resilience in becoming a great salsa dancer–even though her church friends think it’s a little weird and perhaps too powerful and sexy for a widowed woman–and her determination that her walk with God not be dictated by her circumstances.

She wants to go see the lights at Biltmore today. It is bucketing rain and going to freeze tonight. We are going to see the lights at Biltmore because this is the kind of thing we who care do for each other.

This story may smack of “Ain’t I great taking my friend to do something I don’t care about in the teeth of a winter storm.” But that ain’t it, either.

We are here for each other because we have known each other a long time and understand the limits of human endurance. She wants to see the Christmas lights. She gets to see the Christmas lights. It’s good to have snow tires. It’s good to have friends.

A Not So Aging Songwriter–

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Once again Jack gets his guest post in on time – –

Readers of this blog and my guest posts will know already that I’m a big fan of Bob Dylan. I first heard him in the early 1960s and was completely captivated. I even saw him live towards the end of the infamous world tour of 1966 – he played the ABC cinema in Edinburgh a few days before the final concert in Manchester where someone shouted “Judas!”

I never miss a chance to include one of his songs in my weekly Celtic music radio show, but I’m working now on a program completely devoted to his songs. I can hear you now –already, from here — wondering how that’s possible.

When he first arrived in New York, he hooked up with Joan Baez, and she was singing English and Scottish ballads, and he also was pals with the Clancy Brothers, who sang mostly Irish songs. Then he spent a month in London, where he met many Scottish, English, and Irish singers. So, many of his subsequent songs used tunes from the songs and ballads he’d heard. Actually, I was surprised by just how many of his original songs from that time used not just British tunes but lots of words and phrases from British ballads.

Then in the 1980s he revisited those times and recorded two albums of folk songs that included “Canadeeio,” based on Nic Jones’ version, and “Arthur McBride,” based on the arrangement by Paul Brady.

Just recently I was alerted by a friend to two more Dylan songs that I’d never heard –

Neither of them have any particular connection to Celtic music, although their sentiments are pretty much universal. One is “Wallflower,” and when first listening it seems like just another country song with classic rhythm and chord sequence. It seems like either a conversation or maybe just inward thoughts of a man at a dance in a small town dancehall, who feels out of place and awkward. But it immediately reminded me of an experience I had in my late teens, when some friends persuaded me to go to just such a dance. I’m useless at dancing, and I remember feeling exactly like the guy in this song.

The second is “To Make You Feel my Love,” which is very different. It’s a heartfelt and yearning love song with a gorgeous and quite unusual tune, and it has been covered by many other singers.

It’s maybe worth mentioning that Dylan has always had a good ear for unusual chord progressions, starting with “House of the Rising Sun” on his very first album and continuing over the years. Borrowing from others for sure but making something of his own and new at the same time.

Dylan never fails to surprise me and has done so many times over the years. Just when you think he has settled into some kind of pattern he jumps out, grabs, and shakes you…and then takes you down a different road altogether.

Have a little listen, yourself, if you like:

Joan Osborne – To Make You feel my Love

Diana Krall – Wallflower

Bob Dylan – The Walls of Red Wing (tune is The Road and the Miles to Dundee)

Come back next Wednesday for more from Jack