The Song of the Bed

A third of our lives are spent in bed

As we kick off our week, there are those of us who wish we could stay in bed a little longer. I’ve actually been on a mission to buy a new bed of late. I’ve been researching beds and there are several interesting types to chose from: Japanese cotton-batting beds, tempurpedic with cooling pillow tops, and expensive European models like Hasten and Duxiana. Duxiana’s current tagline for their DUX bed is, “High Performance Sleep Systems”. Seems a bit much for a bed–it’s a mattress, not a Ferrari!

However, this all reminds me of a talented Chilean born musician named Ludar. He had a touching song from the early 90s called, “The Song of the Bed” based on the poem by James Broughton. With his song, he reminds us that we spend one-third of our lives in beds, so I now take Ludar’s words to heart in my shopping quest! A mattress is a noun and an object. A bed is a metaphor suggesting more complicated things.

Ludar was a singer-songwriter living and working in Los Angeles with a devoted and dedicated audience. He played smaller clubs and was a captivating performer. He also wrote touching and tasteful music and later worked with a copacetic lyricist and poet, the late James Broughton. Ludar released several albums before he died of AIDS in the early 1990s before antiretrovirals were available. “The Song of the Bed” was from the 1993 album, The Broughton Songs. It was comprised of 13 songs that were based on Broughton’s poems. The album seems difficult to find now and Amazon is currently only selling it on cassette. The full album is available for listening here and a segment is at the end of the post. It’s a nice listen.

While not sung by Ludar, here is a narration of James Broughton’s witty and touching poem with lyrics below.

Song of the Bed

O everything important in life

occurs upon a bed.

It’s where you cry when you are born

and where you lie when dead.

You spend a third of your life in bed

with sickness, sex and sleeping.

You can have a good laugh with your love in bed

though it’s also used for weeping.

In a bed the most fantastic things

are hoped for and conceived.

It’s where you dream, it’s where you scheme,

and where you are deceived.

It’s where on earth you come to birth

and most of childhood spend.

Its where you come and where you don’t

and where you come to an end.

Here is a segment of the Ludar album, The Broughton Songs. Go to 8:42 to hear “Song of the Bed”. The full album is broken out across 3 videos here.