chinese envoy

I don't know what conjured up the memory, but I've humming this song to myself all day - and recalling one of the most moving, beautiful concerts I've ever attended, more than ten years ago in Edinburgh, during the Fringe Festival, when John Cale sang from his album Fragments of a Rainy Season.

There are moments, voices, songs that just leave this soft but indelible imprint on your soul. 'Chinese Envoy' is one of them, alongside Cale's interpretations of some of Dylan Thomas's poems. (For reasons I don't quite understand, I've never managed to find a version, youtubed or otherwise, of 'If I were tickled by the rub of love' that Cale sang on that night - to absolute perfection, restraint, emotion, depth. So much better than Thomas's own overdramatic recitation.)