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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 9h

Lists & rankings are, & should remain silly things—but it’s good that this is a long list that managed to include one song from Coulson Dean McGuinness Flint’s wonderful Lo and Behold LP of Dylan covers.

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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 23h

Pluses: fairly easy to get too without a car.

Minuses: unable to hear any of the program other than muffled noises & occasional phrases

Unlike mass events at the Capitol, I had little sense of the crowd size. Rewarding to see aerial shots afterward.

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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 1d

No Dukes — but Ellington.

Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 1d

My reply (& likely yours) would be too long for short-form Bluesky, & would include the possibility that the “don’t get” is a function of my age & experience.

Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 1d

I don’t get why you don’t get indie rock. 😀

Is it because as a label it doesn’t mean anything? Or because you believe you know what this label means & you don’t care for more of that? Or should we take you literally & think you mean it’s a mystery you haven’t figured out yet?

Labels are sticky.

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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 1d

It’s #NoKings morning. My old body will join with younger ones to stand to say we see, and we oppose, capricious oppression and misrule. Here’s a poem, now song, for this: frankhudson.org/2025/10/16/b...

Beautiful Justice

This poem by the French Surrealist poet Paul Éluard wandered into my view earlier this month, and it seems like it, and my work translating it into English, slots right in between my late wife’s po…

frankhudson.org

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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 2d

Thanks John for mentioning the music. Somebody once said poetry is words that want to become music—that was something that inspired me & my Parlando Project. Or there’s this quote about film editing from the post about this poem that indicates that aspiration might be more general:

It's all music-my brother, Ric, said that all art forms, when they die and go to heaven, want to be music."

-Ken Burns

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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 2d

#PoemsAbout #BreakTheMould I know most folks post new work of their own, but here's a 50-year-old poem written by my late wife Renée Robbins in her youth that I just rediscovered this Fall. Link to my fresh performance of it here: frankhudson.org/2025/10/14/i...

In Another Language
By Renée Robbins, circa 1975-77

Crab in snowbank –
plastic waves
tattered claws –
residue of an earlier life
I call my own
now left
by the road.

Where could I free
you in this land
of demarcated
fluid and ice?

A bathtub lacks salt,
but I drift there
as if a wind blew
another flood
to wipe out contracts
and families
nations and genders

a Finno-Ugaric world
with one word
for both sexes
one mind
for the self
and those I love
and ten claws
to speed
into buoyant lift.

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Reposted by Frank Hudson

John Reed Music 🎼 and Radio 📻 @johnreed.bandcamp.com · 2d

An unreleased song with unambiguous meaning. It's a wonder there's no revolution. This song will be visible only for the weekend of 18th & 19th October 2025 (UK time), to show solidarity with the millions of #NoKings marchers across the US.

Peace Lives.

youtu.be/7bcx1e9iwbY

John Reed: No Revolution (Rough Take)

YouTube video by John Reed-Music

youtu.be

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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 2d

Here’s my musical performance of Paul Éluard’s poem “Bonne Justice” with a fresh English translation as “Beautiful Justice.” #poetry #music frankhudson.org/2025/10/16/b...

Beautiful Justice

This poem by the French Surrealist poet Paul Éluard wandered into my view earlier this month, and it seems like it, and my work translating it into English, slots right in between my late wife’s po…

frankhudson.org

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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 3d

Then the mooted Hendrix with Miles Davis, and/or Hendrix with Gil Evans records. Late Electric Miles records & Gil Evans Hendrix covers that were released allow one to imagine those.

Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 3d

A fun to read & wise piece. Without being a tiresome reply guy, let me add 2.5 Jimi Hendrix associated albums in the broadly conceived list: “First Rays of the New Rising Sun” which had a reasonably successful recreation of the LP WIP Hendrix was working on when he died. 🧵

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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 4d

I’m working on a song version of a Eluard poem today, & here come these versions of a great Surrealist song written by an American arising in my feed. Then I think too of this one, written by another American before the 1st Surrealist Manifesto—it might be the greatest Surrealist love song:

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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 4d

Here’s someone’s poem performed with music. The Parlando Project does that all the time—but this time the poem was written by my late wife around 50 years ago when she was in her 20s. frankhudson.org/2025/10/14/i...

In Another Language

I mentioned last time that I’m cleaning out things I can no longer reasonably expect to use, and found a box which included poems by my late wife. Perhaps such things are past the use test, but I a…

frankhudson.org

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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 5d

That’s a sweet poem. Love the sound of “Twin iron tones.”

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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 6d

Mid20th century paperback green-tinted cover of a James Joyce classic Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. To lure the reader we see a large sailing ship, a many-spired church, and a young woman just slightly hiking her skirt up as she wades in water—and all these things are observed by a tall chiseled young man looking sideways from the smithy of his soul.

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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 6d

This seems to me to be a sensible overview peppered with useful detail & options.

I come to poetry from my musical composition practice often. Just as I am there, I’m resistant to rules—but I welcome ideas. You are doing the same here.

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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 6d

Here's an English translation of the whole poem. It says "words by" as I'm working on music to sing Éluard's words (in English) to. One translator's note: I chose to change the gendered language ("hommes" as "men" etc) in my version partially for inclusion & partly for more echoing sounds.

Beautiful Justice (Bonne Justice)
by Paul Éluard – English translation: Frank Hudson

This is the warmest law of mankind:
from grapes we make wine,
from coal we make fire,
from kisses we make mankind.

This is the harshest law of mankind:
to remain intact – despite
wars and misery, despite
the dangers of death.

This is the sweetest law of mankind:
to change water into light,
the dream into reality,
and enemies into family.

It’s an old and new law –
one always perfecting itself
from the depths of a child’s heart
to the highest reason.

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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 7d

A remarkable, questing piece.

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Reposted by Frank Hudson

poemakontsa @poemakontsa.bsky.social · 7d

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Reposted by Frank Hudson

Han VanderHart @hanvanderhart.bsky.social · 10d

A poem is an anti-capitalist machine

yes, it is broken if you try to produce with it

no, it doesn’t produce on command

the factory is closed

the worker is sleeping

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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 11d

The experience of finding a cache of my late wife’s poetry & short stories while doing my own “death cleaning” yields this account, a poem, & a 2-minute musical piece. frankhudson.org/2025/10/07/e...

Exhumation

I’ve already mentioned that I’ve been dispensing with a lot of stuff, the kind of winnowing that I like to refer to as “Death Cleaning.”* This has included going through a series of stored-away box…

frankhudson.org

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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 13d

I’ve now listened to the whole album—alas, this cut is the only one to raise such chills. The rest is competent, interesting at times—but not as powerful. The orchestral parts elsewhere add little—but here, along with J B Lenoir’s lyrics, your skin’s hairs stand up. Here’s Lenior’s own version:

Alabama March

YouTube video by J.B. Lenoir - Topic

youtu.be

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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 13d

Whew! That’s some stuff right there.

Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 13d

How many blues and jazz guys studied with Iannis Xenakis? youtu.be/c7nZXMJUw0c?...

Alabama March

YouTube video by McHouston Baker - Topic

youtu.be

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Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 13d

Despite knowing “Love Is Strange” & the instructional books, I don’t think I’d ever heard Mickey Baker play. Thanks.