Ivor Cutler RIP

On the day I had my heart by-pass, the great Ivor Cutler died at the age of 83. The standard obituaries described him as a poet, a songwriter and a humourist, though he was all that and much much more. He was best known for his association with the Beatles on one hand and John Peel on the other. He was a great favourite of both Lennon and McCartney and that resulted in him playing the role of bus-conductor, Buster Bloodvessel, in 'the Magical Mystery Tour'. It doesn't require much imagination to see the influence of Cutler's absurdist work on John Lennon's own writing (Spaniard In The Works, In His Own Write, I Am The Walrus etc). He was born in Glasgow in 1923 into a middle-class Jewish family. During the war he was , for a short time, a navigator in the RAF, but was dismissed because of his 'dreaminess'. After the war he became a school-teacher in London until he eventually found his true vocation reciting his poetry and strange stories against a backing of gentle harmonium. Towards the end of the sixties he began to make regular appearances on John Peel's show, an association which continued for most of the rest of both men's lives. He released several LPs, the most famous of which was 'Life In A Scotch Sitting Room - Vol 2'. (Note for completeists - there WAS no Vol 1). This was a record which had been fermenting throughout much of Cutler's life, and although the absurdist nature of the monologues allied to his deadpan delivery produce a riotously comic effect, there is undoubtedly a very dark undercurrent. The exaggerated Scottishness of the delivery is simultaneously hilarious and sinister. One supposes that no-one has ever literally been in the situations described ('the girls micturating onto a sponge by the window while the boys were shown postcards by Grandpa') but such is the delivery that Cutler seems to tap into a folk memory of how life once was, so that you are persuaded that things almost like that DID happen in your grandmas sitting room. He hilariously recounts grandpa pointing out thistles to the children - "There is a thistle......there is another thistle. There are lots of thistles in Scotland". Mother was equally informative "Look there's a patch of grass". Father would point out items of interest - "Look, a tree" And so on - on the page it is very probably not funny - but hearing Cutler's precise diction narrating those ridiculous stories in his rather frightening way is one of life's real pleasures. Ivor had a good innings. He did not want to overstay his welcome as evidenced by his membership of the Voluntaty Euthanasia Society. A great man has passed on to the great Scotch sitting room in the sky.