For a Dancer

Author Iain Banks (or Iain M. Banks, if you're a sci-fi reader) died this week.  He had been "officially Very Poorly" for just a couple of months. I've always felt a certain affinity for Banks, as we are exactly the same age, and he was my first literary "discovery"; that is, a contemporary I felt I had identified and claimed for myself  from the slush-pile of books published in 1984, despite the negative reactions of the reviewers.  Easily done, as I, too, had a thing about wasps at the time.

People can be teachers and idiots; they can be philosophers and idiots; they can be politicians and idiots... in fact I think they have to be... A genius can be an idiot. The world is largely run for and by idiots; it is no great handicap in life and in certain areas is actually a distinct advantage and even a prerequisite for advancement.
Iain Banks, The Crow Road

Iain chose Jackson Browne's "For a Dancer" as his second record on Desert Island Discs, and also as an "inheritance track" on Radio 4's Saturday Live.  It's a personal favourite of mine, too; there is really nothing more to say about our existence and its mystery than Browne says in this beautiful song.  Though there's no harm in keeping on having a go, is there?

It's also the time of year when some of us remember John Wilson, and "For a Dancer" is for you, too.

Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown,
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own,
And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive,
But you'll never know...