Monday, June 18, 2012

Music Monday ~ LIVING TWICE

As the finale of Mad Men's current season drew to a close a week ago we heard this:



A nice version of the music alone:



Matthew Weiner likes to close Mad Men episodes with songs of the period his series depicts, and a theme relevant to the episode. This song, from 1967, fitted the season's timeline exactly. I guess it was meant to leave fans mulling over how each character had lived their lives and their dreams throughout the season just gone - and how that had worked for them.
You Only Live Twice or so it seems,
One life for yourself and one for your dreams.
You drift through the years and life seems tame,
Till one dream appears and love is its name.
And love is a stranger who'll beckon you on,
Don't think of the danger or the stranger is gone.
This dream is for you, so pay the price.
Make one dream come true, you only live twice.
And love is a stranger who'll beckon you on,
Don't think of the danger or the stranger is gone.

Most Mad Men fans, and others, will recognise it as title song from the James Bond film of the same name. The title is a quote from Ian Fleming's book You Only Live Twice: “You only live twice: Once when you're born and once when you look death in the face.” The lyrics took a gentler turn!

You Only Live Twice is a lovely melody with sweet, simple lyrics. John Barry (Sun Scorpio/Moon Taurus) wrote the music, Leslie Bricusse (Sun Aquarius/Moon Gemini) wrote the lyrics. Two Englishmen, the first named born in York, second born in London. I looked at their charts and noted that there's a nice link in the conjunction of Bricusse's Sun and Barry's Saturn (business/work) at 8 and 10 Aquarius. Natal Venus (music) in both charts is in Sagittarius at 21 and 26 degrees - so also close enough to be considered conjoined. The pair, along with Anthony Newley also wrote the theme for another Bond movie, Goldfinger.

John Barry died in January 2011. Leslie Bricusse is still with us, aged 81.





While You Only Live Twice is considered to be within that much denigrated genre "middle-of-the-road" aka "easy listening", its quality is far beyond most other pieces of that ilk. Over the years it has been covered by artists/bands as diverse as Soft Cell, Coldplay, Björk, Dame Shirley Bassey, Cee-Lo Green, Little Anthony & the Imperials, among others.



Closing thought from Mae West; I agree with her sentiment ~
“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

4 comments:

  1. great post as always...and Happy Birthday today to Paul McCartney...he turned 70....time flies huh?!

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  2. DC ~~~ Many thanks!
    Yes, Happy Birthday to Paul McC.
    I considered "doing" him for today's post, but decided he already gets more than enough attention.

    Then I started a post on Alison Moyet - Happy Birthday to her also, but scrapped it for reasons I can't remember.

    It would also have been the b'day of Jeanette Macdonald - a name from past (long past) movie musicals....she usually partnered with Nelson Eddie.
    :-)

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  3. Interesting choices of Geminis...Nancy included.

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  4. DC ~~~ Oooh yes - I forgot Nancy - how could I? Daughter of my greatest musical idol, and she sang the song which spawned the post. Must have been "up too close". :-)

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