Dewi Morris died today, also known as dewi pws. what a songwriter, genius he was. he wrote a song called Lleucu Llwyd – all in welsh language his output – in the late 60s which other artists covered thinking it was a trad tune. what greater compliment can a songwriter have ? He wrote ‘Rhywun wedi dwyn fy nhrwyn, Ie Ie na fe, Mynd nol i Flaenau Ffestiniog, Nwy yn y Nen’, all classics. That was with Y Tebot Piws, then as if that wasn’t enough he followed that band with the 70s rock group Edward H.Dafis….they produced more amazing tunes : Lisa Pant Ddu, Y Nos a Ni, Ti, Dewch at eich Gilydd, all of his composition. so sad that he’s gone, i feel lonelier now. To give you who are not familiar with him some idea of his staus, the passing of this guy , if the equivalent happened in the english speaking world, would be like the passing of McCartney, Lennon and Burt Bacharach rolled into one.

well, to me it is.

I worked with him on the welsh sketch show Giamocs in 1994 – if one can term it ‘work’, writing and producing ideas in a room – So yes i got to meet him. He was unapologetically sexist in his humour. He was a man of many faces, an excellent actor, a charismatic performer, a brilliant poet, a humorist. But i will always think of his songs, and always come back to them, his exceptional talent shone through them. He produced them through to the end of his life, but his stuff up until the early 80s is what kept my interest in welsh culture alive.

when i was in school welsh lessons with mr John Evans could be dry…old poems on the walls, posters with academic names, books with complex meters. Then , one day, i open a text book, a welsh text book, and i read this amazing spike milliganesque poem called Ti – which means ‘you’ – it blew me away. It was a love poem but at the same time a surreal, funny thing, a series of metaphors, of comparisons both poetic and silly: you are Polly Parrot who lives with Uncle John, you are the crumbs from welsh cakes, you are the Pakistani who drives the bus to town….

Politically correct now ? I don’t think so, but yes a poem written in 1973, and maybe today some people would skip it, the contemporary radio cymru plastic Huw Stevens lot, the Griffs and the Sali Mali Cachis, those for whom contemporary welsh music started with Jarman, everything before being a load of crap. Fuckin idiots! But that poem sparked some life in my dying enthusiasm for the old language. I understood it, it made me laugh, made me wonder. and i am certain that Dewi’s work did the same for many young welsh people. For this, if nothing else, DP is in the pantheon of greats.

Torri Gwynt was S4c’s attempt at the Kenny Everett Video Show, (torri gwynt meaning ‘breaking wind’), Dewi seemed to have a monopoly on anarchic comedy in 80s welsh TV> and even though it wasn’t, for me, a classic i do have many good memories, many evenings, many cold rainy nights of laughter, of smiling, of doing this in my own old language. S4C gave us something that wasn’t there before its existance.

when i listen to some of the songs off Sneb yn Becso Dam – y breuddwyd, n ol i’r dechre, cylchoedd o few cylchoedd, Sengl Tragwyddol – the brilliant proper welsh lyrics, ‘proper’ welsh yet accessible to my young mind. Dewi’s songs took the language seriously, took the audience for them seriously. Brilliant intelligent songs that don’t pander to commercialism. The welsh lyrics in them are of the highest standard. He’s like a troubador from the middle ages, he came back and now he’s gone again. From Llangyfelach he came, when there were welsh speakers living there…just down the road from me.