It’s not Tchaikovsky but an Italian folk tune, the words are Caddick’s as Bill discovered but most claim it is Tchaikovsky but they stole it from Italy!đ
Matt Berninger (The National) - One More Second
On October 25, 1984, the badly decomposed body of the novelist, poet and short story writer Richard Brautigan was found in the living room of his house in Bolinas, California.
By then Brautigan had become almost completely reclusive and police speculated that he had been dead for at least a month. The cause of death was suicide by gunshot from a .44 Magnum pistol.
Brautigan had published three poetry collections in the late 1950s, but his fame came from the bittersweetly humorous and dreamlike novels he began publishing in the 1960s while he lived in San Fransisco and flourished amid the counter-culture scene.
A Confederate General from Big Sur (1964), his first published novel didn’t fare well at the time but his second novel (actually written earlier and more of a series of inter-related short stories in my opinion) Trout Fishing in America (1967) caught on.
It was so popular that a number of hippy communes at the time renamed themselves after it. He also published four more books of poetry in the sixties.
He published five more novels in the 1970s, including The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966 (1971) and solidified his reputation as a cult writer. The Abortion is about a recluse who runs The Library for Unpublished Works where anyone could bring in an unpublished manuscript to be lovingly cared for. It highlights Brautigan’s almost sentimental love of words and writing.
Critic Tony Tanner described Brautigan’s style: “He retains the illusion of orthodox syntax and grammar, but the sentences are continually turning off into unexpectedness in ways which pleasantly dissolve our habitual semantic expectations. At the same time, Brautigan is constantly, cunningly, deviating into sense; there is enough linguistic coherence left for us to experience the book as communication, and enough linguistic sport for Brautigan to demonstrate his own freedom from control.”
He even “published” a work called Plant This Book, with poems written on the backs of seed packages, a very hippy high-concept project.
Brautigan himself had had a hard upbringing, being physically abused by some of his alcoholic mother’s male partners.
When the boom years for his books died with the advent of the more materialistic 1980s Brautigan fell on hard times both financially and psychologically, giving in to paranoia and alcoholism.
At the time of his death he was living on welfare. “When the 1960’s ended, he was the baby thrown out with the bath water,” said his friend, novelist Thomas McGuane.
I first started reading Brautigan in high school at about the time I first encountered Kurt Vonnegut. I loved them both for their humorous wordplay and fantastical plots. I continued to read and re-read them for the rest of my life.
Brautigan has had periodic resurgences of popularity and his novels are still in print. It’s a shame he didn’t get to write more and see a new generation of fans emerge.
I have pretty much everything Brautigan ever published and he was a central figure in my reading for the longest time after first discovering him . . .I was distraught when finding he had taken his own life in the depths of despair
This is The Cure - Festival Summer 2026, The Studio Versions (A Hervé Guilleminot Special Presentation)
THE CURE - FROM BEDROOMS TO STADIUMS
Few bands bring people together quite like The Cure. Their audiences span several generations: fans who discovered them in the early 1980s stand alongside younger listeners who have found the same comfort, excitement and sense of belonging in their songs. Music once played alone in teenage bedrooms now fills arenas, stadiums and festival fields. That journey makes The Cure one of the most remarkable bands to emerge from the closing decades of the twentieth century. Even in front of tens of thousands of people, their songs can still feel intensely personal.
One of their greatest strengths is their extraordinary range. The Cure move from the stark landscapes of cold wave and post-punk to bright pop melodies, restless psychedelia and long, slowly unfolding pieces with something of the scale of progressive rock. “A Forest”, “Just Like Heaven” and “Disintegration” express very different moods, yet all belong unmistakably to the same musical world. Their darkness has never excluded pleasure, humour or joy. They can make an audience dance, then draw it into a song about loneliness, love or loss, with equal conviction.
As one of the last great British new wave and post-punk bands still performing on this scale, The Cure carry an enormous history. Much of their enduring appeal comes from Robert Smith. Behind the wild hair and familiar make-up is a singer whose vulnerability, dry humour and independence have made him an unusually endearing public figure. His voice remains immediately recognisable, while the musicians around him give the songs their depth and physical force. Together, they have built a relationship with listeners that reaches far beyond fashion or nostalgia.
Their generosity is especially clear on stage. Full-length Cure concerts often exceed two and a half hours, allowing room for familiar favourites, less obvious songs and extended passages that need time to reveal their power. These performances offer more than a succession of hits: they invite the audience to inhabit the music. The same emotional openness helps explain why The Cure continue to inspire musicians, writers, filmmakers and countless listeners for whom their songs have become part of everyday life.
Trent Reznor expressed this connection memorably when he inducted the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019. His deeply sincere tribute recalled discovering music that seemed to understand his own feelings and made him feel less alone. It captured something essential about The Cure: their ability to turn private uncertainty into a shared experience.
They also continue to create music worthy of that attachment. Songs of a Lost World demonstrated that their themes could grow older with them, giving grief and passing time a powerful musical form. Robert Smith has spoken of a possible ending around 2029, but their continuing commitment gives these later years a sense of purpose.
The triumphant summer of 2026 provides the starting point for this collection. Bringing together 50 studio recordings, this imagined complete concert brings together every song played across the tour, making it easier to hear which periods the band chose to favour. Alongside it, I have included the closing Paris-area performance from Rock en Seine on 30 August 2026 in FLAC audio and video. I was there... it felt like a genuine musical firework display, and a moving reminder that songs first loved in solitude can become an extraordinary collective celebration. (Hervé Guilleminot)
Include are the following:
This is The Cure - Festival Summer 2026, The Studio Versions (A Hervé Guilleminot Special Presentation) 50 tracks (320 Kbps) + Rock En Seine 30.08.2026 31 tracks (flac)
+MOVIE
The Cure - Rock En Seine 30.08.2026
TRACK LIST
1 - Plainsong - 1989
2 - Alone - 2024
3 - Pictures of You - 1989
4 - High - 1992
5 - Lovesong - 1989
6 - Catch - 1987
7 - Burn - 1994
8 - 2 Late - 1989
9 - Fascination Street - 1989
10 - Never Enough - 1990
11 - alt.end - 2004
12 - A Fragile Thing - 2024
13 - Push - 1985
14 - In Between Days - 1985
15 - Just Like Heaven - 1987
16 - Treasure - 1996
17 - The Last Day of Summer - 2000
18 - Trust - 1992
19 - Three Imaginary Boys - 1979
20 - Charlotte Sometimes - 1981
21 - Want - 1996
22 - A Night Like This - 1985
23 - Secrets - 1980
24 - A Strange Day - 1982
25 - Cold - 1982
26 - Play for Today - 1980
27 - In Your House - 1980
28 - A Forest - 1980
29 - Shake Dog Shake - 1984
30 - Primary - 1981
31 - From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea - 1992
32 - One Hundred Years - 1982
33 - Endsong - 2024
34 - Prayers for Rain - 1989
35 - M - 1980
36 - It Can Never Be the Same - 2016
37 - Faith - 1981
38 - A Letter to Elise - 1992
39 - Disintegration - 1989
40 - Lullaby - 1989
41 - Hot Hot Hot!!! - 1987
42 - Wrong Number - 1997
43 - The Walk - 1983
44 - Mint Car - 1996
45 - The Lovecats - 1983
46 - Let's Go to Bed - 1983
47 - Friday I'm in Love - 1992
48 - Close to Me - 1985
49 - Why Can't I Be You? - 1987
50 - Boys Don't Cry - 1979
Total running time: 4 hours, 12 minutes.
Their Wikipedia entry has this to say about the band: "The Decemberists are an American indie rock band from Portland, Oregon, formed in 2000. ... As of 2024, the band has released nine studio albums with their lyrics often focusing on historical incidents and folklore. Audience participation is a part of their live performances, typically during encores. The band stages whimsical reenactments of sea battles and other centuries-old events, typically of regional interest, or acts out songs with members of the crowd."
Here's the link to their full Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decemberists
In January 2015, the band released the studio album "What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World," and they were touring to support that at the time of this concert. Previously, the band generally released concept albums about some pretty esoteric concept. For instance, this concert ends with a bunch of songs from the band's 2009 album "The Hazards of Love," which is a concept album about a woman who falls in love with a shape-shifting boreal forest dweller, only to be opposed by the forest queen. But the band's 2015 album was more straight-forward, by their standards. A New York Times review said the album "strikes a note of pop concision and maturity, building on what worked on [their previous album] 'The King Is Dead.' Lyrically, there are fewer thistles and minarets and palanquins - and, musically, less digressive excess - than once made up the Decemberists' trademark style."
Like most albums I'm posting from the Capitol Theatre leak, I started with a single audio file consisting of a mono soundboard of the whole concert. Then I broke it into individual mp3s. That was tricky here, especially for their suite of songs from "The Hazards of Love," but hopefully I got the song breaks right.
This album is an hour and 49 minutes long.
01 talk (Decemberists)
02 The Crane Wife 3 [Instrumental] (Decemberists)
03 Leslie Anne Levine (Decemberists)
04 talk (Decemberists)
05 Down by the Water (Decemberists)
06 talk (Decemberists)
07 Rox in the Box (Decemberists)
08 talk (Decemberists)
09 Philomena (Decemberists)
10 The Wrong Year (Decemberists)
11 talk (Decemberists)
12 On the Bus Mall (Decemberists)
13 talk (Decemberists)
14 Why Would I Now (Decemberists)
15 Make You Better (Decemberists)
16 talk (Decemberists)
17 Carolina Low (Decemberists)
18 talk (Decemberists)
19 July, July (Decemberists)
20 talk (Decemberists)
21 O Valencia (Decemberists)
22 talk (Decemberists)
23 The Chimbley Sweep (Decemberists)
24 talk (Decemberists)
25 Fits and Starts (Decemberists)
26 talk (Decemberists)
27 Prelude - The Hazards of Love 1 [The Prettiest Whistles Won't Wrestle the Thistles Undone] (Decemberists)
28 A Bower Scene - Won't Want for Love [Margaret in the Taiga] (Decemberists)
29 The Rake's Song (Decemberists)
30 The Hazards of Love 4 [The Drowned] (Decemberists)
31 talk (Decemberists)
32 Of Angels and Angles (Decemberists)
33 talk (Decemberists)
34 Dear Avery (Decemberists)
Step into the world of Wildwood with the original motion picture soundtrack by Academy Award–winning composer Dario Marianelli, featuring new music by The Decemberists.
"Almost three months to the day since we lost Glen Hansard, and it’s still hard to believe he’s gone.These past few months, we’ve seen just how much Glen meant to people, not only as an extraordinary musician, songwriter and performer, but as a true son of Dublin. From the streets of Ballymun to Grafton Street, his story was woven into the fabric of the city. His music carried the heart, soul and spirit of Dublin far beyond its streets, touching lives all over the world.His legacy has only grown stronger in the months since his passing. Through the songs, the stories, the memories and the tributes, it has become even clearer that Glen was so much more than a musician. He was part of Dublin’s identity, part of its history, and part of the lives of so many who found comfort, hope and connection in his music.It’s still difficult to believe that a voice so full of life has fallen silent, but the music remains. And so does everything he gave to this city and to the world.Some artists leave behind songs. Others leave behind a piece of themselves in the places they called home. Glen did both.Rest easy, Glen. Dublin will never forget you, and your songs will continue to echo through its streets for generations to come."
Almost unbearably sad but this features as Luke Kelly’s last public performance and by then the ravages of the drink and post a related brain tumour operation meant he was not always aware of where he was or indeed the lyrics but heck the strength when it was a song he knew as in here in The Night Visiting Song is amongst his very best “Good man, Luke!"