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(Car noise)
Male voice: "Here I am sitting on the porch, ringing up Junior, watching
the world go by."
Female voice: "We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee...."
(fades out as next line starts)
Male voice: "We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee,
in the time that I lived... (fades out as next line starts)
Female voice: "..in the time that I lived there so successfully disguised
to myself as a child."
Older male voice overlapping: "..so successfully disguised to myself as
a child."
(Female singing to acoustic guitar) It's getting to be that time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking gently, talking gently, watching the sky, lovers on the street. People go by; things go by. A loud car, quiet car.... (fades out gradually)
Overlaid on song:
Male voice: "Dear Mr Barber, this is intended to authorise you to use for
musical setting the text of Knoxville: Summer of 1915, or whatever portions
of it you may choose, very truly yours, James Agee.
Female voice starts just before end of music, plus sound of papers being sorted: "Here's the score of Knoxville, first performed by Eleanor Steber. She commissioned the work, it's a perfectly American piece."
Radio station ident and jingle: "107.7 WIVKFM and the official station of summer. The President will be talking family values with Vice President Al Gore this morning in Nashville."
Female voice: "Barber grew up in Westchester, a little town outside of Philadelphia, clapboard houses with porches and when you sit outside (station ident music fades out and car noise fades up) and it's quiet you don't have the same kind of noises that you have in the cities now.
Female voice: "James Agee, of course, as most everybody knows, is from Knoxville and I know his award winning books were based on life in Knoxville and we really owe him a lot for kind of putting Knoxville on the map, so to speak."
Male voice: "As mayor I work with a lot of different neighbourhood groups. This sense of neighbourhood, one-ness and unity is still very much alive. That's part of the strength of the city."
Male voice: " We're at the corner of 15th, or near the corner of 15th and Highland, standing roughly in front of the house that James Agee grew up in. James Agee's house was torn down in the early 1960s actually just before they filmed the movie "All the way home" which was based on the novel of every family in this neighbourhood, every house has a story of it's own."
(creaking door and slamming noise)
Female voice (singing): "Ba da dum, ba da da da da da ...(noise like a blind flapping or a metronome throughout). it's very much like rocking (gentle music starts in background) a child and it's very much like a rocking chair.."
Male voice: "da da da da da da da da da .. it's in a 12/8 rhythm .. da da da da da da da, almost falling asleep. (metronome noise stops) He occasionally wakes up from that and talks about other people but the whole thing is a dream...."
Overlaps with:
Female voice: "He captures from the outset the simplicity of a child's
chant... da da da dum ba dum da dum.. it's almost the kind of a chant that a
child would sing.."
Overlaps with:
Male voice: "It has become that time of evening when people sit on their
porches, rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street...."
Female voice overlaps: "You know this is the only recording I ever wore out. I listened to this constantly."
Female soprano sings: "It has become the time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street and the standing up into their sphere of possession …
…(EARLY OUT) …
..of the trees, of birds' hung havens, hangars...."
All overlaid with indistinct female voice talking.
Female voice: " .. and my musical response that summer of 1947 was immediate and intense and the year he described ..."
Overlaid with other female voice: "Mr Agee ... and I are....."
Female voice: "You see it expresses a child's feeling of loneliness and lack of identity in that marginal world between twilight and sleep."
Male voice: "It has become that time of evening when people sit on their porches rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street..."
Other male voice: "Barber
exuded class, he exuded style, he exuded.... " fades out.