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.

Music Monday ~ Loosening Up!

It's good to see police officers "letting their hair down"- when they have any that is!


Here Are The 10 Best Police Officer Lip Sync Videos

Cops across America are challenging each other to sing and dance to pop songs.........


My own two favourites:




"Shake It Off"






"I Should've Been a Cowboy"

Music Monday ~ "...they try to sock it to ya...."

Joe South - I remember him only from a hit song he wrote from the late 1960s, with its interesting and ever-relevant lyrics: The Games People Play. The song's title was taken from a book by Eric Berne, a bestseller on the psychology of human relationships.

There's a full post about Joe South and his natal chart in an old post of mine HERE.

That old song often comes to mind when reading about Theresa May's Brexit fumbles and foibles. Is she playing games, running out the clock, gaming the dissenters to her Withdrawal Agreement until toes are over the cliff edge and that dreaded "crash out" is nigh? Or is she.......?

On this side of the Atlantic, our current president has his own favourite gaming table: Twitter! Also, it's more than likely that games are already being played, prior to the 2020 presidential election, to ensure that anyone daring to voice policies even a smidgen left of establishment Democrat line (which, translated, means conservative) will never bask in the sunlight of media celebrity, but be constantly ignored, criticised or dismissed as "socialists". Socialist, a term which describes nobody currently on the list of candidates, and probably no more than a few dozen individuals in the whole of the USA! The word 'socialist', even though most don't understand its meaning, has gathered the same kind of horror here as 'leper' had in biblical times. ("Unclean, unclean!").

For this Music Monday, I was about to post Joe South's own rendition of his song, when I noticed this exuberant old version of it by Engelbert Humperdinck (now 82), Tom Jones (now 78) and Billy Preston (who, sadly, died in 2006 aged 59). Joe South, the song's writer died in 2012, aged 72.




Oh the games people play now
every night and every day now
never meaning what they say now
and never saying what they mean
while they while away the hours
in their ivory towers
till they're covered up in flowers
in the back of a black limousine

la da la da da da da,
I'm a talkin' about you and me
and the games people play

You know we make one another cry
we break our hearts and we say goodbye
we cross our hearts and we hope to die
that the other was to blame
we need a woman that will give in
so we gaze at our eight by ten
wanderin' 'bout the things
that might have been
and it's a dirty rotten shame

[chorus]

People walkin' up to ya
singing glory haleuajah
and they try to sock it to ya
in the name of the Lord
they're goin' to teach ya how to meditate
read your horoscope and cheat your fate
furthermore to hell with hate
c'mon and get on board

[chorus]

Look around tell me what you see
what's happening to you and me
God grant me the serenity
to remember who I am
cause you've given up your sanity
for your pride and your vanity
you turn your back on humanity
and you don't give a damn da da da......

Music Monday ~ Controversially Cold Outside

I guess Frank Loesser would be horrified if he knew the controversy his award winning song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is causing on the internet these days.

Wikipedia:

Baby, It's Cold Outside" is a popular song written by Frank Loesser in 1944. It is a call and response duet in which a host, usually performed by a male voice, tries to convince a guest, usually performed by a female voice, that she should stay the evening because the weather is cold and the trip home would be difficult. While the lyrics make no mention of any holiday, it is popularly regarded as a Christmas song due to its winter theme.

Loesser wrote the song for his wife and himself to perform at parties. He sold the song to MGM, which used it for the 1949 film Neptune's Daughter. It was sung by Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalbán and won the Academy Award. Since 1949 it has been covered by many singers, including Ray Charles, Michael Bublé, Sir Tom Jones, and Dolly Parton.

Another version of the song, not mentioned above, but drawn to my attention by my husband, was by Homer and Jethro, a comic version with silly replacement lines such as : "I'll take your hair your hat looks swell"...."I'll hold your hands they're just like feet". TSK!

I started to read a long thread of answers at Quora to "Why do people think the song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is offensive? In trying to understand both points of view, I couldn't tear myself away, spent far too much time on it! I found myself upvoting answers offering opposite points of view, and couldn't decide, afterwards, exactly how I feel about the song myself. I do see both sides of today's argument.

Whenever I've heard the song in the past, it didn't strike me as being in any way offensive, certainly not "rapey" as some see it, rather just playful in tone. I didn't even assume that the point of having the female stay, due to inclement weather, necessarily meant...sex. But then I'm old now. I was 5 years old when the song was written, I grew up in the atmosphere of the context of that song, when a gal had to be careful not to be labelled "common", "easy", or "slut". As an answer at Quora pointed out - the song is really as much about "slut-shaming" as anything else. The female is afraid of what relatives and others might think if she stayed with her boyfriend.

Things have changed so much now, it's hard to find a modern movie where there isn't at least one scene of naked bodies writhing together - in close-up. In movies, a chance meeting in a bar, over a drink, almost always results in...please re-read previous sentence. In past decades such goings on were not allowed in films - there was even a rule at some point, I think, where one of the parties involved in a scene of sexual activity on a bed had to keep one foot on the floor.

While I can appreciate the shade cast on Loesser's lyrics by some of the horrors of rape and sexual abuse uncovered in the past few years, I still find it difficult to find this song to be actually offensive - it is simply old fashioned - and old fashioned ain't all bad! There's a simple answer for any who do find the song offensive - don't listen! As another answer at Quora pointed out - It is just a song.

I'll not post a video of the controversial song today, but another by Frank Loesser. This song depicts a situations not a million miles from the same circumstance as in "Baby It's Cold Outside" - but now the two are married, and the song is in softer vein:

Two Sleepy People with Shirley Ross and Bob Hope -

Music Monday ~ Confounding the Science

This clever parody, of the famous Simon & Garfunkel song, needs no explanation. It was written by Don Caron, performed by Don Caron and Linda Gower.







LYRICS to CONFOUNDS THE SCIENCE (Written by Don Caron)

Hello darkness my old friend.
It’s time for him to tweet again,
but first he’ll have to check in with Fox news
‘cause that’s the only place he gets his clues.
That’s how things get planted in his brain,
where they remain,
and it confounds the science.

The problem is he’s not alone.
He tweets to people on his phone
that global warming is a giant hoax
perpetuated by the liberal folks,
and he hires people that all think the same,
that play his game
and it confounds the science.

When he talks to crowds of four
he sees ten thousand maybe more,
believing they all think he’s god on earth
and was the product of a virgin birth
and if you disagree you’re the victim of fake news
or feminist shrews
and it confounds the science.

“Fools," says he, "you do not know
it makes me smart from so much dough.
I know exactly where the problems are."
But his solutions are beyond bizarre
‘cause his words never quite a sentence make
and thus he spake
and it confounds the science.

No limits on pollution now.
There’s not a thing we don’t allow.
Dump the garbage in the waterway.
Spray the toxins where your children play.
All the signs say that life on the planet is headed for a downward fall.
Go to the mall,
and continue to confound the science.

Music Monday ~ Meaningful Lyric Lines

I didn't answer this question at Quora, and from the 7 answers available when preparing this post I recognised only one song.

What are some of your favourite one-liners or catchphrases from songs you've heard? Ones which pack a lot of meaning into few words or which are particularly punchy?


Later, I pondered on the question for possible use this Music Monday. I came up with a few lines from songs which have embedded themselves into my memory - no need for Google search. These come to the surface from time to time, unbidden, and do "pack a lot of meaning into a few words".


Our lives
Are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I'd have had to miss
The dance.

(The Dance - Garth Brooks)
https://youtu.be/bpwdwbO1uvM



Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose.

(Me and Bobby McGee - Kris Kristofferson)
https://youtu.be/5COkfKywjJA



You don't know about lonely
Till it's chiseled in stone.

(Chiseled in Stone Vern Gosdin. Songwriters: Max Barnes / Vern Gosdin)
https://youtu.be/sTrPJvEzmwQ



Oh, the poor folks hate the rich folks,
And the rich folks hate the poor folks.
All of my folks hate all of your folks,
It's American as apple pie.

(National Brotherhood Week - Tom Lehrer)
https://youtu.be/aIlJ8ZCs4jY



The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way.

(My Way - Frank Sinatra. Songwriters: Claude Francois / Gilles Thibaut / Jacques Revaux / Paul Anka)
https://youtu.be/onWf4_yl-pY




And, on that note I shall put up the "Back Soon" sign and take a week off.

Rhapsodic Music Monday

I'm not an avid fan of 20th (or 21st) century pop/rock, but a handful of songs of that genre did appeal to me. I was always was drawn to, and still have on my favourites list: Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen)- see below; MacArthur Park (Richard Harris), Whiter Shade of Pale(Procul Harum), More Like the Movies (Dr. Hook), and Baker Street (Gerry Rafferty).

The first three songs have a whisper, or echo, of classical about them that I enjoy, the fourth, I like just because; and the fifth - I lurve that saxophone!

With regard to Bohemian Rhapsody, I read a couple of interesting responses to questions about the song, at Quora a while ago:

From Neil Anderson

I’ve heard a number of people suggest it’s about AIDS. It absolutely isn’t. The song was released in 1975. AIDS wasn’t even spoken about until the early 80s and Freddie wasn’t diagnosed until 87.

There’s an idea that it’s about coming out.

This sort of works in the first verse, as a man telling his mother he’s gay and had killed his old self. The rest of the song doesn’t work so well with this for me, but I accept it’s plausible.

There’s a version released with album notes saying it’s a cosmic argument between God and the devil over the soul of a murderer. Hmmm.

For me it’s a tale of murder. It does what it says.

A man kills someone for reasons we don’t know. He confesses to his mother and tries to run, but the police arrive and he’s taken away.

The operatic section is complex.
Scaramouch is a clown character. He’s comparing himself to a tragic clown. The hemp fandango is slang for the twitching of a hanged man. He’s asking if he’ll be hanged.

He’s tried for murder and there’s a court case which is hotly debated and/or a public outcry about his position and whether he should be tried and executed when he’s a victim of circumstance. The legal profession feel he should, but many don’t agree.

Meanwhile he feels abandoned by his family and/or lover who refuse to engage with him.

We leave before we know what will happen, but the protagonist realises that life and death for people like him are so meaningless that he doesn’t care whether he lives or dies.

It’s a cross between a tragic opera and a murder ballad.

Freddie was candid about it and often said it’s about what you want it to be about. He’s also said that much of it was nonsense.

Freddie wasn’t always truthful.

It’s what ever you want it to be.

Someone had also asked:
What is the meaning of Bismillah in "Bismillah, no! We will not let him go!" Noam Kaiser replied:

Originally the question asked was "Who is Bismillah".
It isn't a "who", it's a "what".
Bismillah" is a term in Arabic meaning "in the name of Allah" and the beginning of the most common Islamic prayer.
So:
"No, in the name of god, we will not let you go".
It was a nod at Freddie Mercury's upbringing in majority-Muslim Zanzibar.
The meaning of the usage of the term is vague and has been interpreted as trying to spare either the young man's (depicted in the song) life or his soul.

Being Human in 2049 - and at Other Times

Our recent trip to the High Plains had a science fiction underside - sort of. During much driving time, on often deserted string-straight roads, we listened to an audio version of a volume of short stories by famous sci-fi master, Arthur C. Clarke. One of my favourites, History Lesson written in 1949, can be read in a pdf file HERE.


On the last afternoon of our trip, with a storm threatening, we hopped into a cinema in northern Oklahoma to see Blade Runner 2049.

The original Blade Runner movie, now thought of by many sci-fi fans as "iconic" has melted from my memory, almost completely, apart from the fact that its lead actor was Harrison Ford. I'm not too sure I enjoyed that movie, back in the 1980s, otherwise I'd recall it more easily. The 2049 sequel/update movie might prove to have better staying power in the old memory banks. The new story picks up some 30 years after the original ended.

Were the 2049 movie one of those big, pretentious coffee table volumes, I'd love to wander and linger through the photographs, again and again, ignoring most of the text. The visual interest of the movie far outshone the story-line, for me. Fascinating, yet chilling and easily imagined views of what the future might bring, came one after another, and were made somehow beautiful, while remaining also heartrendingly sad.

Flying vehicles, imagined by the 1980's original story's author Philip K. Dick should have been flying overhead right now - as I type. As in the case of so many early sci-fi writers' flights of imagination , they pre-supposed a much faster rate of progress,in certain areas, than has actually happened. Driverless cars are on the drawing board now, but still will remain earth-bound. Philip K. Dick's ashes, by the way, were buried in a cemetery in Fort Morgan, Colorado, one of our two-night stop-overs.

We both thought there were several iffy assumptions going on in 2049 - unless we'd missed something crucial in the dialogue that is (not at all unlikely!) Ryan Gosling, as I've probably written before in these pages, is not a favourite of either of us, though in this leading role he did....alright. I can't think of anyone who would have better fit this particular character and story-line.

No detail of the plot here from me - spoilers would definitely spoil this one. A quick read through the synopsis of the original Blade Runner, before seeing 2049 wouldn't go amiss, however.

Apparently the deeper layers of Blade Runner 2049, and its predecessor, are meant to relate to the question: what does it mean to be human? Perhaps so... perhaps. For me though, a movie we saw on TV back in the hotel room, later that night, offered another way of seeking the answer to that particular "what?" - Monster's Ball. Wow! There was some really first class+ acting going on in that one, by Halle Berry, Billy Bob Thornton, and the lost, lamented Heath Ledger. All our human faults, failings and yes - our better sides - were on show, and in-yer-face. Some scenes were hard to watch, but all worthwhile. Monster's Ball is an excellent movie, a no nonsense look at our all-too-human frailties!


As I finished typing that paragraph an old post of mine from way back popped into my head - from 2008 - a post about a song. I recall it easily because, at the time, it gathered lots of comments. Are We Human or Are We Dancer? It was memorably performed by The Killers. I don't think the theme of Blade Runner was in the mind of many listeners back then, but maybe now....?

Music Monday ~ Neat Tweets

I have a Twitter account, but don't use it much for its main purpose. I've recently been reading threads in the # hashtag menu where a kind of game is sometimes played using song titles, book or movie titles - there's almost always something to bring on a grin, and occasionally a LOL.

At the weekend a # "Songs with Lower Expectations" appeared. I decided to borrow a few Tweets from the long thread for this Music Monday. I feel sure there'd have been an easier way to copy Tweets than the way I did - ham-fistedly, but here are some I enjoyed, followed by a few I made up myself (but didn't Tweet).

My own ideas for Songs With Lower Expectations:

Fools Saunter In

Half an Hour in the Life

A Half Litre Bottle of You

Stranger in a Boring City

The Night They Invented 3.2 Beer

Send in the Cleaners

Music Monday ~ Your Birthday #1 ?

Inputting one's birth date at this website brings up the title of the song that was #1 on the day you were born. Turns out, according to this (and presumably in the USA) that #1 on my date of birth was Over the Rainbow (Judy Garland).

In Britain, maybe Over the Rainbow was also very popular at the time I was born. Another popular number of the 1930s, had became even more popular when Mitchell Parish added the lyrics in 1938 to Deep Purple. Larry Clinton and His Orchestra recorded one of the most popular versions of the song on 23 December 1938. Featuring vocalist Bea Wain, the Clinton version was a huge hit. Released in January 1939 on Victor Records, the Clinton recording was number one on the U.S. popular music charts for nine consecutive weeks in 1939. It was Adelaide Hall who introduced the song to Britain and recorded it for Decca. Her version was released on 15 May 1939. (See here).

I like the Larry Clinton/Bea Wain version:

On husband Anyjazz's birth date #1 wasSing Sing Sing - Benny Goodman, which as it happens, has been one of his longtime favourite jazz/swing pieces! He likes the longer version, but this one's good for the rest of us, it's from The Benny Goodman Story movie:



What was your birth-day #1?

Music Monday ~ Silence Disturbed

Hat-tip to Avedon's Sideshow for introducing me to the version of The Sound of Silence below.



I like it! I've always liked the song, written by Paul Simon, over several months between 1963–1964, made famous of course by Simon & Garfunkel. There have been other good covers of it over the years. Versions I remember best are by Irish trio, The Bachelors, who had a hit with it in Britain, and vocal group Gregorian, who sang it with a vaguely Gregorian chant flavour. The song has been used in the soundtracks of several movies, most famously in The Graduate.

This latest version of the song by Disturbed, a heavy metal band from Chicago is, on the face of it, a surprising choice for such a band. But consider again Paul Simon's lyrics and it perhaps ought not to be surprising.

Disturbed manages to better bring out the anger contained in the song, it's an anger currently being more sharply felt by many people. I'd always taken the song to be a fairly gentle rant about a general lack of communication between people. Until I heard Disturbed's version I'd never really "felt" it, but had been carried along by the lovely melody, never thinking too much, or too deeply, about the words. The words, whether Paul Simon realised it at the time or not, have a chameleon-like ability to fit any listener's own pet reasons to rant.

One, from many, interesting sidelights I found while reading Songfact's page on The Sound of Silence - this contribution by "Duff" of Calgary:

Was just re-reading HESSE's Steppenwolf novel after 15 years. And strangely found myself thinking as I was reading, "this is the setting of the song THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE". Then I googled this site. Weird.

Example #1 on Page 29 (of OWL's 1990 Steppenwolf reprint): Hesse's main character (Harry Haller) is walking alone at night in the rain. He writes:

"I trod the moist pavements of the narrow streets. As though in tears and veiled, the lamps glimmered through the chill gloom and sucked their reflections slowly from the wet ground."

Simon: "On restless streets I walked alone, Narrow streets of cobbled-stone; 'Neath the halo of an old street lamp."

Example #2 (on Page 37):
"I loitered as I wended my way homeward; turned up my collar and struck my stick on the wet pavement".

Simon: "I turned my collar to the cold and damp"

There's more too. During this night time walk, Hesse's character discovers a strange sign in the darkest of alleyways - a decidedly ELECTRIC SIGN... The NEON LIGHT in Simon's song - Only in the novel Hesse's sign says: "MAGIC THEATRE; ENTRANCE NOT FOR EVERYBODY; FOR MADMEN ONLY!"

Love the song. And rewarding to find the parallel in literature-- and probably just one of several books Simon's refers to in his NPR interview about this song.

The Lyrics:
"The Sound Of Silence"

Hello darkness, my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
'Neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.

"Fools," said I, "You do not know.
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you.
Take my arms that I might reach you."
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence."


There's an archived post from 2009, relating to Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel and their astrology here: Simon & Garfunkel - So Similar.

Music Monday ~ Wheels

Kay Starr has a birthday tomorrow - born on July 21, 1922 in Dougherty, Oklahoma. She's still with us, as far as I know, and she'll be 93 - Happy birthday Ms Starr! One of her most memorable recordings was this one:

The wheel of fortune
Goes spinning around
Will the arrow point my way
Will this be my day

Oh, wheel of fortune
Please don't pass me by
Let me know the magic of
A kiss and a sign

Song written by Bennie Benjamin and George David Weiss, published in 1951.

That song got me wondering whether there are any other songs with a similar theme, a theme not a million miles from astrology.


There's this, by a band I didn't know - Massive Attack,
Hymn of the Big Wheel:

The big wheel keeps on turning
On a simple line day by day
The earth spins on its axis
One man struggle while another relaxes

Lyrics in full HERE,
written by: Horace Andy, Neneh Cherry, Robert Del Naja, Grantly Marshall, Andrew Vowles.

And Journey's Wheel in the Sky :

Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'
I don't know where I'll be tomorrow
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'

Lyrics in full HERE

According to the liner notes of Journey's Time3 compilation, this started out as a poem called "Wheels In My Mind" by Diane Valory, the wife of Journey bassist Ross Valory. Robert Fleischman, the band's first vocalist, wrote new lyrics, and guitarist Neal Schon wrote the melody on acoustic guitar in the back seat of a station wagon while the band was driving between shows. (HERE)

Music Monday's "Furrin Parts"

So much from which to choose! I'm going with Rome, because I fell in love with the city back in the early 1960s when I spent several weeks there.

Paragraph below is extracted from a 2007 post HERE

I spent some time in Rome, Italy in the early 1960s (photo on right). I used to wish frequently that I could turn back time; not all the way back to the days of the Roman Empire, but far enough to allow me to experience the Eternal City without so many tourists and so much traffic. A decade or so before my visits, only very wealthy travellers had access to Rome. I imagined with envy what it must have been like to wander the ancient sites and sights, free of horrendous traffic, noise and fumes. I used to frequent cobbled back streets, away from tourist areas. Occasionally I'd feel that I did catch a glimpse and a feel of how it used to be. I'm luckier than most, though. At least I saw the city before worse pollution and even heavier traffic took its toll.

I used to have a lovely EP (extended play) vinyl record containing 4 songs about Rome. I lost it, along with everything else, in our Great Fire of 1996. For the first time since then I've been able to find three of the four songs on YouTube. These versions are nice but not nearly as good as those on my record, that female singer's name is still buried in my memory banks, so far not recoverable. Below, the first two songs are sung by Lando Fiorini, the third by Mario Lanza.

The songs:

Quanta Sei Bella Roma. Translates as How Beautiful You are, Rome [in the evenings].
Full translation of lyrics





Vecchia Roma (Old/Ancient Rome)

A garbled not very useful translation (the song is, I think, regretting modern changes in the city's life).





Arriverderci Roma (Goodbye, Rome, until we meet again)
Translation of lyrics




Any contributions of more songs from "furrin parts" enjoyed by passing readers?

Music Monday's Relationship Issues ("don't you love farce?")

Y'all know about iffy relationship issues, one way or another I'm sure. Many common ones have been put to words and music. For instance:

I still miss Jake Thackray and his fun songs, after all these years (he died much too soon in 2002). Here he is with a bit of La-di-dah on the in-law issue:



Sample lyrics:
....I'll be nice to your mother,
I'll come all over lah-di-dah,
Although she always gets up me nose.
(I love you very much.)
And so I'll smile and I'll acquiesce
When she invites me to caress
Her scabby cat;
I'll sit still while she knits
And witters, cross my heart,
And I shan't lay a finger on the crabby old batface.


I'll be polite to your daddy,
Frightfully lah-di-dah,
Although he always bores me to my boots.
(I love you very much.)
And so I won't boo and hiss
When he starts to reminisce


Then there's the general feeling of disappointment issue:




Sample lyrics:
Flowers and wine
is what I thought I would find,
when I came home from working tonight.
Well, now here I stand
over this fryin' pan,
and you want a cold one again.

I bought these new heels,
did my nails, had my hair done just right.
I thought this new dress was a sure bet
for romance tonight.
Well it's perfectly clear,
between the TV and beer,
I won't get so much as a kiss.
As I head for the door,
I turn around to be sure,
did I shave my legs for this?



And much the same issue from the male viewpoint:




Sample::
He's been working all week he's got mental fatigue and that old couch sure looks fine
All week he's been gone she's been sitting alone slowly going out of her mind
As he kicks off his shoes for the six o’clock news she's getting all prettied up
Oh she's wanting to boogie he's wanting to lay there she's got the Friday night blues

And the Friday night blues they get in your shoes and they work to get you down
Oh and there ain't a lady that I ever knew who didn't need her a night on the town
But the hills and the bills and a week's worth of deals has got him feeling more than used
Oh, he's kicking his shoes off she's putting hers on she's got the Friday night blues



Then, as mentioned in the post's title, there's the timing issue:

Just when I'd stopped opening doors
Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours
Making my entrance again with my usual flair
Sure of my lines, no one is there.
Don't you love farce? My fault, I fear
I thought that you'd want what I want, sorry, my dear.
But where are the clowns, send in the clowns
Don't bother, they're here.

Isn't it rich? Isn't it queer?
Losing my timing this late in my career
But where are the clowns? There ought to be clowns
Well, maybe next year.



  She wears it well  - 1995 above, 2010 below.




Any more iffy relationship songs to add?

Music Monday ~ Songs about Workers

There were a couple of songs about the lives of workers in last Monday's post - those on the trucker and the lineman. Here's another good workers' song, written and sung by the late Rita MacNeil.

From the Rita MacNeil Wikipedia page linked above:

"Working Man" is a song that sparked from a visit to the Princess Colliery in Sydney Mines. For Rita MacNeil it was the stories of hardships the miners had faced on a daily basis, the prompted her to write this song. In her autobiography she notes that the tour guide was suffering from Throat Cancer, and she had remembered her mother's struggles with it, and as he talked the melody for the song began in her head, complete with lyrics. The song would eventually become a world wide sensation, peaking at number 11 in the UK charts, and the unofficial anthem for coal miners everywhere.

Thinking on that song, and the photographs in the video, reminded me of another video I featured in an archived post about a lovely semi-classical piece, Concierto de Aranjuez HERE

SNIP from that post:

Of all the beautiful renditions of Aranjuez available on video, from classical through middle-of-the-road to jazz-inspired, I've picked the one that made me weep as I listened and watched the images. Reading comments afterwards, it appears that I wasn't the only one. It's the "Orange Juice" version by Yorkshire's Grimethorpe Colliery Band, featured in the movie
Brassed Off, with images of Yorkshire and from the British miners' strikes in 1984/5. Dark days. Many in Britain will never forget them. A way of life for a generation of brave men was lost then, as the Conservatives' economic policies closed coal mines around the country in favor of nuclear power. Our strong support for the miners meant exactly nothing to demon Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. I still cringe at the thought of her - to this day! Nowadays coal mines are not the way ahead, but for decades we depended on what those men risked their lives to provide.

I believe Rodrigo would be pleased that this music can still help to evoke strong emotion.

Are there songs about workers that you find especially memorable?

Loveless Favourites

So many songs are about love and romance, but once one begins to think along lyrically loveless lines, there are equally as many that are not. Three of my favourite loveless lyrics, plus three from Himself (aka anyjazz ):

Anyjazz chose:
Strange Fruit ~ Billie Holiday


Penny Lane ~ The Beatles


Mañana ~ Peggy Lee




From Yours Truly:

Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime ~ George Michael


Sailing to Philadephia ~ Mark Knopfler/James Taylor




Proud Mary ~ Tina Turner (You might need to fasten your seat belts for this one, it's a long rough ride - but fun!)




What are your "loveless" favourites?

Songs in the Key of Yuck

I'm going to to whinge about a couple of pop songs featured on American Idol recently, songs with catchy choruses but questionable lyrics, one especially questionable when sung by a fresh-faced youth aged 17. That song was We Are Young made a hit in 2012 by the band Fun, written by band members, Nate Ruess, Jack Antonoff, Andrew Dost and Jeffrey Bhasker. By the way, Jack Antonoff, one of the co-writers, has a birthday today, 31 March.



Snip from lyric analysis at popdust.com

“Give me a second, I need to get my story straight,” Fun singer Nate Ruess proclaims in the first line of “We Are Young.” It’s a line that basically summarizes the entire song—a disjointed, semi-coherent tale of an eventful night out with friends at the bar that scampers through its scattered verses to get to its drunk sing-along of the chorus. Musically, the song begins manically, with a drum pounding a pulse-racing beat as Ruess sets the scene—his friends in the bathroom “getting higher than the Empire State,” while his lover waits for him “just across the bar.” The beat picks up even more frenetically as Ruess sings about his lover’s scar, admitting that “I know I gave it to you months ago / I know you’re trying to forget.”

The first verse isn’t even over, and we already have lies, drinking, drugging and domestic abuse—heady stuff for any song, and Ruess races through the verse as if he’s hoping you won’t actually pick up on the words he’s saying. It’s not a bad strategy, since you could hear the song 100 times before picking up on exactly what Ruess is talking about, largely because you’re just waiting for him to get to the chorus. Indeed, the chorus of “We Are Young” is so momentous that the song winds down at the end of the first verse, the drums disappearing, the piano slowing, and the singing getting more dramatic for that fantastic pre-chorus: “So if by the time the bar closes / And you feel like falling down / I’ll carry you home…” Suddenly, all the chaos of the first verse vanishes in favor of straightforward romance, as everyone gears up for the big sing-along.

We Are Young at Youtube with lyrics.

Each older generation complains about the music of the generation(s) who come after. Didn't parents of the early rock and rollers call rock and roll "devil's music"?
Let's see how it lives up to that:

Shake Rattle & Roll:
Now get out in that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans
Now get out in that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans
Roll my breakfast cause I'm a hungry man...........

Yeah - a bit of bossy man-stuff goin' on there I guess, but hardly abusive. The proper response could be "Get out there an' rattle 'em yourself mate!"

Or how about this one - an earlier, and much less dark version of the ideas contained in We Are Young:

Rip it up

Well, it's Saturday night and I just got paid,
Fool about my money, don't try to save,
My heart says go go, have a time,
Saturday night and I'm feelin' fine,
I'm gonna rock it up, I'm gonna rip it up,
I'm gonna shake it up, gonna ball it up,
I'm gonna rock it up, and ball tonight.
Got me a date and I won't be late,
Picked her up in my 88..........

Good and (fairly) clean fun without harming anyone.

Pumped Up Kicks (2011) source of my second complaint, is a song about a bully about to shoot school kids. Both this and We Are Young have catchy choruses, that's what made both songs such huge hits. It could be that the lyrics weren't heard properly nor fully understood by eager audiences...or maybe they were but audiences simply didn't care?

Pumped Up Kicks at YouTube with lyrics

From an article by Steve Johnson in the Chicago Tribune
Dark meaning of bubble-gum Pumped Up Kicks is tough to chew

It is a perky pop ditty with just enough low-fi murkiness to make it hip. And its bright carousel of a chorus gets in your head and spins merrily around.

"Pumped Up Kicks" is also a song about a kid preparing to shoot his classmates at school.

"All the other kids with the pumped up kicks," says the chorus, "you'd better run, better run, outrun my gun … You'd bettter run, better run, faster than my bullet.

Maybe we're desensitized by the almost absurdly violent first-person-shooter video games so many kids spend their afternoons playing. Maybe naming the song after fancy sneakers instead of the weaponry creates enough emotional distance.

Or maybe we figure — as I initially did — that it's just pop music, and its ear-candy qualities trump whatever the point of view might be.

But after looking closely at the song's lyrics and listening to it many extra times, I have come to agree that this song is more deserving of a push away than the warm embrace it has mostly received.

There have always been popular songs with less than salubrious lyrics, some bad or naughty enough to have been banned from public broadcast. Look at the long list of songs HERE Auntie Beeb (BBC) wouldn't countenance; and HERE from elsewhere - all songs banned at one time or another. It's hard to see why in most cases. These two songs weren't banned though. Ooooh no! That'd be messing with our freedoms wouldn't it? It would, but it would also be attempting to inject some good taste into the world of pop music, and in the process giving thought to those who have been sexually or physically abused, or grieving parents who have lost their child as a result of a school shooting incident.

Pop music has never been known for its good taste, but I'd expect the producers of American Idol to have some say, and some show of compassion to audiences, about what a 17-year old sings on their show. The judges did comment on the matter of both songs' dark lyrics, but in my opinion it shouldn't have been left to the judges' comments - these songs ought never to have been featured on the show.

Music Monday ~ Roberta Flack 's and other Impossible Dreams

Roberta Flack, has a birthday today. Ms Flack is a superb interpreter of songs of many of our best songwriters including, among others, Leonard Cohen (Suzanne), Buffy Sainte-Marie (Until It's Time for You to Go), Jimmy Webb (Do What You Gotta Do), Bob Dylan (Just Like a Woman), Lennon-McCartney(whole album), and Ewan MacColl, who wrote what proved to be a Grammy-winning hit for both of them: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.

Her interpretations of songs are different - how could it be otherwise, she was born with both Sun and Moon in Aquarius! Her version of The Impossible Dream, long a favourite song of mine from the musical Man of La Mancha also strays from the standard interpretation.

This is a great song any way it's dished up, so, three more for good measure follow after this:

Quote from Man of La Mancha
Cervantes:

I have lived nearly fifty years, and I have seen life as it is. Pain, misery, hunger ... cruelty beyond belief. I have heard the singing from taverns and the moans from bundles of filth on the streets. I have been a soldier and seen my comrades fall in battle ... or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I have held them in my arms at the final moment. These were men who saw life as it is, yet they died despairing. No glory, no gallant last words ... only their eyes filled with confusion, whimpering the question, "Why?"
I do not think they asked why they were dying, but why they had lived. When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!

Song:

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
And to run where
the brave dare not go.
To right the unrightable wrong
And to love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star.
This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far
To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march,
march into hell
For that heavenly cause.
And I know
If I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart
Will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest.
And the world will be
better for this
That one man, scorned
and covered with scars,
Still strove with his last
ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star.

Aldonza:
You spoke of a dream, and about the quest … how you must fight — and it doesn't matter if you win or lose — if only you follow the quest.

Jaques Brel's anguished performance of the song in his own French translation of the stage musical:

Tom Jones with a more standard version. This video has interesting images included:

Joe Longthorne (who's he?) I'd almost forgotten myself, but once reminded it all came back to me, how I was once a great fan of his. He's a talented guy from the city of my own birth, Hull, East Yorkshire, England. He has had to fight serious health problems, lymphoma, leukemia. I'm happy to find he appears to have overcome them, and "reached the unreachable star". He's a great impersonator as well as a really good vocalist in his own right, his takes on Shirley Bassey, Sammy Davis Jnr, Sinatra, and others are a sight to see with voices to match.

Music Monday ~ THE 14s

It'll soon be 2014. As that thought occurred, for some reason a line from an old song popped into my head:

In 1814 we took a little trip.....

(the rest of the verse goes)

Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip.
We took a little bacon an' we took a little beans
And we caught the bloody British at the town of New Orleans.

That's the first verse of The Battle of New Orleans, a song about a battle in the War of 1812, composed by Jimmy Driftwood, a high school principal and history teacher from Arkansas. He often wrote songs to help students learn about historical events. The song was recorded, originally, by Johnny Horton in 1959. It won a 1959 Grammy for Song of the Year for its composer, and Best Country and Western Performance for Johnny Horton.

In Britain, skiffle star Lonnie Donegan recorded the song, it rose to number two in the UK hit parade. The original version of the song had been banned by the BBC, but Donegan's version was allowed after modification of certain words in the lyrics, for example "bloody" became "bloomin'. Donegan's modified lyrics also contained an error, whether deliberate or accidental isn't known. Instead of "Colonel Jackson" in the first verse he sings "along with Colonel Pakenham", which makes no sense because Pakenham was the British commander.

So...in 1814 a battle raged. In 1914, too, an even bigger battle began: The Great War of 1914-1918. A song to represent that dreadful conflagration?
How about Keep the Home Fires Burning('til the Boys Come Home), composed in 1914 by Ivor Novello with words by Lena Gilbert Ford.

We must hope, fervently, that 2014 will break the "14" pattern and hold no horrendous unpleasantnesses about which a song would need to be written.

Something more calming, composed by Luiz Bonfa: The Gentle Rain:

Music Monday ~ Winter's Tales

Sidling past the dozens of choices of Christmas music available at YouTube, but wishing to stay "in season", how about A Winter's Tale sung by David Essex? The song was written by Mike Batt and Tim Rice in 1982 in response to a request from David Essex. I don't know how well the song was known in the USA, my husband had never heard it before - that's not necessarily a useful yardstick, he being a jazz enthusiast (but an avid Beatles fan too).

The song's title has to bring to mind Shakespeare's play, The Winter's Tale, about a jealous king who suspects his pregnant wife of unfaithfulness, imprisons her, banishes the baby girl to whom she gives birth, causes her to be taken to some far shore by his friend. His friend is then killed by a bear. The play contains Shakespeare's most famous, and decidedly quirky, stage direction at this point: "Exit, pursued by a Beare". There's a happy ending though. In the second half of the play, 16 years later, the girl, now a young woman falls in love....and somehow everything comes right in the end. David Essex's song doesn't have a happy ending, though he does seem resigned to his lonely fate.

In Winter's Tale , song or play, the season itself isn't the lead player. Stories known as winter's tales were stories told by firelight during the long dark nights of a medieval winter. In dramatist George Peele's play of 1595, The Old Wives' Tale a woman is asked to "tell a merry winter's tale" to pass the time "trimly". These winter's tales were, it seems, something akin to fairy tales, peopled by kings, queens, princes, princesses, courtiers, peasants, lost children, jealousy, love, death...all that good stuff, but always with a happy ending.

I took the long-winded but scenic route to arrive at this Winter's Tale: the video!



David Essex is still around in the UK, acting, touring, recording. See Wikipedia here. "Essex spent six years as an ambassador for Voluntary Service Overseas, which earned him an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1999. On that he said: "That was a big day. I took my two eldest kids, and me mum even went out and bought a hat"