Leon Rosselson Song Catalogue
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My Daughter, My Son

A song dealing with the fears and over-protection of parents, who see the world as an endless series of dangers for their children (and curtail play time accordingly). Recorded very solemnly, the song appeared on 1983's Temporary Loss of Vision but was written earlier, having already appeared in sheet music in 1981.

Since Leon had been a father since the mid-1960s, the song is no doubt self-referential on some level, although Leon states that inspiration for the song is from Boris Vian's story, L'Arrache-cœur, which includes a sub-plot in which a mother imprisons her children in a cage to protect them from harm.

The song concludes with a clever twist on "son" and "daughter": "Where is the sun and where is the door to the garden".

"I borrowed the idea for this song from a playlet, based on a story by Boris Vian, which I saw in a Paris night club."  -  LR (sleevenotes to Guess What They're Selling at the Happiness Counter, 1992)

“It was in the 1960s that I began listening to French songwriters... I remember in one of the [Paris venues] an evening devoted to the writings of ‘the Prince of St Germain’ songwriter, jazz trumpeter, poet, novelist Boris Vian. It enacted scenes from his surrealist novel ‘L’arrache-coeur’ and that sparked off, years later, the song ‘My Daughter My Son’.”  -  LR (sleevenotes to The World Turned Upside Down (CD box set), p12-13)


Recordings

Version 1 (1983)  
  • Temporary Loss of Vision
  • Guess What They're Selling at the Happiness Counter

Cover version (2005)  By Sandra Kerr
  • And They All Sang Rosselsongs 


Sheet music

  • For the Good of the Nation     p52
  • Bringing the News from Nowhere     p238


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