robyn_hitchcock raze only he would make vera lynn his vessel to row through the horror of watching cancer kill his father. and only he could spin the simple act of watering tomatoes into such a perfect portrait of what it is to miss someone. too often people take no notice of the tenderness tucked into and around all the songs about men with lightbulb heads and alarm clocks forged from cheese. i remember listening to "jewels for sophia" for the first time on my sixteenth birthday, the nearest thing i ever had to a stepsister beside me in the back seat of my father's car, cross-legged and barefoot, thinking here at last was the maelstrom of an untamed mind in which i could sense some of the same sedge and crabgrass that grew and stewed in mine. he swore to me that when he was naked he told no lies. i believed him. if only the same could be said of all of us. 260602 what's it to you? who go blather from