My grandfather Joseph Shipley was one of the most special people in my life. He was an academic who wrote books on the origins of the English language, on English itself, and on literature, especially drama and poetry. He had been many times the President of the prestigious New York Drama Critic Circle, and even when not President, for 20 years while he visited London every year he was considered its Honorary Overseas Member, which rewarded him free tickets to almost any play in London - while he usually took my grandmother, I went to many of those too. If you enter the name Joseph T. Shipley into Amazon you'll still see many of his books selling second-hand. His Guide to Great Plays (though it stopped covering modern plays in the early 1980s) is a gem. In this song I describe word games we used to play together. His book Word Play, which describes the word games he invented, was dedicated to me, stating that I had played many of them first as his guinea pig.
In the song picture, you see him I would imagine sometime in the 1930s or 1940s as during those decades he was the head of the English department at Yeshiva University, New York, a college he helped found. As you see in the picture, he would often walk his immigrant and oftentimes prior juvenile delinquent students around New York, discussing its architecture, art, and history of literature. He reviewed plays for New York public station WEVD. I just looked up that station on Wiki and learned that its initials stood for Eugene V. Debs, the socialist party leader, and indeed the station itself was owned by the Socialist Party of America, which I had never been aware of. He also reviewed plays in the 1920s for the journal The New Leader, also apparently a socialist rag, something I was not aware of either until now.
He was himself from a Quaker family (my Jewish grandmother's second husband, so I did not descend from him, but her first husband, my mother's biological dad, abandoned his wife early and also died a youngish man). I had not been informed that he was not actually my biological grandfather until my 20s, I believe because he was worried about the effect this information might have upon our relationship while I was a child (it would not have mattered one iota). I remember him telling me that both William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, and Abraham Lincoln, were ancestors of his, which would often invite ridicule when he mentioned this in school, as this was a common boast among children, but he maintained it was true. I have often, as a non-religious Jew, experienced a kinship with the Quakers, who were themselves persecuted in a way known well by Jews. Many were outcast, beaten and hung in the United States for their beliefs that God could be experienced directly without religious leaders, that women should obtain the same education as men, and that slavery was evil (and actively maintaining an underground railroad).
He was a gentle soul, often seen looking out of the window while writing his books, or sitting on a bench in the garden below in contemplation. I often did my homework at his desk, as the song explains. The first few lines of the song recall our times when I lived in Paris, and he was only visiting for a short while from New York with my grandmother.. But when my family moved to London when I was 10, my grandparents bought the lease for the flat below us, so they were just downstairs maybe five months a year when they were not in their New York flat, greatly enhancing my experience of an extended family. He taught me to swim, to bike, he was really a very significant father figure in many ways. He introduced me to poetry and to great novels, urging me to read them even if I did poorly in school, which was often the case. And during my many years of failing school, he was patient with me, encouraging me to work quietly and with diligence at my writing, math or history. This song is therefore in memory of him.
lyrics
Gramps by Puppeteer (C)2023
We looked down on the slow-moving train
And the river barge gliding down the Seine
We conjured up vignettes that they told
Tearing warm baguettes in the cold
We walked playing our games
Guessing the roots of names
On every storefront sign
Those were the roots of mine
The roots that bind
And that remind
Two runner beans from the same vine
Mom sent me to do homework by your fire
Where the smell of old tattered books might inspire
While you scrawled prose about Shakespeare's verse
Would it end the curse of addiction to the pop universe?
I always exclaimed what's the point?
Yet too ashamed to disappoint
I felt so small and alone
Yet you held me like a precious stone
You'd led delinquent students
Through the streets of New York
Helping them choose the right fork
Why do I write this arduous song?
If I've something to say why do its words take so long?
Struggling in vain to flesh out one you've loved
As a juvenile, lightning coursing through the blood
You were a sacred scribe
A love of sounds and rhymes hard to describe
An alchemist with every word
A call stirred to brandish language like a sword
A door was swung
When I was young
A song upon my tongue
credits
released January 5, 2023
song written by, sung by, and played by puppeteer
published globally by cdbaby; performance rights via bmi; copyright 2023 by u.s. copyright office.
who is puppeteer? i grew up of American parents in Paris and London. i became a psychologist by career, remaining a music
obsessive, writing songs when i could on bits of paper. raising a family prevented creative outlet of that nature. now, as a divorced skeleton, i spend time when i can writing and recording for this collection of songs, entitled Songs of Love and Earth....more
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