Remember Bethlehem: spoken intro

[drking]

I have a Jake LP, but nowadays no means to play it. He introduces Remember Bethlehem with a phrase something like “a song I’m not too ashamed of.”

Does anyone know the exact phrase? I’d like to quote it when my choir sings the song.

Many thanks!
David

[Pam]

“Here is another point number, in a sense. It was commissioned to be written when I was a schoolteacher and it was for the school Christmas celebration. This is a song of which I am not……… very …….. ashamed.”

My favourite LP – now available as a double CD, with the whole concert and not just the 14 tracks on the LP. See this page on this website:
http://www.jakethackray.com/archive/songs/recordings/albums-and-cds/268-live-performance-2cd.html and also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Performance

You might be able to get one online.

Hope that helps!

[drking]

Excellent! Thank you. The CD is on ebay @ £35 or new @ amazon for £79. A bit pricey I’m afraid. No mp3s from it to buy that I can find. But it’s the text I wanted.

Thanks again

[Jamie]

I think you can download the album from here:
http://www.virginmedia.com/music/browse/jake-thackray/albums/202605

Good luck!

[Jamie]

…or maybe not. I can’t seem to get the download (or listen) links to work.
You can definitely listen to the album on Spotify though.

[drking]

Thank you. I’ll see if I can access it via spotify – or might be as easy to find someone with a working turntable!

The virginmedia mp3 link takes you to buy a version on a different album. Hm…

Interestingly after the virgin sample track there’s a different version of the song with lots of backing – what on earth were they thinking of!!??! Very inferior compared to the simple guitar and voice.

[Hugh Williams]

There has been a veritable plethora of debates over the years as to the merits (or otherwise) of the orchestration on early Jake recordings. Personally I can’t stand them and only ever play the songs with just Jake or his “Band” and leave the highly strung offerings to people who may appreciate such things (and I’m assured that these people do exist !)

[Paul]

Sadly, I think that once physical CD has been deleted or discontinued, any downloads also become unavailable. This is the problem of licensing agreements. The same thing happened with the HMV collection, which had the only copy of The Bull (other than the DVD, of course…)

[Jonathan Sims]

I’d like to read up on the plethora of debates as I thought these things were only said in dark corners. Of course they were very different singers and songs, but I cannot help but compare the vivid, imaginative orchestrations for Jacques Brel with the pedestrian “Workers’ Playtime’ type orchestrations for JT.

[Paul]

I agree that Brel’s orchestrations work much better, and in part I think this is to do with the emotional range of the songs. It is no accident, IMHO, that the best of Jake’s orchestral versions is the lugubrious Black Swan.

[Author]

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