A Blog of Bosh

I am still working on the new nonsenselit.org site, but have decided to take down the “Sounds” section and re-post weekly what was in it here.
This week I’m posting a full BBC Radio 4 program of 2 December 2000 about Lear’s most famous poem, The Owl and the Pussy-cat. It was part of the series [...]

The recently launched Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, provides a great collection of early recordings from the Edison era.
Among these Edward M. Favor’s Fol-the-rol-lol is one of my favourites, at least since Arthur Deex sent me a cassette with one of the two recorded versions (I’m sorry to [...]

I’m sorry to say that the main page of nonsenselit.org has been hacked. This has already happened a couple of times since last summer, but I’m not going to repair it this time as I no longer trust PostNuke enough: I’ve been thinking of moving to another CMS for some time and this is a [...]

This week’s song is from a three-record box published by Bluebird Records (made by RCA Victor) in the late 1930s early 1940s.
Mr and Mrs Spikky Sparrow, music by Helen E. Myers, sung by Craig McDonnell.

I am starting a new podcast of songs with nonsense lyrics, to be posted on Fridays.
The first is Sam Gaillard, a specialist, with Ra-da-da-da (1942).

This week’s podcast is The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò, read by David Davis, side 2 of his 1966 45-rpm record, The Nonsense Songs of Edward Lear Read by David Davis, Delysé DEL 158. Side 1 has The Daddy Long-Legs and the Fly and The Broom, the Shovel, the Poker and the Tongs.

David Davis is familiarly [...]

Eight works of Mr Edward Lear, spoken with the utmost gravity by Mr Ivan Smith, and set to music of the most nonsensical nature by John Sangster. These eight word-pieces embedded within fourteen more instrumental excursions which take their titles and their inspiration from the Nonsense Books of Edward Lear.

The double LP, Uttered Nonsense (The [...]