Rod Mckuen was, at one time, one of the best selling poets in the United States of America. However, he was far more than that. He wrote and performed songs, wrote classical music and composed numerous film scores. I first came across his songs in about 1969 and I can't actually remember how. I know I bought several LPs and can remember that in 1971 he had a series of shows on BBC.

His poems inspired me. He wrote in simple language, of simple feelings and I could relate to them. Many of the poems I subsequently wrote were, in some way, as a result of reading and enjoying his works.

In the 1970s I went to two of his London shows, seeing him live at the Albert Hall being particularly memorable. During the 1980s and 90s he suffered seriously from depression and didn't perform much at all but in late 1998 he suddenly reappeared with a dedicated website. New poems were there along with familiar old ones.

At the time I was planning another of my learning journeys and, along with a couple of questions, I wrote to his “Ask Rod” section. I never expected a reply let alone a published one. We kept in touch by email for a few years and, as you may know, the journey never happened........yet. In fact one of the things he wrote to me when I told him it looked unlikely to happen way back in 2002 was a quote that I have seen partly elsewhere since. It was simply, “Even genius fails. The difference between him and us is that he tries again or goes in a different direction. If you don't give up, I promise you will do your journey. The wine of wandering is being left to mature and you have many more bridges to cross”.

Rod McKuen died in 2015 at the age of 81. He lived a great life. His poetry, that I so loved, was not to the liking of the arty farty critics who never took it seriously and were able to condemn it in language that only an academic could understand, or possible claim to understand. The masses, we ordinary people, understood his words perfectly.

This first song was on that first LP I bought. Having lived in London for six years of my childhood with the Piccadilly tube line running past the bottom of my garden, I liked the idea of the lighted row of windows running around the room. I also was drawn to likening my childhood to a clothesline maze and subsequently growing like a vine. He spoke to me.

I always felt a loner, someone who was different. It is only in the last ten years that I have learned that I knew more when I was 13 than for the following 50. The very first line of the first song I wrote went:-
I'm a loner but I'm not lonely.

In this song Rod McKuen says exactly how I felt for all those years. “Alone not lonely except when the dark comes on”, was me. I loved being on my own, free but my panic attacks, which usually happened at night, meant I spent all those years living with others to stop that fear.

The last eight or so years have been among the happiest of my life. I had many good times when with others but those good midnights certainly fell apart at dawn and oh how many people have muddled up my mind. Even now if I were to let them.

To give you some idea of how good Rod McKuen's song were, Frank Sinatra, yes that Frank Sinatra, recorded an entire of album of McKuen compositions.  it was released under the title A Man Alone: The Words and Music of Rod McKuen. The album featured the song "Love's Been Good to Me", which became one of McKuen's best-known songs and will be along next.

This song, sung by Rod, includes the line that he quoted to me in an email in about 2002. I always loved it but that made it even more special. The wine of wandering is always inside of me, bridges are made to be crossed and nothing can surpass being in the company of a genuinely, naturally, pretty woman, providing she has a personality that is just as pretty. Oats have been sowed and grown to full size people; I need no more.

As promised, “Love's Been Good To Me”. Again Rod has summed up my own life. Love has been good to me on several occasions. It didn't last, it didn't in any relationship fulfil the perfection I hoped for when it started. That is my fault as much as anyone else's.

Relationships, I have finally admitted, can not be enjoyed by romantic perfectionists. I suppose out there, somewhere, maybe that ideal person, the one who can fulfil every wish I have, every dream I have dreamt, but I am no longer looking. I am happy as me; alone but not lonely. Happy with my family, with my friends. Happy in all I do.

Well how naughty can I get? Another 2 for 1. Rod McKuen quite often translated the songs of others, notably the Belgium singer/songwriter Jacques Brel. You may know “Ne Me Quitter Pas” or “If You Go Away” and “Le Moribund” which McKuen translated as “Seasons in the Sun”. The word translated is probably not really correct because while he basically kept the melody, and often the basic idea of the lyric, the translation was pretty free.

This final song is another example and I really need you to not only hear the original, by Georges Moustaki but also read the very literal translation done with the help of a beautiful French woman I met in 2009. Apart from McKuen's version being over twice as long, he doesn't really stick to the same words.

However, the line, “what a waste it would have been, had I been anyone but me” should be discussed in every school. Young people, it seems, often feel worthless, are even told this or bullied by others to think this. They are not, Everyone has a worth and it is not for anyone to ruin your day and tell you their opinion. It would be a total waste if we were not who we are and we should all be very proud of that.

The fairly literal translation of Moustaki's song is as follows, adjusted marginally to scan and rhyme.

Having spent so many nights
Just sleeping on my own
I’ve made my loneliness my friend
Like the comfort of a home
She never, ever leaves my side
Faithful, like a robe
And follows me both here and there
To the corners of the globe

And no, I am never on my own
I have, my solitude

And when she’s sleeping in my bed
She takes up all the space
Together we lie through the night
In total silence, face to face
I really, truly cannot say
How far this thing can go
Should I be one to take the lead
Or wait for her and play it slow

And no, I am never on my own
I have, my solitude

Because of her I’ve learned so much
That I’ve been moved to cry
And if sometimes I leave her out
Her love, she never will deny
And if I would prefer the love
Of some new, different friend
I know that on my final day
She’ll be with me at the end

And no, I am never on my own
I have, my solitude

© Translation – Richard Rowland 2009 with thanks to Vincianne Lepetit