People (well, a person, but still) asked about the incidental music in my recent episode on Mothers and Milk. It is my interpretation of one of the Child ballads, No. 40, The Queen of Elfan’s Nourice. How we got there is a bit of a roundabout story.

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Perhaps I am borderline obsessive,¹ but I’m always struck when I send an email to somebody, don’t get a reply within, say, a week, send a follow up and then get ”Sorry about that! Went to my spam.” My spam filter is simply glorious, but that doesn’t mean it catches everything, nor that everything...

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It isn’t a good idea to complain that someone else hasn’t treated some topic in the way you would have treated it. Nevertheless, I want to put down a marker. I listened to two podcasts this week each of which, in my opinion, left a big question unasked.

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Music in podcasts is one of those divisive topics on which few people agree. My own view is that most American shows have far too much music for my taste, and that my own episodes have too little. I'm not talking about continuous soundbeds, as done so well by Benjamen Walker. I'd never even try that. No, I'm talking about a bit of music to set the scene, mark transitions and, where possible, maybe heighten the narrative, but that is darned hard work.

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It is done. A year and a month, because holiday, after starting to bring old posts back on a daily basis, the job is finished. I wrote a bit recently about what the endeavour meant to me and about some of the ways in which I might take it forward, but there are other things I maybe need to think about too.

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