Podcast appearances and mentions of Richard Wright

This season on a Blind Play of Social Forces:BEST LAUNDERETTE:THE MAN FROM THE EGGLEFT & LEAVINGTHIS IS OUR NORTH DAKOTAGINA #ENGENDEREDSLEEPWALKER XMARLBOROS, THE KING, AND 8 O'CLOCK BEANGREETINGS FROM HAITIHOTEL DEL SOLANOINT YOUR ENGINE FOR A HEAVENLY RIDETEN SECONDSSIGNSStarting May 4 and every Thursday after that, we will bring you ten more stories focused on damaged relationships and lonely people looking for wholeness. In other words, humans.You can find out more about our cast and crew at ablindplaypodcast.com or on Instagram @mauhausproductions If you haven't clicked the follow button on this app, do it now. Each episode will be waiting for you when you wake up on Thursday. Plus, you can go back and listen to Season One. Rate and Review the show, and share with friends who love great stories. If you have any writers in your life, we are hosting a contest to find the best stories for season three. New voices, new genres, new life. Find out more at ablindplaypodcast.comUntil Next Week… "They hate because they fear, and they fear because they feel that the deepest feelings of their lives are being assaulted and outraged. And they do not know why; they are powerless pawns in a blind play of social forces." Richard Wright, Native Son.All episodes written and directed by Michael MauTheme music composed by Trevor TremaineMain title artwork by Geneva HicksEpigraph read by Sharmaarke PurcellTo find out more about our cast, to read the original short stories, or donate to the show so we can make an unforgettable second season, visit us at ablindplaypodcast.com or on Instagram @mauhausproductions.

Richard Wright: Mit dem Roman "Native Son" aus dem Jahr 1940 wird er der erste afroamerikanische Bestsellerautor der USA. Der seines Buches "Black Power" von 1954 wird zum Slogan, der die schwarze Bürgerrechtsbewegung prägte. (BR 2019) Autor: Frank Halbach

Episode 178 Notes and Links to Stephen Buoro's Work       On Episode 178 of The Chills at Will Podcast, Pete welcomes Stephen Buoro, and the two discuss, among other things, his early relationship with math, as well as the written and spoken word, particularly through his connection to, and education with, The Catholic Church, his early reading and love of Kafka and Richard Wright and other standouts, his book's satirical/humorous components, his inspiration for the book's opening and beyond, and important themes and motifs of Ani/Afrofuturism, traumas both personal and societal, permutation theory, colonialism and its legacies, fetishization of West and East, and pessimism and optimism.      Stephen Buoro was born in Nigeria in 1993. He has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia where he received the Booker Prize Foundation Scholarship. He lives in Norwich, United Kingdom. The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa is his first novel.     Buy The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa from Bloomsbury Publishing   Stephen Buoro's Website   From The Guardian: “The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa by Stephen Buoro review – astute story of self-discovery”   From The Economist: "Wit and wisdom in 'The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa' "    At about 6:30, Stephen describes how “surreal” it is in the week or so leading up to his book's publication date   At about 7:50, Stephen describes Ian Rankin's and Max Porter's sterling blurbs for his book   At about 8:40, Stephen responds to Pete's question about how he sees his book as of the moment and also existing timelessly   At about 12:50, Pete asks Stephen about his reading background, and his relationships with the world; Stephen describes how he became a voracious reader of Irish lit, encyclopedias, and so much more   At about 19:45, Stephen highlights Richard Wright's Black Boy as pivotal in his reading and his path towards becoming a writer himself, including how the book was both “depressing” and “uplifting”   At about 21:40, Stephen    At about 22:15, Pete points out some connections between Andy from the book and Stephen's reading of Kafka and Joyce, and Stephen reflects on meanings for him for the book   At about 24:30, Pete confesses his not all-encompassing love (gasp!) for The Metamorphosis   At about 25:20, Stephen reflects on moments that led to him becoming a writer    At about 29:55, Stephen talks about the moments and experiences that guided his love of and fascination for words, and he and Pete discuss the allegories and performances and wonder that religion brought with it   At about 33:25, Pete asks Stephen about perspective, and how moving to the UK allowed him to write differently about Nigeria   At about 35:45, Stephen summarizes the book's first chapter and describes the genesis of the book in 2018   At about 39:20, Pete and Stephen highlight the legendary Blackberry!   At about 39:45, Pete and Stephen reflect on the powerful and funny opening scene of the book, and Stephen talks about some ignorance of the book being funny   At about 42:00, Pete outlines the book's five sections, based on the Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Jesus' last days, and Stephen responds to Pete wondering about permutations    At about 45:35, The book's exposition is set, with descriptions of the coming party for the parish priest's niece, and Andy's mother and Andy's deceased brother and his role as “Ydna”   At about 49:50, Stephen discusses duality and the character of Andy as representative of other ideas and groups of people   At about 52:30, Stephen talks about “HXVX” and its implications and connections to Andy and his friends' superhero storyline   At about 53:40, The two discuss Zara's role in the book, ideas of “Anifuturism,” and pessimism and optimism in the book   At about 58:20, The friends (“the droogs”) of Andy are described and characterized    At about 1:00:55, Slim and his homosexuality are put into the context of the book and its friend group and societal expectations/pressures    At about 1:02:05, Pete notes the inclusion of Oga Oliver and his connection to those who have emigrated and want to emigrate from Nigeria    At about 1:02:50, The party of all parties is described, with Eileen's appearance    At about 1:04:10, Andy responds to Pete's musings and questions about Eileen and her role in the book and what/who she represents    At about 1:07:30, Pete compliments the “skillful” final scene of the book and the book's “timeless” and specific greatness, while avoiding plot spoilers (!)   At about 1:09:40, Stephen discusses exciting future projects   At about     You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow me on IG, where I'm @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where I'm @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both my YouTube Channel and my podcast while you're checking out this episode.    Sign up now for The Chills at Will Podcast Patreon: it can be found at patreon.com/chillsatwillpodcastpeterriehl     Check out the page that describes the benefits of a Patreon membership, including cool swag and bonus episodes. Thanks in advance for supporting my one-man show, my DIY podcast and my extensive reading, research, editing, and promoting to keep this independent podcast pumping out high-quality content!    NEW MERCH! You can browse and buy here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ChillsatWillPodcast    This is a passion project of mine, a DIY operation, and I'd love for your help in promoting what I'm convinced is a unique and spirited look at an often-ignored art form.    The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com.   Please tune in for Episode 179 with Eli Cranor, whose critically acclaimed debut novel, Don't Know Tough, won the Peter Lovesey First Crime Novel Contest and was named one of the "Best Books of the Year" by USA Today and one of the "Best Crime Novels" of 2022 by the New York Times; his highly-acclaimed Ozark Dogs came out on April 4.    The episode will air on April 25.

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History and Sporting Witness episodes from the BBC World Service. We hear about the unearthing of a mass grave in Sernyky, Ukraine, in 1990, and when the Boston Marathon was the target of a terror attack in 2013. This programme contains distressing details. Contributors: James Bulgin - head of public history at the Imperial War Museum in Britain. Richard Wright - archaeologist. Jonathan Dimbleby - broadcaster. Edward Deveau - Watertown Chief of Police. Charles Barnett - managing director of Aintree Racecourse. Gary Anderson - designer. (Photo: David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe. Credit: Getty Images)

In 1990, archaeologist Richard Wright flew half way around the world to unearth a mass grave in Sernyky, Ukraine as part of an Australian Nazi war crimes investigation. The site contained more than 500 bodies of Jewish people who had been killed in a mass execution. Richard's findings were used in the war crimes trial of Ivan Polyukhovich. He had fled to Australia after World War Two. Decades later Richard recounts his experience to Alex Collins. This programme contains destressing details. (Photo: Mass grave in Sernyky. Credit: Sydney Jewish Museum)

Happy Talk Ain't Cheap Tuesday! On today's episode I had the honor of speaking with renowned scholar and communication researcher, author and professor, Dr. Richard Wright. To honor his 50th year teaching at the Illustrious Howard University, we discuss his life, works and favorite moments of being both a faculty and student at Howard University. I am honored to have him as a mentor, and blessed to have this opportunity to share this moment with him. If you would like to get in contact with him feel free to email him. If you enjoyed this episode, like, rate, comment, subscribe, share and follow the brands @Talkaintcheapnetwork powered by @thecletusgroup

Tom Bullough on writing about the climate crisis, and Richard Wright's lost novel

We're officially almost through the slog of Aidan Shaw, but before he departs we have to deal with him and a side of KFC. But before that, we discuss his continued presence in And Just Like That (is he a paranormal activity?). We then deal with the dissolution of the MacDougal marriage, Miranda's complicated work life, and the perils and highs of dating Richard Wright. It's a lot. Take a listen!Don't forget to Like, Subscribe and Follow Us Online:Sam - @bravohistorian / @takeyourzoloftChris - @clewis1219A Hurrdat Media Production. Hurrdat Media is a digital media and commercial video production company based in Omaha, NE. Find more podcasts on the Hurrdat Media Network and learn more about our other services today on HurrdatMedia.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We're officially almost through the slog of Aidan Shaw, but before he departs we have to deal with him and a side of KFC. But before that, we discuss his continued presence in And Just Like That (is he a paranormal activity?). We then deal with the dissolution of the MacDougal marriage, Miranda's complicated work life, and the perils and highs of dating Richard Wright. It's a lot. Take a listen!Don't forget to Like, Subscribe and Follow Us Online:Sam - @bravohistorian / @takeyourzoloftChris - @clewis1219A Hurrdat Media Production. Hurrdat Media is a digital media and commercial video production company based in Omaha, NE. Find more podcasts on the Hurrdat Media Network and learn more about our other services today on HurrdatMedia.com.

It's a very big episode...Aidan proposes, Richard Wright is wooing Samantha (and us), and Big is acting up again. But before that, we discuss the most recent set appearance of Carrie and Aidan shopping. Then we spend a lot of time discussing whether or not Charlotte is a good partner. It's a lot. Take a listen.Don't forget to Like, Subscribe and Follow Us Online:Sam - @bravohistorian / @takeyourzoloftChris - @clewis1219A Hurrdat Media Production. Hurrdat Media is a digital media and commercial video production company based in Omaha, NE. Find more podcasts on the Hurrdat Media Network and learn more about our other services today on HurrdatMedia.com.

This episode is all about the friction that naturally arises when you are in relationship - Carrie and Aidan are navigating cohabitation, Charlotte and Trey are navigating their baby-free season, Miranda is navigating pregnancy and intimacy and Samantha is navigating a man who wants more than she's ready to give.Becky is doing the coaching this week as she and Kerry discuss what it means to take the risk and be your whole self with your partner, how to evaluate and ask for what you need, and how much we really like Richard Wright. Catch up with Becky at www.untanglehappiness.com where you can learn more about her book, The Happiness Recipe: A Powerful Guide to Living What Matters. IG:  @the.butterfly.societyFind Kerry at www.theatalantagroup.com for more information about leadership coaching for lawyers and her coaching programs specifically designed to help attorneys make the transition to in-house positions. IG:    @theatalantagroup

It's a very big episode...Aidan proposes, Richard Wright is wooing Samantha (and us), and Big is acting up again. But before that, we discuss the most recent set appearance of Carrie and Aidan shopping. Then we spend a lot of time discussing whether or not Charlotte is a good partner. It's a lot. Take a listen.Don't forget to Like, Subscribe and Follow Us Online:Sam - @bravohistorian / @takeyourzoloftChris - @clewis1219A Hurrdat Media Production. Hurrdat Media is a digital media and commercial video production company based in Omaha, NE. Find more podcasts on the Hurrdat Media Network and learn more about our other services today on HurrdatMedia.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Pink Floyd would score another big hit and some mainstream crossover success with their eleventh studio album, The Wall.  Originally conceived by bassist Roger Waters, The Wall explores the self-isolation of a cynical rock star named Pink, and portrays events in his life from the loss of his father, to childhood trauma, to the pressures of rock stardom as bricks forming the wall.  Parts of the story are autobiographical from Waters, and parts naturally are based on former front man Syd Barrett.  The album was a commercial success, the most successful double album of all time, the second most popular Pink Floyd album behind their monstrous hit "Dark Side of the Moon," and would produce the groups only number 1 single on the charts with "Another Brick in the Wall, part 2."  Critical reviews were mixed at first, with some considering the rock opera to be pretentious, but the reviews would turn more positive over time.This would be the last album to feature the classic band lineup.  Richard Wright would be fired by Roger Waters during production, though he would stay on as a studio musician for the album.  One further studio album would be produced before acrimony would lead to Waters departure from the band.What the Riff co-founder Brian Dickhute brings us this album for today's podcast.  Brian is also using this as a swan song of sorts as he takes a break from regular podcasting duties to spend more time with the family.  Thanks so much for all your work over these hundreds of podcasts, Brian! Hey YouThis well-known track leads off side three of the album and reflects the desperation as Pink realizes how the wall of isolation he has built has trapped him in a cell of his own creation.  The inspiration for this song was the breakup of Waters' marriage.Is There Anybody Out There?In the film this song is used to transition from Pink the rock star to Pink the dictator.  Session musician Joe DiBlasi was brought in to play the fingerstyle guitar on this piece.Nobody's HomeThe last song written for the album was the result of a fight between Roger Waters and David Gilmour.  It was inspired by the isolation Waters felt during their 1977 tour and musings on Syd Barrett.  Some of the lyrics are also built around Richard Wright, keyboardist, who was allegedly dealing with drug addiction at the time.VeraThis song is a flashback to days of World War II.  The title was inspired by Vera Lynn, a British singer popular during the war who sang the song "We'll Meet Again."  Waters lost his grandfather in WWI and his father in WWII.Bring the Boys Back HomeRoger Waters considers this brief song the central theme of the album.  The idea is that not just war, but all activity including business and rock music should not be allowed to isolate a person from friends and family. Comfortably NumbOne of the more popular songs from the album, the music was written by David Gilmour and the lyrics by Roger Waters.  A significant argument occurred between Gilmour and Waters on the arrangement of this piece, with Gilmour preferring a stripped-down format and Watters wanting a more symphonic approach.  The contrasting sections of orchestration and more simplistic riffs is the result of the compromise made for the piece. ENTERTAINMENT TRACK:Frosty the Snowman by Jimmy Durante No, it isn't Christmas again.  Popular entertainer Jimmy Durante passed away in January of 1980, and his is one of his best known songs.  STAFF PICKS:The Spirit of Radio by Rush Bruce sneaks another Rush song in for Brian's final episode as a regular podcaster.  The lead-off track to Rush's album "Permanent Waves" was inspired by the slogan of CFNY-FM in Toronto.  FM radio was moving from a more free-form format to a more commercial format, and CFNY was bucking the trend.  Damned If I Do by the Alan Parsons ProjectRob brings us a piece from Alan Parsons' fourth studio album called "Eve."  The album is focused on the strength and characteristics of women and the difficulties they face in a world of men.  "Damned if I do, damned if I don't, but I love you."Boom Boom (Out Go the Lights) by Pat Travers Wayne's staff pick is a boogie woogie cover of a blues song originally released by Little Walter in 1957.  It is a well known party song which would not be politically correct today.  There's some great guitar playing, and an excellent call-and-response in the live version.  Ladies Night by Kool & The GangBrian's staff pick was a popular song in the dying days of disco.  This song would see a revitalization of Kool & the Gang's popularity going into the early 80's.     INSTRUMENTAL TRACK:Pipeline '76 by Roger PowellIt is unusual to find surfing instrumentals during the early 80's, but this one was around at the time.  

Shorties, we apologize - this episode was recorded before the photo that rocked us to our core. But we do get into the return of Enid Frick and why Tony Danza is joining the SATC universe. We then break down the introduction of Richard Wright (he's here and he's perfect), Brady Hobbes' origin story, Trey's undies, and ponder why we are watching men talk so much this episode. Take a listen!Don't forget to Like, Subscribe and Follow Us Online:Sam - @bravohistorian / @takeyourzoloftChris - @clewis1219A Hurrdat Media Production. Hurrdat Media is a digital media and commercial video production company based in Omaha, NE. Find more podcasts on the Hurrdat Media Network and learn more about our other services today on HurrdatMedia.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Shorties, we apologize - this episode was recorded before the photo that rocked us to our core. But we do get into the return of Enid Frick and why Tony Danza is joining the SATC universe. We then break down the introduction of Richard Wright (he's here and he's perfect), Brady Hobbes' origin story, Trey's undies, and ponder why we are watching men talk so much this episode. Take a listen!Don't forget to Like, Subscribe and Follow Us Online:Sam - @bravohistorian / @takeyourzoloftChris - @clewis1219A Hurrdat Media Production. Hurrdat Media is a digital media and commercial video production company based in Omaha, NE. Find more podcasts on the Hurrdat Media Network and learn more about our other services today on HurrdatMedia.com.

It's time again to set the controls for the heart of the sun and celebrate our co-host: Robert Harrison's birthday! Space out with us as we absorb a collection of songs that evoke the essence and vibes of his favorite band: Pink Floyd. While not obscure at all (they have 2 albums that are diamonds!), we shine on with snippets of similar sounds and themes by somewhat more modern bands from the 90s until today. What is it we do here at InObscuria? Every show Kevin opens the crypt to exhume and dissect from his personal collection; an artist, album, or collection of tunes from the broad spectrum of rock, punk, and metal. Robert is usually forced to test his endurance, but this week is all about songs firmly in his big bang zone. Our hope is that we turn you on to something that was lost on your ears, even with this collection of great dance songs sounding similar to one of the biggest selling rock acts of all time.Songs this week include:The McBroom Sisters – “What Do You Want From Me”from Black Floyd(2020)Porcupine Tree – “The Jokes On You” from Up The Down Stair (1993) King Buffalo – “Mammoth” from Regenerator (2022)RPWL – “Masters Of War” from The RPWL Experience (2008)Thee Oh Sees – “Carrion Crawler” from Carrion Crawler / The Dream (2011)North Atlantic Oscillation – “Ceiling Poem” from Grappling Hooks (2010)Anathema – “Your Possible Pasts / Goodbye Cruel World” from Alternative 4 (1998)Check out Robert's amazing fire sculptures and metal workings here: http://flamewerx.com/Please subscribe everywhere that you listen to podcasts!Visit us: https://inobscuria.com/https://www.facebook.com/InObscuriahttps://twitter.com/inobscuriahttps://www.instagram.com/inobscuria/Buy cool stuff with our logo on it!: https://www.redbubble.com/people/InObscuria?asc=uIf you'd like to check out Kevin's band THE SWEAR, take a listen on all streaming services or pick up a digital copy of their latest release here: https://theswear.bandcamp.com/If you want to hear Robert and Kevin's band from the late 90s – early 00s BIG JACK PNEUMATIC, check it out here: https://bigjackpnuematic.bandcamp.com/

For this, our last formal interview episode for Your Favorite Book, I'm delving back into nonfiction and into some serious topics. THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS deserves all its accolades, not only for its extensive research on the Great Migration in Jim Crow era America, but on the attention to narrative detail and approachable, readable tone. My guest, Keenan Norris, touches on specific migrations and how the city of Chicago impacted several important Black historical figures, including Barack Obama and Richard Wright. Together, the two of us touch on the surprising results of research, what it means to learn something that should've been taught in schools, and so much more. Find Keenan at his website: https://www.keenannorris.com/ Follow the podcast on instagram and twitter @yfbpodcast

The Mirandas debate the various "I Do's" expected of the women in this episode: Should Carrie move in with Aiden? And say yes to his imminent marriage proposal? Should Miranda give Steve the common courtesy of telling him she's having his baby? Should Samantha sleep with Richard Wright on their first work trip? And last but not least, should Charlotte go through all the trouble of producing a child for the MacDougal clan?  A BONUS Botox debate included!  

You could say all 50 states are in something of a long-distance relationship, and it's long past the honeymoon phase. But if we're so divided, should we just break up already? Whether it's political disarray, an ever-changing spectrum of state laws or social unrest, some may feel like the United States is more divided than ever. But, history shows that our country's actually been divided from the start. Host Kai Wright talks with author Richard Kreitner about his book, Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America's Imperfect Union. They discuss the history of American secession movements and what's still keeping us together.  Companion listening for this episode: Can America Be Redeemed? (7/05/2021) Eddie Glaude and Imani Perry consider the question through the work of James Baldwin and Richard Wright. Plus: How our country could enter a period of “post-traumatic growth.” This episode was was originally published as “The Myth of A ‘United' States” on November 22, 2021. Listen to more episodes here. “Notes from America” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on notesfromamerica.org or on WNYC's YouTube channel.   We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Instagram and Twitter @noteswithkai or email us at notes@wnyc.org.

"The Wall" de Pink Floyd es la obra que comentamos en este episodio, donde nos enfocamos en los conceptos detrás de este trabajo, el contenido lírico de las canciones, su popularidad dentro del catálogo de la banda, y muchos aspectos más.

Arguably the biggest album of the entire rock era, Pink Floyd's eighth studio album would propel them to superstardom.  The Dark Side of the Moon is one of the most acclaimed records in history, and it is commercially unmatched in its longevity.  It topped the US Billboard Top LP's and Tape chart, and charted for 962 weeks in total!Pink Floyd at this time was David Gilmour on guitar and vocals, Roger Waters on bass and vocals, Richard Wright on keyboards, and Nick Mason on percussion.The Dark Side of the Moon was envisioned as a concept album focusing on different types of pressure like greed, conflict, and death.  It also included examination of mental health issues - as would much of Pink Floyd's discography - inspired by the problems experienced by former front man Syd Barrett.  While singles were released, we strongly recommend listening to the album in totality to get the best experience out of it.Bruce brings us this monster album, and friend of the show Mike Fernandez joins us in Wayne's absence. TimeThis was released in the US as the second single from the album (after Money).  Roger Waters wrote the lyrics.  David Gilmour and Richard Wright share lead vocals - unusual for Richard Wright.  The sounds of clocks were recorded by Alan Parsons in an antique store as a quadrophonic test, but the sounds fit so well with the theme of this track that the band included it.  All four principal members were credited with songwriting, and this would be the last time this would happen in the band's history.The Great Gig in the SkyThis track follows Time, and is basically an instrumental with some spoken words at the front.  The band went around the studio asking people questions and Gerry O'Driscal's response is recorded on this track.  Female vocalizations are provided by Clare Torry, a session vocalist that Alan Parsons brought in.  She wasn't really told what to sing, but was told, "There's no lyrics.  It's about dying - have a bit of a sing on that, girl."  Brain DamageRoger Waters is on lead in this song, with Gilmour providing backing vocals.  This and other insanity-themed lyrics are based on Syd Barrett.  The lyric, "And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes" has a historical basis, as Barrett would play a different song than the rest of the band on more than one occasion toward the end of his tenure with the band.  EclipseThis final track is actually a different song from Brain Damage, but is commonly played with it on rock radio stations because there is no break between the two on the album.  The song reflects the ying and yang of life - good and bad, life and death, light and dark.  "And everything under the sun is in tune, but the sun is eclipsed by the moon." ENTERTAINMENT TRACK:Theme to the television game show $10,000 PyramidDick Clark would serve as the initial host of this game show which started in March 1973.   STAFF PICKS:Crocodile Rock by Elton JohnBrian initiates the staff picks with the first number 1 song in the U.S. for Elton John.  The song has a 50's throwback sound, with lyrics that tell about a time when the singer danced the Crocodile Rock with Susie.  It was inspired by Australian band Daddy Cool and their song “Eagle Rock.”The Cisco Kid by WarRob's staff pick is from War's 1972 album, “The World is a Ghetto.” It made it to number 2 on the charts.  There's a reggae feel, a little funk, and a little ZZ Top.  The song is about two cowboys, Cisco and Poncho, and their adventures.  The band wanted their music to spread brotherhood and harmony to displace greed, racism, hunger, and gangs.Stuck in the Middle With You by Stealers Wheel Friend of the show Mike Fernandez brings us one of the classic lines in rock music - “clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you.”  Gerry Rafferty  is the founder and principal songwriter for the group.  This is Stealers Wheel's biggest hit.Danny's Song by Anne MurrayBruce wraps up the staff picks with a song Kenny Loggins wrote for his brother Danny at the birth of his son Colin.  It was first performed by a group called Gator Creek in 1970, then by Loggins and Messina in 1972.  This cover by Canadian country-pop singer Anne Murray would go to number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. INSTRUMENTAL TRACK:Also Sprach Zarathustra by DeodatoThis funky take on the Richard Strauss piece famous for its use in "2001:  A Space Odyssey" was on the charts in March 1973.

Get inside the mind of poet-activist, writer, and publisher Edward Vidaurre as Tresha and Douglas ask about his book Cry, Howl from PricklyPear Press and his work running FlowerSong Press. He talks about riding the bus to school and seeing others reading; how that inspired him to seek out authors like Miguel Hernandez, Wanda Coleman, Naomi Shihab Nye, Richard Wright, Claude Brown and others. Now he uses his writing to speak up about issues as a contrary political force in Texas and to use his position as an editor to elevate writers who might not get heard. 

This week we're covering Season Four, Episode Ten of Sex and the City: Belles of the Balls. Kerry is doing the coaching this week as she and Becky discuss why everyone is having this many bizarre conversations about testicles, why Charlotte seems to suffer from intermittent amnesia regarding who he husband really is and how he handles conflict, and what it is that hits Samantha so hard about Richard Wright judging her sex life. Be careful who you invite out to the country this weekend because fist fights might ensue this week on Coaching Carrie.  Catch up with Becky at www.untanglehappiness.com where you can learn more about her book, The Happiness Recipe: A Powerful Guide to Living What Matters. IG:  @the.butterfly.societyFind Kerry at www.theatalantagroup.com for more information about leadership coaching for lawyers and her coaching programs specifically designed to help attorneys make the transition to in-house positions. IG:    @theatalantagroup

This week on The Next Chapter: Three Canadian writers talk about the power of stories in a tribute to Harold R. Johnson; Musician Tara Maclean on why she's reading Ani DiFranco's memoir No Walls and the Recurring Dream, and our columnist Donna Bailey Nurse finds a Canadian companion for Richard Wright's Black Boy. Plus, the Next Chapter columnist Angie Abdou recommends three books that weave sport into story.

Episode one hundred and fifty-seven of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “See Emily Play", the birth of the UK underground, and the career of Roger Barrett, known as Syd. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-five-minute bonus episode available, on "First Girl I Loved" by the Incredible String Band. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources No Mixcloud this time, due to the number of Pink Floyd songs. I referred to two biographies of Barrett in this episode -- A Very Irregular Head by Rob Chapman is the one I would recommend, and the one whose narrative I have largely followed. Some of the information has been superseded by newer discoveries, but Chapman is almost unique in people writing about Barrett in that he actually seems to care about the facts and try to get things right rather than make up something more interesting. Crazy Diamond by Mike Watkinson and Pete Anderson is much less reliable, but does have quite a few interview quotes that aren't duplicated by Chapman. Information about Joe Boyd comes from Boyd's book White Bicycles. In this and future episodes on Pink Floyd I'm also relying on Nick Mason's Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd and Pink Floyd: All the Songs by Jean-Michel Guesdon and Philippe Margotin. The compilation Relics contains many of the most important tracks from Barrett's time with Pink Floyd, while Piper at the Gates of Dawn is his one full album with them. Those who want a fuller history of his time with the group will want to get Piper and also the box set Cambridge St/ation 1965-1967. Barrett only released two solo albums during his career. They're available as a bundle here. Completists will also want the rarities and outtakes collection Opel.  ERRATA: I talk about “Interstellar Overdrive” as if Barrett wrote it solo. The song is credited to all four members, but it was Barrett who came up with the riff I talk about. And annoyingly, given the lengths I went to to deal correctly with Barrett's name, I repeatedly refer to "Dave" Gilmour, when Gilmour prefers David. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript A note before I begin -- this episode deals with drug use and mental illness, so anyone who might be upset by those subjects might want to skip this one. But also, there's a rather unique problem in how I deal with the name of the main artist in the story today. The man everyone knows as Syd Barrett was born Roger Barrett, used that name with his family for his whole life, and in later years very strongly disliked being called "Syd", yet everyone other than his family called him that at all times until he left the music industry, and that's the name that appears on record labels, including his solo albums. I don't believe it's right to refer to people by names they choose not to go by themselves, but the name Barrett went by throughout his brief period in the public eye was different from the one he went by later, and by all accounts he was actually distressed by its use in later years. So what I'm going to do in this episode is refer to him as "Roger Barrett" when a full name is necessary for disambiguation or just "Barrett" otherwise, but I'll leave any quotes from other people referring to "Syd" as they were originally phrased. In future episodes on Pink Floyd, I'll refer to him just as Barrett, but in episodes where I discuss his influence on other artists, I will probably have to use "Syd Barrett" because otherwise people who haven't listened to this episode won't know what on Earth I'm talking about. Anyway, on with the show. “It's gone!” sighed the Rat, sinking back in his seat again. “So beautiful and strange and new. Since it was to end so soon, I almost wish I had never heard it. For it has roused a longing in me that is pain, and nothing seems worth while but just to hear that sound once more and go on listening to it for ever. No! There it is again!” he cried, alert once more. Entranced, he was silent for a long space, spellbound. “Now it passes on and I begin to lose it,” he said presently. “O Mole! the beauty of it! The merry bubble and joy, the thin, clear, happy call of the distant piping! Such music I never dreamed of, and the call in it is stronger even than the music is sweet! Row on, Mole, row! For the music and the call must be for us.” That's a quote from a chapter titled "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" from the classic children's book The Wind in the Willows -- a book which for most of its length is a fairly straightforward story about anthropomorphic animals having jovial adventures, but which in that one chapter has Rat and Mole suddenly encounter the Great God Pan and have a hallucinatory, transcendental experience caused by his music, one so extreme it's wiped from their minds, as they simply cannot process it. The book, and the chapter, was a favourite of Roger Barrett, a young child born in Cambridge in 1946. Barrett came from an intellectual but not especially bookish family. His father, Dr. Arthur Barrett, was a pathologist -- there's a room in Addenbrooke's Hospital named after him -- but he was also an avid watercolour painter, a world-leading authority on fungi, and a member of the Cambridge Philharmonic Society who was apparently an extraordinarily good singer; while his mother Winifred was a stay-at-home mother who was nonetheless very active in the community, organising a local Girl Guide troupe. They never particularly encouraged their family to read, but young Roger did particularly enjoy the more pastoral end of the children's literature of the time. As well as the Wind in the Willows he also loved Alice in Wonderland, and the Little Grey Men books -- a series of stories about tiny gnomes and their adventures in the countryside. But his two big passions were music and painting. He got his first ukulele at age eleven, and by the time his father died, just before Roger's sixteenth birthday, he had graduated to playing a full-sized guitar. At the time his musical tastes were largely the same as those of any other British teenager -- he liked Chubby Checker, for example -- though he did have a tendency to prefer the quirkier end of things, and some of the first songs he tried to play on the guitar were those of Joe Brown: [Excerpt: Joe Brown, "I'm Henry VIII I Am"] Barrett grew up in Cambridge, and for those who don't know it, Cambridge is an incubator of a very particular kind of eccentricity. The university tends to attract rather unworldly intellectual overachievers to the city -- people who might not be able to survive in many other situations but who can thrive in that one -- and every description of Barrett's father suggests he was such a person -- Barrett's sister Rosemary has said that she believes that most of the family were autistic, though whether this is a belief based on popular media portrayals or a deeper understanding I don't know. But certainly Cambridge is full of eccentric people with remarkable achievements, and such people tend to have children with a certain type of personality, who try simultaneously to live up to and rebel against expectations of greatness that come from having parents who are regarded as great, and to do so with rather less awareness of social norms than the typical rebel has. In the case of Roger Barrett, he, like so many others of his generation, was encouraged to go into the sciences -- as indeed his father had, both in his career as a pathologist and in his avocation as a mycologist. The fifties and sixties were a time, much like today, when what we now refer to as the STEM subjects were regarded as new and exciting and modern. But rather than following in his father's professional footsteps, Roger Barrett instead followed his hobbies. Dr. Barrett was a painter and musician in his spare time, and Roger was to turn to those things to earn his living. For much of his teens, it seemed that art would be the direction he would go in. He was, everyone agrees, a hugely talented painter, and he was particularly noted for his mastery of colours. But he was also becoming more and more interested in R&B music, especially the music of Bo Diddley, who became his new biggest influence: [Excerpt: Bo Diddley, "Who Do You Love?"] He would often spend hours with his friend Dave Gilmour, a much more advanced guitarist, trying to learn blues riffs. By this point Barrett had already received the nickname "Syd". Depending on which story you believe, he either got it when he started attending a jazz club where an elderly jazzer named Sid Barrett played, and the people were amused that their youngest attendee, like one of the oldest, was called Barrett; or, more plausibly, he turned up to a Scout meeting once wearing a flat cap rather than the normal scout beret, and he got nicknamed "Sid" because it made him look working-class and "Sid" was a working-class sort of name. In 1962, by the time he was sixteen, Barrett joined a short-lived group called Geoff Mott and the Mottoes, on rhythm guitar. The group's lead singer, Geoff Mottlow, would go on to join a band called the Boston Crabs who would have a minor hit in 1965 with a version of the Coasters song "Down in Mexico": [Excerpt: The Boston Crabs, "Down in Mexico"] The bass player from the Mottoes, Tony Sainty, and the drummer Clive Welham, would go on to form another band, The Jokers Wild, with Barrett's friend Dave Gilmour. Barrett also briefly joined another band, Those Without, but his time with them was similarly brief. Some sources -- though ones I consider generally less reliable -- say that the Mottoes' bass player wasn't Tony Sainty, but was Roger Waters, the son of one of Barrett's teachers, and that one of the reasons the band split up was that Waters had moved down to London to study architecture. I don't think that's the case, but it's definitely true that Barrett knew Waters, and when he moved to London himself the next year to go to Camberwell Art College, he moved into a house where Waters was already living. Two previous tenants at the same house, Nick Mason and Richard Wright, had formed a loose band with Waters and various other amateur musicians like Keith Noble, Shelagh Noble, and Clive Metcalfe. That band was sometimes known as the Screaming Abdabs, The Megadeaths, or The Tea Set -- the latter as a sly reference to slang terms for cannabis -- but was mostly known at first as Sigma 6, named after a manifesto by the novelist Alexander Trocchi for a kind of spontaneous university. They were also sometimes known as Leonard's Lodgers, after the landlord of the home that Barrett was moving into, Mike Leonard, who would occasionally sit in on organ and would later, as the band became more of a coherent unit, act as a roadie and put on light shows behind them -- Leonard was himself very interested in avant-garde and experimental art, and it was his idea to play around with the group's lighting. By the time Barrett moved in with Waters in 1964, the group had settled on the Tea Set name, and consisted of Waters on bass, Mason on drums, Wright on keyboards, singer Chris Dennis, and guitarist Rado Klose. Of the group, Klose was the only one who was a skilled musician -- he was a very good jazz guitarist, while the other members were barely adequate. By this time Barrett's musical interests were expanding to include folk music -- his girlfriend at the time talked later about him taking her to see Bob Dylan on his first UK tour and thinking "My first reaction was seeing all these people like Syd. It was almost as if every town had sent one Syd Barrett there. It was my first time seeing people like him." But the music he was most into was the blues. And as the Tea Set were turning into a blues band, he joined them. He even had a name for the new band that would make them more bluesy. He'd read the back of a record cover which had named two extremely obscure blues musicians -- musicians he may never even have heard. Pink Anderson: [Excerpt: Pink Anderson, "Boll Weevil"] And Floyd Council: [Excerpt: Floyd Council, "Runaway Man Blues"] Barrett suggested that they put together the names of the two bluesmen, and presumably because "Anderson Council" didn't have quite the right ring, they went for The Pink Floyd -- though for a while yet they would sometimes still perform as The Tea Set, and they were sometimes also called The Pink Floyd Sound. Dennis left soon after Barrett joined, and the new five-piece Pink Floyd Sound started trying to get more gigs. They auditioned for Ready Steady Go! and were turned down, but did get some decent support slots, including for a band called the Tridents: [Excerpt: The Tridents, "Tiger in Your Tank"] The members of the group were particularly impressed by the Tridents' guitarist and the way he altered his sound using feedback -- Barrett even sent a letter to his girlfriend with a drawing of the guitarist, one Jeff Beck, raving about how good he was. At this point, the group were mostly performing cover versions, but they did have a handful of originals, and it was these they recorded in their first demo sessions in late 1964 and early 1965. They included "Walk With Me Sydney", a song written by Roger Waters as a parody of "Work With Me Annie" and "Dance With Me Henry" -- and, given the lyrics, possibly also Hank Ballard's follow-up "Henry's Got Flat Feet (Can't Dance No More) and featuring Rick Wright's then-wife Juliette Gale as Etta James to Barrett's Richard Berry: [Excerpt: The Tea Set, "Walk With Me Sydney"] And four songs by Barrett, including one called "Double-O Bo" which was a Bo Diddley rip-off, and "Butterfly", the most interesting of these early recordings: [Excerpt: The Tea Set, "Butterfly"] At this point, Barrett was very unsure of his own vocal abilities, and wrote a letter to his girlfriend saying "Emo says why don't I give up 'cos it sounds horrible, and I would but I can't get Fred to join because he's got a group (p'raps you knew!) so I still have to sing." "Fred" was a nickname for his old friend Dave Gilmour, who was playing in his own band, Joker's Wild, at this point. Summer 1965 saw two important events in the life of the group. The first was that Barrett took LSD for the first time. The rest of the group weren't interested in trying it, and would indeed generally be one of the more sober bands in the rock business, despite the reputation their music got. The other members would for the most part try acid once or twice, around late 1966, but generally steer clear of it. Barrett, by contrast, took it on a very regular basis, and it would influence all the work he did from that point on. The other event was that Rado Klose left the group. Klose was the only really proficient musician in the group, but he had very different tastes to the other members, preferring to play jazz to R&B and pop, and he was also falling behind in his university studies, and decided to put that ahead of remaining in the band. This meant that the group members had to radically rethink the way they were making music. They couldn't rely on instrumental proficiency, so they had to rely on ideas. One of the things they started to do was use echo. They got primitive echo devices and put both Barrett's guitar and Wright's keyboard through them, allowing them to create new sounds that hadn't been heard on stage before. But they were still mostly doing the same Slim Harpo and Bo Diddley numbers everyone else was doing, and weren't able to be particularly interesting while playing them. But for a while they carried on doing the normal gigs, like a birthday party they played in late 1965, where on the same bill was a young American folk singer named Paul Simon, and Joker's Wild, the band Dave Gilmour was in, who backed Simon on a version of "Johnny B. Goode". A couple of weeks after that party, Joker's Wild went into the studio to record their only privately-pressed five-song record, of them performing recent hits: [Excerpt: Joker's Wild, "Walk Like a Man"] But The Pink Floyd Sound weren't as musically tight as Joker's Wild, and they couldn't make a living as a cover band even if they wanted to. They had to do something different. Inspiration then came from a very unexpected source. I mentioned earlier that one of the names the group had been performing under had been inspired by a manifesto for a spontaneous university by the writer Alexander Trocchi. Trocchi's ideas had actually been put into practice by an organisation calling itself the London Free School, based in Notting Hill. The London Free School was an interesting mixture of people from what was then known as the New Left, but who were already rapidly aging, the people who had been the cornerstone of radical campaigning in the late fifties and early sixties, who had run the Aldermaston marches against nuclear weapons and so on, and a new breed of countercultural people who in a year or two would be defined as hippies but at the time were not so easy to pigeonhole. These people were mostly politically radical but very privileged people -- one of the founder members of the London Free School was Peter Jenner, who was the son of a vicar and the grandson of a Labour MP -- and they were trying to put their radical ideas into practice. The London Free School was meant to be a collective of people who would help each other and themselves, and who would educate each other. You'd go to the collective wanting to learn how to do something, whether that's how to improve the housing in your area or navigate some particularly difficult piece of bureaucracy, or how to play a musical instrument, and someone who had that skill would teach you how to do it, while you hopefully taught them something else of value. The London Free School, like all such utopian schemes, ended up falling apart, but it had a wider cultural impact than most such schemes. Britain's first underground newspaper, the International Times, was put together by people involved in the Free School, and the annual Notting Hill Carnival, which is now one of the biggest outdoor events in Britain every year with a million attendees, came from the merger of outdoor events organised by the Free School with older community events. A group of musicians called AMM was associated with many of the people involved in the Free School. AMM performed totally improvised music, with no structure and no normal sense of melody and harmony: [Excerpt: AMM, "What Is There In Uselesness To Cause You Distress?"] Keith Rowe, the guitarist in AMM, wanted to find his own technique uninfluenced by American jazz guitarists, and thought of that in terms that appealed very strongly to the painterly Barrett, saying "For the Americans to develop an American school of painting, they somehow had to ditch or lose European easel painting techniques. They had to make a break with the past. What did that possibly mean if you were a jazz guitar player? For me, symbolically, it was Pollock laying the canvas on the floor, which immediately abandons European easel technique. I could see that by laying the canvas down, it became inappropriate to apply easel techniques. I thought if I did that with a guitar, I would just lose all those techniques, because they would be physically impossible to do." Rowe's technique-free technique inspired Barrett to make similar noises with his guitar, and to think less in terms of melody and harmony than pure sound. AMM's first record came out in 1966. Four of the Free School people decided to put together their own record label, DNA, and they got an agreement with Elektra Records to distribute its first release -- Joe Boyd, the head of Elektra in the UK, was another London Free School member, and someone who had plenty of experience with disruptive art already, having been on the sound engineering team at the Newport Folk Festival when Dylan went electric. AMM went into the studio and recorded AMMMusic: [Excerpt: AMM, "What Is There In Uselesness To Cause You Distress?"] After that came out, though, Peter Jenner, one of the people who'd started the label, came to a realisation. He said later "We'd made this one record with AMM. Great record, very seminal, seriously avant-garde, but I'd started adding up and I'd worked out that the deal we had, we got two percent of retail, out of which we, the label, had to pay for recording costs and pay ourselves. I came to the conclusion that we were going to have to sell a hell of a lot of records just to pay the recording costs, let alone pay ourselves any money and build a label, so I realised we had to have a pop band because pop bands sold a lot of records. It was as simple as that and I was as naive as that." Jenner abandoned DNA records for the moment, and he and his friend Andrew King decided they were going to become pop managers. and they found The Pink Floyd Sound playing at an event at the Marquee, one of a series of events that were variously known as Spontaneous Underground and The Trip. Other participants in those events included Soft Machine; Mose Allison; Donovan, performing improvised songs backed by sitar players; Graham Bond; a performer who played Bach pieces while backed by African drummers; and The Poison Bellows, a poetry duo consisting of Spike Hawkins and Johnny Byrne, who may of all of these performers be the one who other than Pink Floyd themselves has had the most cultural impact in the UK -- after writing the exploitation novel Groupie and co-writing a film adaptation of Spike Milligan's war memoirs, Byrne became a TV screenwriter, writing many episodes of Space: 1999 and Doctor Who before creating the long-running TV series Heartbeat. Jenner and King decided they wanted to sign The Pink Floyd Sound and make records with them, and the group agreed -- but only after their summer holidays. They were all still students, and so they dispersed during the summer. Waters and Wright went on holiday to Greece, where they tried acid for the first of only a small number of occasions and were unimpressed, while Mason went on a trip round America by Greyhound bus. Barrett, meanwhile, stayed behind, and started writing more songs, encouraged by Jenner, who insisted that the band needed to stop relying on blues covers and come up with their own material, and who saw Barrett as the focus of the group. Jenner later described them as "Four not terribly competent musicians who managed between them to create something that was extraordinary. Syd was the main creative drive behind the band - he was the singer and lead guitarist. Roger couldn't tune his bass because he was tone deaf, it had to be tuned by Rick. Rick could write a bit of a tune and Roger could knock out a couple of words if necessary. 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun' was the first song Roger ever wrote, and he only did it because Syd encouraged everyone to write. Syd was very hesitant about his writing, but when he produced these great songs everyone else thought 'Well, it must be easy'" Of course, we know this isn't quite true -- Waters had written "Walk with me Sydney" -- but it is definitely the case that everyone involved thought of Barrett as the main creative force in the group, and that he was the one that Jenner was encouraging to write new material. After the summer holidays, the group reconvened, and one of their first actions was to play a benefit for the London Free School. Jenner said later "Andrew King and myself were both vicars' sons, and we knew that when you want to raise money for the parish you have to have a social. So in a very old-fashioned way we said 'let's put on a social'. Like in the Just William books, like a whist drive. We thought 'You can't have a whist drive. That's not cool. Let's have a band. That would be cool.' And the only band we knew was the band I was starting to get involved with." After a couple of these events went well, Joe Boyd suggested that they make those events a regular club night, and the UFO Club was born. Jenner and King started working on the light shows for the group, and then bringing in other people, and the light show became an integral part of the group's mystique -- rather than standing in a spotlight as other groups would, they worked in shadows, with distorted kaleidoscopic lights playing on them, distancing themselves from the audience. The highlight of their sets was a long piece called "Interstellar Overdrive", and this became one of the group's first professional recordings, when they went into the studio with Joe Boyd to record it for the soundtrack of a film titled Tonite Let's All Make Love in London. There are conflicting stories about the inspiration for the main riff for "Interstellar Overdrive". One apparent source is the riff from Love's version of the Bacharach and David song "My Little Red Book". Depending on who you ask, either Barrett was obsessed with Love's first album and copied the riff, or Peter Jenner tried to hum him the riff and Barrett copied what Jenner was humming: [Excerpt: Love, "My Little Red Book"] More prosaically, Roger Waters has always claimed that the main inspiration was from "Old Ned", Ron Grainer's theme tune for the sitcom Steptoe and Son (which for American listeners was remade over there as Sanford and Son): [Excerpt: Ron Grainer, "Old Ned"] Of course it's entirely possible, and even likely, that Barrett was inspired by both, and if so that would neatly sum up the whole range of Pink Floyd's influences at this point. "My Little Red Book" was a cover by an American garage-psych/folk-rock band of a hit by Manfred Mann, a group who were best known for pop singles but were also serious blues and jazz musicians, while Steptoe and Son was a whimsical but dark and very English sitcom about a way of life that was slowly disappearing. And you can definitely hear both influences in the main riff of the track they recorded with Boyd: [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "Interstellar Overdrive"] "Interstellar Overdrive" was one of two types of song that The Pink Floyd were performing at this time -- a long, extended, instrumental psychedelic excuse for freaky sounds, inspired by things like the second disc of Freak Out! by the Mothers of Invention. When they went into the studio again with Boyd later in January 1967, to record what they hoped would be their first single, they recorded two of the other kind of songs -- whimsical story songs inspired equally by the incidents of everyday life and by children's literature. What became the B-side, "Candy and a Currant Bun", was based around the riff from "Smokestack Lightnin'" by Howlin' Wolf: [Excerpt: Howlin' Wolf, "Smokestack Lightnin'"] That song had become a favourite on the British blues scene, and was thus the inspiration for many songs of the type that get called "quintessentially English". Ray Davies, who was in many ways the major songwriter at this time who was closest to Barrett stylistically, would a year later use the riff for the Kinks song "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains", but in this case Barrett had originally written a song titled "Let's Roll Another One", about sexual longing and cannabis. The lyrics were hastily rewritten in the studio to remove the controversial drug references-- and supposedly this caused some conflict between Barrett and Waters, with Waters pushing for the change, while Barrett argued against it, though like many of the stories from this period this sounds like the kind of thing that gets said by people wanting to push particular images of both men. Either way, the lyric was changed to be about sweet treats rather than drugs, though the lascivious elements remained in. And some people even argue that there was another lyric change -- where Barrett sings "walk with me", there's a slight "f" sound in his vocal. As someone who does a lot of microphone work myself, it sounds to me like just one of those things that happens while recording, but a lot of people are very insistent that Barrett is deliberately singing a different word altogether: [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "Candy and a Currant Bun"] The A-side, meanwhile, was inspired by real life. Both Barrett and Waters had mothers who used  to take in female lodgers, and both had regularly had their lodgers' underwear stolen from washing lines. While they didn't know anything else about the thief, he became in Barrett's imagination a man who liked to dress up in the clothing after he stole it: [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "Arnold Layne"] After recording the two tracks with Joe Boyd, the natural assumption was that the record would be put out on Elektra, the label which Boyd worked for in the UK, but Jac Holzman, the head of Elektra records, wasn't interested, and so a bidding war began for the single, as by this point the group were the hottest thing in London. For a while it looked like they were going to sign to Track Records, the label owned by the Who's management, but in the end EMI won out. Right as they signed, the News of the World was doing a whole series of articles about pop stars and their drug use, and the last of the articles talked about The Pink Floyd and their association with LSD, even though they hadn't released a record yet. EMI had to put out a press release saying that the group were not psychedelic, insisting"The Pink Floyd are not trying to create hallucinatory effects in their audience." It was only after getting signed that the group became full-time professionals. Waters had by this point graduated from university and was working as a trainee architect, and quit his job to become a pop star. Wright dropped out of university, but Mason and Barrett took sabbaticals. Barrett in particular seems to have seen this very much as a temporary thing, talking about how he was making so much money it would be foolish not to take the opportunity while it lasted, but how he was going to resume his studies in a year. "Arnold Layne" made the top twenty, and it would have gone higher had the pirate radio station Radio London, at the time the single most popular radio station when it came to pop music, not banned the track because of its sexual content. However, it would be the only single Joe Boyd would work on with the group. EMI insisted on only using in-house producers, and so while Joe Boyd would go on to a great career as a producer, and we'll see him again, he was replaced with Norman Smith. Smith had been the chief engineer on the Beatles records up to Rubber Soul, after which he'd been promoted to being a producer in his own right, and Geoff Emerick had taken over. He also had aspirations to pop stardom himself, and a few years later would have a transatlantic hit with "Oh Babe, What Would You Say?" under the name Hurricane Smith: [Excerpt: Hurricane Smith, "Oh Babe, What Would You Say?"] Smith's production of the group would prove controversial among some of the group's longtime fans, who thought that he did too much to curtail their more experimental side, as he would try to get the group to record songs that were more structured and more commercial, and would cut down their improvisations into a more manageable form. Others, notably Peter Jenner, thought that Smith was the perfect producer for the group. They started work on their first album, which was mostly recorded in studio three of Abbey Road, while the Beatles were just finishing off work on Sgt Pepper in studio two. The album was titled The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, after the chapter from The Wind in the Willows, and other than a few extended instrumental showcases, most of the album was made up of short, whimsical, songs by Barrett that were strongly infused with imagery from late-Victorian and Edwardian children's books. This is one of the big differences between the British and American psychedelic scenes. Both the British and American undergrounds were made up of the same type of people -- a mixture of older radical activists, often Communists, who had come up in Britain in the Ban the Bomb campaigns and in America in the Civil Rights movement; and younger people, usually middle-class students with radical politics from a privileged background, who were into experimenting with drugs and alternative lifestyles. But the  social situations were different. In America, the younger members of the underground were angry and scared, as their principal interest was in stopping the war in Vietnam in which so many of them were being killed. And the music of the older generation of the underground, the Civil Rights activists, was shot through with influence from the blues, gospel, and American folk music, with a strong Black influence. So that's what the American psychedelic groups played, for the most part, very bluesy, very angry, music, By contrast, the British younger generation of hippies were not being drafted to go to war, and mostly had little to complain about, other than a feeling of being stifled by their parents' generation's expectations. And while most of them were influenced by the blues, that wasn't the music that had been popular among the older underground people, who had either been listening to experimental European art music or had been influenced by Ewan MacColl and his associates into listening instead to traditional old English ballads, things like the story of Tam Lin or Thomas the Rhymer, where someone is spirited away to the land of the fairies: [Excerpt: Ewan MacColl, "Thomas the Rhymer"] As a result, most British musicians, when exposed to the culture of the underground over here, created music that looked back to an idealised childhood of their grandparents' generation, songs that were nostalgic for a past just before the one they could remember (as opposed to their own childhoods, which had taken place in war or the immediate aftermath of it, dominated by poverty, rationing, and bomb sites (though of course Barrett's childhood in Cambridge had been far closer to this mythic idyll than those of his contemporaries from Liverpool, Birmingham, Newcastle, or London). So almost every British musician who was making music that might be called psychedelic was writing songs that were influenced both by experimental art music and by pre-War popular song, and which conjured up images from older children's books. Most notably of course at this point the Beatles were recording songs like "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" about places from their childhood, and taking lyrical inspiration from Victorian circus posters and the works of Lewis Carroll, but Barrett was similarly inspired. One of the books he loved most as a child was "The Little Grey Men" by BB, a penname for Denys Watkins-Pitchford. The book told the story of three gnomes,  Baldmoney, Sneezewort, and Dodder, and their adventures on a boat when the fourth member of their little group, Cloudberry, who's a bit of a rebellious loner and more adventurous than the other three, goes exploring on his own and they have to go off and find him. Barrett's song "The Gnome" doesn't use any precise details from the book, but its combination of whimsy about a gnome named Grimble-gromble and a reverence for nature is very much in the mould of BB's work: [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "The Gnome"] Another huge influence on Barrett was Hillaire Belloc. Belloc is someone who is not read much any more, as sadly he is mostly known for the intense antisemitism in some of his writing, which stains it just as so much of early twentieth-century literature is stained, but he was one of the most influential writers of the early part of the twentieth century. Like his friend GK Chesterton he was simultaneously an author of Catholic apologia and a political campaigner -- he was a Liberal MP for a few years, and a strong advocate of an economic system known as Distributism, and had a peculiar mixture of very progressive and extremely reactionary ideas which resonated with a lot of the atmosphere in the British underground of the time, even though he would likely have profoundly disapproved of them. But Belloc wrote in a variety of styles, including poems for children, which are the works of his that have aged the best, and were a huge influence on later children's writers like Roald Dahl with their gleeful comic cruelty. Barrett's "Matilda Mother" had lyrics that were, other than the chorus where Barrett begs his mother to read him more of the story, taken verbatim from three poems from Belloc's Cautionary Tales for Children -- "Jim, Who Ran away from his Nurse, and was Eaten by a Lion", "Henry King (Who chewed bits of String, and was cut off in Dreadful Agonies)", and "Matilda (Who Told Lies and Was Burned to Death)" -- the titles of those give some idea of the kind of thing Belloc would write: [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "Matilda Mother (early version)"] Sadly for Barrett, Belloc's estate refused to allow permission for his poems to be used, and so he had to rework the lyrics, writing new fairy-tale lyrics for the finished version. Other sources of inspiration for lyrics came from books like the I Ching, which Barrett used for "Chapter 24", having bought a copy from the Indica Bookshop, the same place that John Lennon had bought The Psychedelic Experience, and there's been some suggestion that he was deliberately trying to copy Lennon in taking lyrical ideas from a book of ancient mystic wisdom. During the recording of Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the group continued playing live. As they'd now had a hit single, most of their performances were at Top Rank Ballrooms and other such venues around the country, on bills with other top chart groups, playing to audiences who seemed unimpressed or actively hostile. They also, though made two important appearances. The more well-known of these was at the 14-Hour Technicolor Dream, a benefit for International Times magazine with people including Yoko Ono, their future collaborator Ron Geesin, John's Children, Soft Machine, and The Move also performing. The 14-Hour Technicolor Dream is now largely regarded as *the* pivotal moment in the development of the UK counterculture, though even at the time some participants noted that there seemed to be a rift developing between the performers, who were often fairly straightforward beer-drinking ambitious young men who had latched on to kaftans and talk about enlightenment as the latest gimmick they could use to get ahead in the industry, and the audience who seemed to be true believers. Their other major performance was at an event called "Games for May -- Space Age Relaxation for the Climax of Spring", where they were able to do a full long set in a concert space with a quadrophonic sound system, rather than performing in the utterly sub-par environments most pop bands had to at this point. They came up with a new song written for the event, which became their second single, "See Emily Play". [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "See Emily Play"] Emily was apparently always a favourite name of Barrett's, and he even talked with one girlfriend about the possibility of naming their first child Emily, but the Emily of the song seems to have had a specific inspiration. One of the youngest attendees at the London Free School was an actual schoolgirl, Emily Young, who would go along to their events with her schoolfriend Anjelica Huston (who later became a well-known film star). Young is now a world-renowned artist, regarded as arguably Britain's greatest living stone sculptor, but at the time she was very like the other people at the London Free School -- she was from a very privileged background, her father was Wayland Young, 2nd Baron Kennet, a Labour Peer and minister who later joined the SDP. But being younger than the rest of the attendees, and still a little naive, she was still trying to find her own personality, and would take on attributes and attitudes of other people without fully understanding them,  hence the song's opening lines, "Emily tries, but misunderstands/She's often inclined to borrow somebody's dream til tomorrow". The song gets a little darker towards the end though, and the image in the last verse, where she puts on a gown and floats down a river forever *could* be a gentle, pastoral, image of someone going on a boat ride, but it also could be a reference to two rather darker sources. Barrett was known to pick up imagery both from classic literature and from Arthurian legend, and so the lines inevitably conjure up both the idea of Ophelia drowning herself and of the Lady of Shallot in Tennyson's Arthurian poem, who is trapped in a tower but finds a boat, and floats down the river to Camelot but dies before the boat reaches the castle: [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "See Emily Play"] The song also evokes very specific memories of Barrett's childhood -- according to Roger Waters, the woods mentioned in the lyrics are meant to be woods in which they had played as children, on the road out of Cambridge towards the Gog and Magog Hills. The song was apparently seven minutes long in its earliest versions, and required a great deal of editing to get down to single length, but it was worth it, as the track made the top ten. And that was where the problems started. There are two different stories told about what happened to Roger Barrett over the next forty years, and both stories are told by people with particular agendas, who want particular versions of him to become the accepted truth. Both stories are, in the extreme versions that have been popularised, utterly incompatible with each other, but both are fairly compatible with the scanty evidence we have. Possibly the truth lies somewhere between them. In one version of the story, around this time Barrett had a total mental breakdown, brought on or exacerbated by his overuse of LSD and Mandrax (a prescription drug consisting of a mixture of the antihistamine diphenhydramine and the sedative methaqualone, which was marketed in the US under the brand-name Quaalude), and that from late summer 1967 on he was unable to lead a normal life, and spent the rest of his life as a burned-out shell. The other version of the story is that Barrett was a little fragile, and did have periods of mental illness, but for the most part was able to function fairly well. In this version of the story, he was neurodivergent, and found celebrity distressing, but more than that he found the whole process of working within commercial restrictions upsetting -- having to appear on TV pop shows and go on package tours was just not something he found himself able to do, but he was responsible for a whole apparatus of people who relied on him and his group for their living. In this telling, he was surrounded by parasites who looked on him as their combination meal-ticket-cum-guru, and was simply not suited for the role and wanted to sabotage it so he could have a private life instead. Either way, *something* seems to have changed in Barrett in a profound way in the early summer of 1967. Joe Boyd talks about meeting him after not having seen him for a few weeks, and all the light being gone from his eyes. The group appeared on Top of the Pops, Britain's top pop TV show, three times to promote "See Emily Play", but by the third time Barrett didn't even pretend to mime along with the single. Towards the end of July, they were meant to record a session for the BBC's Saturday Club radio show, but Barrett walked out of the studio before completing the first song. It's notable that Barrett's non-cooperation or inability to function was very much dependent on circumstance. He was not able to perform for Saturday Club, a mainstream pop show aimed at a mass audience, but gave perfectly good performances on several sessions for John Peel's radio show The Perfumed Garden, a show firmly aimed at Pink Floyd's own underground niche. On the thirty-first of July, three days after the Saturday Club walkout, all the group's performances for the next month were cancelled, due to "nervous exhaustion". But on the eighth of August, they went back into the studio, to record "Scream Thy Last Scream", a song Barrett wrote and which Nick Mason sang: [Excerpt: Pink Floyd, "Scream Thy Last Scream"] That was scheduled as the group's next single, but the record company vetoed it, and it wouldn't see an official release for forty-nine years. Instead they recorded another single, "Apples and Oranges": [Excerpt: Pink Floyd, "Apples and Oranges"] That was the last thing the group released while Barrett was a member. In November 1967 they went on a tour of the US, making appearances on American Bandstand and the Pat Boone Show, as well as playing several gigs. According to legend, Barrett was almost catatonic on the Pat Boone show, though no footage of that appears to be available anywhere -- and the same things were said about their performance on Bandstand, and when that turned up, it turned out Barrett seemed no more uncomfortable miming to their new single than any of the rest of the band, and was no less polite when Dick Clark asked them questions about hamburgers. But on shows on the US tour, Barrett would do things like detune his guitar so it just made clanging sounds, or just play a single note throughout the show. These are, again, things that could be taken in two different ways, and I have no way to judge which is the more correct. On one level, they could be a sign of a chaotic, disordered, mind, someone dealing with severe mental health difficulties. On the other, they're the kind of thing that Barrett was applauded and praised for in the confines of the kind of avant-garde underground audience that would pay to hear AMM or Yoko Ono, the kind of people they'd been performing for less than a year earlier, but which were absolutely not appropriate for a pop group trying to promote their latest hit single. It could be that Barrett was severely unwell, or it could just be that he wanted to be an experimental artist and his bandmates wanted to be pop stars -- and one thing absolutely everyone agrees is that the rest of the group were more ambitious than Barrett was. Whichever was the case, though, something had to give. They cut the US tour short, but immediately started another British package tour, with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Move, Amen Corner and the Nice. After that tour they started work on their next album, A Saucerful of Secrets. Where Barrett was the lead singer and principal songwriter on Piper at the Gates of Dawn, he only sings and writes one song on A Saucerful of Secrets, which is otherwise written by Waters and Wright, and only appears at all on two more of the tracks -- by the time it was released he was out of the group. The last song he tried to get the group to record was called "Have You Got it Yet?" and it was only after spending some time rehearsing it that the rest of the band realised that the song was a practical joke on them -- every time they played it, he would change the song around so they would mess up, and pretend they just hadn't learned the song yet. They brought in Barrett's old friend Dave Gilmour, initially to be a fifth member on stage to give the band some stability in their performances, but after five shows with the five-man lineup they decided just not to bother picking Barrett up, but didn't mention he was out of the group, to avoid awkwardness. At the time, Barrett and Rick Wright were flatmates, and Wright would actually lie to Barrett and say he was just going out to buy a packet of cigarettes, and then go and play gigs without him. After a couple of months of this, it was officially announced that Barrett was leaving the group. Jenner and King went with him, convinced that he was the real talent in the group and would have a solo career, and the group carried on with new management. We'll be looking at them more in future episodes. Barrett made a start at recording a solo album in mid-1968, but didn't get very far. Jenner produced those sessions, and later said "It seemed a good idea to go into the studio because I knew he had the songs. And he would sometimes play bits and pieces and you would think 'Oh that's great.' It was a 'he's got a bit of a cold today and it might get better' approach. It wasn't a cold -- and you knew it wasn't a cold -- but I kept thinking if he did the right things he'd come back to join us. He'd gone out and maybe he'd come back. That was always the analogy in my head. I wanted to make it feel friendly for him, and that where we were was a comfortable place and that he could come back and find himself again. I obviously didn't succeed." A handful of tracks from those sessions have since been released, including a version of “Golden Hair”, a setting by Barrett of a poem by James Joyce that he would later revisit: [Excerpt: Syd Barrett, “Golden Hair (first version)”] Eleven months later, he went back into the studio again, this time with producer Malcolm Jones, to record an album that later became The Madcap Laughs, his first solo album. The recording process for the album has been the source of some controversy, as initially Jones was producing the whole album, and they were working in a way that Barrett never worked before. Where previously he had cut backing tracks first and only later overdubbed his vocals, this time he started by recording acoustic guitar and vocals, and then overdubbed on top of that. But after several sessions, Jones was pulled off the album, and Gilmour and Waters were asked to produce the rest of the sessions. This may seem a bit of a callous decision, since Gilmour was the person who had replaced Barrett in his group, but apparently the two of them had remained friends, and indeed Gilmour thought that Barrett had only got better as a songwriter since leaving the band. Where Malcolm Jones had been trying, by his account, to put out something that sounded like a serious, professional, record, Gilmour and Waters seemed to regard what they were doing more as producing a piece of audio verite documentary, including false starts and studio chatter. Jones believed that this put Barrett in a bad light, saying the outtakes "show Syd, at best as out of tune, which he rarely was, and at worst as out of control (which, again, he never was)." Gilmour and Waters, on the other hand, thought that material was necessary to provide some context for why the album wasn't as slick and professional as some might have hoped. The eventual record was a hodge-podge of different styles from different sessions, with bits from the Jenner sessions, the Jones sessions, and the Waters and Gilmour sessions all mixed together, with some tracks just Barrett badly double-tracking himself with an acoustic guitar, while other tracks feature full backing by Soft Machine. However, despite Jones' accusations that the album was more-or-less sabotaged by Gilmour and Waters, the fact remains that the best tracks on the album are the ones Barrett's former bandmates produced, and there are some magnificent moments on there. But it's a disturbing album to listen to, in the same way other albums by people with clear talent but clear mental illness are, like Skip Spence's Oar, Roky Erickson's later work, or the Beach Boys Love You. In each case, the pleasure one gets is a real pleasure from real aesthetic appreciation of the work, but entangled with an awareness that the work would not exist in that form were the creator not suffering. The pleasure doesn't come from the suffering -- these are real artists creating real art, not the kind of outsider art that is really just a modern-day freak-show -- but it's still inextricable from it: [Excerpt: Syd Barrett, "Dark Globe"] The Madcap Laughs did well enough that Barrett got to record a follow-up, titled simply Barrett. This one was recorded over a period of only a handful of months, with Gilmour and Rick Wright producing, and a band consisting of Gilmour, Wright, and drummer Jerry Shirley. The album is generally considered both more consistent and less interesting than The Madcap Laughs, with less really interesting material, though there are some enjoyable moments on it: [Excerpt: Syd Barrett, "Effervescing Elephant"] But the album is a little aimless, and people who knew him at the time seem agreed that that was a reflection of his life. He had nothing he *needed* to be doing -- no  tour dates, no deadlines, no pressure at all, and he had a bit of money from record royalties -- so he just did nothing at all. The one solo gig he ever played, with the band who backed him on Barrett, lasted four songs, and he walked off half-way through the fourth. He moved back to Cambridge for a while in the early seventies, and he tried putting together a new band with Twink, the drummer of the Pink Fairies and Pretty Things, Fred Frith, and Jack Monck, but Frith left after one gig. The other three performed a handful of shows either as "Stars" or as "Barrett, Adler, and Monck", just in the Cambridge area, but soon Barrett got bored again. He moved back to London, and in 1974 he made one final attempt to make a record, going into the studio with Peter Jenner, where he recorded a handful of tracks that were never released. But given that the titles of those tracks were things like "Boogie #1", "Boogie #2", "Slow Boogie", "Fast Boogie", "Chooka-Chooka Chug Chug" and "John Lee Hooker", I suspect we're not missing out on a lost masterpiece. Around this time there was a general resurgence in interest in Barrett, prompted by David Bowie having recorded a version of "See Emily Play" on his covers album Pin-Ups, which came out in late 1973: [Excerpt: David Bowie, "See Emily Play"] At the same time, the journalist Nick Kent wrote a long profile of Barrett, The Cracked Ballad of Syd Barrett, which like Kent's piece on Brian Wilson a year later, managed to be a remarkable piece of writing with a sense of sympathy for its subject and understanding of his music, but also a less-than-accurate piece of journalism which led to a lot of myths and disinformation being propagated. Barrett briefly visited his old bandmates in the studio in 1975 while they were recording the album Wish You Were Here -- some say even during the recording of the song "Shine On, You Crazy Diamond", which was written specifically about Barrett, though Nick Mason claims otherwise -- and they didn't recognise him at first, because by this point he had a shaved head and had put on a great deal of weight. He seemed rather sad, and that was the last time any of them saw him, apart from Roger Waters, who saw him in Harrod's a few years later. That time, as soon as Barrett recognised Waters, he dropped his bag and ran out of the shop. For the next thirty-one years, Barrett made no public appearances. The last time he ever voluntarily spoke to a journalist, other than telling them to go away, was in 1982, just after he'd moved back to Cambridge, when someone doorstopped him and he answered a few questions and posed for a photo before saying "OK! That's enough, this is distressing for me, thank you." He had the reputation for the rest of his life of being a shut-in, a recluse, an acid casualty. His family, on the other hand, have always claimed that while he was never particularly mentally or physically healthy, he wasn't a shut-in, and would go to the pub, meet up with his mother a couple of times a week to go shopping, and chat to the women behind the counter at Sainsbury's and at the pharmacy. He was also apparently very good with children who lived in the neighbourhood. Whatever the truth of his final decades, though, however mentally well or unwell he actually was, one thing is very clear, which is that he was an extremely private man, who did not want attention, and who was greatly distressed by the constant stream of people coming and looking through his letterbox, trying to take photos of him, trying to interview him, and so on. Everyone on his street knew that when people came asking which was Syd Barrett's house, they were meant to say that no-one of that name lived there -- and they were telling the truth. By the time he moved back, he had stopped answering to "Syd" altogether, and according to his sister "He came to hate the name latterly, and what it meant." He did, in 2001, go round to his sister's house to watch a documentary about himself on the TV -- he didn't own a TV himself -- but he didn't enjoy it and his only comment was that the music was too noisy. By this point he never listened to rock music, just to jazz and classical music, usually on the radio. He was financially secure -- Dave Gilmour made sure that when compilations came out they always included some music from Barrett's period in the group so he would receive royalties, even though Gilmour had no contact with him after 1975 -- and he spent most of his time painting -- he would take photos of the paintings when they were completed, and then burn the originals. There are many stories about those last few decades, but given how much he valued his privacy, it wouldn't be right to share them. This is a history of rock music, and 1975 was the last time Roger Keith Barrett ever had anything to do with rock music voluntarily. He died of cancer in 2006, and at his funeral there was a reading from The Little Grey Men, which was also quoted in the Order of Service -- "The wonder of the world, the beauty and the power, the shapes of things, their colours lights and shades; these I saw. Look ye also while life lasts.” There was no rock music played at Barrett's funeral -- instead there were a selection of pieces by Handel, Haydn, and Bach, ending with Bach's Allemande from the Partita No. IV in D major, one of his favourite pieces: [Excerpt: Glenn Gould, "Allemande from the Partita No. IV in D major"]  As they stared blankly in dumb misery deepening as they slowly realised all they had seen and all they had lost, a capricious little breeze, dancing up from the surface of the water, tossed the aspens, shook the dewy roses and blew lightly and caressingly in their faces; and with its soft touch came instant oblivion. For this is the last best gift that the kindly demi-god is careful to bestow on those to whom he has revealed himself in their helping: the gift of forgetfulness. Lest the awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and pleasure, and the great haunting memory should spoil all the after-lives of little animals helped out of difficulties, in order that they should be happy and lighthearted as before. Mole rubbed his eyes and stared at Rat, who was looking about him in a puzzled sort of way. “I beg your pardon; what did you say, Rat?” he asked. “I think I was only remarking,” said Rat slowly, “that this was the right sort of place, and that here, if anywhere, we should find him. And look! Why, there he is, the little fellow!” And with a cry of delight he ran towards the slumbering Portly. But Mole stood still a moment, held in thought. As one wakened suddenly from a beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, and can re-capture nothing but a dim sense of the beauty of it, the beauty! Till that, too, fades away in its turn, and the dreamer bitterly accepts the hard, cold waking and all its penalties; so Mole, after struggling with his memory for a brief space, shook his head sadly and followed the Rat.

Today's Sponsor:This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/impacttheoryClick here to download your FREE guide to 100x YOUR EFFICIENCY IN 10 EASY STEPS: https://bit.ly/3F8qOJLBuild IRONCLAD discipline in this FREE workshop: https://bit.ly/3fZcbO5On Today's Episode: Settling for your day to day routine is one of the best ways to ensure a boring unfulfilled life. When you feel unfulfilled and like everyday is filled with going through the motions, it becomes easy to turn to unhealthy, self-destructive habits. Without understanding why you feel this way, affairs, drugs, and other unhealthy addictions have the opportunity to creep in.Robert Greene is well known for books that have shaped culture, challenged beliefs and p*ssed quite a few people off. The Daily Laws, Mastery and The 48 Laws of Power are just a few of his bestselling books. Robert joins Tom in this epic conversation about how to look inward and uncover the root cause of the boredom that leaves you feeling like your just wasting life away. Fulfillment is key if you really want to change your life around. The path to fulfillment involves mastery and Robert breaks down our need for stress in order to get there.Mentioned in this episode:Monkey Fairness Experiment: https://youtu.be/-KSryJXDpZo Native Son by Richard Wright: https://www.amazon.com/Native-Son-Richard-Wright/dp/0061148504 SHOW NOTES:0:00 | Introduction to Robert Greene0:25 | Why Your Life Is So Boring10:03 | Can't Handle Change23:40 | Admit You're Out of Control35:12 | Everyone Is Seeking Power 44:42 | This Is The Goal of Mastery55:01 | Self-Absorption Kills Fulfillment 1:06:51 | Competing Ideas Can Both Be True1:14:05 | Pain of Challenged Viewpoints1:20:40 | This Will Transform Your Skills QUOTES:“...you choose things that aren't right for you, and when you choose things that aren't right for you, you're not engaged emotionally and when you're not engaged emotionally you get bored…” [2:14] “The reason you can't deal with change or you're not looking at yourself is you have emotional blocks. You're full of fear.” [12:10]“What do you think social media is? It's an engine of envy. It's making you continually aware of what other people have and what you don't have.” [27:10]“Everything you do, everything you breathe in is a desire for power.” [39:20]“Envy is a huge motivator of people's behavior now. So the drive to pull other people down is really truly motivated by feelings of envy and inferiority that other people are better than you are.” [44:11]“They want that fulfillment and I don't care if they're born poor and impoverished or they're homeless, they still have that need and they have that capacity to become a master in what they do.” [49:24]“What makes you miserable is your self-absorption in many ways.” [56:31]“The worst form of therapy is to sit there and talk about your problems. The best form of therapy is to get outside of yourself.” [56:38]“Craftsmanship is a high form of intellect in my viewpoint.” [1:19:58]“Stress is good for you, [...] stress is great, stress is a wonderful drug if you know how to use it.” [1:25:19]Follow Robert Greene:Website: https://powerseductionandwar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-greene-0294962/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobertGreene Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robertgreeneofficial/

Listen to the Sat. Nov. 5, 2022 edition of the Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire. The program features our regular PANW report with dispatches on the bombing by the Pentagon's United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) of Somalia earlier in the week; Ethiopia Diasporans are playing a critical role in the ongoing struggle to maintain the national unity and sovereignty of the Horn of Africa state; the COP27 Climate Summit will be taking place later in the month in the North African state of Egypt; and the new right-wing government in Italy has closed ports to migrants crossing the Mediterranean. In the second hour we look at the recently-released Richard Wright novel entitled "The Man Who Lived Underground" which was banned from publication during the 1940s. We hear his daughter Julia Wright discuss the significance of releasing the novel during this time period. Finally, we look back on the racist murders of Emmett Till and Louis Allen during the 1950s and 1960s in the state of Mississippi. This retrospective is being conducted in light of the release of the feature film "Till" in the U.S.

For the 100th episode of Strong Songs, Kirk takes a deep dive into one of the most famous concept albums ever recorded. Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon" is an instantly recognizable, widely discussed album, played and replayed to the point that it's easy to forget that it was made by a handful of young people with some instruments and a mixing desk. So buckle in for a whirlwind tour of the entire record, with pauses along the way to highlight some of the sounds, styles, and techniques that made The Dark Side of the Moon such an artistic and technological breakthrough.ALBUM: The Dark Side of the Moon, 1973Music By: David Gilmour, Richard Wright, Roger Waters, Nick MasonLyrics By: Roger WatersEngineered by: Alan ParsonsALSO FEATURED/DISCUSSED"Blue in Green" by Bill Evans/Miles Davis from Kind of Blue 1959"The Wizard of Oz," 1939The 2008 documentary Pink Floyd: The Making of The Dark Side of the MoonOUTRO SOLOIST: Kirk HamiltonKirk is the host of Strong Songs. He brought in year four with a guitar solo, and he's taking it out with a sax solo. Symmetry!-----LINKS-----SUPPORT STRONG SONGSPaypal | Patreon.com/StrongsongsMERCH STOREstore.strongsongspodcast.comSOCIAL MEDIA@StrongSongs | @Kirkhamilton | IG: @Kirk_HamiltonNEWSLETTERhttps://kirkhamilton.substack.com/subscribeJOIN THE DISCORDhttps://discord.gg/GCvKqAM8SmOUTRO SOLO PLAY-A-LONG:https://soundcloud.com/kirkhamilton/strong-songs-outro-music-no-soloSTRONG SONGS PLAYLISTSSpotify | Apple Music | YouTube Music----------------NOVEMBER 2022 WHOLE-NOTE PATRONSEd RankinTimothy morsheadJay SwartzMiriam JoySEAN D WINNIERushDaniel Hannon-BarryRRElliot RosenAshley HoagMark and MichelleMelissa OsborneChristopher MillerJamie WhiteChristopher McConnellDavid MascettiJoshua JarvisJoe LaskaKen HirshJezMelanie AndrichJenness GardnerSimon CammellGuinevere BoostromNarelle HornBill RosingerErinAidan CoughlanJeanneret Manning Family FourDave SharpeSami SamhuriAccessViolationRyan TorvikElliot Jay O'NeillJim ChokeyAndre BremerMark SchechterDave FloreyNOVEMBER 2022 HALF-NOTE PATRONSjohn halpinJennifer KennerPeter HardingDavidRuthieAnthony MahramusMeghan O'LearyJeffrey PuzzoJohn BaumanDax and Dane HuddlestonMartín SalíasTim HowesSteve MartinoDr Arthur A GrayCarolinaGary PierceMatt BaxterGiantPredatoryMolluskCasey FaubionLuigi BocciaRob AlbrightE Margaret WartonDaniel MosierCharles McGeeCatherine ClauseEthan BaumanRenee DowningKenIsWearingAHatJordan BlockAaron WadeChad HivnerTravis PollardJeff UlmJamieDeebsPortland Eye CareAdam RayAnupama RaghavanDemetri DetsaridisCarrie SchneiderAlenka GrealishRichard SneddonDavid JudsonJulian RoleffJanice BerryDoreen CarlsonDavid McDarbyAbigail DuffieldWendy GilchristLisa TurnerPaul WayperDennis M EdwardsJeffrey FerrisBruno GaetaKenneth JungbenAdam StofskyZak RemerRishi SahayJason ReitmanGreg BurgessAilie FraserVonPaul McGrealKaren ArnoldNATALIE MISTILISJosh SingerPhino DeLeonAmy Lynn ThornsenAdam WKelli BrockingtonStephen RawlingsBen MachtaVictoria YuKevin RiversBrad ClarkMichael J. Cunninghammino caposselaSteve PaquinSarahDavid JoskeEmma SklarBernard KhooRobert HeuerMatthew GoldenDavid NoahGeraldine ButlerRichard CambierMadeleine MaderJason PrattStewart OakAbbie BergDoug BelewDermot CrowleyAchint SrivastavaRyan RairighMichael BermanOlivia BishopJohn GisselquistElaine MartinLinda DuffyKourothSharon TreeBelinda Mcgrath-steerLiz SegerEoin de BurcaKevin PotterM Shane BordersPete SimmSusan PleinDallas HockleyJason GerryNathan GouwensWill Dwyer Alethea LeeLauren ReayEric PrestemonCookies250Damian BradyAngela LivingstoneDavid FriedmanSarah SulanDiane HughesKenneth TiongJo SutherlandMichael CasnerJen SmallLowell MeyerEtele IllesStephen TsoneffLorenz SchwarzWenJack SjogrenGeoff GoldenRobyn FraserPascal RuegerRandy SouzaJCClare HolbertonDiane TurnerTom ColemanMark PerryDhu WikMelEric HelmJake RobertsJonathan DanielsSteven MaronMichael FlahertyCaro Fieldmichael bochnerNaomi WatsonDavid CushmanAlexanderChris KGavin DoigSam FennTanner MortonAJ SchusterJennifer BushDavid StroudAmanda FurlottiAndrew BakerMatt GaskellJules BaileyAndrew FairL.B. MorseBill ThorntonBrian AmoebasBrett DouvilleJeffrey OlsonMatt BetzelMuellerNate from KalamazooMelanie StiversRichard TollerAlexander PolsonEarl LozadaJon O'KeefeJustin McElroyArjun SharmaJames JohnsonKevin MorrellKevin PennyfeatherColin Hodo

I'm pleased to bring you this Halloween Paranormal Round Table. Some of the top investigators join us today to talk about Halloween, and their favorite investigations. Clairvoyant Jess King, Lady Ghostbuster Eleanor Wagner, Richard Wright, Kris Sumner, and Joe Shortridge dive into the world of ghost hunting! Joe Shortridge: https://www.222paranormal.com/Eleanor Wagner: http://www.authoreleanorwagner.com/Richard Wright: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=the%20paranormal%20factor%20podcastClairvoyant Jess: https://www.clairvoyantjess.com/showsandevents.htmlKris Sumner: https://www.soulsistersparanormal.com/Show Website: https://whatifpod.com/FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1534275743579979Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whatiftheyrewrong/Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/witwpodSupport the show

Her acclaimed personal essays explore motherhood, marriage and this modern world -- and hold up a mirror to all of us. Natasha Badhwar joins Amit Varma in episode 301 to speak about her life and her writing. (For full linked show notes, go to SeenUnseen.in.) Also check out: 1. Natasha Badhwar on Twitter, Instagram, Amazon, LinkedIn, The Tribune and Mint Lounge. 2. My Daughters' Mum -- Natasha Badhwar. 3. Immortal for a Moment -- Natasha Badhwar. 4. Natasha Badhwar's newsletter on Substack. 5. Natasha Badhwar's old blog on Blogspot. 6. Natasha Badhwar's Memoir Writing Course. 7. Parenthood -- Episode 43 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Natasha Badhwar). 8. Reconciliation: Karwan e Mohabbat's Journey of Solidarity through a Wounded India -- Edited by Harsh Mander, John Dayal and Natasha Badhwar. 9. Karwan e Mohabbat. 10. Womaning in India With Mahima Vashisht -- Episode 293 of The Seen and the Unseen. 11. The Gentle Wisdom of Pratap Bhanu Mehta -- Episode 300 of The Seen and the Unseen. 12. The Reflections of Samarth Bansal -- Episode 299 of The Seen and the Unseen. 13. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Jonathan Haidt in conversation with Vasant Dhar in episode 8 of Brave New World. 14. Why my daughters don't go to school anymore -- Natasha Badhwar interviewed by Manisha Natarajan. (Full video.) 15. The most important lesson learnt as an #unschooling parent -- Natasha Badhwar. 16. School forced me to put parts of myself inside a box -- Sahar Beg (Natasha's daughter). 17. Meet the unschooling girls -- Homeschooling India Community. 18. The Joys of Walking Out -- Natasha Badhwar and Sahar Beg. 19. How Children Fail -- John Holt. 20. Unsatisfied -- The Replacements. 21. To Fail Without Feeling Like A Failure -- Natasha Badhwar. 22. The Nurture Assumption — Judith Rich Harris. 23. Amitava Kumar Finds the Breath of Life -- Episode 265 of The Seen and the Unseen. 24. The Blue Book: A Writer's Journal — Amitava Kumar. 25. Sholay — Ramesh Sippy. 26. Aadha Gaon — Rahi Masoom Raza. 27. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism — Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 28. Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India — Akshaya Mukul. 29. The Incredible Curiosities of Mukulika Banerjee — Episode 276 of The Seen and the Unseen. 30. Whatever happened To Ehsan Jafri on February 28, 2002? -- Harsh Mander. 31. The real difference between my husband and me -- Natasha Badhwar. 32. Self-Portrait -- AK Ramanujan. 33. The Girl From Kashmir -- Episode 295 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Farah Bashir). 34. The Barkha Dutt Files -- Episode 243 of The Seen and the Unseen. 35. Roger Ebert and me: How tragedy and Twitter bonded us across continents -- Natasha Badhwar. 36. In Conversation with Roger Ebert -- Natasha Badhwar. 37. The desire to help, and the desire not to be helped — Roger Ebert's review of Goodbye Solo. 38. Roger Ebert's essay on Dekalog. 39. A welcome note for new husbands and wives -- Natasha Badhwar. 40. Five things to learn from the man you love -- Natasha Badhwar. 41. Deep Work — Cal Newport. 42. Fatherhood is a funny thing -- Natasha Badhwar. 43. El Amor de Mi Vida -- Warren Zevon. 44. Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, John Steinbeck and JD Salinger on Amazon. 45. Cyrano De Bergerac -- Edmond Rostand. 46. Sweet Thursday -- John Steinbeck. 47. The Catcher in the Rye -- JD Salinger. 48. To Kill a Mockingbird -- Harper Lee. 49. The Colour Purple -- Alice Walker. 50. A Meditation on Form — Amit Varma. 51. Imposter Syndrome. 52. What we say and what we mean, the fine art of small talk -- Natasha Badhwar. 53. Kabhi Hum Khoobsurat -- Nayyara Noor. 54. Pride and Prejudice -- Jane Austen. 55. Little Women -- Louisa May Alcott. 56. Hayao Miyazaki on IMDb, Wikipedia and Britannica. 57. Ponyo -- Hayao Miyazaki. 58. Natasha's favourite shows: Bad Buddy, Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra, The Dragon Prince and The Good Place. 59. Masaan — Neeraj Ghaywan. 60. Mirch Masala -- Ketan Mehta. Check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! Episode art: ‘The Examined Life' by Simahina.

Omolola is a biomedical informatician and writer. Biomedical informatics is a relatively new and exciting field that studies how to effectively acquire, store, communicate and transform biomedical data, information and knowledge to produce insights that can be acted upon to improve human health. The professional society for US-based informaticians is the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). Omolola is an elected Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics. Her research examines how artificial intelligence (AI) and telehealth can be used to improve healthcare in medically underserved and under-resourced settings. Even though she was drawn to math and science at an early age, Omolola was always a voracious reader; her mother taught African and African-American literature at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria and so there were hundreds of intriguing books jammed into bookshelves around her house. Bored with her Enid Blyton collection, at age ten, she switched to reading James Baldwin, Flora Nwapa, Richard Wright, & similar authors. Although she was too young to understand much of what she was reading, the books opened up fascinating new worlds and fostered an unquenchable curiosity about different people and places. Omolola was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. She now lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband. Her short story, “Area Boy Rescue” was a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Studzinski Literary Award. It appears in the collection, New Writing from Africa 2009. Her short story, “Jollof Rice and Revolutions” appeared in Ploughshares in 2017 and was named to the list of “Other Distinguished Stories of 2017” in The Best American Short Stories 2018. In September 2022, her first book, a novel in stories, “Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions” was published in North America by Amistad Books, an imprint of HarperCollins. It will also be published by Trapeze Books, an imprint of Hachette's Orion, in the United Kingdom and much of the Commonwealth. Omolola is also a part of the Miami Book Fair in November. Visit their website for details. 

On this week's episode of The RAG Podcast I was joined by Richard Wright, CEO of Acre. Acre is a specialist recruitment consultancy focusing on everything to do with sustainability, which includes climate change, social issues, and more. Richard has a long history in the recruitment sector.  He originally worked for one of the biggest organisations in the world and later bought into a boutique agency as a partner.  Richard was at the helm of that business for a long time and eventually sold the business to Randstad.  He then stayed in the company for a further three years post-acquisition, before exiting and having some time out of the industry. After a period of time believing he would leave the industry forever, he was persuaded to come back and joined Acre back when it was a 10-person business. It now has well over a hundred staff and 4 international locations. During the episode, Richard was very open about his career and said that right now, he's enjoying it more than he ever has before.  Who'd have thought that you could continue to love this game more and more over time? You're going to love this episode. Richard is super knowledgeable, super inspiring, and a really nice guy. Vincere A message to all recruitment leaders looking to upgrade their CRM: Before you sign the contract, be sure to read the terms at least twice. Common traps to watch: - Not understanding the pricing model - Discounts limited to only the 1st year of contract length - Monthly contracts - this could mean flexibility for the vendor to raise prices - Data hosting - anything outside your country could mean compliance & legal issues Get Vincere's 10-step guide to keep your vendor due diligence & evaluation process airtight: https://bit.ly/3C2G1s3

Day 13 “We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.” - Gwendolyn Brooks The Address: Rosenwald Apartments, 4648 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, Bronzeville The Story: They came fleeing the terrors of Jim Crow. They came in search of freedom. Still tethered to their southern roots and values, they brought an electrifying energy that would give rise to Black Arts movements, create gospel, and establish a Black mecca known as Bronzeville, the only neighborhood in the country that could rival Harlem as the cultural center of African America. Home to the greats - Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wright, Louis Armstrong, Bessie Coleman, Ida B. Wells, and many more. We will start today's exploration of Bronzeville on S. Michigan Ave at the storied Rosenwald Apartments, once managed by Quincy Jones' mother. From here, we will take a stroll down “The Stroll”, a section of State Street that was the place to see and be seen, and the heartbeat of Black Chicago. Along the way we will talk about how the people in this community influenced and changed the world, from politics to social activism.

Welcome to the Shelf Care Interview, an occasional conversation series, where Booklist talks to book people. This Shelf Care Interview is sponsored by Learner Publishing Group. Tameka Fryer Brown is the author of several picture books, including Around Our Way on Neighbors' Day, My Cold Plum Lemon Pie Bluesy Mood, and Brown Baby Lullaby, winner of the 2021 Anna Dewdney Award. She is also a contributor to The Brown Bookshelf, an award-winning website whose mission is to promote awareness of Black children's book creators and their work. Not Done Yet is Tameka's first picture book about a real-life figure . . . and she hopes it won't be her last. To learn more about Tameka, visit tamekafryerbrown.com. Nina Crews's picture books include: Seeing Into Tomorrow: Haiku by Richard Wright, One Hot Summer Day, The Neighborhood Mother Goose, and A Girl Like Me. Her work has been recognized by the ALA Notables Committee, National Council of Teachers of English, Cooperative Children's Book Council, Junior Library Guild, Bank Street College of Education, and numerous others. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and son. www.ninacrews.com

Sandie Keane is an enthusiastic older adult who has found a new lease of life during our world lockdown – having followed theatre and acting since a child, her life has done a full circle and she's back now doing what ignites her – she loves reading and telling stories. She says, “Audible stories are a way forward to bring those who find it hard to pick up a hard copy to bring stories to their ears which allows the imagination to run with the story that a visual concept can never do.”"They hate because they fear, and they fear because they feel that the deepest feelings of their lives are being assaulted and outraged. And they do not know why; they are powerless pawns in a blind play of social forces." Richard Wright, Native Son.

We couldn't wait to read the new novel-length version of Richard Wright's The Man Who Lived Underground, and it absolutely did not disappoint. Published as a short story in 1944, collected in Eight Men in 1961, and finally published as the novel version last year, the book serves as a major touchstone in Wright's work, negotiating the space between his naturalist “early” work and his philosophical “late” work. We discuss race, religion, space, and style. We read the 2021 Library of America version with Wright's essay “Memories of my Grandmother” and afterward by Wright's grandson Malcolm Wright. We also consulted the Harper Perennial 1996 reprinting of Eight Men with introduction by Paul Gilroy. We recommend Lauren Michele Jackson's New Yorker article “What We Want From Richard Wright,” from May 2021 and Bill Mullen's Tempest article “Richard Wright and the Police State,” from October 2021. Find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @betterreadpod, and email us nice things at betterreadpodcast@gmail.com. Find Tristan on Twitter @tjschweiger, Katie @katiekrywo, and Megan @tuslersaurus.

Adapted from the short story published in Ferocious Quarterly, Best Laid Schemes was inspired by a work of art by illustrator Emory Allen and a poem by Robert Burns–the same poem from which John Steinbeck borrowed the title of Of Mice and Men. The editors of Ferocious Quarterly paired me with Emory for the issue “Be Prepared.” His illustration was so perfect, I wrote the first draft in one sitting. That was ten years ago. This version includes an alternate ending that is maybe a little less bleak. “Best Laid Schemes” was written and directed by Michael MauSTARRINGSandie Keane as the Narrator, Reagan Prumm as Lion Brian Wiggins as Seal Toni Poe as Gazelle Misti Medders as Pelican Ryan Gaiser as Crocodile Kymberley Cochrane as Polar BearAivi Dam as MouseMichael Mau as ManSharmaarke Purcell reads the epigraphTrevor Tremaine Composed the theme musicCover art by Geneva HicksTo find out more about our cast, to read the original short story, or donate to the show so we can make an unforgettable second season, visit us at ablindplaypodcast.com or on Instagram @mauhnausproductions."They hate because they fear, and they fear because they feel that the deepest feelings of their lives are being assaulted and outraged. And they do not know why; they are powerless pawns in a blind play of social forces." Richard Wright, Native Son.

Part 2 of our our interview about the anniversary of the 1919 Elaine massacre, which was commemorated this weekend in Arkansas, where the uncle of Richard Wright was lynched three years prior in 1916.

Part 2 of our our interview about the anniversary of the 1919 Elaine Massacre which was commemorated this weekend in Arkansas where the uncle of Richard Wright was lynched three years prior.

Rich Greene is a voice actor who loves to tell a story.  He also loves long walks along the Erie Canal and mashed potatoes.Born and raised in Chicago, Pascal Casimier has always harbored a deep appreciation for theatre and the arts. His thoughts on mashed potatoes are a mystery.We talked about their roles in A Blind Play of Social Forces, their experiences with the Mr. Averys of the world, and the power of art."They hate because they fear, and they fear because they feel that the deepest feelings of their lives are being assaulted and outraged. And they do not know why; they are powerless pawns in a blind play of social forces." Richard Wright, Native Son.

“ A Blind Play Of Social Forces” is adapted from an unpublished story originally written in 2014 and performed as a staged reading. It is based on several accounts of bullying which took place in American schools between 2001 and 2014. However, Mr. Avery, the middle-school social studies teacher who inspires the hate crime at the heart of the story, is based on a real teacher with whom I attended grad school. Many of his words are echoes of words spoken in class by the real Mr. Avery. This episode deals with violence against children. As they say, parental discretion is advised. Written and directed by Michael MauSTARRINGYosra Zekry as Sara, Pascal Casimier as David, Malya Muth as Mrs. Sterner, Andressa Da Silva as Ms. Price, Olya Aman as Maryam, Rich Greene as Mr. Avery.Sharmaarke Purcell is the voice of the epigraph. Trevor Tremaine composed our theme music. Cover art by Geneva Hicks. Sound effects courtesy of Pixabay.Additional Music by Kevin McLeod. All link's to the music are below.To find out more about our cast, to read the original short story, or donate to the show–please donate to the show, visit us at ablindplaypodcast.com or on Instagram @mauhausproductions.The following music was used for this media project:The following music was used for this media project:Music: Almost New by Kevin MacLeodFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/3353-almost-newLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-licenseArtist website: https://incompetech.comMusic: Daytime TV Theme by Kevin MacLeodFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/3622-daytime-tv-themeLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-licenseArtist website: https://incompetech.comMusic: Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeodFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-mondayLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-licenseArtist website: https://incompetech.comHappy Alley by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3851-happy-alleyLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-licenseMusic: Gymnopedie No. 1 by Kevin MacLeodFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/3837-gymnopedie-no-1License (CC BY 4"They hate because they fear, and they fear because they feel that the deepest feelings of their lives are being assaulted and outraged. And they do not know why; they are powerless pawns in a blind play of social forces." Richard Wright, Native Son.

Sign up for our Patreon for bonuses and more! www.themidnightrainpodcast.com    Do you happen to swear? Is it something you happen to do when you stub your pinky toe on the coffee table? What about when you've just finished dinner and you pull that glorious lasagna out of the oven, burn yourself and then drop your Italian masterpiece on the floor, in turn burning yourself once again? Odds are that if you're listening to this show, you have a rather colorful vernacular and aren't offended by those that share in your “darker” linguistic abilities. Those dramatic and often harsh, yet exceedingly hilarious words, have a pretty amazing history. Were they written in manuscripts by monks? Or, did we find them used by regular people and found in prose like the names of places, personal names, and animal names? Well, could they tell us more about our medieval past other than just that sex, torture, plagues and incest was all the rage? Let's find out!   Fuck   Let's start with our favorite word. Let's all say it together, kids. “Fuck!” This most versatile yet often considered one of the worst of the “bad words” doesn't seem to have been around in the English language prior to the fifteenth century and may have arrived later from the German or th Dutch. Leave it to those beautiful Germans to introduce us to such a colorful word. In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary says it wasn't actually used until 1500. However, the name of a specific place may have been used even earlier.   Many early instances of fuck were said to actually have been used to mean “to strike” rather than being anything to do with fornicating. The more common Middle English word for sex was ”swive”, which has developed into the Modern English word swivel, as in: go swivel on it. Some of the earliest instances of fuck, seen to mean “hitting” or “striking,” such as Simon Fuckebotere (from in 1290), who was more than likely in the milk industry, hitting butter, or Henry Fuckebeggar (1286/7) who may have, hit the poor.   The earliest examples of the word fuck in the English language appeared in the names of places. The first of these is said to be found near Sherwood in 1287: Ric Wyndfuk and Ric Wyndfuck de Wodehous. These both feature a kestrel known as the Windfucker which, we must assume, went in the wind. The next definite example comes from Bristol 1373 in Fockynggroue, which may have been named for a grove where couples went for “some quiet alone time.”   However, Somewhere among the indictment rolls of the county court of Chester (1310/11), studied by Dr. Paul Booth of Keele University (Staffordshire), a man whose Christian name was Roger is mentioned three times. His less Christian last name is also recorded. The name being mentioned repetitively pretty much means it did not result from a spelling mistake but rather it's the real thing. Meaning, the man's full name was Roger Fuckebythenavele. Not only does his second name move back the earliest use of fuck in its modern sense by quite a few decades; it also verifies that it is, in fact, a Middle English word. But of course, there are those fuckers that will undoubtedly debate it's fucking origin.   The stem *fukkō-, with its characteristic double consonant, is easy to explain as a Germanic iterative verb – one of a large family of similar forms. They originated as combinations of various Indo-European roots with *-nah₂-, a suffix indicating repeated action. The formation is not, strictly speaking, Proto-Indo-European; the suffix owes its existence to the reanalysis of an older morphological structure (reanalysis happens when people fail to analyze an inherited structure in the same way as their predecessors). Still, verbs of this kind are older than Proto-Germanic.   *fukkō- apparently meant to ‘strike repeatedly, beat' (like, say, “dashing” the cream with a plunger in a traditional butter churn). Note also windfucker and fuckwind – old, obsolete words for ‘kestrel'.   A number of words in other Germanic languages may also be related to fuck. One of them is Old Icelandic fjúka ‘to be tossed or driven by the wind' < *feuka-; cf. also fjúk ‘drifting snowstorm' (or, as one might put it in present-day English, a fucking blizzard). These words fit a recurrent morphological pattern observed by Kroonen (2012): Germanic iteratives with a voiceless geminate produced by Kluge's Law often give rise to “de-iterativised” verbs in which the double stop is simplified if the full vocalism or the root (here, *eu rather than *u) is restored. Kluge's law had a noticeable effect on Proto-Germanic morphology. Because of its dependence on ablaut and accent, it operated in some parts of declension and conjugation, but not in others, giving rise to alternations of short and long consonants in both nominal and verbal paradigms.   If the verb is really native (“Anglo-Saxon”), one would expect Old English *fuccian (3sg. *fuccaþ, pl. *fucciaþ, 1/3sg. preterite *fuccode, etc.). If these forms already had “impolite” connotations in Old English, their absence from the Old English literary corpus is understandable. We may be absolutely sure that *feortan (1/3 sg. pret. *feart, pret. pl. *furton, p.p. *forten) existed in Old English, since fart exists today (attested since about 1300, just like the word fuck) and has an impeccable Indo-European etymology, with cognates in several branches. Still, not a single one of these reconstructed Old English verb forms is actually documented (all we have is the scantily attested verbal noun feorting ‘fart(ing)').   One has to remember that written records give us a strongly distorted picture of how people really spoke in the past. If you look at the frequency of fuck, fucking and fucker in written English over the last 200 years, you may get the impression that these words disappeared from English completely ca. 1820 and magically reappeared 140 years later. Even the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary pretended they didn't exist. The volume that should have contained FUCK was published in 1900, and Queen Victoria was still alive.   According to the Oxford English Dictionary: Forms:  α. 1500s fucke, 1500s– fuck; also Scottish pre-1700 fuk.   Frequency (in current use):  Show frequency band information Origin: Probably a word inherited from Germanic. Etymology: Probably cognate with Dutch fokken …   In coarse slang. In these senses typically, esp. in early use, with a man as the subject of the verb. Thesaurus » Categories » intransitive. To have sexual intercourse. ▸ ?a1513   W. Dunbar Poems (1998) I. 106   Be his feirris he wald haue fukkit.   transitive. To have sexual intercourse with (a person). In quot. a1500   in Latin-English macaronic verse; the last four words are enciphered by replacing each letter with the following letter of the alphabet, and fuccant has a Latin third-person plural ending. The passage translates as ‘They [sc. monks] are not in heaven because they fuck the wives of Ely.' [a1500   Flen, Flyys (Harl. 3362) f. 47, in T. Wright & J. O. Halliwell Reliquiæ Antiquæ (1841) I. 91   Non sunt in cœli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk [= fuccant uuiuys of heli].]   transitive. With an orifice, part of the body, or something inanimate as an object. Also occasionally intransitive with prepositional objects of this type. [1680   School of Venus ii. 99   An hour after, he Ferked my Arse again in the same manner.]   transitive. To damage, ruin, spoil, botch; to destroy, put an end to; = to fuck up 1a at Phrasal verbs 1. Also (chiefly in passive): to put into a difficult or hopeless situation; to ‘do for'. Cf. also mind-fuck v. 1776   Frisky Songster (new ed.) 36   O, says the breeches, I shall be duck'd, Aye, says the petticoat, I shall be f—d.   transitive. U.S. To cheat; to deceive, betray. Frequently without. 1866   G. Washington Affidavit 20 Oct. in I. Berlin et al. Black Mil. Experience in Civil War (1982) v. xviii. 792   Mr. Baker replied that deponent would be fucked out of his money by Mr. Brown.   transitive. In oaths and imprecations (chiefly in optative with no subject expressed): expressing annoyance, hatred, dismissal, etc. Cf. damn v. 6, bugger v. 2a. See also fuck it at Phrases 2, fuck you at Phrases 1b. 1922   J. Joyce Ulysses ii. xv. [Circe] 560   God fuck old Bennett!   Phrases   Imprecatory and exclamatory phrases (typically in imperative or optative with no subject expressed sense).  P1. Expressing hostility, contempt, or defiant indifference. Categories » go fuck yourself and variants. 1895   Rep. Senate Comm. Police Dept. N.Y. III. 3158   By Senator Bradley: Q. Repeat what he said to you? A. He said, ‘Go on, fuck yourself, you son-of-a-bitch; I will give you a hundred dollars'; he tried to punch me, and I went out.   fuck you. 1905   L. Schindler Testimony 20 Dec. in People State of N.Y. Respondent, against Charles McKenna (1907) (N.Y. Supreme Court) 37   Murray said to me, ‘Fuck you, I will give you more the same.' And as he said that, I grabbed the two of them.   P2. fuck it: expressing dismissal, exasperation, resignation, or impetuousness. 1922   E. E. Cummings Enormous Room iv. 64   I said, ‘F— it, I don't want it.'   P3. fuck me and elaborated variants: expressing astonishment or exasperation. 1929   F. Manning Middle Parts of Fortune II. xi. 229   ‘Well, you can fuck me!' exclaimed the astonished Martlow. Cunt Cunt is a vulgar word for the vulva or vagina. It is used in a variety of ways, including as a term of disparagement. Reflecting national variations, cunt can be used as a disparaging and obscene term for a woman in the United States, an unpleasant or stupid man or woman in the United Kingdom, or a contemptible man in Australia and New Zealand. However, in Australia and New Zealand it can also be a neutral or positive term when used with a positive qualifier (e.g., "He's a good cunt"). The term has various derivative senses, including adjective and verb uses.   Feminist writer and English professor Germaine Greer argues that cunt "is one of the few remaining words in the English language with a genuine power to shock". The earliest known use of the word, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was as part of a placename of a London street, Gropecunt Lane. Use of the word as a term of abuse is relatively recent, dating from the late nineteenth century. The word appears not to have been taboo in the Middle Ages, but became that way toward the end of the eighteenth century, and was then not generally not allowed to be printed until the latter part of the twentieth century.   There is some disagreement on the origin of the term cunt, although most sources agree that it came from the Germanic word (Proto-Germanic *kunto, stem *kunton-), which emerged as kunta in Old Norse. The Proto-Germanic form's actual origin is a matter of debate among scholars. Most Germanic languages have cognates, including Swedish, Faroese, and Nynorsk (kunta), West Frisian, and Middle Low German (kunte), Middle Dutch (conte), Dutch kut (cunt), and Dutch kont (butt), Middle Low German kutte, Middle High German kotze ("prostitute"), German kott, and maybe Old English cot. The Proto-Germanic term's etymology ia questionable.   It may have arisen by Grimm's law operating on the Proto-Indo-European root *gen/gon "create, become" seen in gonads, genital, gamete, genetics, gene, or the Proto-Indo-European root guneh or "woman" (Greek: gunê, seen in gynaecology). Relationships to similar-sounding words such as the Latin cunnus ("vulva"), and its derivatives French con, Spanish coño, and Portuguese cona, or in Persian kos (کُس), have not been conclusively demonstrated. Other Latin words related to cunnus are cuneus ("wedge") and its derivative cunēre ("to fasten with a wedge", (figurative) "to squeeze in"), leading to English words such as cuneiform ("wedge-shaped"). In Middle English, cunt appeared with many spellings, such as coynte, cunte and queynte, which did not always reflect the actual pronunciation of the word.   The word, in its modern meaning, is attested in Middle English. Proverbs of Hendyng, a manuscript from some time before 1325, includes the advice:   (Give your cunt wisely and make [your] demands after the wedding.) from wikipedia. The word cunt is generally regarded in English-speaking countries as unsuitable for normal publicconversations. It has been described as "the most heavily tabooed word of all English words".   Quoted from wikipedia: Some American feminists of the 1970s sought to eliminate disparaging terms for women, including "bitch" and "cunt". In the context of pornography, Catharine MacKinnon argued that use of the word acts to reinforce a dehumanisation of women by reducing them to mere body parts; and in 1979 Andrea Dworkin described the word as reducing women to "the one essential – 'cunt: our essence ... our offence'".   While “vagina” is used much more commonly in colloquial speech to refer to the genitals of people with vulvas than “cunt” is, its  origins are defined by its service to male sexuality, making “cunt” —  interestingly enough — the least historically misogynistic of the two. “Cunt” has also been used in Renaissance bawdy verse and in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, but it was not until Shakespeare's era that its meaning began to fundamentally shift, during the dawn of Christian doctrine.   Arguably, if cunt simply means and refers to “vagina”, then why would that be bad? Vaginas are pretty great! They provide people with pleasure, they give life, and they're even a naturally developed lunar calendar! So, why would a person refer to another, assumedly pissy person as a vagina?    So, should we as society fight the negative stereotypes and embrace the term cunt again? It's a tiny word that bears a lot of weight, but it should be anything but scary or offensive. It can be a massive dose of love instead of an enormous force of hate if we actively define our vocabulary rather than letting it define us.   Words only have that type of power when the uptight, vanilla flavored, missionary only Karen's and Kevin's of the world decide they don't like them. This has been going on for as long as we've been using words. So, let's take it back. We love you, ya cunts!   coarse slang in later use. Thesaurus » Categories » The female genitals; the vulva or vagina. Cf. quaint n.1 a1400   tr. Lanfranc Sci. Cirurgie (Ashm.) (1894) 172   In wymmen þe necke of þe bladdre is schort, & is maad fast to the cunte. 1552   D. Lindsay Satyre Procl. 144   First lat me lok thy cunt, Syne lat me keip the key. 1680   Earl of Rochester et al. Poems 77   I fear you have with interest repaid, Those eager thrusts, which at your Cunt he made. 1865   ‘Philocomus' Love Feast iii. 21   I faint! I die! I spend! My cunt is sick! Suck me and fuck me!   A woman as a source of sexual gratification; a promiscuous woman; a slut. Also as a general term of abuse for a woman. 1663   S. Pepys Diary 1 July (1971) IV. 209   Mr. Batten..acting all the postures of lust and buggery that could be imagined, and..saying that the he hath to sell such a pouder as should make all the cunts in town run after him.   As a term of abuse for a man. 1860   in M. E. Neely Abraham Lincoln Encycl. (1982) 154   And when they got to Charleston, they had to, as is wont Look around to find a chairman, and so they took a Cunt   A despised, unpleasant, or annoying place, thing, or task. 1922   J. Joyce Ulysses ii. iv. [Calypso] 59   The grey sunken cunt of the world.   Bitch   Women were frequently equated to dogs in Ancient Greek literature, which was used to dehumanize and shame them for their alleged lack of restraint and sexual urges. This is believed to have originated from the hunter goddess Artemis, who was frequently depicted as a pack of hounds and was perceived to be both beautiful and frigid and savage. According to popular belief, the term "bitch" as we use it today evolved from the Old English word "bicce," which meant a female dog, about the year 1000 AD. The phrase started out as a critique of a woman's sexuality in the 15th century but eventually evolved to signify that the lady was rude or disagreeable.   Clare Bayley has connected this growth of the term "bitch" as an insult to the suffrage struggle and the final passage of women's suffrage in the early 20th century, particularly the 1920s. Men were intimidated when women started to challenge their subordinate roles in the patriarchal power structure, and the phrase started to be used to ferocious and irate females. Men's respect for women and the prevalence of the term are clearly correlated, since usage of the term rapidly decreased during World War II as men's appreciation of women's contributions to the war effort increased.   However, as they competed with women for employment after the war ended and the men went back to work, the word's usage increased once more. As the housewife paradigm started to fade away during the war, the position of women in the workplace and society as a whole underwent an irreparable change. However, males perceived the presence of women in the workforce as a challenge to their supremacy in society.   With songs like Elton John's "The Bitch is Back" ascending the charts in 1974, the slur became more common in mainstream culture and music in the latter decades of the 20th century. As a result of artists like Kanye West and Eminem using the term "bitch" to denigrate women and depict violence against them in their lyrics, hip-hop culture has also long been accused of being misogynistic.   We just need to look at Hillary Clinton's recent campaign for president in 2016 to understand how frequently this slur is leveled at women, especially those in positions of authority who are defying patriarchal expectations and shattering glass ceilings. Rep. AOC being called a "fucking bitch" by a GOP Rep. is another similar example. It is evident that the usage of the phrase and the degree to which males regard women to be a danger are related.   bitch (v.)   "to complain," attested from at least 1930, perhaps from the sense in bitchy, perhaps influenced by the verb meaning "to bungle, spoil," which is recorded from 1823. But bitched in this sense seems to echo Middle English bicched "cursed, bad," a general term of opprobrium (as in Chaucer's bicched bones "unlucky dice"), which despite the hesitation of OED, seems to be a derivative of bitch (n.).   bitchy (adj.) 1925, U.S. slang, "sexually provocative;" later (1930s) "spiteful, catty, bad-tempered" (usually of females); from bitch + -y (2). Earlier in reference to male dogs thought to look less rough or coarse than usual. The earliest use of "bitch" specifically as a derogatory term for women dates to the fifteenth century. Its earliest slang meaning mainly referred to sexual behavior, according to the English language historian Geoffrey Hughes:   The early applications were to a promiscuous or sensual woman, a metaphorical extension of the behavior of a bitch in heat. Herein lies the original point of the powerful insult son of a bitch, found as biche sone ca. 1330 in Arthur and Merlin ... while in a spirited exchange in the Chester Play (ca. 1400) a character demands: "Whom callest thou queine, skabde bitch?" ("Who are you calling a whore, you miserable bitch?").   In modern usage, the slang term bitch has different meanings depending largely on social context and may vary from very offensive to endearing, and as with many slang terms, its meaning and nuances can vary depending on the region in which it is used.   The term bitch can refer to a person or thing that is very difficult, as in "Life's a bitch" or "He sure got the bitch end of that deal". It is common for insults to lose intensity as their meaning broadens ("bastard" is another example). In the film The Women (1939), Joan Crawford could only allude to the word: "And by the way, there's a name for you ladies, but it isn't used in high society - outside of a kennel." At the time, use of the actual word would have been censored by the Hays Office. By 1974, Elton John had a hit single (#4 in the U.S. and #14 in the U.K.) with "The Bitch Is Back", in which he says "bitch" repeatedly. It was, however, censored by some radio stations. On late night U.S. television, the character Emily Litella (1976-1978) on Saturday Night Live (portrayed by Gilda Radner) would frequently refer to Jane Curtin under her breath at the end of their Weekend Update routine in this way: "Oh! Never mind...! Bitch!"   Bitchin' arose in the 1950s to describe something found to be cool or rad. Modern use can include self-description, often as an unfairly difficult person. For example, in the New York Times bestseller The Bitch in the House, a woman describes her marriage: "I'm fine all day at work, but as soon as I get home, I'm a horror....I'm the bitch in the house."Boy George admitted "I was being a bitch" in a falling out with Elton John. Generally, the term bitch is still considered offensive, and not accepted in formal situations. According to linguist Deborah Tannen, "Bitch is the most contemptible thing you can say about a woman. Save perhaps the four-letter C word." It's common for the word to be censored on Prime time TV, often rendered as "the b-word". During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, a John McCain supporter referred to Hillary Clinton by asking, "How do we beat the bitch?" The event was reported in censored format:   On CNN's "The Situation Room," Washington Post media critic and CNN "Reliable Sources" host Howard Kurtz observed that "Senator McCain did not embrace the 'b' word that this woman in the audience used." ABC reporter Kate Snow adopted the same location. On CNN's "Out in the Open," Rick Sanchez characterized the word without using it by saying, "Last night, we showed you a clip of one of his supporters calling Hillary Clinton the b-word that rhymes with witch." A local Fox 25 news reporter made the same move when he rhymed the unspoken word with rich.   A study reported that, when used on social media, bitch "aims to promote traditional, cultural beliefs about femininity". Used hundreds of thousands of times per day on such platforms, it is associated with sexist harassment, "victimizing targets", and "shaming" victims who do not abide by degrading notions about femininity   Son of a bitch The first known appearance of "son-of-a-bitch" in a work of American fiction is Seventy-Six (1823), a historical fiction novel set during the American Revolutionary War by eccentric writer and critic John Neal.  The protagonist, Jonathan Oadley, recounts a battle scene in which he is mounted on a horse: "I wheeled, made a dead set at the son-of-a-bitch in my rear, unhorsed him, and actually broke through the line." The term's use as an insult is as old as that of bitch. Euphemistic terms are often substituted, such as gun in the phrase "son of a gun" as opposed to "son of a bitch", or "s.o.b." for the same phrase. Like bitch, the severity of the insult has diminished. Roy Blount Jr. in 2008 extolled the virtues of "son of a bitch" (particularly in comparison to "asshole") in common speech and deed. Son of a bitch can also be used as a "how about that" reaction, or as a reaction to excruciating pain. In politics the phrase "Yes, he is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch" has been attributed, probably apocryphally, to various U.S. presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon. Immediately after the detonation of the first atomic bomb in Alamogordo, New Mexico, in July 1945 (the device codenamed Gadget), the Manhattan Project scientist who served as the director of the test, Kenneth Tompkins Bainbridge, exclaimed to Robert Oppenheimer "Now we're all sons-of-bitches." In January 2022, United States President Joe Biden was recorded on a hot mic responding to Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy asking, "Do you think inflation is a political liability ahead of the midterms?" Biden responded sarcastically, saying, "It's a great asset — more inflation. What a stupid son of a bitch." The 19th-century British racehorse Filho da Puta took its name from "Son of a Bitch" in Portuguese. The Curtiss SB2C, a World War 2 U.S. Navy dive bomber, was called "Son-of-a-Bitch 2nd Class" by some of its pilots and crewmen. In American popular culture, the slang word "basic" is used to derogatorily refer to persons who are thought to favor mainstream goods, fashions, and music. Hip-hop culture gave rise to "basic bitch," which gained popularity through rap music, lyrics, blogs, and videos from 2011 to 2014. "Bros" is a common word for their male counterparts. Other English-speaking nations have terms like "basic bitch" or "airhead," such as modern British "Essex girls" and "Sloane Rangers," as well as Australian "haul girls," who are noted for their love of shopping for expensive clothing and uploading films of their purchases on YouTube. Oxford English Dictionary  transitive. To call (a person, esp. a woman) a bitch. 1707   Diverting Muse 131   Why how now, crys Venus, altho you're my Spouse, [If] you Bitch me, you Brute, have a care of your Brows   transitive. To behave like a bitch towards (a person); to be spiteful, malicious, or unfair to (a person); to let (a person) down. 1764   D. Garrick Let. 23 Aug. (1963) II. 423   I am a little at a loss what You will do for a Woman Tragedian to stare & tremble wth yr Heroes, if Yates should bitch You—but she must come.   intransitive. To engage in spiteful or malicious criticism or gossip, esp. about another person; to talk spitefully or cattily about. 1915   G. Cannan Young Earnest i. x. 92   It's the women bitching at you got into your blood.   intransitive. Originally U.S. To grumble, to complain (about something, or at someone). Frequently collocated with moan. 1930   Amer. Speech 5 238   [Colgate University slang] He bitched about the course.   †3. intransitive. To back down, to yield. Obsolete. rare. 1777   E. Burke Let. 9 May in Corr. (1961) III. 339   Norton bitched a little at last, but though he would recede; Fox stuck to his motion.   Shit shit (v.) Old English scitan, from Proto-Germanic *skit- (source also of North Frisian skitj, Dutch schijten, German scheissen), from PIE(proto indo-european) root *skei- "to cut, split." The notion is of "separation" from the body (compare Latin excrementum, from excernere "to separate," Old English scearn "dung, muck," from scieran "to cut, shear;" see sharn). It is thus a cousin to science and conscience.   "Shit" is not an acronym. Nor is it a recent word. But it was taboo from 1600 and rarely appeared in print (neither Shakespeare nor the KJV has it), and even in the "vulgar" publications of the late 18c. it is disguised by dashes. It drew the wrath of censors as late as 1922 ("Ulysses" and "The Enormous Room"), scandalized magazine subscribers in 1957 (a Hemingway story in Atlantic Monthly) and was omitted from some dictionaries as recently as 1970 ("Webster's New World"). [Rawson]   It has extensive slang usage; the meaning "to lie, to tease'' is from 1934; that of "to disrespect" is from 1903. Also see shite. Shat is a humorous past tense form, not etymological, first recorded 18th century.   To shit bricks "be very frightened" attested by 1961. The connection between fear and involuntary defecation has generated expressions in English since the 14th century. (the image also is in Latin), and probably also is behind scared shitless (1936).   shit (n.) Middle English shit "diarrhea," from Old English scitte "purging, diarrhea," from source of shit (v.). The general sense of "excrement" dates from 1580s (Old English had scytel, Middle English shitel for "dung, excrement;" the usual 14c. noun for natural discharges of the bodies of men or beasts seems to have been turd or filth). As an exclamation attested in print by 1920 but certainly older. Use for "obnoxious person" is by 1508; meaning "misfortune, trouble" is attested from 1937. Shit-faced "drunk" is 1960s student slang; shit list is from 1942. Shit-hole is by 1937 as "rectum," by 1969 in reference to undesirable locations. Shitload (also shit-load) for "a great many" is by 1970. Shitticism is Robert Frost's word for scatological writing.   Up shit creek "in trouble" is by 1868 in a South Carolina context (compare the metaphoric salt river, of which it is perhaps a coarse variant). Slang not give a shit "not care" is by 1922. Pessimistic expression same shit different day is attested by 1989. To get (one's) shit together "manage one's affairs" is by 1969. Emphatic shit out of luck is by 1942. The expression when the shit hits the fan "alluding to a moment of crisis or its disastrous consequences" is attested by 1967.   Expressing anger, despair, surprise, frustration, resignation, excitement, etc. 1865   Proc. Court Martial U.S. Army (Judge Advocate General's Office) U.S. National Arch.: Rec. group 153, File MM-2412 3 Charge II.   Private James Sullivan...did in contemptuous and disrespectful manner reply..‘Oh, shit, I can't' or words to that effect.   Ass/Asshole The word arse in English derives from the Proto-Germanic (reconstructed) word *arsaz, from the Proto-Indo-European word *ors-, meaning "buttocks" or "backside". The combined form arsehole is first attested from 1500 in its literal use to refer to the anus. The metaphorical use of the word to refer to the worst place in a region (e.g., "the arsehole of the world"), is first attested in print in 1865; the use to refer to a contemptible person is first attested in 1933. In the ninth chapter of his 1945 autobiography, Black Boy, Richard Wright quotes a snippet of verse that uses the term: "All these white folks dressed so fine / Their ass-holes smell just like mine ...". Its earliest known usage in newspapers as an insult was 1965. As with other vulgarities, these uses of the word may have been common in oral speech for some time before their first appearances in print. By the 1970s, Hustler magazine featured people they did not like as "Asshole of the Month." In 1972, Jonathan Richman of Modern Lovers recorded his song "Pablo Picasso", which includes the line "Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole."   Until the early 1990s, the word was considered one of a number of words that could not be uttered on commercial television in the United States. Comedian Andrew Dice Clay caused a major shock when he uttered the word during a televised MTV awards show in 1989. However, there were PG-13 and R-rated films in the 1980s that featured use of the word, such as the R-rated The Terminator (1984), the PG-13-rated National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), and the PG-rated Back to the Future (1985). By 1994, however, vulgarity had become more acceptable, and the word was featured in dialog on the long-running television series NYPD Blue, though it has yet to become anything close to commonplace on network TV. In some broadcast edits (such as the syndication airings of South Park), the word is partially bleeped out, as "assh—". A variant of the term, "ass clown", was coined and popularized by the 1999 comedy film Office Space.   The word is mainly used as a vulgarity, generally to describe people who are viewed as stupid, incompetent, unpleasant, or detestable. Moral philosopher Aaron James, in his 2012 book, Assholes: A Theory, gives a more precise meaning of the word, particularly to its connotation in the United States: A person, who is almost always male, who considers himself of much greater moral or social importance than everyone else; who allows himself to enjoy special advantages and does so systematically; who does this out of an entrenched sense of entitlement; and who is immunized by his sense of entitlement against the complaints of other people. He feels he is not to be questioned, and he is the one who is chiefly wronged.   Many would believe the term ass to be used to describe an ungulate or a hoofed mammal of the smaller variety. Those people would be correct. However ass would be used as slang to describe the incompetence of people as they seem to resemble that of a donkey. Slow and stupid. We don't see donkeys in this manner but the people of old may have.   A stupid, irritating, or contemptible person; a person who behaves despicably. Cf. arsehole n. 3, shithole n. 2. Quot. 1954, from a story originally told in 1933, provides evidence for the development of this sense from figurative uses of sense 1. [1954   V. Randolph Pissing in Snow (1976) lxx. 106   When God got the job [of making men and women] done,..there was a big pile of ass-holes left over. It looks to me like the Almighty just throwed all them ass-holes together, and made the Easton family.]   Dick/dickhead   Dick is a common English language slang word for the human penis. It is also used by extension for a variety of slang purposes, generally considered vulgar, including: as a verb to describe sexual activity; and as a term for individuals who are considered to be rude, abrasive, inconsiderate, or otherwise contemptible. In this context, it can be used interchangeably with jerk, and can also be used as a verb to describe rude or deceitful actions. Variants include dickhead, which literally refers to the glans. The offensiveness of the word dick is complicated by the continued use of the word in inoffensive contexts, including as both a given name (often a nickname for Richard) and a surname, the popular British dessert spotted dick, the classic novel Moby-Dick, the Dick and Jane series of children's books, and the American retailer Dick's Sporting Goods. Uses like these have given comic writers a foundation to use double entendre to capitalize on this contradiction. In the mid-17th century, dick became slang for a man as a sexual partner. For example, in the 1665 satire The English Rogue by Richard Head, a "dick" procured to impregnate a character that is having difficulty conceiving:   “The next Dick I pickt up for her was a man of a colour as contrary to the former, as light is to darkness, being swarthy; whose hair was as black as a sloe; middle statur'd, well set, both strong and active, a man so universally tryed, and so fruitfully successful, that there was hardly any female within ten miles gotten with child in hugger-mugger, but he was more than suspected to be Father of all the legitimate. Yet this too, proved an ineffectual Operator.”   An 1869 slang dictionary offered definitions of dick including "a riding whip" and an abbreviation of dictionary, also noting that in the North Country, it was used as a verb to indicate that a policeman was eyeing the subject. The term came to be associated with the penis through usage by men in the military around the 1880s.   The term "dick" was originally used to describe a vile or repulsive individual in the 1960s.   A stupid, annoying, or objectionable person (esp. a male); one whose behaviour is considered knowingly obnoxious, provocative, or disruptive. Cf. dick n.1 6. 1960   S. Martinelli Let. 28 Dec. in C. Bukowski & S. Martinelli Beerspit Night & Cursing. (2001) 132   You shd listen to yr own work being broadcast [on the radio]... You cd at least tell ME when to list[en] dickhead!   Twat noun Slang: Vulgar. vulva. First recorded in 1650–60; perhaps originally a dialectal variant of thwat, thwot (unattested), presumed Modern English outcome of Old English thwāt, (unattested), akin to Old Norse thveit “cut, slit, forest clearing” (from northern English dialect thwaite “forest clearing”)   What does twat mean? Twat is vulgar slang for “vagina.” It's also used, especially in British English slang, a way to call someone as stupid, useless, or otherwise contemptible person. While twat has been recorded since the 1650s, we don't exactly know where it comes from. One theory connects twat to the Old English term for “to cut off.” The (bizarre) implication could be that women's genitalia were thought to be just shorter versions of men's.   Twat was popularized in the mid-1800s completely by accident. The great English poet Robert Browning had read a 1660 poem that referred, in a derogatory way, to a “nun's twat.” Browning thought a twat must have been a kind of hat, so he incorporated it into his own work.   Words for genitalia and other taboo body parts (especially female body parts) have a long history of being turned into abusive terms. Consider a**, d*ck, p***y, among many others. In the 1920s, English speakers started using twat as an insult in the same way some use a word like c**t, although twat has come to have a far less offensive force than the c-word in American English. In the 1930s, twat was sometimes used as a term of abuse for “woman” more generally, and over the second half of the 1900s, twat was occasionally used as slang for “butt” or “anus” in gay slang.   Twat made headlines in June 2018 when British actor Danny Dyer called former British Prime Minister David Cameron a twat for his role in initiating the Brexit referendum in 2016—and then stepping down after it passed.   Twat is still common in contemporary use as an insult implying stupidity, especially among British English speakers.   Even though it's a common term, twat is still vulgar and causes a stir when used in a public setting, especially due to its sexist nature. Public figures that call someone a twat are often publicly derided. Online, users sometimes censor the term, rendering it as tw*t or tw@t.   If you're annoying, you might be accused of twattiness; if you're messing around or procrastinating, you might be twatting around; if you're going on about something, you might be twatting on. Twatting is also sometimes substituted for the intensifier ”fucking”.   As a term of abuse: a contemptible or obnoxious person; a person who behaves stupidly; a fool, an idiot. Now chiefly British. The force of this term can vary widely. Especially when applied to a woman, it can be as derogatory and offensive as the term cunt (cunt n. 2a), but it can also be used (especially of men) as a milder form of abuse without conscious reference to the female genitals, often implying that a person's behaviour, appearance, etc., is stupid or idiotic, with little or no greater force than twit (twit n.1 2b). 1922   ‘J. H. Ross' Mint (1936) xxxv. 110   The silly twat didn't know if his arse-hole was bored, punched, drilled, or countersunk. The top 10 movies with the most swear words: The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013) – 715 Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safide, 2019) – 646 Casino (Martin Scorsese, 1995) – 606 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (Kevin Smith, 2001) – 509 Fury (David Ayer, 2014) – 489 Straight Outta Compton (F. Gary Gray, 2015) – 468 Summer of Sam (Spike Lee, 1999) – 467 Nil By Mouth (Gary Oldman, 1997) – 432 Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992) – 418 Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (Mike Judge, 1996) – 414