Calne (Monday 24 August 2020)

As my blips enter their 61st year, a big thank you to all who visited my page yesterday, and to those who left comments, hearts and stars.

I went into Calne this evening looking for a blip and wandered through Castlefields Park. These ducks were on the path in front of me but moved onto the canal to let me pass. For those watching in black and white, I prepared another version that does not fit with the Mono Monday theme.

So much clearer in Large (Gallery) view

L.
24.8.2020 (2231 hr)

Blip #3286 (#3036 + 250 archived blips taken 27.8.1960-18.3.2010)
Consecutive Blip #000
Blips/Extras In 2020 #138/267 + #055/100 Extras
Day #3805 (769 gaps from 26.3.2010)
LOTD #2431 (#2272 + 159 in archived blips)


Canals series
Calne series
Ducks series
Wildlife series
Wilts and Berks Canal series

Taken with Pentax KS-1 (Blue) and Pentax D FA Macro 100mm F2.8 WR prime lens

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - The Tears Of A Clown (completed 9 November 1966, Detroit MI)
This song has a rather complicated history. The tune was written by Stevie Wonder with his producer Hank Cosby. They got as far as recording the instrumental track for it, a complicated arrangement with piccolos and a bassoon, but Stevie Wonder was stuck for a lyric and offered it to Smokey Robinson, who thought the track had a circus atmosphere. Accordingly, he wrote the lyric that begins, "If there's a smile on my face it's only there trying to fool the public," and makes reference to the clown Pagliacci from Leoncavillo's opera of the same name. It was one of his best lyrics and a lot of time and trouble was spent on it in the expectation of it becoming the next Miracles' single. Berry Gordy however, famous for not liking songs of obvious worth, vetoed the idea, and the song ended up on the album Smokey Robinson And The Miracles Make It Happen, where it languished relatively unnoticed until 1970.
At that time the British label were looking for a backnumber to follow up the success they'd had re-issuing The Tracks Of My Tears in the absence of new material, and picked out Tears Of A Clown for release in July 1970. It quickly shot up to number one in the UK charts, becoming Tamla Motown's 4th-best selling single ever, forcing Berry Gordy to capitulate and put out a re-mixed version in time for Christmas, where it too held the number one spot in America, over the Christmas period.
The UK single used the stereo version from Make It Happen (the mono version of the album had a different lead vocal), whereas the US re-mix was derived from the mono album with newly recorded extra drum parts, and was newly mixed again in stereo for the 1971 album One Dozen Roses, meaning there at least four different iterations of the record.