Night and Day

Also the title of Joe Jackson's 1982 album. His most commercially successful, contained the hits Steppin' Out (#6 in the US and UK charts--his highest charting single in the US) and Breaking Us In Two (#18 US, #59 UK) as well as:

• Another World
• Chinatown
• T.V. Age
• Target
• Cancer
• Real Men
• A Slow Song

The album is designed to have the feel of 24 hours in New York City. It was written after Joe got divorced and moved from England to New York. The album's title is of course inspired by the above Cole Porter song, with the first side representing "Day" and the second "Night" (remember when albums had sides?) and the music itself was a radical departure from Joe's first two albums, (Look Sharp! and I'm The Man), with Joe eschewing his New Wave pop-punk stylings for a mellower blend of jazz, salsa, and pop, with no guitars except for Graham Maby's bass guitar. This music was actually far closer to Joe's interests and influences than his earlier work.

I think this is an essential album. It's beautifully recorded, and is a significant part of '80s pop--the absence of guitar makes it fit in well with the keyboard-driven pop music that was becoming popular at the time, even though it was of a different genre than that music. As well as being incredibly successful it's one of Joe's best--good enough that he released a sequel in Fall of 2000.

This album was also released as an Ultradisc by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab.

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A Child's Garden of Verses (1885)
by
Robert Louis Stevenson

Night and Day

When the golden day is done,

Through the closing portal,
Child and garden, Flower and sun,

Vanish all things mortal.

As the blinding shadows fall

As the rays diminish,
Under evening's cloak they all

Roll away and vanish.

Garden darkened, daisy shut,

Child in bed, they slumber--
Glow-worm in the hallway rut,

Mice among the lumber.

In the darkness houses shine,

Parents move the candles;
Till on all the night divine

Turns the bedroom handles.

Till at last the day begins

In the east a-breaking,
In the hedges and the whins

Sleeping birds a-waking.

In the darkness shapes of things,

Houses, trees and hedges,
Clearer grow; and sparrow's wings

Beat on window ledges.

These shall wake the yawning maid;

She the door shall open--
Finding dew on garden glade

And the morning broken.

There my garden grows again

Green and rosy painted,
As at eve behind the pane

From my eyes it fainted.

Just as it was shut away,

Toy-like, in the even,
Here I see it glow with day

Under glowing heaven.

Every path and every plot,

Every blush of roses,
Every blue forget-me-not

Where the dew reposes,

"Up!" they cry, "the day is come

On the smiling valleys:
We have beat the morning drum;

Playmate, join your allies!"

---

Public domain text taken from The Poets’ Corner:
http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/rls03.html#1

---

CST Approved

A play by Tom Stoppard, dealing with the role of the media and how far they should get involved in the pursuit of a story.

It is set in an African country called Kambawe. Dick Wagner (not like the composer) the journalist and George Guthrie the photographer are both veterans of trouble spots. Like every other reporter in Kambawe they are trying to find out what is going on and get to the action; but they are scooped by an anonymous young correspondent.

They arrive at the house of the Carsons. Geoffrey Carson runs the mines for the Kambawe government, but the mines are in danger of being overrun by the rebels. Wagner discovers that the wife Ruth Carson was someone he had a fling with in London.

The anonymous reporter turns out to be Jacob Milne, who also appears at the Carson house now. He had to be anonymous because he had been fired for strike-breaking, and Wagner suddenly starts berating him in militant unionist terms. But Milne is the only one with access to the rebels and they have to cooperate to get their story.

Night and Day premièred at the Phoenix Theatre in London on 8 November 1978, starring Diana Rigg as Ruth and John Thaw as Wagner.