Music Monday ~ Unsettling

What is the most unsettling song that you've ever listened to? A question posed some time ago at Quora. I didn't answer it, but pondered on it for a post today, came up with three songs I've always found to be unsettling.


Strange Fruit sung by Billie Holiday.






Wikipedia

Written by teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem and published in 1937, it protested American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Such lynchings had reached a peak in the South at the turn of the century, but continued there and in other regions of the United States. According to the Tuskegee Institute, 1,953 Americans were murdered by lynching, about three quarters of them black. The lyrics are an extended metaphor linking a tree’s fruit with lynching victims. Meeropol set it to music and, with his wife and the singer Laura Duncan, performed it as a protest song in New York City venues in the late 1930s, including Madison Square Garden.

Southern trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop

Farmer in the City written and sung by Scott Walker.

The first song of Scott Walker’s seminal album, Tilt. With a mixture of haunting vocals and orchestral music, Walker chilling envisions Pier Paolo Pasolini’s death. ... "Farmer in the City"
"Farmer in the City", is subtitled "Remembering Pasolini". A few of the lyrics are appropriated from Norman Macafee's English translation of Pier Paolo Pasolini's poem, "Uno dei Tanti Epiloghi" ("One of the Many Epilogs"), which was written in 1969 for Pasolini's friend and protégé, the scruffy young nonprofessional actor, Ninetto Davoli. Throughout the song, Walker's chant of "Do I hear 21, 21, 21...? I'll give you 21, 21, 21...", may be a reference to Davoli's age when he was drafted into (and subsequently deserted from) the Italian army. (Wikipedia)

Lyrics are here:

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/scottwalker/farmerinthecity.html

Pumped up Kicks - Foster the People

The song was written and recorded by fron-tman Mark Foster while he was working as a commercial jingle writer. Contrasting with the upbeat musical composition, the lyrics describe the homicidal thoughts of a troubled youth.
The lyrics to "Pumped Up Kicks" are written from the perspective of a troubled and delusional youth with homicidal thoughts. The lines in the chorus warn potential victims to "outrun my gun" and that they "better run, better run, faster than my bullet."

Foster said in a statement to CNN.com, "I wrote 'Pumped Up Kicks' when I began to read about the growing trend in teenage mental illness. I wanted to understand the psychology behind it because it was foreign to me. It was terrifying how mental illness among youth had skyrocketed in the last decade. I was scared to see where the pattern was headed if we didn't start changing the way we were bringing up the next generation." In writing the song, Foster wanted to "get inside the head of an isolated, psychotic kid" and "bring awareness" to the issue of gun violence among youth, which he feels is an epidemic perpetuated by "lack of family, lack of love, and isolation " The song's title refers to shoes that the narrator's peers wear as a status symbol.
The issue of youth violence is a matter close to the group. Foster was bullied in high school, while bassist Cubbie Fink has a cousin who survived the Columbine High School massacre in 1999.

The issue of youth violence is a matter close to the group. Foster was bullied in high school, while bassist Cubbie Fink has a cousin who survived the Columbine High School massacre in 1999. (Wikipedia)

Robert's got a quick hand
He'll look around the room, he won't tell you his plan
He's got a rolled cigarette, hanging out his mouth he's a cowboy kid
Yeah found a six shooter gun
In his dad's closet hidden oh in a box of fun things, I don't even know what
But he's coming for you, yeah he's coming for you

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, out run my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, out run my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet

Daddy works a long day
He be coming home late, he's coming home late
And he's bringing me a surprise
'Cause dinner's in the kitchen and it's packed in ice
I've waited for a long time
Yeah the slight of my hand is now a quick pull trigger
I reason with my cigarette
And say your hair's on fire, you must have lost your wits, yeah

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, out run my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, out run my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, out run my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, out run my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, out run my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet

Songwriter: Mark Foster.

WHO IS IT?.......COULD IT BE.....?

This photograph was among a small collection of mixed old snapshots, cabinet cards and other photos my husband bought on a recent antique store trawl. There's a bigger version of it available on his Flickr page, together with a long string of comments from viewers, all surmising whether the woman might possibly be.......guess who? Lady Day: Billie Holiday? Husband researched the approximate date of the photograph using style of beer bottle labels shown in the photo, and puts it at around 1951.



As I commented at Flickr I'm not 100% convinced, it'd seem too good to be true that such a photograph would be lying around in a pile of old pics in an antique store in Clinton, Oklahoma, a town of less than 10,000 population on what was once the famous Route 66. Someone had thought it a photograph worth shooting though, either because the subject(s) was/were somebody well-known, or somebody who looked like somebody well-known, or because somebody who looked like somebody well-known was with somebody famous or......

The collection of photographs, possibly purchased by the store owner or or owner of a booth in the store, at an estate sale might have originally belonged to someone in the newspaper business, I guess, or it could simply have been a souvenir of a jazz fan. Anyway, the pic has initiated much Google-driven research.

Husband also has the photograph and some further detail up on his Lost Gallery pages, as well as in yesterday's post at his Thinks Happen blog, post titled A Familiar Face - or not?
There are dozens of photographs of Billie online, mostly studio or publicity poses though. Two examples:




As pointed out in Flickr comments: To further complicate things, not all Billie Holiday photographs look like Billie Holiday. Comparing album covers and promo shots, one might think that there were several people with that name.
Another "clue"....there's a photograph of Billie's fur stole, similar to the one in the photograph, preserved for posterity HERE.

An old post of mine touching on Billie Holiday's natal chart, for any passing reader interested is at
Magical Bonds: Billie Holiday ~ Lester Young

The mystery photograph will remain a mystery for all time, I guess, unless someone at some point sees it here, or more likely on Flickr, and recognises something about it that is decisive one way or another; it's unlikely to be the only shot taken at the time, maybe it was one of a set, or the best of a set. There could be others, similar, around somewhere with, perhaps, detail of who, when, where.

More views of the lady herself are shown in this video as she sings: One For My Baby (& one more for the road)"

MAGICAL BONDS: Billie Holiday~Lester Young

My husband patiently feeds me tidbits of jazz history from time to time, hoping that I'll abandon my Philistine attitude toward this musical genre. We watched a DVD of an old TV special, "The Sound of Jazz", the other night, and there began my investigation of a couple of characters whose contribution to jazz has turned out to be no less than iconic: Billie Holiday and Lester Young.

There was a legendary bond between these two artists. She a vocalist, he a tenor saxophone player. Whether the bond originated as a failed romance isn't clear, but it endured as a lifelong close platonic friendship, and a magical musical rapport. Young nicknamed Holiday "Lady Day"; her nickname for him was "Prez".

"Young's sax playing is the horn equivalent to Holiday's voice; melancholy, melodic, and understated. Prez could dance solos around Holiday as well as he could support her when she delivered her own musical soliloquy. They seemed to anticipate the others movements just before they happened. Their musical lines flitted and flapped around one another, and occasionally they flew side by side." (HERE, and more from this link at end of post.)

Both were addicts, she a slave to heroin, he to alcohol. Both died far too soon, she at age 44, he at 49.

"If hot jazz was defined by Louis Armstrong in the 1920s, then the lyrical side of jazz found its perfect exponents in Billie Holiday and Lester Young during the 1930s and 1940s. Their collaborations revealed a different side of the jazz art form. Here we can savor emotion without cheap sentimentality, simplicity without simple-mindedness, a force of expression that is achieved through restraint and understatement. In the long lineage of cool jazz, we constantly find the creative bursts coming at us through the work of couples -- Bix & Tram, Miles & Gil, Getz & Gilberto -- almost as if music this sensitive required some sort of magnetic, mutual attraction, an exemplary pairing to make it possible. Call it a musical romance, if you will. But at the top of the hierarchy, our First Lady (Day) and Pres of the democracy of cool jazz are Billie and Lester. "
Reviewer: Ted Gioia

Any dedicated astrology buff will immediately wonder whether the magical bond between these two icons can be identified in their natal charts. Let's see!

Billie Holiday was born on 7 April 1915 in Harlem, New York, at 2.30am


(Astrodatabank)

Lester Young was born on 27 August 1909 in Woodville Mississippi. No time of birth known (12 noon chart used below).


Her Aries Sun and his Virgo Sun wouldn't immediately lead one to see a basic compatibility - Aries a fiery leader, impulsive and impetuous, Virgo a nitpicking perfectionist. Young's Virgo Sun has Mars in Aries in a scratchy quincunx aspect - he aimed at perfection in all things but was often de-railed by an urge to take risks (mainly with his health). His natal Mercury and Jupiter in Virgo are also in awkward quincunx with Saturn in Aries. While these Aries planets brought about his risk-taking and ability to play with spontaneity as well as perfection, they also provided an unhelpful edge to his inner personality.


The main link between these two artists is their Capricorn Moons. Exact degree in Young's case can't be established without his birth time, but Moon would lie between 9 and 23 degrees of Capricorn in his chart. It's more than likely to have been close enough to Holiday's Moon to be termed conjoined (within around 6 degrees). This provides a clear emotional bond and understanding of one another.

Holiday's 4 planets in Pisces (Mercury/Mars/Jupiter/Venus) soften her Aries-ness quite a lot, and draw in the emotional, almost psychic, appeal she had. Young's Virgo planets oppose her Pisces placements - and though the two signs are very different, this powerful multi-stranded opposition must have brought about a fine balance of perfection and emotional intensity, rather than discord, at least in their professional lives.

In general terms then, their bond came from shared Capricorn Moon, and dynamic tension between Virgo, Pisces, and Aries (perfection, emotion and spontaneity).

There's a clip from "The Sound of Jazz" at YouTube which shows the number described below - Billie Holiday sang "Fine and Mellow" acompanied by several sax players in turn. Lester Young's contribution comes at around 2.35 mins. into the clip.

"Prez, who had wrecked his body with alcohol, was in such ill health he couldn't stand for the duration of the six-minute song. Holiday launched into the song and each sax man took a turn. Gerry Mulligan was first and played a solo in double-time. Webster was next, blowing a beautiful, breathy chorus. And then it was time for Prez.

When it was Young's turn he wearily stood up, and locked eyes with Holiday as she sang a song with lines like "Love is like a faucet / It turns off and on". As Lady Day sang, Prez hit every note exactly in time with her and they took off like two eagles riding an air current as they rose higher and higher, way out of that studio and those television sets, circling around each other, Prez blowing the notes that sustained her as if he was the body to her soul, and then they came together in mid-air, as mating eagles will, and plummeted hundreds of feet earthward together, before breaking off and flying their separate ways.

People in the control booth had tears in their eyes. It was the swan song of a bittersweet affection. After the show, the two had some brief backstage conversation and then they bid goodbye. They each had less than two years to live. Prez would die alone in a New York hotel, his body finally calling it quits. Not long after that, Holiday would be arrested on her deathbed for heroin possession.

Young's sax playing is the horn equivalent to Holiday's voice; melancholy, melodic, and understated. Prez could dance solos around Holiday as well as he could support her when she delivered her own musical soliloquy. They seemed to anticipate the others movements just before they happened. Their musical lines flitted and flapped around one another, and occasionally they flew side by side. "

That is some purple prose!! I prefer my husband's simpler take on "Fine & Mellow". This comes from a 4-page article he wrote about "The Sound of Jazz" around 12 years ago (for any passing reader who is also a jazz fan, the full version is in the archives of Thinks Happen, here)

"The studio lighting is reduced dramatically to illuminate just Billie and a small group of musicians. She sings "Fine and Mellow" accompanied by a few members of the band and, for this number only, the addition of Lester Young, tenor sax. Holiday and Young, both alumni of Basie's earliest bands, were said to have been quite close in those days.

She is completely at ease in this setting. In the opening shot of her singing, her face is like a cameo etched from the darkness of the studio. Billie sings her phrases and then listens to the accompanying horn solos as if the musicians were speaking love to her, and indeed they might have been. She smiles during Young's solo, her half-lidded eyes convey her approval and maybe betray some secrets.....
Billie ends her number with a wry phrase, "Sometimes when you think it's on baby, it has turned off and gone", and a wry smile to match. She makes you sure she is speaking to someone in particular."