His words wrestle and fall, lapping over each other, a rhythm and purpose and song. It was neither poetry nor music alone, but both.
He was a social activist, and acutely politically aware.
'You need to have myths,' Oscar once said. 'You need to have people who don't give a shit about caving. And that what I wanted to be - that kinda guy. I always wanted to be with the stand-up dudes.'
And so he was. He wrote about breaking rocks with the chain gang, about conformity, about the poor and the weak. Brother where are you? he sang, looking into eyes of the people who pass by.
'The first time I voted,' he said, 'I voted for me.'
He wrote more than a dozen plays, more than 1000 songs, a dozen albums, and a Broadway musical for Mohammed Ali. He met his heroes (check out those interviews, they're *amazing*).
He was a beautiful, adept performer of his own work, an actor, a social commentator, a playwright and activist. He was not one thing, but several (for a person is never just one thing). He was remixed.
Olga just sent me this - Winnie the Pooh, in Russian!
Check out the crayon illustrations, and Vinni Puh's slightly husky, slightly world-weary voice. Also, he has little stubby legs. Winnie the Pooh should *always* have little stubby legs.
A friend dies, and Frank Turner wants to remember her as she'd want to be remembered.
So he writes. And yet he writes no sombre requiem, but a piece of his pain parcelled in joy.
'Long Live the Queen' was released on Monday, as a download only single (here, here and on iTunes here); no matter where you get it, it costs less than £1.
Lexie, Frank's friend, died of breast cancer. Her kids are in the video. All proceeds go to the Breast Cancer Campaign. This one is worth it, guys.
Edit: In his blog, Frank says: 'You need to be careful to buy the single, not the track off the album, but you can do that by following those links, so it should be easy. One you're done, if you send a screenshot of the receipt to longlivethequeen@frank-turner.com we'll send you 2 exclusive b-sides for free.'
Celebrity Chimp combine monkey and banjo like you've never seen before. You can click on the extended entry bit to read their amusing bogus bio, but all you really need to know is that this punky bluegrass band is a lot of fun and a night out with them will probably leave you with a very sore head and only a vague recollection of what it was you got up to the night before.
They play regularly in London to crowds that are only getting bigger, and this monkey suggests you go and buy them a pint or three before they can't see you for all the flying fangirl knickers.
'This is our love story,' she says, 'from my own point of view.'
Old love letters are bright burials, sore memories blinking out as the lid lifts. They are words offered up in tenderness, words offered up in passion, and words burned and crumbled into the hearth.
This song expresses it more beautifully than I could have hoped for.
Winter Family - Garden Edit: broken link fixed! sorry guys...
Going to the wedding of a former lover, with bittersweet love in your heart. She is getting married 'to a boy who loves you narry / One cubit more than you and I when we were both still young'.
You love her still; you wish her well; you remember everything.
It's Jewlie's fault. She sprung this song on me WEEKS ago, and I can't shake it. I can't even close the tab it's in. Every so often I'll wander over and hit play, just to watch the accordion, the toy piano, the macaroni and cheese. It's Pomplamoose, it's fantastic, and it will make happy to your ears. (More here!)
She wrote songs for the Drifters, the Shirelles, Little Eva, Arethra Franklin and the Beatles. She wrote songs for everyone else and ultimately, finally, eventually - she wrote songs for herself.
She's Carole King and she wrote *everything* (or near enough).
No, actually, she did.
She wrote everything.
It's a wee bit shocking.
'You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down.' - Kahlil Gibran
'Why'd you think I put out your fire?
Why'd you think I put out your fire?
Don't you know I breathe in fire, breathe out fire?' - tUnE-YaRdS
From an interview with a centenarian: what was the secret to her long life?
The old lady paused for a minute, and then replied.
Mornings are rubbish. For one thing, they start *early*. If mornings started in the mid-afternoon, they'd be a lot less painful (and we could all sit around in our jammies with hot chocolate for breakfast, I promise).
In the meantime, mornings are here, and keep on being here, on a continual day-to-day basis. Measures must be taken.
Enter the Hot 8 Brass Band! They're from New Orleans, they're kick-ass and they're here to give you nine minutes of unbridled joy to start your day wi... with which to start your day. Good morning, Fabulisters! Let's DANCE ourselves awake!*
*The fact that the song explicitly states 'let's make love *tonight*' has not escaped the Fabulist. However, the Fabulist is limiting its pedantry today to the use of prepositions in sentences. The Fabulist chooses to glide elegantly over such details, and is quite happily appropriating 'Sexual Healing' as a morning song, lyrics bedamned. Plus, the Fabulist is tired and bleary-eyed and writing about itself in the third-person. That's always a dangerous sign.
I really hope this comes back. if it doesn't, you should hand it off to someone! I'm sure anyone (including myself) would love to take over fabulist and bring it back with a vengeance!
becca on 
