'Songs connect, collect and bring together. Even when not being sung they are attendant assembly-points.
The words of songs are different from the words that make prose. In prose, words are independent agents; in songs, they are first and foremost the intimate sounds of their mother tongue. They signify what they signify, and at the same time they address or flow toward all the words that exist in that language.
Songs are like rivers: each follows its own course, yet all flow to the sea, from which everything came. The fact that in many languages the place where a river enters the sea is called the river’s mouth emphasizes the comparison. The waters that flow out of a river’s mouth have come from an immense elsewhere. And something similar happens with what comes out of the mouth of a song.
John Berger - 'Confabulations’
John Berger - About Song and Laughter
Sukhdev Sandhu introduces a rare radio-minded feature by the late celebrated critic, novelist and thinker John Berger. Berger talks about the songs in his life and about Charlie Chaplin's radical power. Featuring Katya Berger and the music of Woody Guthrie, Cesaria Evora and Yasmin Hamdam among others. Producer: Tim Dee.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05sxz6l
an earlier tribute of mine to the man can be found here:-
http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/rip-john-berger-goodbye-to-beautiful.html
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