I have over recent months been re-posting on this blog writing from another of mine where its focus on poetry, book reviews and similar was not a part of the main purpose which was music reviewing. That left-field source has nearly finished.

Another but more thematic alternative run of posts was about my hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, USA, though I moved away from there around the age of 10, initially to Germany and then a little later to here in England where I eventually stayed. Though leaving at such a young age, it has always surprised me how much the place and period then still seems to have impacted on me, perhaps more as a metaphor for change than memories of that time, though many of the latter as realities are fundamental to who I am today.

So I am going to re-post a selection of these, but ones mainly concerned with literary references to Omaha, most through poetry, but also some song and the like. The entire set of original postings included a wide range from advertising to film references to American football quarterback calls. Really.

This first brief post is from May 2011. It is interesting for me as I subsequently posted another ‘mention’ in 2012 but didn’t start the sustained run of references until 2014:

Omaha mention

One day I’ll compile a list of Omaha mentions in song, film and other. My place of birth. Prompted today by hearing a snippet of Ginsberg on Cerys Matthews’ BBC Radio 6 programme, so here’s an exerpt on the banjo and Nebraska:

…as the western Twang prophesied
thru banjo, when lone cowboy walked the railroad track
past an empty station toward the sun
sinking giant-bulbed orange down the box canyon –
Music strung over his back
and empty handed singing on this planet earth
I’m a lonely Dog, O Mother!
Come, Nebraska, sing & dance with me –
Come lovers of Lincoln and Omaha,
hear my soft voice at last

– Allen Ginsberg, from ‘Wichita Vortex Surta’