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Other newspapers’ nicknames for her — the California nightingale, the California skylark — were not just about her immense vocal range, but about the wonder and novelty that California, of all places, could claim such a woman.

Just as the familiar tune “In the Hall of the Mountain King” gradually builds speed “accelerando,” as the compositional notation is known, some birdsong does too, like that of the nightingale.

“The bird said...It doesn’t make a lot of sense. She said, ‘The nightingale makes them bleed, makes them pay.’

I wonder if even Janet Malcolm might have given a pass to this devoted biographer and his own bow to a nightingale.

"He knew the hardship of farmers in the 1920s and 30s but he knew it was also incredibly beautiful; there was an amazing wild profusion of yellowhammers, nightingales, linnets, that are a rare sight today."