Tohu Bohu

So, I have decided, unless I change my mind, to go with the easiest idea for a Richard III mix: songs about kings and queens. What the heck. I have a lot of such songs, and it looks to be a good mix, so why make trouble for myself?

Here’s an initial list, with some notes and possibilities, and then I’m throwing the floor open for comments and GR help. My restrictions on this were (a) no instrumentals, (2) no jazz numbers this time, and (iii) um, I had to kinda like the stuff. I am tempted to break the no-instrumentals rule to end the Mix with Queen’s recording of “ God Save The Queen ”, but then, they are my rules and I can break them if I want to, right? Your advice is, as always, gratefully appreciated, both on more tunes to add and what to leave off (as well as what must stay).

• “I’m King”, B.B. King: I’m stuck between this slow sexy blues and “Riding With The King”, a duet with Eric Clapton.
• “The King Of Bedside Manor”, Barenaked Ladies: A fun song, with some relevance to the Boar
• “Kings Of The Highway”, Chris Isaak: a ballad, which could either provide a nice variation with a mostly uptempo mix or be a stone cold drag.
• “Rock’N’Roll is King”, Electric Light Orchestra: Rama-lama-lama-lama!
• “King Of Confidence” or “King Horse”, Elvis Costello: or, I suppose, “Brilliant Mistake”, which begins he thought he was the King of America; another ballad, though
• “The King & Queen Of America”, Eurythmics: I had forgotten this song entirely until I did a search in my library for the words, but it’s a good song.
• “Duke Of Earl”, Gene Chandler: This is the only song left on my list with duke rather than king or queen, but it does seem to belong.
• “Wanderlust King”, Gogol Bordello: Gotta have some of that gypsy shit.
• “The King Is Gone”, Heads: This is from that odd and inconsistent album that the rest of Talking Heads did without David Byrne; it’s a good song, in its way, and has a bit of that punk sound to it.
• “New Crawlin’ King Snake”, Howlin’ Wolf: This is not about a king, actually, but a king snake. Well, it isn’t actually about a king snake, either…
• “Babydoll, The Beauty Queen”, Jabbering Trout: One thing about a Mix Tape is the right combination of familiarity and novelty. I like to have a couple of obscure things like this one.
• “King of the World”, Joe Jackson: a live cover of the Steely Dan song.
• “King Of Spain”, Moxy Früvous: Gotta have this.
• “King of the Dogs”, Iggy Pop: this sounds nothing like Iggy Pop to me, but I like it
• “La Femme duDoight”, Queen Ida: The chorus goes Queen Ida/Is her name
• “King Of Comedy”, R.E.M.: Off my least favorite album, one of those grungy songs, seems to suit the mood of our show
• “King Of Bohemia”, Richard Thompson: Another somewhat obscure track, and, alas, another down-tempo one
• “King Of The Hill”, Roger McGuinn: The former Byrd, the side is pretty much indistinguishable from Tom Petty, which isn’t a bad thing
• “Sun King”, The Beatles: Hard to leave the Beatles of a list if there’s an excuse for including them
• “The Rascal King”, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones: Love, love, love this one, which is of course about Mayor Curley
• “King Dork”, The Mr. T Experience: The chance to include this track is what made up my mind about using the K&Q theme.
• “King Of The Hill”, The Nields: another obscurity, alas, but one that begins Gimme my bomb back, yeah
• “King of Pain”, the Police: this Mix? Needs Moar Eighteez.
• “King For A Day”, XTC: one of their cheerful Colin Moulding numbers

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 9:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

With the use of the London Punk scene of the late 70s as a kind of artistic overlay to our R3, YHB has been thinking about and reading and listening to stuff from that period. Whilst driving back and forth to rehearsal, I’ve been focusing on one of my favorite artifacts, Live Stiffs Live, a concert album from the famous or perhaps infamous or even more perhaps obscure 1977 Live Stiffs tour.

Not that the boys are punks. They are already post-punk at this point, New Wave, pub rockers, whatever they are. Not punks. But still. That’s what I’m listening to in the car.

I found the album in the first place, on pirated cassette in the mid-80s, because of my once-obsessive love of Elvis Costello, who has two tracks on the album. The other name I’d heard of at the time was Nick Lowe, who had a minor hit in 1985 with “I Knew the Bride (when she used to rock’n’roll)”, which, as it happens, is the song that leads off Live Stiffs. Of the others, I pretty quickly found Ian Dury (and played his stuff on the radio during my short stint as a college DJ), but have still never heard anything else by either Larry Wallis (whose “Police Car” is a fantastic song) or Wreckless Eric.

Wreckless Eric has two songs on the album. One is a number called “Semaphore Signals” which I quite like as a song, although Mr. Eric is in such a state of inebriation (and Davey Payne on saxophone is worse) that they pretty much fail to sell it, as far as I’m concerned. And the other is my least favorite song on the album, “Reconnez Cherie”. In addition to some seriously raggedy-ass saxophone and a general state of chaos (not altogether un-punk, actually), the vocals are utterly, utterly, utterly awful.

So, anyway, there I am, in my Prius, driving back to my suburban house, listening to Wreckless Eric bawling something in French, or probably in French. And I think to myself, self think I, I bet could get on-line and find out what the hell he’s supposed to be saying. And, in truth, the lyrics to “Reconnez Cheri” are on-line.

What a world.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gentle Readers will be asking themselves, what about the Mix? Well, some of y’all might be, anyway. Maybe. Others, particularly if you are new-ish here, may not know what I am talking about. Well, Your Humble Blogger has started a tradition, of sorts, where I make a playlist of an hours worth of music for my castmates for Opening Night. As the first rehearsal for Richard III (or Gd Save the King and His Fascist Regime) is tonight, it is not too soon for YHB to start thinking about the Mix.

But what sort of a Mix shall it be? One way is clearly to do a mix of the 70s punk sides that are the artistic overlay to the show. On the other hand, I’m guessing we will be listening to that stuff in the theater itself. If it isn’t piped in as scene-change music (and I’m thinking it will be), the director is bound to be playing it just for us to get us in the mood. So there isn’t really any necessity to do up a playlist of it. Besides, I’m afraid that the pre-1980 punk stuff isn’t really my strong suit; I’m more of a post-punk guy. Oh, I like that punk stuff all right, but I don’t think I’m going to come up with anything that would go on the mix that I’ll be introducing to anybody.

The other idea that occurred to me, naturally enough, is to do a mix of Elizabethan music, or even music from the late fifteenth century (when Richard was King and everybody was nervous). The advantage to that is that I like that music, and I probably know more about it that my castmates, just because most of them probably don’t know anything about it at all. So that’s a possibility.

Another thing that comes to mind is an hour of songs with the word king in the title. Everything from “The King Porter Stomp̶ to “King Dork”. Or add in some songs with queen and duke; that has the advantage of allowing me to call the mix Duke’s Place, because, you know, Duke of Buckingham. That would be pretty easy to do, and I would have a lot of choices, so I wouldn’t wind up throwing in lousy songs to fill an hour.

What else… songs about killing people, of course. Songs about ghosts? War songs? A whole hour’s worth of songs by people named Richard? That would be funny, actually.

Anyway, Your Humble Blogger has a little time to think about it, so now would be a perfect time for a Gentle Reader to provide inspiration. Come on now, inspire!

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

One of the advantages of the Holiday Season being over and done is that I am less tempted to actually write the Christmas Carol filks that come into my head during the four or five weeks that the Christmas Carols are playing. I mean, you get to the point where everything sounds like a carol, don’t you? Or is it just me?

On the other hand, I really wanted to find a way to work in a reference to “Frosty the Shadchan”, which I still think is a very funny thing. Not funny enough to actually write it out (something with a bride made out of snow, and a dowry of tinsel, and maybe something about the groom breaking an icicle goblet) but definitely funny enough to work into a list of Chanukah songs or something.

Another one I wanted to pass along (but not write verses for) is just a sentence my Perfect Non-Reader said when reporting on her schoolfriends’ winter vacations, and the sentence just sounded like a song title: “Mohammed got a Wii for Christmas”

Mohammed got a Wii for Christmas
Mohammed got a Wii for Christmas
Mohammed got a Wii for Christma-as
I wish I were just like him

Just saying.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It having been almost a month since anyone chimed in on my Encore Game, I think it is time for the answers. OK? Here we go.

• Arapaho: In the wilds of Borneo/and the vineyards of Bordeax/Eskimo, Arapaho/Move their body to and fro “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick”,, Ian Dury. No responses; two points for YHB. This was a hard one.
• Bullhorn: And then the bullhorn crackles/and the captain tackles/with the problems and the hows and whys “I Don’t Like Mondays”, Boomtown Rats. Jacob got a BU for the GRs about half an hour after post time.
• Clerical: Now a clerical collar chokes at your convictions/You strangle slowly for the old addiction/It’s Heaven’s army and you’re so professional/But listen closely to this closed confessional “Nice n Neat”, Boomtown Rats. No responses; two points for YHB. Is it fair to have two Boomtown Rats songs in a row like that? Sure it is.
• Duplicitous: Brooding, duplicitous, wicked and able/media-ready, heartless and labeled/Super U.S. citizen, super-achiever/mega-ultra power dosing/Relax: defense, defense, defense, defense “Ignoreland”, REM. No responses; two points for YHB. Is it fair to use REM songs at all? No. No, it isn’t. I keep the points anyway.
• Eucalyptus: Well he packed up all his expectations he lit out for California/With a flyswatter banjo on his knee/With a lucky tiger in his angel hair and benzedrine for getting there/They found him in a eucalyptus tree. “Swordfishtrombone”, Tom Waits. No responses; two points for YHB.
• Furrows: They laid him in three furrows deep/laid clods upon his head/then those three men took a solemn vow/John Barleycorn was dead “John Barleycorn”, as recorded by Steeleye Span. Stephen gets another one for the GRs. Note that not all versions have this line, what with it being folk music and all. This wonderful John Renbourn Group version does not have the word at all, for instance.
• Gelignite: I hope you remember to treat the gelignite tenderly/Ah, me, I'm having dreams about things not going right/Let's leave in plenty of time tonight, “There Goes a Tenner” Kate Bush. Fran picks up another BU for y'all.
• Hindsight: The island of doubt/It's like the taste of medicine/Working by hindsight/Got the message from the oxygen “Crosseyed and Painless”, Talking Heads. No responses; two more BUs for me.
• Innuendos: Don't drink, don't smoke, what do you do? Subtle innuendos follow: must be something inside “Goody Two Shoes”, Adam Ant. Jacob again for a BU.
• Jumper: She hooks up her cupcakes and puts on her jumper/explains that she'll be late to her worrying mother/she meets me in Picadilly “Picadilly”, Squeeze. Nao got two BUs and Stephen two more.
• Kneel: And I will pray to a big god/As I kneel in a big church “Big Time”, Peter Gabriel. Jacob got two BUs.
• Lagers: We hitch-hiked here in the pouring rain/Now we've missed the flaming train/Hey, can I have one of them lagers?/Thanks very much. “Badges, Posters, Stickers and T-Shirts”, Dire Straits. This was the one I felt the worst about—I can defend it, but it isn't altogether cricket.
• Motorcar: On the corner is a banker with a motorcar/The little children laugh at him behind his back/And the banker never wears a mac/In the pouring rain/Very strange. “Penny Lane”, The Beatles. Chaos got a BU for that one.
• Nuclei: So the warm blood flows/with the red blood cells lacking nuclei/through the large four-chambered heart. “Mammal”, They Might Be Giants. Stephen picked up a BU for this one.
• Observing: Say, I remember when we used to sit/In the government yard at Trenchtown/Observing the hypocrites/as they mingle with the good people we meet. “No Woman, No Cry”, Bob Marley and the Wailers. Jacob got this one, which was one I actually expected people to get other songs with the word but not my song. Hm.
• Pettiness: My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards/False gods, I scuff/At pettiness which plays so rough/Walk upside-down inside handcuffs/Kick my legs to crash it off/Say okay, I have had enough/What else can you show me? “It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding”, Bob Dylan. No responses; two points for YHB.
• Quickest: if you/miss the A-Train/you'll find/you've missed the quickest way to get to Harlem“A-Train”, Billy Strayhorn, words later added by Joya Sherrill, probably. Chaos earned two plus an extra BU to make up for my initial skepticism about her song.
• Reassuringly: And I dreamed I was dying/And I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly/And looking back down at me/Smiled reassuringly “American Tune”, Paul Simon. BDan got a BU for getting this one.
• Sugar-daddies: Soon your sugar-daddies will all be gone. You'll wake up some cold day and find you're alone. “Cry, Cry, Cry”, Johnny Cash. No big fans of the Man in Black here? Two points for YHB.
• Tantric: Like Harrison Ford I'm getting Frantic/Like Sting, I'm tantric/Like Snickers, guaranteed to satisfy “One Week”, Barenaked Ladies. Dan P. got the BU for y'all, with Jacob backing him up.
• Undefended: When I grew up, well it felt great/I watched how others took their fate/Some felt afraid and undefended/so they got mean and they pretended/what they knew made them belong more than you “Teenagers, Kick Our Butts”, Dar Williams. No responses; YHB gets two more BUs.
• Vacant: Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb/I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from/Don't even hear a murmur of a prayer/It's not dark yet, but it's getting there. “Not Dark Yet”, Bob Dylan. No responses on another one I thought would be a fairly common word. Vacant lot, vacant… um, somethin'.
• Warmer: The language of love/slips from my lover's tongue/cooler than ice cream/and warmer than the sun “Who's that Girl”, Eurythmics. I think I'm going to grant the two BUs for Jacob and Nao and South Pacific, but nobody got Annie Lennox.
• Xavier: Now I could tell you Rafaella Gabriela and Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla and Albert Andreas Armadillo found an aardvark, a kangaroo, and a rhinoceros. And now that aardvark and that kangaroo and that rhinoceros belong respectively to Rafaella Gabriela Sarsaparilla and Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla and Albert Andreas Armadillo! “Pronouns”, Schoolhouse Rock. Fran and Laura earn the GRs another unit.
• yacht: Got no mansion/got no yacht/still I'm happy with what I've got “Sun in the Morning and the Moon at Night”, Irving Berlin. Four BUs to Jacob, BDan, and Chris.
• Zucchini: Oh! Wha' a beauty! I've never seen one as big as that befowah,/Oh Oh! What a beauty, it must be two foot long—or even mowah/And it's such a lovely color, so big, and round, and fat,/I've never seen a zucchini grow quite as big as that! “The Zucchini Song”, Tim Curry. Do y'all not know the Zucchini Song? I adore the Zucchini Song. I mean. How could you not?

Did y'all have fun on this? I surely did. Thank you Jacob, Nao, Stephen, Chris, Laura, Fran, Dan P, Chaos and BDan for playing; by my count you totaled 25 Bragging Units. I keep 24 units for the twelve words nobody got any songs on at all, plus another eight for the four words that nobody got that particular song I was thinking of. Plus all the extra BUs I get because it's my blog and I did a lot of work on this. So there. I win! Ha, ha.

/gloaty dance

So. Another one next year?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Your Humble Blogger has come up with another Encore Alphabet, so get your thinking caps on. Or, rather, your remembering caps, I suppose. Whatever cap you think best.

Y'all remember the rules?

Score: For each word on the list, YHB has in mind one and only one song that contains the word. Gentle Readers (as a team) get one Bragging Unit for each time y’all come up with the song I thought of, but you get two Bragging Units each time you come up with a song I didn’t think of. Up to a maximum of five Bragging Units per word. YHB gets two Bragging Units for having come up with the list. For every word on the list that y’all blank on, I get two more Bragging Units. For any word that y’all can’t come up with any other song than the one I had in mind, I get one Bragging Unit. Any Gentle Reader who posts his or her own list gets two Bragging Units. Jed gets two Bragging Units for having come up with the game. Any Gentle Reader who has never posted before and posts a guess gets one extra Bragging Unit. Any Gentle Reader who is able to identify an instance where YHB has screwed up the lyrics again gets one Bragging Unit.

MFQ Rules: You don’t have to know the name of the song, but you have to be able to sing (or in this case type) a chunk of the lyric containing the word. It’s better if you sing that chunk of lyric out loud, though, whilst typing. Eight words is the canonical minimum chunk for the Encore parlor game. If you get the lyrics wrong from memory (as I did four of my guesses over yonder), there will be Scorn and Derision, but you will still get your Bragging Units. Don’t just make up shit up, please, and if you do, make it worthwhile. Within that construct, I’m going to rule that songs written by Gentle Readers are not eligible, even if you realio trulio wrote a song with that word in the lyric five years ago. I mean, if you did, let me know, because that’s a whole separate set of Bragging Units. All the songs are primarily in the English Language; no score for translations and multilingual puns, except, you know, anyone who does something really clever gets one Bragging Unit and one S&D unit.

The List: I'll try to keep this up-to-date. If a word is in bold, nobody has come up with nothing. If a word is in italics, at least one Gentle Reader has come up with at least one song containing it. If a word is struck through, some Gentle Reader has come up with the song that YHB was thinking of. If a word is both italicized and struck through, then y'all have maxed out the five BUs available.

One more thing: Last time y'all beat me by one point, 33 to 32. So I tried to make it a little more difficult this time. Remember, though, that there are 5 BUs available to GRs for each letter; if y'all get the word I was thinking of and stop, we each get one point, but if you come up with different songs, you get 2 points for each of two songs, and I get zippo. I think you guys can beat fifty easily, even on this harder alphabet, so I'm giving myself a 10BU bonus for having come up with a second list. And this time, I'm going to see if keeping track of the points improves the MFQ.

• Arapaho
• Bullhorn
• Clerical
• Duplicitous
• Eucalyptus
• Furrows
• Gelignite
• Hindsight
• Innuendos
• Jumper
• Kneel
• Lagers
• Motorcar
• Nuclei
• Observing
• Pettiness
• Quickest
• Reassuringly
• Sugar-daddies
• Tantric
• Undefended
• Vacant
• Warmer
• Xavier
• Yacht
• Zucchini

Current Score: YHB 47, GR 20.

Oh, and please note that plurals count—no points for lager instead of lagers or yachts for yacht.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (41)

Well, and Gentle Readers may have been figuring that if they held out during all the whining and noodling about the show, YHB would eventually come across with the Opening Night Mix. Others may have forgotten all about my tradition of giving the cast a Mix CD on Opening Night, chock full of music appropriate to the show. Or not, if I feel like that about it. The Trip to Bountiful is set in Texas in 1950; I took the Texas part more than the 1950 part, and wound up with an album of country and bluegrass tunes, mostly. This is heavily tilted to the religious music that Mother Watts would have enjoyed (she sings hymns to calm herself when she is angry or nervous), but I have thrown in some stuff relating to some other themes of the show, the collapse of small towns, the rocky marriage of Jessie Mae and Ludie, and the hopefulness of journeying.

Here's a tentative track list:

Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Doc Watson & Clarence Ashley)
Momma Cried (Alison Krauss & Union Station)
Calling My Children Home (Ralph Stanley)
Down To The River To Pray (Alison Krauss)
Cotton Eyed Joe (Bob Wills)
The Devil Made Texas (Hermes Nye)
I Saw The Light (Hank Williams)
Man Of Constant Sorrow (Bob Dylan)
Peace In The Valley (Johnny Cash)
I'm Workin' On A Road To Glory Land (Flatt & Scruggs)
Wreck On The Highway (The Louvin Brothers)
Looking t'ward Heaven (Doc Watson & Clarence Ashley)
Angel Band (Ralph Stanley)
Keys To The Kingdom (The Nields)
Laying My Burdens Down (Willie Nelson)
Travelin' Prayer (Dolly Parton)
Run Come See (The X-Seamen's Institute)
When I Grow Up (Michelle Shocked)
This My Town (Eddie From Ohio)
She's No Lady (Lyle Lovett)
I Just Don't Like This Kind Of Living (Hank Williams)
The Old Woman's Hornpipe (Baltimore Consort)

Now, Your Humble Blogger doesn't know a great deal about country music or bluegrass; I did a fair amount of research and listening, mostly to find things for the album but also to give myself mood music to play in the car whilst driving to rehearsals. So, while there's still time to fix it—what am I missing?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I don’t know if any of y’all Gentle Readers are interested in Early Music, but I’ve just come across a disc of John Cooper’s Consort Music (actually Consort Musicke, published by Astrée NaÏve, with Jordi Savall, Christophe Coin, and Sergi Casademunt doing the viol work) that absolutely knocked me out. Well, I may have come across the fellow before under a different name, he seems to have had a few. He started out as John Cooper or possibly Cowper, and at some point became Giovanni Coperario. Or Coprario. Or John Coprario. All the same guy.

And magnificent stuff. Very Marin Marais, if you know what I mean. And if you don’t, this is probably not the stuff you’re looking for. But if you have found yourself at some point thinking what about some music that is like Marais, but with a little more back-and-forth between the viols, I would advise finding this album.

And, even better, it seems to pacify Il Ragazzo Furioso, aka The Youngest Member. I’m not sure how or why; I can’t imagine his breath is taken away by the dizzying complexity of it all, but it seems to work, and it’s a hell of a lot better than Raffi.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So. What came to my mind, hearing the news, was this important question for discussion: Is Quincy Jones the most influential individual in American music of the last fifty years, or is he the most influential individual in 20th Century American music?

I suppose that boils down to whether Jelly Roll Morton really gets all the credit he claimed. But I’m willing to listen to other nominees.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Your Humble Blogger is back from traveling, and perhaps ready to blog again. Wouldn’t that be nice? It was a lovely trip, and I have much to say about it, but before I get to any of that, I thought I’d ask how people feel about John Henry.

Y’all know about John Henry, right? He was a steel driver for the railroad, tried to race a steam drill, and his heart burst in his chest and he died with the hammer in his hand, Lord, Lord, he died with the hammer in his hand.

And John Henry is, in a substantial sense, a hero of American Folklore. He stands for the hard working Early American, screwed by Big Business, kept poor and then worked to death. And I to believe in the dignity of Labor, and I like the idea of transmitting that via song and story, along with a healthy distrust of Big Business. And he’s one of very few dark-skinned American Heroes, so there’s that.

On the other hand, the main John Henry story is about the race with a steam drill (or steam hammer, depending), and as far as I can tell, replacing back-breaking labor in hazardous conditions with mechanized equipment is a Good Thing. Right?

The reason it comes up, other than hearing the song nearly every day (the Youngest Member is going to grow up Red, I swear he is, if he grows up at all), is that this week St. Martin’s is pushing Blue Collar, Blue Scrubs, which begins with the author’s description of throwing rocks at a construction site.

Scalese is in the concrete construction business. What we construct are mostly curbs and gutters. But before the new ones can be put in, the old ones have to be broken out. That’s where the breakout gang comes in. The gun runner breaks the old gutters into jagged, hundred-pound hunks of concrete. Then the rock thrower bends down, his face inches from the pounding jack hammer, lifts the piece, or “rock,” and throws it onto the back of a truck—rock after rock, hour after hour, day after day. Throwing rocks: the toughest job at the toughest construction company in Chicago. When people ask me what I’m doing with my Notre Dame education, and I tell them I throw rocks, they say, “Your parents must be very proud.”

The book sounds quite good, actually, but the point is that it reminded me of John Henry. Not only in that the gang take (justifiable) pride in their strength and stamina (and that they could probably work better if they were singing a work song such as, oh, “John Henry”), but in that sooner or later, it will be more efficient to have a machine do it. Well, or not; it’s plausible to me that labor will be cheaper than power again in a generation, even in America, but I don’t like to think about that.

Anyway, there was also a conversation or three over the weekend that reminded me of a conversation I had a hundred years ago or so, where I was hocking on about Labor, and somebody said that it was crazy to prevent the auto factories from using robots on the assembly lines, to force them to hire humans to work in terrible conditions when the machines were cheaper and more efficient. And I responded at the time that the problem was that if they sacked all those workers, there wasn’t anywhere for them to go, and that was worse than inefficiency on the line.

Those people died with the hammers in their hands.

Oh, they didn’t, really. They made very good money, and although their working conditions weren’t like mine, they weren’t so bad, either. And their pensions were stolen and all, which sucks, but isn’t really connected. When I say they died with their hammers in their hands, what I mean is that they, like John Henry, stuck to a job that was doomed and outmoded, and that wasn’t inherently noble (I mean, in the product, not the men), and that their battle to save their jobs did not save their jobs. That isn’t to say it was misguided. Just to say it wasn’t enough.

So I am ambivalent about celebrating John Henry at this point. I think a lot of us are, essentially, hand-driving steel at this point; we’re doing things the slow and inefficient way, and the dangerous way, too, even if it’s not going to break our hearts this week but our grandchildren’s hearts in fifty years. And we are, again, presented with Big Business saying that the way to progress is kicking labor to the gutter. And let me make that clear: I still find that unacceptable. But in John Henry’s day, they could have found other jobs for him and his brothers, so they and their wives wouldn’t work themselves to death to put dinner on the table. The choice should not have been starving themselves to death and working themselves to death. The choice in the eighties should not have been between high unemployment and beginning the death spiral of the American Auto industry.

So I want to tell the Youngest Member that if he becomes a steel-driving man, Lord, Lord, that’s fine, and all that, but John Henry didn’t have a lot of choices, and a better thing, if you can do it, is to give both John Henry and his Captain another choice.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Do you know that depressing thing where you come across a recent book or album (or movie or blog or whatever) and you think this really has something, I need to check out what else this person is doing, and you do a little searching and discover that the artist is dead? In the case of She’koyokh and Jim Marcovitch, it was particularly depressing because the fellow was 34 when he died last fall.

In the midst of whatnot, we are in proverbial, aren’t we.

Anyway, what I was going to write about was that the last song on the album was a Wedding Song, called Wedding Song, about the awful and calamitous experience of being a band at a wedding, or really about the awful and calamitous experience of being a band at a hundred weddings. It’s funny, and a little crazy, and I was reminded of Gogol Bordello’s song American Wedding.

Which, it turns out, is not so much about the experience of being the wedding band, although I certainly had the impression, in listening to it, that that was the reason for the Gypsy shit to be there, rather than any personal connection to the bride or the groom. The She’koyokh song is explicitly about being in the band (including when the band members get cranky with each other), but the Gogol Bordello song isn’t. Still, there’s a connection there, musically and thematically.

And then I started to think didn’t Mickey Katz have a song about being in a wedding band? And yes, he did, or at least he had a Wedding Song of his own. Well, two. At least. I couldn’t find the lyrics, and I don’t for some reason have the album (which I think I recall is It’s Simcha Time!), but it was there, in the back of my head, all the time.

So. Three data points make a trendline, yes? I suspect there’s a tradition of songs about being the wedding band, stretching back to the Old Country.

And I wonder—is it a klezmer tradition? Or is it just a musician’s tradition? It seems likely that eighty-seven percent of people who have become professional musicians have played weddings enough to get sick of playing weddings, and to amuse themselves with writing songs about it. I don’t know enough about the other genres to know if there is a series of, say, C&W songs about being in a wedding band. Wedding Band Polkas. Wedding Band ragas. I know there are ceilidh songs, that is, songs about being in a ceilidh (or even a funky ceilidh), but I don’t know any Celtic songs about being in a wedding band. Which doesn’t mean there aren’t a thousand of them, of course.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Your Humble Blogger likes to grab a handful of CDs at the library, figuring it’s free and what the hell, anyway. By an odd coincidence, two of the ones I picked up last week were Blue Rose, with Rosemary Clooney and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and Ray Sings, Basie Swings. The odd coincidence is not that they are both singers I like performing with bands I like. There wouldn’t be anything coincidental about that; I picked the albums off the shelves, after all. No, the coincidence actually is that they are both billed as singers I like performing with bands I like, but the singers and the bands were not in the same place.

In 1956, Rosemary Clooney was pregnant and unwell, and under Doctor’s orders not to travel. The Duke Ellington Orchestra, on the other hand, was neither pregnant nor unwell (depending on one’s definition of unwell, I suppose), and was traveling unceasingly. They were both new to Columbia Records, and the genius marketing idea of pairing them was too good to pass up, so the Duke recorded some backing arrangements in New York (or Chicago, the stories differ) and sent them to California along with Billy Strayhorn, and Ms. Clooney recorded the vocals there.

The album is pretty good; it’s late for the Duke, his soloists are not his top soloists (Ray Nance is not Bubber Miley), and when they are his top soloists they are not at the tops of their games, but the band works together like the well-oiled proverbial, and they still swing. This is after the Nelson Riddle sound became famous and successful (for Ms. Clooney, among other people), and the pace is much slower than I like, but it’s not otherwise Nelson-Riddle-ish, which is a Good Thing. And I don’t hear any problem with the transcontinental recording process; she doesn’t sound like she’s in another room, nor is it obvious that the band isn’t responding to her vocals. It seems like the album was not the big success Columbia Records was looking for (and Duke Ellington never did produce a #1 record again), but it’s one of those albums that Jazz People like.

Ray Sings, Basie Swings is a different story; first of all, the vocals tracks came first, which is less the usual thing, as I understand it. And although it is fundamentally true that Count Basie swings, I don’t know that the fact has anything to do with this album, other than that the big band arrangements to back the vocals were put together in a Basie-esque style. Count Basie had nothing to do with the recording; the thing was put together as a sort of wish-fulfillment on the part of the record company, when they found some Ray Charles vocal tracks from a show in Germany in the 70s and decided they were too good to let lie, despite the band’s sound being muddy and indistinct. If only there were a good band track to go along with this, they thought, and the rest is whatnot.

And, oddly enough, the album smokes. It’s not Basie, by any means, and that’s a shame, because the execs were right; Ray Charles backed by Count Basie would be awesome. But even though it’s not Basie, it’s a good band (the current band with the Count Basie name) and good arrangements, and Mr. Charles does some incredible vocals, particularly on “Let the Good Times Roll” and “Every Saturday Night”. And I totally wouldn’t have known or noticed that it’s a zombie vocal track.

In theory, I find these things deceptive and dishonest, but in practice, the albums are fine. Of course, I’m just listening to them for free; I might come to a different opinion if I had money at stake.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Y’all know Jim’s Big Ego? Jim Infantino’s band? Jim has written a new song, inspired by the Internationale, called of all things, International. It’s the first song on the album Free*, which is currently residing in our dashboard. I had been listening to a bunch of seasonal music, because oddly I felt like listening to a bunch of seasonal music, and then switched back to Jim, and played International, really quite loudly, for me.

The Youngest Member loved it. He likes when I sing along, sometimes, and seemed to particularly enjoy my singing along with the repeated lines rise up and claim your freedom and arise, arise, arise! So, because it’s better than singing the mitten song again, I played it again. This time my Perfect Non-Reader was in the car, and she seemed to like it too, and then we got out of the car and did an errand, and got back in the car, and the Youngest Member demanded another repetition (like he does), and my Perfect Non-Reader seemed OK with that, so we listened to it again! And then we picked up my Best Reader from her work, and as she hadn’t heard it yet that day, we listened to it again! Arise, arise, ARISE!

It’s a terrific song.

And then, over the rest of the day, in bits and pieces, we explained to the Perfect Non-Reader about the Internationale, and the sleeping giant, and Bread and Roses, and the international proletarian revolution, and all of that. Well, not all of it. More than she wanted actually.

And that’s your Music Monday.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 8:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Because YHB is lazy and uninspired, there will be no Music Monday today. Or yesterday, for that matter. However, to occupy the same space as Music Monday in the attention spans of Gentle Readers, here are Ten Songs I listened to on Monday that are interesting enough to have a Music Monday note written about them, if I felt like writing.

• “We're All Light”, XTC: an inspiring and terrific song, and one of my Best Reader's favorites.
• “Private Idaho”, the B-52s: a very odd song indeed.
• “Prisoner of Funk”, the Bobs: a capella surrealist R&B.
• “Blues I Love to Sing”, Adelaide Hall with the Duke Ellington Orchestra: oh, but you're killin' me!
• “A Porter's Love Song”, The Commonwealth Jazz Quartet: the banjo player I used to listen to at T stations.
• “Walkin' in Jerusalem”, Eddie from Ohio: Are you ready, boots?
• “Miss Pitiful”, Etta James: so Beyonce Knowles is playing Etta James in this Chess Records movie. That can't be good, can it?
• “Pink Shoe Laces”, Dodie Stevens: mackin'.
• “Tutti Frutti”, Elvis Presley: What's the best cover of this song?
• “Can't Stop the Rain”, Los Lobos: actually, the sun's come out at last, but baby, it's cold outside.



Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Did I not do a Music Monday last week? OK, Music Monday for this week is Lea DeLaria’s cover of “Kiko and the Lavender Moon”.

I think I saw Lea DeLaria as a stand-up comic, opening for the Flirtations, back in the twentieth century. I think I may have seen her at the Castro Street Fair a few years previous to that, but it was outside, I was shopping around, and it could well have been some other comic doing a bull-dyke persona. For that matter, it may not have been her I saw with the Flirtations. I’m pretty sure they were the Flirtations, though.

Anyway. I had heard that she was becoming successful in musical theater and even legit theater, and that she had a couple of albums, but frankly (or do I mean phrankly?), it never occurred to me that she might be any good. I had picked up the cast album for the Rocky Horror Show revival in which she played Eddie and Dr. Scott; I wasn’t really happy with the whole album, and I didn’t like her Dr. Scott at all. But, you know, with that sort of thing, maybe you had to be there.

Well, and I was with the Youngest Member and my Perfect Non-Reader at the library, and the PN-R was sitting with a stack of books downstairs in the Children’s Section, and I risked the wrath of the librarian by leaving her there All By Herself while I went upstairs with the Youngest Member to try to get something for my own good self. And that didn’t work out real well. You know how that is? But I did grab Ms. DeLaria’s Double Standards, because, you know, free, and I don’t have to like it.

And then I stuck it in the car, in that spot with the other CDs, and I listened to Bruce Springsteen’s Seeger Sessions all week, because damn. This isn’t a Music Monday about that album, but damn. That shit is boss. And then I thought I would just put Double Standards in and give it a quick listen to a track or two before giving it back to the library.

The first track is “Dancing Barefoot”, the Patti Smith song, and it was pretty darned good. Ms. DeLaria has a bit of a Betty Roche sound, bebop rather than swing, and she scats with a terrific rhythmic sense. And her band is fantastic. She’s got Christian McBride playing bass for her! I mean, seriously. Gil Goldstein is on the piano and Bill Stewart is on drums. So we’re talking major-league rhythm section, heavily steeped in bebop, and capable of swinging hard or stretching out. The song went on perhaps a trifle too long, right on the edge of noodling rather than going anywhere, but it still had a good sound.

And the second track is a cover of Los Lobos. Now, “Kiko and the Lavender Moon” is an awesome song to begin with, and the idea of covering it with a jazz combo doesn’t necessarily strike me as a good idea to begin with. On the other hand, Ms. DeLaria isn’t altogether in the good idea business; her earlier album has a jazz combo cover of “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” which you can listen to on her MySpace page, and it is a very bad idea indeed, but a lot of fun to listen to. And the whole album is covers of songs that don’t cry out for jazz combo covers (“Tattooed Love Boys”?), so that’s the point,really. And some of them work, and some, not so much.

This one works. This one is dance around the living room good. You’ve got to hear this good. Which is what Music Monday is for, right?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Perhaps we’ve had enough lyrics for now. “Ot Azoy” does have a couple of lines of lyric, although mostly it’s just the title, which depending on how you say it can mean either that’s the way! (uh-hunh,uh-hunh) or what a world!. I was listening to Bagels and Fraylox, a Williamsburg (VA) band. We heard them perform this song at a local coffeehouse (damn, I can’t think of its name, and I spent a ton of time there. Enormous clock. Aromas, that was it), when there were perhaps a dozen people there, and by Best Reader and I were the only ones chiming in on the chorus. And banging on the table. If any Gentle Readers are in Wmsbg (and why not?), the Fraylox are back at the library next week. The CD I have is a recording of a performance at the library a few years ago, and they give good show.

The song is one of those traditional numbers, so although there’s only a little clip on-line from the recording I have, you can go to Tapuach b’Dvash’s version, very different instrumentally what with the enormous balalaika (what the hell is that, a subcontrabass?) and the drum, but recognizably the same song. Which, by the way, is a different song than the tailor one, also sometimes called “Ot Azoy”, or Ot Azoy Neyt A Shnayder or (as recorded by Cab Calloway) “Utt-Da-Zay”.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 1:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

OK, despite Dan P coming through with last-minute Bragging Units, it’s time to end this thing. I’m putting this full and final list in a new entry, because (a) it’s easier than coming up with a new idea for an entry, and (2) the old one is now old enough to require moderation, and I’d like GRs pile on more comments, either whinging about how all those other songs are far too obscure to be fair or how you thought the lyric was something else altogether.

• astonished: If were not a little mad and generally silly/I should give you my advice upon the subject, willy-nilly;/I should show you in a moment how to grapple with the question,/And you’d really be astonished at the force of my suggestion. from Ruddigore, Gilbert and Sullivan. No responses.
• bathing: Beauty sat bathing by a spring where fairest shades did hide her/the winds blew calm the birds did sing the cool streams ran beside her “Hey Nonny Nonny”, Violent Femmes. Jacob and Shmuel both get BUs for different songs.
• captivate: And I pray our child will never see/A little Corporal again/Point toward a foreign shore/Captivate the hearts of men “Done with Bonaparte”, Mark Knopfler. No responses.
• distributor: Down the line, comin’ down the line, a V6 Merc in blue’Without the sparks or distributor cap, I’ll slap them on as it rides through “Darlington Darling”, Moxie Fruvous. Chaos nailed it.
• elevation: And she was looking at herself/And things were looking like a movie/She had a pleasant elevation/She’s moving out in all directions “And She Was”, Talking Heads. Ruth nailed it.
• flatulent: Frankly, Mr. Shankly, since you ask/You are a flatulent pain in the arse/I do not mean to be so rude/Still, I must speak frankly, Mr. Shankly “Frankly, Mr. Shankly”, the Smiths. Dan P at the buzzer.
• ghettology: This sound does not subscribe to the international plan/In the psycho shadow of the white right hand/Them that see ghettology as an urban Vietnam/Giving deadly exhibitions of murder by napalm, “This is Radio Clash” the Clash. No responses. Could be ghetto-ology, but that’s no excuse.
• housewife: Leroy got a better job so we moved/Kevin lost a tooth now he’s started school/I got a brand new eight month old baby girl/I sound like a housewife/Hey ’Chell, I think I’m a housewife “Anchorage”, Michelle Shocked. Jacob nailed it.
• ichthyosaur: Please can I have one Mr. Ichthyosaur?/No, you can’t, I’m saving them for friends/But you don’t have any friends/Yes, I do/No, you don’t/Yes, I do. Now be quiet/I’m trying to concentrate “Nine Bowls of Soup”, They Might Be Giants. Fran named the song but didn’t bother putting in the Chunk O Lyrics for full BUs.
• Jeddah: A jet to Mecca/Tibet or Jeddah/To Salisbury/a monastery/the longest journey “Sat in Your Lap”, Kate Bush. Melissa R. gets some credit for that one. YHB probably gets scorn and derision, because it’s not really intelligible from the song, but it’s kinda cool anyway.
• kindling: I’m gonna whittle you into kindling/Black Crow/16 shells from a thirty-ought-six/whittle you into kindling/Black Crow/16 shells from a thirty-ought-six “16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought-Six”, Tom Waits. Jed got a different song.
• laceration: They have me under observation/A life out on the farm/proctecting me from harm/protecting me from laceration/brush it under a rug/one day, it’ll all go away “Observation”, Eddie from Ohio. YHB doesn’t even like beets.
• monkish: The monkish monsignor/With a head full of plaster/Said: ‘My man, get your vile soul dry-cleaned!’ “Vicar in a Tutu”, The Smiths. Miriam nailed it.
• narwhal: There goes a dog-fish/chased by a cat-fish/in flew a sea robin/watch out for that piranha/there goes a narwhal/here comes a bikini whale! “Rock Lobster”, the B-52s. Ruth nailed it.
• Occidental: They sounded the all-clear in the Occidental Bazaar/They used to call Oxford Street/Now the bankrupt souls in the City/Are finally tasting defeat “London’s Brilliant Parade”, Elvis Costello. Juliet nailed it.
• parquet: While the crowds at El Morocco punish the parquet/And at 21 the couples clamor for more/I’m deserted and depressed/In my regal eagle’s nest/Down in the depths on the ninetieth floor. “Down in the Depths (on the 90th Floor)”, Cole Porter. Miriam got this one, based on the Cats&Jammers recording.
• quintessence: A 15-year-old’s browse through life/is fine with his quintessence safe and sound in mind/Life’s an adolescence from time to time/With us all/in quintessence. “ In Quintessence”, Squeeze. Fran nailed it, with an assist from YHB’s playlist.
• revenue: He’s a one-trick pony/one trick is all that horse can do/he does one trick only/it’s the principal source of his revenue “One Trick Pony”, Paul Simon. No responses, which surprised me, since I figured the word would be big in either gangsta rap or bluegrass, or gangsta bluegrass.
• Sorbonne: You can tell I’m educated/I studied at the Sorbonne/Doctored in mathematics/I could have been a don “Opportunity (Lots of Money)”, Pet Shop Boys. No responses. YHB has the brains, you’ve got the brawn.
• tax-deductible: But nobody has any respect/Anyway they already expect you/To all give a check/To tax-deductible charity organizations “Ballad of a Thin Man”, Bob Dylan. Juliet gets partial credit.
• unemployment: While they’re standing in the welfare lines/Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation/Wasting time in the unemployment lines/Sitting around waiting for a promotion “Talkin’ ’bout a Revolution”, Tracy Chapman. Jacob led off with this one.
• vichyssoise: Jealous winter sun/Cold as vichysoisse/Steals your smile for fuel/They’ll ignite with braziers/Of warming stars “Knights in Shining Karma”, XTC. Jed had a different song in mind.
• wheelchair: Just put me in a wheelchair, get me on a plane/Hurry hurry hurry, before I go insane/I can’t control my fingers, I can’t control my brain/Oh no “I Wanna Be Sedated”, The Ramones. Jed got a different song, and Miriam got this one.
• X-Files: Watchin’ X-Files with no lights on/We’re dans la maison/I hope the Smoking Man’s in this one “One Week”, Barenaked Ladies. Ruth nailed it.
• yardstick: You want some lovely, I got some lovely/In my yard, in my yard/There be inchworm, there be football/Take my yardstick, stir some lovely “Brown Guitar”, XTC. No responses.
• zooming: The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in/Engines stop running, the wheat is growing thin. “London Calling”, The Clash. Miriam came through.

YHB had a lot of fun with this one, both here and at the other three sites. I’ve used lyricwiki for most of the lyrics here, to save myself typing, so credit to them. Thanks for playing, and since I don’t want anyone to leave empty-handed, the doors are all locked.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The lyrics are Comden and Green, the music is Jule Styne. The song was originally written for Dolores Gray for a review called Two on the Aisle. The song is “If You Hadn’t, But You Did”, magnificently performed by Kristin Chenoweth.

It’s just about a perfect example of a particular kind of Tin Pan Alley song, mostly an excuse to show off (1) the talent of the singer and (b) the cleverness of the lyricist. Mostly the latter. The singer is a Woman Betrayed, but really it’s all about about finding lines to rhyme with the word if. Tiff, cliff, stiff, whiff, handkerchief. Flat-bottomed skiff, bare midriff. Comden and Green also makes use of the fashion for dropping the last syllables of words to make a cutesy slang: teriff, specif, what’s the diff, marriage certif, no signif, South Pacif, smile beautif. There are also internal rhymes: If/I had not seen you pen/sexy letters to Gwen/in your own heiroglyph, if/you had not had the cheek/to be gone for a week/saying ‘back in a jiff’.

The music lopes along cheerily, countering the potential bitterness of the lyrics, although of course the lyrics themselves counter their subject by being so wonderfully silly. Ms. Chenoweth uses her party trick of switching back and forth between her opera voice and her broadway belter to great effect, and she swings hard when she needs to.

Oh, and part of the gag when it’s staged (I assume going back to the original revue) is that at the end of the intro, the singer shoots her wayward lover, and sings the rest of it to his dead body. In the video I’ve attempted to embed below is some of the best dead-guy dancing I’ve seen.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was going to write about something different for Music Monday—a terrific song came up yesterday that I suspect most of y’all haven’t heard of—but then I found out something truly shocking: the lyrics in “Alley Oop” call the titular caveman a mean motor-scooter. I mean, really? This would have been in something like 1960. OK, I looked it up, it was written in 1957. I suppose (actually, I’ve just spent, like, twenty minutes doing internet research) that B.B. King’s “Mother Fuyer” was contemporary (it was actually an older song, recorded by “Dirty” Red Nelson in 1947), but still, this was a popular song about a popular comic strip. And, you know, popular with white people.

So the Beach Boys and all of those other bands that covered this novelty song called Alley Oop a mean motherfucker (at least notionally) on commercial radio? Alley Oop? The Beach Boys?

Sometimes I wonder about that whole parallel universe thing that sometimes leaks through.

Oh, and yes, I discovered this whilst listening to a collection of 50s novelty tunes that was packaged specifically for youngsters.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My college roommate was totally into Laurie Anderson. Not my freshman year roommate, but the fellow I roomed with sophomore and junior years; a vaguely remember that my freshman year roommate had decent taste in music but I can’t for the life of me remember any specific bands or even genres he liked.

Anyway, Strange Angels came out in 1989, when I was a sophomore, and my roommate bought it (on CD!) and we listened to it a lot. I mean, a lot. It’s a terrific album, just taken as a pop album. I mean, for a pop album it’s a bit arty, but it’s no artier than, say, Remain in Light. There are melodies, and the songs are more or less the length of songs, at least within the college alternative music sense of songs, where four or five minutes seems like a perfectly reasonable song length.

“Monkey’s Paw” is a fantastic song riffing off the old story and plastic surgery. “The Day the Devil” is a fantastic song about, well, the day the Devil comes to get you. “Beautiful Red Dress” is probably the best pop song there is about menstruation, and “Hiawatha” is probably the best pop song there is about Longfellow poetry. But my favorite, for some reason, is “Baby Doll”, which is about the relationships between people and their brains.

I don’t know about your brain, she says, but mine is really… bossy. It’s bossy, but also condescending, and definitely male. Baby Doll, he calls her, and he interested in what he wants, and not particularly interested in what she wants. The offhand manner in which he comes to her assistance in the letter-writing. The wrinkled little scraps of paper with insulting comments. And striking closest for me is the way that her brain goes away and comes back, without warning, without sticking to a schedule.

And it’s danceable. Well, funkable. The beat is driving, with just a tad of swing and odd sounding percussion like synapses snapping. Yes, eighties synthesizer.

Oh, one more thing: When she says Do you mean… George?, she’s referring to Our Only President’s father. At some point in 2001, I must have heard the song and griped about how it came back. Nice to think that soon we will have a President with a different name.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My Gracious Host has posted an enjoyable game he calls Online Encore. In the Encore parlor game, there is a target word and people are trying to come up with lots and lots of lyrics that contain that word. That game works best with words that are moderately common; ideally, the first half-dozen songs shouldn’t take much memory at all, and then the competition really starts. In Jed’s Online Encore, the point is for the Blogger to come up with a list of really hard words, and for the Readers (working as a team) to come up with lyrics that include them. He has listed an atoz, and there are still quite a few targets unhit. YHB has come up with an atoz of target words for Gentle Readers to aim at.

Score: For each word on the list, YHB has in mind one and only one song that contains the word. Gentle Readers (as a team) get one Bragging Unit for each time y’all come up with the song I thought of, but you get two Bragging Units each time you come up with a song I didn’t think of. Up to a maximum of five Bragging Units per word. YHB gets two Bragging Units for having come up with the list. For every word on the list that y’all blank on, I get two more Bragging Units. For any word that y’all can’t come up with any other song than the one I had in mind, I get one Braggin Unit. Any Gentle Reader who posts his or her own list gets two Bragging Units. Jed gets two Bragging Units for having come up with the game. Any Gentle Reader who posts for the first time with a guess gets one extra Bragging Unit. Any Gentle Reader who is able to identify an instance where YHB has screwed up the lyrics again gets one Bragging Unit.

MFQ Rules: Don’t look stuff up and then post it. You don’t have to know the name of the song, but you have to be able to sing (or in this case type) a chunk of the lyric containing the word. It’s better if you sing that chunk of lyric out loud, though, whilst typing. Eight words is the canonical minimum chunk for the Encore parlor game. If you get the lyrics wrong from memory (as I did four of my guesses over yonder), there will be Scorn and Derision, but not so bad as if you looked the lyric up before posting. Don’t just make up shit up, please, and if you do, make it worthwhile. Within that construct, I’m going to rule that songs written by Gentle Readers are not eligible, even if you realio trulio wrote a song with that word in the lyric five years ago. I mean, if you did, let me know, because that’s a whole separate set of Bragging Units. All the songs are primarily in the English Language; no score for translations and multilingual puns, except, you know, anyone who does something really clever gets one Bragging Unit and one S&D unit.

The List: I'll try to keep this up-to-date. If a word is in bold, nobody has come up with nothing. If a word is in italics, at least one Gentle Reader has come up with at least one song containing it. If a word is struck through, some Gentle Reader has come up with the song that YHB was thinking of. If a word is both italicized and struck through, then y'all have maxed out the five BUs available.

• astonished
• captivate
• flatulent
• ghettology
• Jeddah
• laceration
• revenue
• Sorbonne
• yardstick
• bathing
• distributor
• elevation
• housewife
• ichthyosaur
• kindling
• monkish
• narwhal
• Occidental
• parquet
• quintessence
• tax-deductible
• unemployment
• vichysoisse
• wheelchair
• X-Files
• zooming

At the end of the game, we can all take our Bragging Units and exchange them for valuable… er… Look! Isn’t that John McCain over there?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (42)

So, here’s the thing: it’s 1980, Squeeze (aka Squeeze UK) has put out three albums, and is really hitting its stride. They are beyond any doubt cool for cats. They’ve broken loose from the producer thing, and started to have a really distinctive sound, based in large part on the keyboard work of the incomparable Jools Holland. Who leaves the band.

Chris Difford writes some lyrics about being married and on tour with zillions of available groupies. It’s a melancholy song, full of lists, the narrator seeming to focus on listing whatever he sees in an attempt to fill his mind with banal images so that he doesn’t think about the consequences of his actions. Not very pop. Glenn Tillbrook likes the lyrics but can’t come up with a melody. Eventually he gets something, but isn’t happy with the sound of it.

The recording for the new album isn’t going well. They’ve got a new keyboardist, Paul Carrack, and they’ve got Dave Edmunds producing, and it is going very badly. So they ditch him and get Elvis Costello to produce. He takes over, rearranges the song to sound more R&B, and not only demands that Mr. Carrack take the lead vocals (pissing off Mr. Tillbrook), but takes a good chunk of the vocals himself.

And, somehow, it works.

Although the video is one of the great examples of bad 80s music videos in the category band pretends to be performing in concert whilst lip-synching to the studio recording. It’s particularly egregious due to (a) the sulkiness of the band members as they lip-synch to Mr. Costello’s vocals, and (2) the inexplicable presence of three shimmying women who at first appear to be backup singers, but do not actually sing (or lip-synch) the backup vocals at all. At one point, they appear to be sitting down and having a rest. Well, all that shimmying must take it out of a girl.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As it’s Music Monday again, I’ll talk a bit about Naive Melody, “This Must Be the Place”. I love this song. The version I was listening to is off the first CD version of the Stop Making Sense soundtrack; the live version, but remixed, I believe, with the live drumming taken off and a drum machine put in, among other things. Not sure about that, now that I think about it. When did I buy the CD? I suppose I could dig around and find it. I almost never use any of the CDs I’ve purchased over the years. At home I listen to music on my computer, and in the car I listen mostly to library discs or mix CDs I’ve made for myself. Some CDs from my collection, but not a lot.

Anyway, I love the song. I have a terrific cover version by Gunnar (“Bob”) Madsen off The Power of a Hat, and I’ve heard a handful of other great covers, but this is my favorite. There’s something about the affectless voice of David Byrne over the “naive” and endles repetition of the hook together with the slight funk that creeps in. And the backing vocals are just wonderful.

One of the things that I love about the Speaking in Tongues album is the way the lyrics are relentlessly abstract, intended to evoke emotions rather than tell stories. Yes, YHB is a freak for narrative, but that means I am substantially less likely to love a song lyric or story or movie that isn’t narrative, but if I do like it, I like it a lot. Actually, now that I think about it, perhaps I can draw a connection to painting styles: I have little interest in still life or landscape, but I love a lot of truly abstract stuff: Malevich and Still and LeWitt. Perhaps the lyrics of Speaking in Tongues are like Sol LeWitt’s wall paintings: rigorous, abstract and beautiful.

And just a trifle unsettling. I mean, just a bit. It sort of has to be unsettling, just because the concatenation of phrases is unconnected, not only to each other but to the music, and to the expression of the vocals. The bits of phrases evoke home, mostly, both from a sense of longing for the heimishkeit and from a sense of dislocation or disorientation, from which home is a refuge. And of course, home is identified with the you in the song, rather than with an actual place or house.

And then the ending… the idea that somebody will “love me till my heart stops” is both comforting and discomfiting at once, isn’t it, particularly when repeated as “love me till I’m dead”. The eyes in the next line, the “eyes that light up” refer back to the line about having “light in your eyes”, right? But hear at the end of the song the “eyes look through you”; are they the singers eyes, then? Looking through the song’s second-person as in seeing into the soul, or looking through you in the sense of discovering their pretenses? Because the next line is “cover up the blank spots/hit me on the head”, which it’s tricky to force into the mosaic of comfort and love, particularly with the talk about death earlier in the verse. It would be possible to construct out of these disconnected phrases a frightening narrative—but it wouldn’t be consistent with the music. Nor would it be consistent with the clear intent of the lyric, which is to keep the images fragmented, rather than connecting them.

Because it is a beautiful song. For me, the cumulative effect of the whole thing, the lyric and the sound, is one of aching longing for the deep connection between people that constitutes a home, and of the surprised dawning of realization that it exists already.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Your Humble Blogger has been, as Gentle Readers are aware, scratching about in the dirt for some blog worms. Er, not such a good metaphor. Anyway, I’ve been having a bit of difficulty being inspired to write much of anything for the blog, partially because I lose my temper over the political stuff, and partially because I got into the habit of relying on Pyggie to supply me with topics. So. I’m going to attempt to start a habit of Music Monday! Boy, I should come up with a graphic for that, hunh? Well, the idea is that every Monday (that I actually get off my bottom and do it) I will look at some song I listened to the day before (perhaps I should say over the last 60 hours or so, covering the weekend) and write something about it.

Looking at the songs I listened to yesterday, what floats to the top is the new Jim’s Big Ego album, which is free*, and which I’m not ready to write about yet, having only listened to it the once. For individual sides, it’s “Maman Rosin Au Zydeco Bal” off the BeauSoleil album Live! From the Left Coast. For those of you unfamiliar with BeauSoleil, and were somehow unable to guess from the title of the song, they are a cajun band playing two-step music. Gentle Reader, if you know nothing about cajun music, listen to a taste of some to see if you like it. Gentle Reader, if you like cajun music, or fiddling of any kind, and are unfamiliar with BeauSoleil, go listen to a taste.

I’ve only seen the band once, on a very very odd triple bill. The opening band was the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, BeauSoleil came on second, and the headliner was Geno Delafose, le cowboy creole. Which meant that we could slip out partway through the set, because although he was very good, we were very old, and it was very late, and we’d seen both the bands we had come to see. And we danced to the Dirty Dozen, when the dance floor was almost empty and people were milling around, treating them like the opening act. Which, you know, they were. More people danced to BeauSoleil, and the floor was packed when Mr. Delafose started with his French-rocking boogie; it was during that brief craze for New Jump music and there were young swing dancers just aching to show off their two-step moves.

I don’t know if BeauSoleil played this song during their set. I neither speak nor understand the French language, which hasn’t ever been a problem in my life, but does mean that I don’t associate songs in that language with their titles, nor do I know the songs with the kind of familiarity I do songs in English. My favorite BeauSoleil song is their cover of Fats Domino’s “It’s You I Love”, which they sing in both English and French. Or I assume they are singing a French translation. For all I really know, they are singing about almonds and raisins, or the anti-inflammatory qualities of cod liver oil, or just scatting nonsense syllables.

That total lack of French is part of the reason I love this song so much, I’m afraid. I mean, in addition to the way the band smokes through what is evidently a traditional Acadian tune, in Michael Doucet’s lyric there’s what is either an actual pun or just what sounds like a wonderful pun to my monolingual ears. The chorus, you see, is

O, yaie, donnez-moi des haricots.
He, maman, les haricots sont pas sales.

which by the translation in the liner notes and my own recollection and interpretation means something like Oy, Oy, pass me them there beans/Oh Mama, them beans sure ain’t salty! I’m just assuming they aren’t talking about beans, there. If the song were in Yiddish, they wouldn’t be talking about bupkes.

Anyway, the point is that Mr. Doucet’s accent and my unfamiliarity with that accent and the language makes his hard r sound a trifle like a d, that is, it’s made with the tip of the tongue hitting the palate rather than being curled. There are people who can describe this more clearly than I can, using proper tools and the International Phonetic Alphabet; there are more languages than French Your Humble Blogger doesn’t know. Anyway, with the z sound at the end of the article, and the silent t at the end, les haricots sounds to me exactly like l’zydeco; the song, then, is proclaiming that it’s the zydeco music at the ball that ain’t salty.

Again, I have no idea if this is a deliberate pun, a pleasant accident, or a sort of mondegreen. I suspect it’s a deliberate pun, because I like it better that way.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gentle Readers will recall that YHB asked for help in mixing a CD for Opening Night presents, and just possibly have been waiting to find out the final score. Herewith the opening of the liner notes:

Notes on some recordings of popular music from the Higgins Archive

By W.G. Neppomuck

While it is well-known among scholars of historical linguistics that the Higgins Archive of recordings on wax cylinders includes many fine examples of early-twentieth-century dialects, a complete index of the Archive has only recently been completed. Even many researchers who have used the recordings by courtesy of the Royal Archive are unaware that in addition to the hundreds of recordings of London dialects and scores of recordings of dialects from elsewhere in England, Europe and Asia, there are a handful of cylinders of popular music. Whether Henry Higgins instructed the vocalists in phonetics, recorded them for study, or simply kept them for his own amusement, it is not now possible to know¹.

The purpose of this note is to sketch out the variety of styles, accents and dialects and other matters of phonological interest found in these recordings. The accompanying CD provides scholars an opportunity for close study. It is, perhaps, worth mentioning that some of the recordings lack a modern sense of cultural sensitivity. Higgins himself was, as was typical for his time, profoundly chauvinistic and insensitive²; however, the modern scholar might also keep in mind that he collected many recordings of which he did not approve. We must reserve judgement. However, for the modern listener, this author apologizes in advance for any offense, but persists in hopes that doing so will advance the cause of phonetic science.

¹ The notes kept with the cylinders are in Higgins’ own hand, and are incomplete, illegible and incoherent. Fortunately, the labels are in another hand, meticulous and feminine. The identity of this assistant is another mystery of the Higgins Archive, however, we are grateful to her for the names of the songs and of the vocalists.

² see Higgins 1908, Higgins 1909a, Higgins 1909b, Higgins and Pickering 1913, Higgins and Pickering 1914, Higgins 1915 and Higgins 1919.

The song list is below. There were some good things I had to leave off, and a few lousy things I had to leave off, and there were a few things I couldn’t track down in time. After the fact, a cast member suggested Lonnie Donegan’s My Old Man’s a Dustman, which would have been perfect and probably would have opened the CD, but I had never heard of it before, and although I’m sure I had heard of Lonnie Donegan (as he is a Big Deal influence on a bunch of musicians I like so much that I’ve bothered to read articles about them and their musical influences) I can’t say as I could have pulled his name out of my memory. With that sort of thing in mind, Gentle Reader, please chip in with other stuff that seems missing, as it may be a Learning Experience for YHB, and I can always use one of those.

“Mother’s Lament”, performed by Cream
“ I’m Henery The Eighth”, performed by Harry Champion
“ It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary”, performed by Albert Farrington
“ Yes, We Have No Bananas”, performed by Billy Jones
“ I Love Louisa”, performed by Fred Astaire
“ Slow Down Krishna”, performed by The Bobs
“ In the Desert”, performed by Flanders & Swann
“ Rum And Coca Cola”, performed by Andrews Sisters
“ Me Pants Fall Down”, performed by Da Vinci’s Notebook
“ Run Joe”, performed by Louis Jordan
“ Road Man”, performed by Smash Mouth
“ Flat Foot Floogie”, performed by Mills Brothers
“ Angelina - Zooma Zooma (Medley)”, performed by Louis Prima
“ Mambo Italiano”, performed by Rosemary Clooney
“ Thou Swell”, performed by Count Basie & Joe Williams
“ Burlington Bertie”, performed by Julie Andrews
“ Bruces’ Philosophers Song”, performed by Monty Python
“ It’s You I Love”, performed by Beausoleil
“ Dos Geshrey Fun Der Vilder Katshke (The Cry Of The Wild Duck)”, performed by Klezmer Conservatory Band
“ What I Want Is A Proper Cup Of Coffee”, performed by Trout Fishing In America
“ Another Irish Drinking Song”, performed by Da Vinci’s Notebook
“ Autumn Leaves”, performed by Mel Torme

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gentle Readers, a little assistance, if you please.

Your Humble Blogger has started for himself a little tradition (if you do something twice, it’s a tradition, right?) of making a mix CD as opening-night gifts for the cast and crew. For The Man who Came to Dinner, I did a mix of songs from the 1930s, the era the show was set, although I did mix in some other songs that fit the mood, even if they were recorded later. For Les Liaisons Dangereuses, I made an Early Music mix (explaining that after a fair amount of research, I decided that I just don’t like music from the 1780s). For Pygmalion, my idea is a mix of songs where the singers put on funny accents. Or songs about people with funny accents. Probably supplemented by songs where the singers actually have funny accents, to fill up an hour.

Off the top of my head, there’s “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”, and probably Noel Coward’s “Has Anybody Seen My Ship”, and either Mel Tormé singing “Autumn Leaves” in a Faux French Accent or Trout Fishing in America singing “Proper Cup of Coffee” in Faux French. There’s Bing Crosby and Bob Hope singing “Hoots, Mon” from the Road to Bali.

I could find “Yes, We Have No Bananas”, either the Irving Kaufman hit or the Spike Jones travesty. Louis Prima, of course, does it in Mock Italian rather than Mock Greek, but I could come up with some other Louis Prima Mock Italian, like “Angelina” or “Felicia No Capicia”.

One problem, of course, is that many of the possibilities are racist, or at least smell of racism, to the point where I’d rather not include them. Is Harry Belafonte putting on the Jamaican accent he lost as a child to sing Calypso racist? No, not really. I could put the Banana Boat song on, or even “Matilda”. What about Nat King Cole singing “Calypso Blues”? I mean, somewhere along the line you get to Al Jolson, yes? Not that “Yes, We Have No Bananas” is not racist. It is. But somehow, now that Southern European isn’t a race anymore, I don’t mind it too much. Of course, there’s the anti-immigrant thing, but isn’t that the whole point of funny-accent music? Perhaps I could put that in the liner notes.

Anyway, I’m looking for suggestions. My own taste leans to mid-century stuff (er, the 20th century, you remember), but I’d be happy to have a ton of rock-and-roll, if we can come up with enough. I find that a mix that is mostly in one (broadly defined) style but has one or two songs from a different style doesn’t work very well, but a mix that swings from style to style can work very well indeed. I am aware that the lead singer of Green Day affects an accent, but I don’t know their stuff, and I would have to put on, I don’t know, Ian Dury’s “Billericay Dickie” to cushion it. Does that count as a fake accent? Mr. Dury wasn’t really from Essex, you know.

Anyway, I’m—did I mention this?—looking for suggestions. Criteria: Song must have at least one verse in accented English, preferably fake, ideally outrageously obviously fake. Song must be reasonably pleasant to listen to anyway. Song should ideally avoid outright racism. It would be nice to avoid vicious mean-spirited mockery, although affectionate mockery would be acceptable. Obscenities are a strike against, although I could presumably make a different disc for the children in the cast. Songs from stage musicals are also a strike against, although later recordings by different singers may well be fine. Sock it to me, Gentle Readers.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

One of the good things about doing an interview the way I’m doing it is that I can interpret the questions however I like. F’r’ex, when Matt Hulan asks What is it about Elvis Costello?, rather than answering What is it about Elvis Costello that makes him such an asshole?, I can answer What is it about Elvis Costello that makes him so important to YHB personally? If you would like to try such interpretations for your own set of five questions, simply leave a twenty-pound note between the end of chapter two (The Detection of Leaks) and the beginning of chapter three (Checking the Thoroughness of Mixing) of any nearby copy of Radio Isotopes: A New Tool for Industry, by Sidney Jefferson. Or type a note in the comments, if that’s easier for you. Now, on to Elvis Costello.

Gentle Readers will no doubt be shocked to learn that Your Humble Blogger was a nerdy kid. Glasses, asthma, bad skin, special classes for the gifted, social ineptness, poor hand-eye co-ordination, ostracization, the whole bang shoot. And, of course, the rage, envy and self-loathing that is the birthright of the nerd, or at least of the male nerd (I suspect the female feels much the same, only worse). By the time I was in seventh or eighth grade, Elvis Costello was the outlet for those emotions. I listened to My Aim Is True over and over. A big old platter, on an enormous Hi-Fi system, usually alone in the house in the afternoon, or, if my mother were home, perhaps in my sister’s room on her more modern turntable. “Allison”, “Watching the Detectives” and “Mystery Dance” expressed the adolescent inferiority/superiority complex with an eloquence I could not, and with a frankness I could not reach, either. Particularly, this was a rock star who not only had glasses and pigeon toes but sang about a sexual life that existed primarily in twisted fantasies, where fulfillment wasn’t as easily imagined as revenge.

It’s cool now, I promise.

You know what? I’m going to go through the album song-by-song, just to bring back the ugly past:

• Welcome to the Working Week: in my teens, this was a song about a boy whose girlfriend becomes famous, for some reason, and inadequate to the glossy life of a starlet’s boyfriend, and demoted to a sort of assistant/dogsbody. I don’t exactly know where all this came from, but that’s what I got.


• Miracle Man: This, for me, was the song of a man who is losing his struggle with his urges. He’s got a crazy crush on a girl who sees him as just a friend; she teases him casually and he usually pretends not to care, but he’s reaching the breaking point.


• No Dancing: This is a fellow who finally makes it to his girlfriend’s house, expecting to get lucky, but his clumsy advances are such a turn-off that she dumps him. Shudder.


• Blame It On Cain: Just a crazy outsider rant. But fun.


• Alison: Classic dark, jealous threat.


• Sneaky Feelings: The boy in this one prefers his fantasies to the possible realities.
  
• (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes: Another unrequited love story, but with perhaps the Best Ever line: I said “I’m so happy I could die”/She said “Drop dead” then left with another guy. This is the inevitable result of transitory happiness for this frame of mind. Or, perhaps, when anyone is fourteen.


• Less Than Zero: Er, about fascism. Worth bringing up the other point, which is that Elvis Costello songs were not just about sexual longing and inferiority, they were about sexual longing and inferiory expressed in erudite terms. You know, for nerds.


• Mystery Dance: In this song, the boy is not only clumsy, but actually ignorant of the mechanics of sex, for extra humiliation.


• Pay It Back: Here, the boy is putting up a hard front, until the line Until the lights went out, I didn’t know what to do/If I could fool myself, then maybe I’d fool you too, which brings us back to the previous song’s humiliation.


• I’m Not Angry: Oh, yes he is. And jealous. Another is-she-really-going-out-with-him song.


• Waiting for the End of the World: This song is more the aloof nerd, the one who is just better than the circumjacent yahoos, and a little bit afraid of them, too.


• Watching the Detectives: Although it isn’t clear whether the boy in this song is only fantasizing about kidnapping the object of his pathetic crush or whether he has done it, it’s still creepy. Wonderfully creepy.

I think that’s the whole album that I had on vinyl. I could probably sing the whole thing through, word for word, right now (except for the mondegreens, since the album came without a lyrics sheet, and I learned the words off the Singing Dictionary much later and the intellectual knowledge hasn’t replaced the muscle memory of singing the wrong words), and—and this is really important—hum most of the bass lines and guitar solos and tap out the drum parts on a table top. Because in addition to the whole emotional thing, these are really good songs. The lyrics are witty, and funny in places, and powerful, and the tunes are catchy, memorable and enjoyable.

And then there are the other nineteen albums. Mr. Costello (or Mr. MacManus, to use his proper name) has put out a lot of great music, over my entire adult life. He was the first recording artist that I ever sought out information on when a new album was coming out to go and buy it as soon as it was available. Back when they were on big black plates, you know. Actually, the first album I bought on CD I bought was Imperial Bedroom, to replace the cassette that was worn out, and besides cut off partway through “Town Cryer”. That was, coincidentally or not, the first CD I damaged and had to replace. Ah, well. I walked four miles to buy Spike on the first day it was out. Well, it’s more accurate to say that I wandered around Philadelphia lost for an hour until I blundered my way to the Tower Records on South Street, but I was headed there to buy Spike. I have grown less obsessed over time (as I have grown more complacent with my own life), and I haven’t got around to getting the new album, yet. Plus, over the last ten years or so, I’ve started to resent him for being an asshole. But whenever I hear a new album, I want to like it, because that first one was so important to me, way back when.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Bo Diddley has died.

I think a lot of people think of Bo Diddley as a joke, which makes sense, as he was a comic figure. He played a square guitar, for crying out loud. Lots of musicians, lots of performers, lots of people critical in the development of art forms have been comic figures. That doesn’t make them unimportant. The art can still be good.
For me, it doesn’t get much better than that early Bo Diddley, the Chess Records stuff. If I get a choice between listening to Muddy Waters or Bo Diddley, I’ll take Bo Diddley. If I get a choice between listening to Howlin’ Wolf or Bo Diddley, I’ll take Bo Diddley. If I get a choice between listening to B.B. King or Bo Diddley, I’ll take Bo Diddley. If I get a choice between listening to Eric Clapton or Bo Diddley, I’ll take Bo Diddley. If I get a choice between listening to The Rolling Stones or Bo Diddley, I’ll take Bo Diddley.

But that’s a matter of taste, and people, being different one to another, have different tastes, and that’s what makes the world interesting and fun. What is not a matter of taste is how influential his Bo Diddley persona remains, both directly and indirectly. The character of the boisterous, comically arrogant and egotistical (black) man is common, and his technique of making risibly overstated boasts about his sexual prowess and rebelliousness should be instantly recognizable to anyone with a level of cultural literacy above zero, that is, around the level of Your Humble Blogger.

I walk 47 miles of barbed wire,
I use a cobra-snake for a necktie,
I got a brand new house on the roadside,
Made from rattlesnake hide,
I got a brand new chimney made on top,
Made out of a human skull,
Now come on take a walk with me, child,
And tell me, who do you love?

By the way, if anybody wearing a cobra-snake necktie asks you do take a walk with him and tell him who you love, do not walk with this man. This has been your good advice for the day.

Now when I was a little boy,
At the age of five,
I had somethin’ in my pocket,
Keep a lot of folks alive.
Now I’m a man,
Made twenty-one,
You know baby,
We can have a lot of fun.

The lyrics, of course, don’t do justice to the sound. You may see obituaries talking about the shave-and-a-haircut rhythm, or bomp-chicka-bomp-chicka-bomp-bomp rhythm. Writing about music is, notoriously, like dancing about architecture; if you’re inspired to do it, terrific, but don’t expect the audience to learn a lot. I’ll say that once I’d heard that rhythm, the one he didn’t invent but which he popularized, I started hearing in a lot of rock-and-roll, and more to the point, a lot of good rock-and-roll.

I saw Bo Diddley perform in 1994, I think, at the reception of a non-profit/NGO conference. He would have been 66 years old, I guess, or thereabouts. I think the median age of the people in the room was about the same. A handful of young ’uns like myself and my Best Reader, a handful of extremely elderly people, but the bulk of them were in their late fifties, sixties and early seventies. Bo Diddley rocked. He also insisted on being paid in cash, which was a pain in the ass of the conference organizers, but I have come to understand why the man didn’t trust people. Not that the organization’s check would have bounced, but he was sure the cash wouldn’t bounce.

A last note: some of us, I’m afraid, when we sing our children to sleep, can’t help singing it like this:

Hush, little baby, don’t say a word
Papa’s gonna buy you a mockingbird
if that mockingbird don’t sing
Papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring
if that diamond ring don’t shine
Papa’s gonna take it to a private eye
If that private eye can’t see
dontcha take no ring from me
bomp-chicka-bomp-chicka-bomp-bomp

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 2:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This is a kind of reverse lyrics meme, picked up from Not Really A Link: shuffle all the one-star songs in your library, and list the first lyric for each of the first ten songs. As usual, I left off the instrumentals and the foreign lyrics. Points for song title, lyricist and singer.

1. April Fool, April Fool/This isn't going to fool anyone/not that I like fooling people anyway/or being fooled for that matter
2. He's a two-trick pony/Two tricks are all that horse can do/He does one trick mostly/but the secondary trick is pretty good, too
3. Hip, hip hooray/three cheers for my baby/hip, hip hooray/baby's got three hips
4. Cory loves me/This I know/Cos the Internet tells me so
5. There are lots of things on Moshe Dayan/There are lots of things on Moshe Dayan/There's a spot on Moshe Dayan's tie/There's a patch on Moshe Dayan's eye/Moshe Dayan walks like a chicken
6. Yes, we have no bananas/we have no bananas/but we have half-a-dozen plantains, which are a lot like bananas
7. Fuck fuck fuck fuck/Ow that hurts/Fuck fuck fuck fuck/You little shit/Don't ever do that again/It isn't funny/How would you like it/If it happened to you/Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck
8. I'm Talkin' Baseball/Ort and Raj and Benji/Giants baseball/Barry Z and Brian Hennesey/Aurilia, Durham Omar and Velez/We're still fans no matter what anyone sez/Talkin' Baseball/The Giants sure suck, don't they?
9. Barney is a dinosaur from our imagination/And when he's tall/He's what we call a dinosaur sensation
10. Farewell, lovely Nancy/Farewell, my own true love/For it's now I must go away and leave ye/Never to see you any more/I'm gonna sail upon that ferry boat/Never to return again/So farewell, lovely Nancy/But you must be safe, and be loyal and constant/Like a sucker

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 8:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

“Life During Wartime”, Talking Heads
“Through Being Cool”, Devo
“We’re All Light”, XTC
“At Long Last Love”, Lena Horne
“Oh, Lady, Be Good (Symphony In Swing)”, Artie Shaw
“Bei Mir Bist Du Schön (Means That You’re Grand)”, Andrews Sisters
“ver es hot (One Has Got)”, The Klezmatics
“Jackie Wilson Said”, Van Morrison
“Summer”, Jabbering Trout
“Manteca”, Dizzy Gillespie
“Blue Heaven”, The Pogues
“How’s Your Romance?”, Bobby Short
“Dr. Jazz”, Jools Holland and The Rhythm & Blues Orchestra
“Ev’ry Time We Say Good-Bye”, Ella Fitzgerald
“I Prefer You”, Etta James
“Monkey To Man”, Elvis Costello
“I Can’t Explain”, The Who
“Man In a Hat”, The Klezmatics
“Wave a White Flag”, Elvis Costello
“Funk Pop A Roll”, XTC
“Road to Morocco”, Bing Crosby
“I Need a Doctor”, The Nields
“Has Anybody Seen Our Ship?”, Noel Coward
“Ghost of Stephen Foster”, Squirrel Nut Zippers
“1-2-8”, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
“Mama, I Wanna Make Rhythm”, Cats & Jammers
“Make a Circuit with Me”, The Polecats
“One Week”, Barenaked Ladies
“(Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay”, Otis Redding
“On the Sunny Side of the Street”, Nat King Cole
“Slippery People”, Talking Heads
“My Best Friend’s Girl”, The Cars
“Ring Dem Bells”, Duke Ellington
“Manny’s Bones”, Los Lobos
“Top Hat, White Tie And Tails”, Louis Armstrong
“For Your Love”, The Yardbirds
“I Wanna Be Sedated”, Ramones
“Jumpin’ Jack”, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
“Black Coffee in Bed”, Squeeze
“It’s You I Love”, Beausoleil
“Beat Me Daddy, Eight To The Bar”, Andrews Sisters
“Girlfriend Is Better”, Talking Heads
“Tempted”, Squeeze
“Rock the Casbah”, The Clash
“Ring of Fire”, Johnny Cash
“Industrial Disease”, Dire Straits
“Caldonia (Live)”, B.B. King
“Gonna Get Through This World”, The Klezmatics
“Verdi Cries”, 10,000 Maniacs
“Roam”, The B-52’s
“Lullaby of Birdland”, Ella Fitzgerald & Duke Ellington
“I’m the Man Who Murdered Love”, XTC
“Not Fade Away”, The Rolling Stones
“Headdy Down”, The Klezmatics

• I like living in the early 21st century. Sure, there are problems, but there are mp3 players, too, which makes up for a lot.
• The French Toast Alert System is clearly the best if not only way to discuss New England Weather. Tomorrow it will be again time to panic buy eggs and bread and milk and cinnamon and sugar and tasty maple-flavored sausages. Mmmmmmmm, storm.
• As long as it is a personal decision, the fact that snowblowers are noisy, inefficient, expensive and polluting will not prevent people from buying them and using them. In fact, the snowblower serves as an excellent illustration of the need for public policy, as well as a problem of rhetoric and suasion. People are reluctant to believe in an oncoming disaster, because believing in it will (in their minds) require them to drastically reduce their standard of living. Bicycling to work, paying more money for less food (local, healthy, and so on, but less in quantity), wearing bulky and itchy sweaters indoors, eating lentil soup, smelling of patchouli oil, and spending hours clearing the damn driveway with a shovel like some sort of wild animal in the wilderness. Not going to happen. And, in fact, for individuals, drastically reducing carbon footprint is tricky without making substantial lifestyle changes or investing some serious money. On the other hand, if we converted our electricity grid to be much, much cleaner, and put some effort into making snowblowers and lawnmowers and chainsaws and cars work off that grid, we could slash co/2 whilst sipping hot cocoa by the fire. Yes, higher taxes for a while, but you get to keep your snowblower. Or a snowblower, anyway.
• Klezmer music is terrific for shoveling, but you know what would be awesome shoveling music? Sea shanties. Wouldn’t that be great? Heave away, haul away.
• OK, how about this for a gadget in one of those gadgetty catalogues: the town’s plows get hooked into a city-wide system with GPS and all, and you get an alert when they are coming to your block. It wouldn’t be in time to move your car (in my imaginary system), but it would be in time to put on your boots and deal with the ridge before it ices in place. Alternately, very small shaped explosive devices for clearing the ridge after it ices. You drill a hole, slip the thing in, go back inside and set it off. You would have to clear the ice rubble, afterward, but wouldn’t it be worth it?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

As a postscript to the earlier conversation—we were looking for rock/pop songs, etc, and I think it’s a good idea to keep Children’s Music out of that whole discussion. There is a lot of good Children’ s Music out there, and it’s a different discussion. So perhaps to start that discussion, and perhaps for other, better reasons, here’s a song I know from a Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer album, but I think it's by Red Grammer:

On the day that Jamey was born
On the day that Jamey was born
On the day that Jamey was born
The angels sang and they blew on their horns
And they smiled, and they danced
And they raised up their hands
On the day, on the day the Jamey was born!

Today, someone’s being born.
Today, someone’s being born.
Today, someone’s being born.
The angels sing and they blow on their horns
And they smile, and they dance
And they raise up their hands
’cos today, ’cos today, someone’s being born!

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 7:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A Gentle Reader has asked me to pose the following question to the rest of y’all: what are the best rock/pop/soul/etc. songs about parenthood?

It’s a tough one. I thought I would just open up the music player and easily come up with ten songs for a Parenthood Mix, and then I’d open it up for y’all to fill in the last few tracks. The problem is ... rock songwriters don’t write about raising children. They write about cars, they write about girls, they write about girls in cars, but they don’t write about raising children.

All right, let’s get to it. There are three main categories of Songs About Parenthood that come up in these discussions. First, there’s the category typified by Stevie Wonder’s song for his daughter, “Isn’t She Lovely?” These are songs to celebrate the birth of a baby. Miracle songs, songs of love and awe, songs of near-generic happiness and, occasionally, terror. Songs that come to mind include the Barenaked Ladies’ “When You Dream” and Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young”. Sometimes the child isn’t a baby, like in the Eurythmics’ “Beautiful Child”, but it goes in this category because it’s essentially just an expression of love coupled with a somewhat frustrated urge to protect, that is, a celebration of the existence of the child, not a song about actually raising the child.

The second category is a song of advice, given from a parent to a child, often one who is explicitly too young to yet understand such advice. My favorite of these is the XTC song “Garden of Earthly Delights”, but I’m also fond of a Fred Small song called “Everything Possible” (this may be outside the genre restrictions, being essentially folk, in which genre you will find more such songs). “Sean” by The Proclaimers could be in this category, too, but I’m pretty sure it’s an older sibling giving advice (Sean, I’d say the best one came from Tupelo, Mississippi/I’ll tell you know that grown men cry, and Irish girls are pretty/Though fear and hurt and care can lead me to despair/I saw why I’m here the morning you appeared), not a father.

The third category is songs by Paul Simon.

You’ll notice that the first two categories do not involve any actual parenting. Mr. Simon writes about, oh, taking his nine-year-old son to Graceland, or telling his kids about the first time he met their mother. Or tucking his boy in to bed, or about his hopes for his child’s future. Like that. As my Gentle Reader put it, good songs about being a good parent, or trying to be a good parent and missing the mark occasionally, or what have you. I’d like to have more songs in this category, the Paul Simon category. Not by Paul Simon, but songs about being a good parent, or trying to be.

Well, I’ll mention a few songs that came up in my musing. The first thing that came to mind was “Stay Up Late” by the Talking Heads. It’s from the sibling’s point of view, actually: “Mommy had/a little baby/There he is/fast asleep/He’s just/a little plaything/Why not/wake him up?” It’s not really about parenting, except that it’s really (I think) a parent singing from the pretended point of view of the older siblings. David Byrne also wrote a very odd song called “Now I’m Your Mom” about transgender parenting (“Oh little girl/Please understand/And listen to the words I say/I was your dad/Now I'm your mom/I hope you'll comprehend someday”) but it’s much more about the gender thing than the parenting thing.

Ken Batts (Has anybody heard of this guy? Why do I have his CD?) has a quite lovely song called “Lobster Keychains” about buying his kids, well, lobster keychains, which is absolutely about parenting, but is, you know, folk. Like that. As I mentioned, that does open it up.

Squeeze “Up the Junction” is a wonderful song, and there is just a trifle of parenting in it, enough to have it come to mind, but seriously, no.

Uncle Bonsai has a very depressing song called “In it for the Children”, which is from the point of view of the parents, but has no actual parenting. A powerful song. No. Possible to include “Don’t Put It in your Mouth” in the list, though, but that’s stretching it.

Googling turns out a bunch of songs I don’t know. David Bowie, Kooks? Dar Williams, The One who Knows? Cocteau Twins, Pur? Jimmy Buffett, Delaney Talks to Statues? Do y’all know these tunes? Are they good?

Let’s exclude from consideration (for the purposes of the discussion) songs about parents, but told from the child’s point of view. If we have to include “Cat’s in the Cradle”, we will, but I’d rather not, because the narrator doesn’t actually talk about his experience of parenting (at the end, sort of). But no you were wonderful, mother or what a dad I had songs—they can be great, and when it comes to making an actual mix, my Gentle Reader may be well advised to include one or two, but I’m really looking for songs from the parent’s point of view, about having a kid (or kids) and ... whatever the song is about. Taking a kid to a ballgame. Going shopping with the girl. First day of school. Jamming with your kid’s band. Somethin’.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Your Humble Blogger was lucky enough to get to see The Klezmatics in concert last weekend. Well, I was lucky enough to get a babysitter. The tickets we bought, so I’m not sure that luck played a large part in that. It was good fortune, though.

The concert was in the sanctuary of a large conservative shul that looked much like most other large conservative shuls I’ve been in, that is, not quite entirely like a high school auditorium, but with pews and a few panels of very bad stained glass. The sound was muddy, unfortunately, which may have been the mixing but was more likely just the acoustics of the hall. The band was set up on the bimah itself, but the ark was covered by a drape, so it wasn’t quite as odd as it might have been, although the band members occasionally sat down on the big ugly chairs normally occupied by whichever of the rabbi, chazzan, shul president or ritual committee happen to be on the bimah and not active.

The audience was mostly, it seemed, from the host congregation. Mostly middle-aged and elderly people, with a fair sprinkling of thirtyish Hartford hipsters and some teenagers with their parents. On the whole, though, this was not a crowd that had come out to dance in the aisles. This was a crowd who, went they went to hear some klezmorim, wanted to her Di Grine Kusine and Rojinkes mit Mandlen. Or, more likely, didn’t go out to hear klezmorim very often, but felt they should support Jewish Music. The Klezmatics came out and went right into Wheel of Life from the Wonder Wheel album, which had an incredibly heavy, layered sound, very Asian/North African, and was greeted with, shall we say, muted enthusiasm. After that, they went right into Man in a Hat, which is one of my favorite Klezmatics songs, and they freakin’ ripped through it. I mean, they freakin’ ripped through it. Whew. I was completely exhilarated, but I think a lot of the crowd were kinda sitting there with their mouths open.

Then they went into three songs from “Davenen”, their Pilobolus collaboration, which were nice, but not really astonishing. The second of them featured a solo by Richie Barshay, a local boy who is sitting in on drums with them these days. In fact, we were in his home shul, which led to a few jokes about him substituting a drum solo for a d’var torah at his bar mitvah, which would have been, like, six months ago. Seriously, he’s a kid. But he’s (a) terrific, and (2) a local kid, so they gave him lots to do, and it was a Good Thing. They did a number called Spin, Dreidel, Spin from the Happy Joyous Hanukkah album, which was just Mr. Barshay on the drums, Lisa Gutkin on violin, and Matt Darriau on the Jew’s Harp, and it was fascinating and lovely. Ms. Gutkin claimed to have written it from a recording of a six-buttoned shirt tumbling in a clothesdryer, and it had some of that sense to it. The Jew’s Harp actually worked quite well as a sort of drone underneath, surprisingly enough.

After Spin, they did Headdy Down, which is heartbreakingly lovely, and was heartbreakingly lovely in concert. They didn’t attempt to recreate he end of the studio version, with the magnificent layered vocals, but finished with a quiet a cappela chorus that worked well enough. I have been singing the song to the Youngest Member (and to the Perfect Non-Reader, too, sometimes) as a lullaby, so it could be argued that I am bringing more to the song than is there, but I think in truth it’s the song (and the recording) that brought more to my lullaby-singing than was there. They went from that to Happy, Joyous Hanukkah, also with lyrics by Woody Guthrie, and it instantly became my favorite Hanukkah song ever, if only because all other Hanukkah songs stink on ice. Then an instrumental freilich, and then back to Woody for a truly inspirational rendition of Gonna Get through this World, with Ms. Gutkin on vocals.

They decided not to do any more Hanukkah songs (they admitted to a tradition, or more accurately a habit, of doing holiday songs at inappropriate seasons, but sadly they did not do my favorite Simchas Torah song), but did an actual Passover song called Ki Ley Nue, which was a bit repetitive, but like good repetitive songs, went through the bit where it seemed too long to the bit where it seemed like it had built up a lot of steam. This is evidently on their live album with Joshua Nelson, which I don’t have but which clearly Must Be Mine. After another instrumental (which struck me as very SonnyRollinsesque) and then we were heading home with a mellow, almost reggae version of Mermaid Avenue and then a long, slow Shnirele Perele. It wasn’t a great Shnirele Perele, unfortunately; it was very good, but both times I had seem them do it live, it wasn’t just good, it was inspirational. To some extent, I blame the band and their current arrangement, which is long on Lorin Sklamberg’s vocals and low on roof-raising instrumental hysteria. I’m not knocking Mr. Sklamberg, who is freakin’ awesome. To a large extent, his voice defines the band’s sound for me; if he were to leave for a new band, I would certainly buy his new band’s stuff, and only very probably continue buying The Klezmatics albums. But the arrangement of Shnirele Perele that was so mind-blowing balanced his impassioned vocals with the band better, built more gradually, and topped out much higher.

On the other hand, the crowd wasn’t as into it as they were at the other shows I’d been to, and that probably makes it impossible for the band to get quite as high. No dancing, not during this song, and not during any of the others. The applause was appreciative but not rowdy. Rhythmic hand-clapping during the songs was led by Mr. London, rather than emerging from the crowd’s enthusiasm. People were for the most part content to sit and listen. Which is fine, particularly because some of the attendees likely had multiple artificial joints, but still. When Shnirele Perele ended, the audience rose and applauded, and about a third of the crowd headed for the exits. “No,” says I to my Best Reader. “If everybody leaves, they won’t come back and play Ale Brider!” But the rabbi stood up at the front and encouraged loud clapping, and we eventually settled into that demanding rhythm that leads to an encore, and they came back and played Ale Brider. I love that song. Some of us sang along on the chorus (“ai yi yi yi yi/ai yi yi yi yi/ai yi yi yi yi/ai yi yi yi yi”) and there was even one fellow out in the aisle shaking his tzitzis.

A couple of other notes: slightly more than half the men had their heads covered, by my estimation. Some were wearing the lovely embroidered full-head Sephardic-style head-coverings that are more like hats than skullcaps, some had what I think of as the observant Jew’s three-inch tightly-crocheted circle, but most of those who opted to cover their heads seemed to have just picked up a yarmulke from the bin outside the sanctuary, and were wearing the standard-issue purple shiny can’t-keep-it-on-your-head kippah. I left my head uncovered, as I usually do if I’m not davening or studying Torah; the sanctuary isn’t Holy Ground or anything, and I’m going to a concert. At my own Temple Beth Bolshoi, a Reform shul, only about half the men keep their head covered even for services, but the Reform movement is in large measure about getting rid of all that superstitious medieval nonsense. This was a Conservative shul, one that calls itself egalitarian, although I only saw one woman with a head covering, and that might well have been decorative rather than ritual.

Up on the bimah, the band also varied in their approach to head covering. The only woman in the band, Lisa Gutkin, had her head uncovered and her hair loose (unless, of course, that wasn’t really her hair). Richie Barshay had his head bare. Paul Morrissett appeared to have a bare head, although he has dark wavy hair, and might have been wearing one of those small yarmulkes on the back of his head. Frank London had a lovely full Sephardic job, with straggly hair loose behind (Unrelated note: the first time I saw Mr. London on stage, I thought “didn’t I go to summer camp with him?” I didn’t, but the feeling only grows stronger every time I look at him). Lorin Sklamberg was wearing a ratty old Panama hat. He looked good in it, though.

One thing that is fun about the band is that most of the players play more than one instrument. Frank London plays trumpet and keyboards, sometimes simultaneously. Paul Morrissett plays bass guitar and tsimbl (or cimbalom, a sort of hammered dulcimer). Matt Darriau plays saxophone, clarinet and kaval (a sort of wooden flute), Jew’s Harp for one song, and brought out what must have been a bass saxophone at one point. Big sucker. Mr. Sklamberg sings, of course, and plays the accordion, guitar and keyboard. Ms. Gutkin just plays the violin and sings. Mr. Barshay, as the drummer, sat in his kit and mostly played the pieces of that, including heavy use of the cymbals, wooden blocks and some rattly things. The klezmorim move around the stage a lot (except Mr. Barshay), sometimes forming a rhythm section on one side, sometimes lining up across the front. Mr. London and Mr. Morrissett occasionally did the thing that horn players do where they share a microphone, which I assume has some effect on the sound but is certainly fun to watch. Also, Mr. London often plays with the technique of moving the end of the trumpet to different distances from the microphone, sometimes swinging his head back and forth and making a sort of Doppler effect. Sometimes one or another player will walk over to the side during a bit they aren’t playing, coming back to get to the microphone just when the band kicks in. Mr. Sklamberg and Ms. Gutkin appeared to be carrying on a conversation (or a running joke) in snatches in the middle of songs. They don’t choreograph, really, but they are fun to watch.

Wow, that’s a long note. One more observation, though: it’s now been a week since I saw the show, and I’m still humming the tunes to myself.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I believe I puffed the new album, Wonder Wheel, from The Klezmatics. The album, by the way, won a Grammy for Best Contemporary World Music Album, for whatever that’s worth. I may have also mentioned that The Klezmatics give great show, which they do. And I believe that a substantial percentage of Gentle Readers live in Greater Boston.

My point, you have probably guessed. The Klezmatics are playing a concert on Sunday night at the MFA, which is a nice enough place to see a show. It’s in the Remis, not the courtyard (I hope that’s obvious, considering), so not so much dancing likely, what with the relative paucity of aisles. Still, recommended.

They will also be in Philadelphia tonight, West Hartford at the end of the month, and in DC in early June, for Gentle Readers in those locations or near them. I won’t keep plugging away, but what’s the use of having a blog if I can’t push a fave rave now and then?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Your Humble Blogger has written before about campaign songs, but it appears that Have You Had Enough has not made an appearance on this Tohu Bohu. So y’all may not know anything about it. Which would be bad. So.

It seems that Tom Maxwell, formerly of the Squirrel Nut Zippers and currently of NC-08, was looking for a way to help out his candidate of choice, a fellow named Larry Kissell. He had donated money, and all, but he was a musician, and wanted a way to help, you know, musically. So, what to do. Well, why not take the tune from “Put a Lid On It”, write new lyrics (with Ken Mosher), record it and make it available for candidates he liked to use. Not just Mr. Kissell, either, because through the magic of technology’n’stuff, it’s easy to just slip another name in there. Thus the scalability of nationalizing the campaign. N’stuff. Oh, and they needed a woman to do the lead vocals, so Ricky Lee Jones chipped in. Eventually,a fellow named Mike McIntee did a video, also suitable for localizationage as well as for Teh Utoob.

Now, it may possibly have been mentioned, here and there, that Connecticut is having an odd senatorial election. Historically odd. Not “Hunh, that’s odd” odd, but “some even say that in the last decades of the species called man” odd. Now, it seems, the Had Enough Swing Band is going to be Swingin’ throo CeeTee with Mr. Maxwell, Mr. Mosher, Ms. Jones and friends. I might even get out of the house and go dance on the metaphorical grave of the Connecticut Republican Party.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It appears that YHB hasn’t blogged anything nice for a while, and just in case somebody was looking for something other than a gripe, here goes. I’ve listened to the Klezmatics’ Wonder Wheel perhaps ten times in the last couple of weeks, and it is wonderful.

I know some of my Gentle Readers are already familiar with The Klezmatics, and maybe y’all already ran out and bought this album. Or maybe you like the Klezmatics but didn’t know they had a new album, or knew they had one but weren’t sure if it was worth running out and getting. It is.

Some of my Gentle Readers are not (yet) big fans of The Klezmatics or klezmer music, but are fans of Woodie Guthrie. And maybe y’all already ran out and bought this album. Or maybe you like Woodie Guthrie but didn’t know he had a new album, or knew he had one but weren’t sure if it was worth running out and getting. It is.

This is (as GRs may have guessed) another one of those albums where Nora Guthrie lets people into the archive of thousands of Woody Guthrie lyrics to write new music and record the resulting collaboration. I haven’t heard the Billy Bragg/Wilco albums, and I was a little skeptical of the whole process, frankly. But it works. The Klezmatics choose songs from the period Mr. Guthrie was living in Coney Island with his yiddishe in-laws, and some of the lyrics have little yiddishisms, but I think a different band would have heard something very different in the written word. As it turns out, though, the thing is seamless—the album sounds like a Klezmatics album (and, you know, it is a Klezmatics album, and it’s a Woody Guthrie album, too.

Well, mostly. One of the songs, Goin' Away To Sea, was in the archive, and after Matt Darriau had picked out of the thousands and written a rollicking melody for it, and after the band had recorded it and it was finished and through, babe of mine, they were looking through the archive for manuscripts to photograph for the liner notes and came across another copy with a handwritten note on it from Butch Hawes saying “I composed this song you sonofagun.” It’s the folk process.

That song, by the way, is one of a few on this album that on first listen seem to be upbeat, cheerful tunes, but on second listen are kinda scary. This one is pretty straightforward, actually, a song from a soldier to his family, promising to return after he sets this old world free, putting “them fascists in their place/In their long and narrow grave, babe of mine.” On the other hand, his admonitions seem a little scary in themselves:

Don’t you go and leave a light, babe of mine,
Don’t you go and leave a light, babe of mine,
Don’t you go and leave a light
In your window, babe, tonight,
For the enemy to sight, babe of mine.

Don’t go talkin’ out of turn, babe of mine,
Don’t go talkin’ out of turn, babe of mine,
Don’t go talkin’ out of turn,
Don’t let Mister Hitler learn,
‘Cause I never would return, babe of mine.

Even more startling is Come When I Call You, which starts with one for the pretty little baby, two for the love of me and you, and three for the warships at sea. And Pass Away declares that “Heaven and earth they'll pass away” but “ Not a word of mine/Will ever pass away”. That’s a little troubling, isn’t it?

Some of the songs are more straightforward. Headdy Down is a lullaby, and a heartbreakingly beautiful one. Not heartbreaking because of anything except the gorgeousness of the singing. Seriously, even if you don’t shell out for the whole thing, this song is worth a buck at your friendly local internet download establishment. Gonna Get Through This World is what I think of as Guthrie-esqe, anthemic and inspirational. Mermaid Avenue is a wonderful celebration of “the isle called Coney”. There’s also Holy Ground, a sort of answer to the way This Land is Your Land has been taken over the years, and Heaven, which is mostly startling in the way it reveals the lost optimism of America—it’s a song I can’t imagine even Mr. Guthrie writing these days.

As for the music, if you haven’t already decided to purchase the thing, you can hear some tracks and clips on-line various places, and you can hear an interview at World Café with a partial band doing lovely version of three of the best songs on the album. Yes, there are some duds on the album, but we may disagree about which ones they are. But albums have duds, that’s why the whole album thing died, right? My advice is to buy this one anyway.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So. Your Humble Blogger has a friend who is at the right moment in life to really enjoy a Mix Tape on the theme “Men are all Jerks”. At least so I judge. I could well be wrong. Also, I don’t think this friend is a Gentle Reader of this blog, but I could be wrong about that, too. So, I ask your assistance, Gentle Reader, in two areas. First, recommendations for the mix, and second, if you are at the right moment in life to really enjoy a Mix Tape on the theme “Men are all Jerks”, let me know. OK, the criteria. First, I think, is to just accumulate a list of songs, and then we can rank them keep an hours’ worth. Ideally, what we’re looking for are not songs that vilify a particular man (see the Kiss Off mix for some of those), but songs that discuss the generally unsatisfactory nature of the male animal, taken individually or en mass. The quintessential “Men are all Jerks” song is, of course, “Most Gentlemen Don’t Like Love”, by the great Cole Porter: As madam Sappho in some sonnet said, / A slap and a tickle / Is all that the fickle / Male / Ever has in his head. I’m also fond of Uncle Bonsai’s “Boys want Sex in the Morning”: Boys want/Someone who's winsome/Someone to pin some-/-One to undertake/Boys want/Someone to fall on/Someone to crawl on/Someone half awake. I would have to include Johnny Mercer’s “Blues in the Night”:

My momma done told me
When I was in pigtails
My momma done told me, Hon

A man gonna sweet talk
and give you the big eye,
But when the sweet talkin's done

A man is a two face,
A worrisome thing,
Who'll leave you to sing
The blues in the night.

The next category, I think a step down from that, to put on the mix, are songs typifying male jerkosity. The “Hymn to Him” from My Fair Lady (Why can’t a woman/be more like a man) comes to mind, as does “In Praise of Women” from A Little Night Music (Capable, pliable/Women, women.../Understanding and reliable/Knowing their place/Insufferable, yes, but gentle/Their weaknesses are incidental/A functional but ornamental/Race.). Off of Broadway, there’s Louis Jordan’s “Beware, Brother, Beware”: Now listen, if she calls you up on the phone/and says,"Darling, are you all alone?/Tell her, "No, I've got five women with me!" Ideally, Gentle Reader, these would be, you know, jokes, rather than guys talking about manliness in all seriousness. But, hey, whatever you’ve got.

Then there are songs about a particular guy. These can be ok, as long as they’re not too specific. Remember, the point of the mix is not “Your Boyfriend’s a Dick”, but that Men are all Jerks. I might include “Annie doesn’t live here anymore”: That gal was so faithful/She was a pitiful sight/She waited and watched and waited and watched/but you didn’t write. Or Dave’s True Story’s “I’ll Never Read Trollope Again”: I was sitting in a quaint café/With a favorite tome and some cafe au lait/But my luck ran out when you came my way/Now I'll never read Trollope again. Or even a “Frankie and Johnny”, maybe. But these would have to fill up a mix, rather than being the core of the thing.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Whip out your music program, click the random button, and pick out 10 songs. Alter the name by turning it into a convoluted, wordy synonym. For example: Silent Night = Nocturnal Time Completely Lacking Noise. When someone guesses the title correctly, italicize the convoluted one and put the real title and the person who figured it out.

1. Hazard an inquiry into the identity of the person who has arrived in the metropolitan area: Guess Who’s in Town (recorded by Bobby Short), Kendra/Nao (close enough)
2. This infant of mine has no emotional attachment to persons other than myself: My Baby Only Cares for Me (recorded by Katherine Whalen), Kendra (who missed the possessive, but got the song right)
3. Depart with me: Let’s Go (recorded by the Cars), Michael
4. All terrestrial substances
5. Atop a brume of CuAl₆(PO₄)₄(OH)₈�4H₂O: On a Turquoise Cloud (recorded by Duke Ellington), Stephen
6. Half a fortnight: One Week (recorded by Barenaked Ladies), Melissa R
7. Infused Camellia, T�te à T�te (or, alternately, Don’t bogart that joint, it’s just you and me): Tea for Two (recorded by Duke Ellington), Stephen
8. Hatchway leading down to a subterranean room: Cellar Door (recorded by Laura Cantrell), Melissa R.
9. Withdraw a bit: Get Back (recorded by The Beatles), Michael
10. Impregnable Terpsichore: The Safety Dance, Stephen

As a bonus, because it’s actually quite hard to stop, there’s Mortified Stramineousness, The Sunny Season under Her Majesty Queen Sirikit, and One Has Got.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (23)

One nice thing about memes (ooh! that word!) is that when one is feeling blogblocked, one can blog a meme without much creativity, that is, without deciding what to post about, or what to say about it. It’s blog-by-numbers time, providing momentum to YHB and (I hope) at least a trifle of enjoyment to Gentle Readers all.

1. Elvis Costello
2. Duke Ellington
3. The Beatles
4. Jim’s Big Ego
5. Eddie from Ohio
6. The Pogues
7. Louis Armstrong
8. XTC
9. Ella Fitzgerald
10. The Ramones

We begin with a numbered list of ten, er, “singers or musical groups” that YHB likes. For those of you playing along at home (or, you know, on your portable device), this list is to be made entirely independent of the questions. I made it by taking the ten who have the most sides rated four or five, that is, the singers (or musical groups) who have put out the songs I am least likely to get sick of on repeated hearings. This was an interesting if oddly time-consuming task, since iTunes is not a real database. I suspect that the meme would be more interesting should you take your “artists” randomly from some list of listenables; if you need to, you can always throw out some. Now that I look at the questions, there are quite a few that would be more interesting to answer for groups and singers that you like but about whom you are not stone cold crazy about. whom. about.

And now the questions:

What was the first song you ever heard by 6? I believe this was “If I should fall from Grace with Gd”, on MTV, but then the timing doesn’t actually work out for this very well. I would have guessed that I first heard the Pogues in 1986 or possibly very early 1987, which was before that album came out. At any rate, if I remember correctly (and clearly I do not), I saw a video, noted the name and that the band was completely crazy, and then didn’t think about it much again for years and years and years, until finally purchasing “Peace and Love” in or around 1992.

What is your favorite album of 8? This XTC, which in one way makes it a really good question, as their albums tend to have an identity more than as collections of songs. In fact, their heyday covers, pretty much, the heyday of the album; for anyone much earlier or (I’m predicting) much later, the question makes little sense. What’s your favorite Elvis Presley album? Which one has the singles arranged in the best order? Anyway, as much as I absolutely adore Apple Venus Volume 1, I’m going to name Black Sea, which came along at the right time for me to listen to it again and again and again as an album, and which in addition to working very well as an album, has “Respectable Street” and “Generals and Majors” and “Sgt. Rock” and “Rocket from a Bottle” and other songs that work very nicely on the shuffle.

What is your favorite lyric that 5 has sung? Oh, dear, well, an admission, then, that as much as I like the sound of Eddie from Ohio, I think the lyrics tend to be just good, rather than great. Still, it’s tough to pick a favorite. I’ll lay out a verse or two from “Very Fine Funeral”:

Wednesday morning/my Aunt Sarah died
not many had known her/not many had tried
and there at the funeral/we all sat and lied
and said how much we missed her

you wanna know about Sarah/where do I begin
she had this growth/to the left of her chin
let's all be honest she was ugly as sin
no one recalled having kissed her

How many times have you seen 4 live? I saw Jim’s Big Ego open for the Nields, the day or perhaps the day after I heard them on live on Emerson College radio. They were great. Since them I have seen them, let’s see, twice at Johnny D’s, twice at Passim (the Hallowe’en show), once at the Lizard Lounge, I think, and then there was the time we went to the CD release party at TT’s, if that’s where it was, and bought the discs and left before they went on. Strangely enough, and this did in fact come about totally randomly, Jim’s Big Ego is the band I have seen most often, at least not counting street performances. I don’t go out to shows that much.

What's your favorite song of 7? Oh, well, how do you pick a Louis Armstrong song? I mean, hard not to go with “Wild Man Blues”, right? Or the “St. Louis Blues”, just because, well, it’s the “St. Louis Blues” and one of the best songs ever written. If written is the word I mean. On the other hand, his versions of “Top Hat, White Tie and Tails” and “Solitude” both are just marvelous. I think, for the purposes of moving on to the next question, I’ll pick “I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues”, just because.

What is a good memory you have considering the music of 10? My Best Reader and I saw the Escape from New York tour, with Debbie Harry opening, Jerry Harrison and the Tom Tom Club hitting second, and then the Ramones coming in and kicking ass. The crowd was filled with punk kids who had no idea who these old guys were, and were just waiting around for the Ramones. They were great, just exactly what I’d expected, with the three guys just standing stock still in their spots and slamming out their noise, and Dee Dee occasionally taking a step or two forward and shouting “Marhah arghah hargle margle ONE TWO THREE FOUR!” We’d get to the second chorus before we could figure out which song they were playing. It was brilliant.

Is there a song of 3 that makes you sad?A sad Beatles song? Well, there’s “For No One”, which I listened to again recently for the first time since becoming a parent and found terribly sad. There will be a time, I know, when my Best Reader will be convinced that we are trying to give her only what money can buy, and not, you know, fun. This was the first time I’d listened to it and thought that the parents were totally misrepresented, and that it is inevitable that they will be represented, and that their bewildered hurt at the end is not because they were bad parents, really, but because they were good parents, and that wasn’t enough.

What is your favorite lyric that 2 has sung?Duke Ellington, of course, doesn’t so much sing. But let’s go to my favorite lyric sung by a vocalist with his orchestra, which would be “Every Time We Say Goodbye”. Well, I’m sure at some point he must have played that; it was a big hit, and he played all the big hits. But since I don’t actually have a recording of it, let’s go with the Beale Street Blues:

If Beale Street could talk
If Beale Streak could talk,
Married men would have to take their beds and walk
Except one or two, who never drink booze
And the blind man on the corner says I got my eye on you.

What is your favorite song by 9? By meaning written by? I mean if by means something like associated with or even recorded by then my favorite Ella (today) is “Every Time We Say Goodbye”. If by means written by, then, well, I don’t know that she actually wrote any. Although this may be a good spot to tell the story about how Irving Berlin would complain about jazz singers improvising when they sang his songs, and how they would change his melodies. When asked about Ella’s recording of the Berlin songbook, though, he said, more or less, “It’s different when the singer is a better composer than I am.”

How did you get into 3? How do people my age get into the Beatles? Older siblings, of course. Playing the Red and the Blue collections over and over on an old hi-fi. I mean over and over. Wearing out needles. Do you remember needles?

What was the first song you heard by 1? I have no idea. Seriously, I can’t remember a time before I knew Elvis Costello. I would guess, and this is strictly a guess, that I heard “Allison” first, but then it’s equally likely—more likely, now I think about it—that I heard the album before I heard any tracks on the radio, so it would be the first song on that album, “Welcome to the Working Week”.

What is your favorite song by 4? Well, and I think I’ll go with “Cat Named Boogers”, although I would really really really like to have a copy of “Little Miss Communication”, which I think might be my favorite if I could listen to it enough to know whether I was sick of it. “Boogers”, though, has a great bit where the unrelated verses each wind up contributing a line to the expanding chorus. By the end, the chorus makes no sense at all:

Bomb in the back seat
boogers hanging from you nose
hit the pigeon with the tennis racquet
he gave me a whole ten dollars
bomb in the back seat
veins running underground
on the steps of the art museum
she only gave me two kisses

How many times have you seen 9 live?Oh, never not ever. Not in the prime of Ella, before I was born, not in her later years, when it still would have been a hell of a thing. Missed it. Gone now.

What is a good memory you have concerning 2?A good memory of the Duke? Well ... Jazz History class was where I wound up getting the Duke, and Jazz, and it was kinda revelatory, but I don’t think that’s a specific enough memory. Hm. How about this ... it’s isn’t my memory, really, but my mother saw the Duke at a college dance in, let’s see, it would have been 1957 or so, and at one point when I was home from college, or maybe shortly after, she told me about seeing him, and his enormous hands, and the carpet slippers he was wearing, and it was one of the first times my mother and I had a conversation as two adults.

Is there a song of 8 that makes you sad? Like the Beatles, from the earlier version of this question, sad is not what XTC is best at. They’re, you know, burning with optimism’s flame. I mean, they sing lots of songs on depressing topics, particularly political, but mostly those songs are upbeat sounding and don’t make me sad to listen to. The last time I heard “Dear Gd”, though, I was, briefly, sad about how many people view religion as essentially being about, well, about what the song thinks it’s about, about fooling people into believing things that aren’t true in order to manipulate them.

What is your favorite lyric that 3 has sung?A fave Beatles lyric. Can’t be done, can it? I mean, how do you choose between the magniloquent “Mr. Kite” and the earthshaking “I Saw You Standing There”? I’m afraid I’ll pick the latter. I read an essay once that claimed the moment they changed the line from “a real beauty queen” to “you know what I mean” was when rock and roll really began.

What is your favorite song of 1? Aw, come on. That’s just silly. See, this is why I think it would be more fun to do this with random artists you happen to like rather than with artists that you are completely and inappropriately obsessed with. I couldn’t even do a Top Five Elvis Costello songs. Let me put it this way: I have 463 rock songs rated to let me listen to them at least once a week. Of those, thirty are EC songs. That’s one out of fifteen, right? Here’s another way: I have three hundred and seven Elvis Costello sides. I am not going to pick one of them and call it my favorite. Even if we were to change the criterion and say ‘which song (of 1) would you like to listen to next?’ it would be a difficult choice, and one which I would be happier solving by random chance. Which is how I will choose this one. And the winner is ...Hm. It’s the cover of “Hidden Charms”. Not what I would have picked, but, when you think about it, it’s a hell of a recording.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 8:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A recent article in the New York Times (When All the 'Greatest Hits' Are Too Many to Download, by Jeff Leeds) brought to mind the whole music business mess. It seems that, in an utterly unprecedented way, people are now purchasing recordings of single songs, or what I call singles. Clearly there is no way civilization can withstand this.

The article does, however, dance around the true heart of the issue, which is that the music industry and its customers have different and not entirely complementary sets of interests. That is, unlike in the pants business, where customers want to overpay for crappy ugly shoddy grotty merchandise, and producers want to make customers’ lives easy, comfortable, stylish and convenient, there are aspects to the music business that can’t be so easily resolved. The recording industry wants, as a natural part of being the recording industry, to have full and total control over every bit of recorded data in existence, particularly the data on privately owned hard drives, flash drives and neuron networks, and to prevent anyone anywhere from ever listening to any recorded or live music. The customer, on the other hand, simply by virtue of being a music customer, wants to be able to listen to any music he or she wants, at any time, without paying anything, with the ability to alter it in any way, while having sex with Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey. There is no way to make these two interests compatible. Believe me, I’ve tried. Nick gets all cross and clingy, and then sulks and won’t wear the ears.

How, then, to break the stalemate? Well, why not look at other cases where supposedly antithetical forces were able to mediate their differences by using some Third Way, some perhaps technological solution that allowed everybody to be beaten, robbed, and left in a pool of their own filth while the residents of Samaria walked by, snickering? For instance, in the case of copyright infringement with photocopiers, rather than a futile attempt to restrict what body parts could or could not be legally copied, legislation was enacted to set aside two cents out of every xerographic copy made anywhere in the world to fund a secret race of otter-ninjas, trained to thwart the evil plans of the Rosicrucians. I’m not saying that otter-ninjas are the answer to the problems of the recording industry. I’m not saying that otter-ninjas are not the answer. I’m just saying sometimes you have to think outside the brain pan.

My proposal is a sort of audio-sonic vibratory molecular transmutational device (of my own invention) that will actually block out all audio waves of every kind, thus releasing us from this tedious quarrel over who owns what bits of noise. Sure, the recording industry will still claim control over silent video files, but who makes any money from movies? I mean, be serious. Furthermore, when you are dragged into court by large green-jacketed attornions with bees in their mouths, you will not need to respond to charges that you will be unable to hear.

What’s that, Your Honor? I’m sorry? No, I can’t hear you, you’ll have to speak up. Charges dismissed, you say?

Then, with the triumvirate of Your Humble Blogger, Dr. Science and Giblets at the controls, um, well, it would be a mistake to plan out the details too far in advance, as it would inhibit us from flexibly applying principles to circumstances as they arise. Besides, a triumvirate is clearly the most stable form of government known to man, so there’s no need to worry. It's not rocket psychiatry, you know.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

OK, Gentle Readers, here is The Horn Book, as actually burnt to a disc by Your Humble Blogger:

A few comments: Of course, this list reflects more than anything my own taste, and even then there were a lot of songs I like that I finally left out (and I still overshot the 60 minutes I was aiming for). So songs that would fit into the category nicely and would be all informative’n’stuff about the history of the horn line in rock were left out if I thought they would make me enjoy the disc less. The primary ones in this category were NWA’s “Express Yourself”, built around a sampled horn line, and interesting if not, to my ears, enjoyable and Gladys Knight and the Pips “Midnight Train to Georgia”, which was illustrative of how horns mixed with strings in early disco. Honestly, would it have been worth it to put Dexys Midnight Runners on the disc? I think not. There were also a lot of songs that I like a lot that didn’t quite make it onto the list: The English Beat’s “Stand Down Margaret”, Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke”, either version of “Tears of a Clown”, the Pogues “Blue Heaven”, Elvis Costello’s “Only Flame in Town” or “Chewing Gum” and Dire Straits “Two Young Lovers” among others I can’t recall at the moment. Oh, and I couldn’t find the Elvis Costello live with the TKO horns cover of “Stand Down Margaret”, which would have really been lovely. I also left off Laurie Anderson’s “Baby Doll”, which isn’t really rock music, at least, not within the meaning of the act.

A few more comments: Clearly, the list did wind up being overloaded with 60s R&B/70s Soul and their immediate influences, and 80s Ska and their immediate influences. I pretty much left off the New Jump bands of the 90s; their only representative is the Cherry Popping Daddies, with “Soul Cadillac”, which is more clearly rock than jazz. Taking off the Brian Setzer Orchestra’s “Rock this Town” was tough, though. For Skankin’ Pickle I chose their theme to Margaret Cho’s sitcom, although I am likely the only person in the whole wide world with fond memories of that show. If I were making the disc for someone else, I might replace that with their cover of “Turning Japanese”, which really shows how much better a song can be with a horn line. Similarly, if I were making this disc for somebody born after 1980, I would hesitate about “Nelson Mandela”, which has for me a powerful and visceral memorial function that, you know, you had to be there.

Yet more comments: For some reason, I totally forgot about Peter Gabriel’s “Big Time”, which has very nice horn line, but hey, I’m not going back. At least, not unless there’s some other reason to. I did choose to leave off Jim’s Big Ego doing the version of “Stress” with the talking trombone, but I had meant to listen to it again. It turns out that I don’t own Elvis Costello’s Punch the Clock album, and it isn’t on either of my download stores, so I couldn’t put on “TKO (Boxing Day)” or “Let Them All Talk”, and I can’t remember them well enough to know if it’s a travesty to leave them off.

OK, last comments, and then I’m posting this: I did not do the work to tell you which tracks have Wayne Jackson, and which trombone player studied with which other trombone player. That would be interesting, but sadly, I’m too lazy to do the work on it. Sorry about that.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 9:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Gentle Readers, Your Humble Blogger needs your help. I’m making a mix, and I know I’m missing some songs, and I can’t come up with what’s missing.

It began, as my mixes often do, when the Shuffle played two songs in a row that had a thing in common, and I noticed the thing, and then thought what other songs shared that aspect. In this case, the two songs were “Ring of Fire” and “Soul Man”, and what they both had was a great horn line. In fact, the horn line really makes the song. Well, no, they are both great songs anyway, but they are both really great horn lines. They are so great that when you hear the horn line from “Ring of Fire” (dee de-dee de-dee dee dah dee), it not only immediately tells you what song it is, but it acts like, oh, like seeing an old friend in the airport. It makes you feel good, even before you get to the rest of the song.

So I started thinking about making a mix of great horn lines. I picked “You Can Call Me Al”, which may not be a great song but has a magnificent horn line, over the version of “Late in the Evening” with horns, which is great, too. I picked the Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ “Hell of a Hat” and Madness’s “House of Fun”. From the many Otis Redding options, I picked “I Can’t Turn You Loose”, which isn’t the best song, but has the best horn line. I would put on Aretha singing “Respect”, but they really replace the horn line with the backup singers, so all you have left is the beginning. The horns are OK (barroom ... bedup), but they aren’t great. In fact, on her great songs, they really do use the backup singers in the place of the traditional horn line—which works just fine, unless you are making a mix tape of great horn lines. I’m not just looking for a mix of great songs that have a horn section somewhere in the mix; “You Can’t Hurry Love” is a great song, and it has a horn line, but it isn’t a great horn line.

I’m not sure how to define a horn line. Strictly speaking, it should require three horns, often a sax, a trumpet and a trombone, or an alto sax, a tenor sax and a trumpet. It is just barely possible to include a flute in the horn line without ruining the song, as proved in “Moondance”, but, you know, don’t try this at home. Or in the studio, either. A horn line isn’t a saxophone solo; there are great rock sides with great sax solos, but that’s not a horn line. I am willing, just, to include “Two Young Lovers” in the mix, even though it’s only one saxophonist playing the line, but it really shouldn’t make the cut. Or does the studio version from the EP have a real horn line? Does anybody have that? Anyway, the horn line is a repeated phrase, usually repeated antiphonally with the vocalist or a guitar. It’s not the melody of the song, or a bridge (usually). It’s a horn line.

Now, I could make a mix of just great soul music (I’m only just now getting into the Stax catalogue, thanks to my nearly-local library), but that’s not what I’m after. I’m not even after half an hour of soul and half an hour of ska. I’d like, ideally, to include a bunch of different stuff all within the greater rock genre. Of course, all of it would be influenced by soul, but that’s fine; I want to see how that plays out in different ways. I mean, the Eurythmics are clearly influenced by soul, but they are not a soul group. I think I would put “Would I Lie to You” on the list; the one-note ‘bah-ta-dah-ta-dah-ta-da-daddah’ line isn’t great, but it’s pretty good.

So my point is that I know there are tons of songs with great horn lines, and I know I’m just forgetting a bunch of them. Can you help me, Gentle Readers? When did your favorite pop stars join up with a horn section, and how did it turn out?

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

So. It seems to Your Humble Blogger that there are four categories of Christmas music.

First, there’s the category I’ll call Lessons and Carols. Sacred music, Church music. I tend to call this stuff “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” for some reason, mostly because I like saying it, I suppose, although there isn’t anything particularly Christmassy about it. But that’s the general gist of the thing. Songs about the birth and divinity of Jesus, and about his transformative power. “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”, “O Come All Ye Faithful”, . The winner in this category is “Silent Night”, with the good “Gloria in excelsis deo” tune running a close second. Worst is, of course, “The Little Drummer Boy”.

Second category: Genuine Old-Fashioned Pre-War British and American secular hymns. These are songs that are about the experience of celebrating Christmas, but make no reference to Jesus or churchin’. Wassail songs, of course, and “I’ll be Home for Christmas (if only in my dreams)”, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, and “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer” sort of thing. The best is ... well, I’ll pick “The Christmas Song”, the one that starts ‘Chestnuts roasting...’ over the obvious “White Christmas”. The worst is “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth”, although of course “Feliz Navidad” has a pretty good claim.

Third are solstice songs. Well, winter songs that have nothing specifically to do with either Jesus or the Red Suit. “Frosty the Snowman”, “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm”, “Let it Snow”. The best of these is probably “Jingle Bells”, although I do like “Winter Wonderland”.

Last there are new songs, which I give no examples of and want none. I know there are some, I hear them in stores, and I ignore them there and will ignore them here, other than acknowledging their existence. Some are probably explicitly religious; I wouldn’t know. Well, and without actually suggesting that I have done any adjudicating, I’ll declare that “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” is the best of these. The worst? Look, if there are any worse than “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”, I for one do not care to know about it.

The point to all this is that I hear a good deal of each of these sorts of songs in malls and such. I might expect that stores which choose to downplay the, ahem, reason for the season, would also choose to avoid music in the first category, or at least avoid those with lyrics in the English language. Not so. Let me point out that I have no objection to these religious songs being played in private establishments, nor even semi-public establishments such as malls and sidewalks outside stores. I’m just observing.

The question for Gentle Readers is this: Do you observe the same thing? I wonder whether there are regional differences, whether the Barnes & Noble down the block from Zabar’s avoids mention of the Birth of the Babe, while the Books-a-Billion in Tulsa plays sacred music all month. I think, based on a year in Virginia, that there are differences, but the thing I noticed was a greater proportion of that dreaded fourth category in the Old Dominion, rather than a greater proportion of the first. And while I’m at it, what are your favorites in the categories? Have I missed a worst?

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Well, and time for some frivolity here in this Tohu Bohu. Your Humble Blogger noticed that the number of “artists” listed in his computerized music player topped 750 on the same week that he alphabetized the old CD collection, which led to the following picks. The difference is that when I was working with CDs (or cassette tapes), I generally had an album (or several) by a performer. Oh, I may have had a few Various Artists compilations, but not many, and you couldn’t do those alphabetically, anyway. Now my collection includes a lot of “artists” whose entire ouvre is represented on my hard drive by one song, and who show up in the list along with everyone else. I’m not getting into a rant (at the moment) about how briefly the album ruled, and how we’re getting back to the side as the economic and artistic unit. No, I’m just complementing my alphabetical leaders with a garnish of one-hit wonders, compilation cullings, and other solitaires.

A: Louis Armstrong (168 sides), and no real competition. Well, I’m fond of Laurie Anderson (33 sides), but come on. I do have one song from A Flock of Seagulls (no points for guessing which one).
B: The Beatles (90 sides). An easy choice, even if I’m not such a big Beatles fan as I might be. I’m tempted to go all contrary and pick the B-52s (29 sides), but really the only competition here is a sentimental favorite, the Baltimore Consort (97 sides). Lots of good Bs, though. The Band (12 sides), the Barenaked Ladies (55 sides), the Bare Necessities (22 sides), the Beach Boys (20 sides), Beausoleil (28 sides), Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (44 sides), the Bobs (44 sides), the Brian Setzer Orchestra (39 sides), David Byrne (77 sides). Let’s see, for my odd single, I’ll go with Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, from whom I have the “Theme from Rocky and Bullwinkle”.
C: Bing Crosby (59 sides). No, I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Elvis Costello (306 sides). And for my one, I must go with Chic and once again, no points for guessing which one.
D: Tough competition from Dave’s True Story (37 sides), Dire Straights (62 sides), Bob Dylan (59 sides), Devo (51 sides) and Dr. John (27 sides) who I will stick in with the Ds notwithstanding, and most of all from the amazing Bo Diddley (19 scorching sides) but it’s the Dirty Dozen Brass Band (81 sides). I think I’ll have to go with the Dead Milkmen for the single, since I only have “Punk Rock Girl”.
E: Duke Ellington (240 sides) is the clear winner, although a very respectable second place is Eddie from Ohio (109 sides). I should give props to the Eurythmics (38 sides), and to Ensemble Unicorn (31 sides), who are insanely great. Somehow, I only have one English Beat song, “Save it for Later”, so that’s my single.
F: Ella Fitzgerald (83 sides). No competition. No, Aretha (14 sides), no. No real competition for one-off, either, as I happen to have Falco’s contribution to musical history on the hard drive. Rock me!
G: Benny Goodman (170 sides). Fond as I am of the Go-Go’s (11 sides), they can’t really compete, can they? My single, I think, is the Gabby Pahinui Hawaiian Band with “E Nihi Ka Hele”. No, I just wanted to type that out. My single is George Guetary singing “Stairway to Paradise”. I’ll build a zhtairway to paghrrahhdeyyyyyyyyyyyse...
H: I think this is where Your Humble Blogger gets contrary and picks Hesperion XX (and XXI), even though there are only 22 sides on the hard drive (their stuff doesn’t show up used a hell of a lot). Sorry about that Billie Holliday (95 sides). Sorry, Jools Holland (13 sides). My all-alone, believe it or not, Gentle Readers, is John Wesley Harding, whose “When the Beatles Hit America” is all alone.
I: This was always a weak letter for Your Humble Blogger. I’ll go ahead and fill it with Imperial Teen (11 sides), even though I’m not a big fan. The single will be ... um ... the Ink Spots’ “We Three”. Just to avoid the obvious Billy Idol one.
J: Jim’s Big Ego (85 sides). No, wait, I’ll change to Joe Jackson (62 sides), who I’ve liked for longer. J is tough, you know. I think Etta James (92 sides) has a legit complaint, as does Louis Jordan (36 sides). For my only, I think I’ll pick Jimmy Johnson with the “Harlem Woogie”.
K: A surprisingly difficult choice. For years, my K was the Kinks (19 sides), but that was before Mark Knopfler (39 sides) had a solo career, and before I got into early music and the King’s Noyse (20 sides) or into Klezmer and my choice here, the Klezmatics (93 sides). Now, for a one-shot, I have another difficult choice. Katrina and the Waves, or the Knack? I’ll pick the Knack, but it’s a tough call.
L: Los Lobos (36 sides), easy. And for my single, it must be Lust Pollution’s rather terrible, magnificent, disgusting “Kubla Khan”.
M: The Bosstones are both Mighty and Mighty (53 sides), the Mills Brothers (24 sides) swing sweetly, but it would be Madness (28 sides) to pick anyone other than the Jelly Roll (38 sides). There can be no choice whatsoever about the single, in which M talk about (talk about) “Pop Muzik”.
N: The Nields (46 sides), if only on the basis of a wonderful concert. Well, several wonderful concerts, but one in particular. Ray Noble “The Very Thought of You” or Stevie Nicks “Stop Draggin’ my Heart Around”? Ms. Nicks.
O: Operation Ivy (27 sides) over Paul O’Dette (70 sides) and Roy Orbison (20 sides). Gotta get some punk in here, child of the 80s. Single is Sinead O’Connor singing “Someday My Prince Will Come”. Yes, the Disney.
P: Piffaro (36 sides), the Renaissance Band. Yes, over The Pogues (68 sides). Oh, yes, there’s that Presley fellow (24 sides), but I’m honestly not crazy enough about him to award him the letter. And no question about the single, which is the Polecats “Make a Circuit with Me”. Brilliant, and after all these years, one my hard drive!
Q: Queen (17 sides), mostly by default, although I do like them. No single, I think. Although it’s possible I missed someone, since the stupid underlying database doesn’t separate first and last names of individuals (or distinguish individuals from groups), so Fatha’ Hines is under E (for Earl), not under H. I mean, I could go and change them all to the form Telemann, Georg Philipp but I’m not going to. Of course, none of that changes the old alphabet problem of whether Queen Latifah is a Q or an L.
R: It’s the obvious here, R.E.M. (60 sides). It’s not obvious that they edge the Rolling Stones (51 sides)? Oh, well, they do. Actually, their competition is from Django Reinhardt (40 sides), but they win that, too. My single is the Romantics, and perhaps you can get a point for guessing which one.
S: Wow, this is not easy. Paul Simon (53 sides) combines with Simon & Garfunkel (31 sides) to top out the frequency, so I’ll give him the letter. Bessie Smith (37 sides) is tough to pass over. For my single, Kate Smith, and no points for guessing this one.
T: Talking Heads (75 sides), if only because They Might Be Giants (139 sides) inflates their quantity with the Fingertips. Mel Torme (75 sides) suffers from the low quality of some of the crappy stuff, although his peak is amazing. My single is home-town fellahs The Tubes, and no points for guessing, and if you don’t remember, well, don’t try too hard.
U: U2 (21 sides). Single is Michael Urbaniak’s “Butterfly”, although I haven’t listened to it in more than a year. I think that’s all the Us I have.
V: Violent Femmes (37 sides). Single is Van Halen’s “Ice Cream Man”. Just as a matter of curiosity, is Los Van Van a V?
W: The Who (47 sides), no surprise here. Much as I love Cootie Williams (19 sides as front man), if I give him credit for his stuff with Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington, I’m opening up way too much work, and if I don’t, he can’t win the letter. Dinah Washington (48 sides) edges the Who on quantity, but not on quality. For my single, I’ll pick Larry Wallis and “Police Car” from Live Stiffs Live.
X: No points for guessing, unless you also guess how many sides are on the hard drive. No single, either.
Y: The Yardbirds (14 sides). I know there are a fair number of Ys, but I never got into any of them. When I was sorting the CDs, I was tempted to file this one under C, anyway. Since I never bothered getting any of his other stuff for the hard drive, Weird “Al” Yankovic’s “Lasagna” makes an appearance.
Z: Buckwheat Zydeco (10 sides). Somehow, most of my Zap Mama never got onto the hard drive, so I can list their “Iko-Iko” as a single, but that would be cheating. The only Frank Zappa I own is “Tengo Na Minchia Tanta”, but then the only Dweezil Zappa I own is “Electric Hoedown”.

That took a lot longer than I meant it to. Ah, well, I had fun.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Your Humble Blogger’s Perfect Non-Reader has finally developed a taste for Trout Fishing in America, the children’s music band for people who take fun seriously. That’s just a gratuitous endorsement, as YHB could talk about threw it out the window without mentioning TfiA, but it’s an opportunity, and I’ll take it. The song itself is an old scout song, or campfire song, or what have you, and consists simply of taking a nursery rhyme and finding an appropriate place to swerve from the usual text to throwing something out the window, the window, the second story window. F’r’ex:

Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard
To get her poor dog a bone
When she got there, the cupboard was bare
So she threw it out the window
The window, the window, the second story window
When she got there, the cupboard was bare
So she threw it out the window

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Threw him out the window
The window, the window, the second story window
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Threw him out the window

I see the moon
And the moon sees me
Gd bless the moon
And throw it out the window
The window, the window, the second story window
Gd bless the moon
And throw it out the window

Ladybug Ladybug fly away home
Your house is on fire and your children may burn
All except one, whose name is Ann
They threw her out the window
The window, the window, the second story window
All except one, whose name is Ann
They threw her out the window

Ding dong dell, Pussy’s in the well
Who put her in? Little Johnny Flynn
Who pulled her out? Little Tommy Stout
What a naughty boy was that
He threw her out the window
The window, the window, the second story window
What a naughty boy was that
He threw her out the window

Leave ’em alone, and they’ll come home
And throw you out the window
The window, the window, the second story window
Leave ’em alone, and they’ll come home
And throw you out the window

Bobby Shaftoe’s gone to sea
Silver buckles at his knee
He’ll come home and marry me
And throw me out the window
The window, the window, the second story window
He’ll come home and marry me
And throw me out the window

It’s also cheating, I think, to let Jack’s crown be headgear, and thus able to be thrown out the window. On the other hand, if you have patience, Old Dame Dob can throw him out the window. Actually, I think it’s harder to come up with nursery rhymes that can’t be thrown out the window.

OK, fine. So it’s a fun game. But ... how come nursery rhymes and not, say, pop tunes? Let’s keep it pre-Dylan, as it’s understandable that the current-day modern songwriters will not fall naturally into the ABAB sort of thing that suits the game. But what about the thirties? Let’s see ...

She hung around with a bloke named Smokey
She loved him, tho’ he was cokey
He took her down to Chinatown
And threw her out the window
The window, the window, the second-story window
He took her down to Chinatown
And threw her out the window

Gee, it's great after being out late
Walking my baby back home!
Arm in arm, over meadow and farm,
I throw her out zhe window
Zhe window, zhe window, zhe second-story window
Arm in arm, over meadow and farm,
I throw her out zhe window

You've got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative,
Latch on to the affirmative,
And throw it out the window
The window, the window, the second-story window
Latch on to the affirmative
And throw it out the window

Button up your overcoat
When the wind is free
Take good care of yourself
Or I’ll throw you out the window
The window, the window, the second-story window
Take good care of yourself
Or I’ll throw you out the window

Summertime, and the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin', and the cotton is high
Oh, your daddy's rich, and your ma is good-lookin'
So hush, little baby
Or I’ll throw you out the window
The window, the window, the second-story window
Hush, little baby
Or I’ll throw you out the window

Candy
it's gonna be just dandy
the day I take my Candy
And throw her out the window...

Enough!

Well, I should probably add that when Keith and Ezra sing the thing, they tend to finish with ...

There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven
And when she gets there she knows if the stores are all closed
They’ll throw her out the window!

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 2:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (22)

The always interesting Clive Thompson has a bee in his proverbial about the iPod. Which is OK. The latest thing he addresses is the latest research on how people use their portable digital music players. The research (by Solutions Research Group) indicates that most people who have digital music players don’t put very much music on them. The average, evidently, is 375 songs.

Mr. Thompson finds this a confirmation of his idea that iPods are essentially presentational, that is, that people don’t need iPods for their function, but for what having an iPod says about you. I don’t necessarily agree, but it is clearly true that a lot of people—probably most people—are willing to pay extra for more memory and then leave that memory empty. Apple takes advantage of that. I don’t know that the extra memory necessarily has to do with showing the white earbuds, or hanging the Shuffle around your neck outside your overclothes whilst jogging. But there it is. I would point out that iPods, according to the survey, tend to have more music on them than their competitors do, but only to an average of 500 songs or so. The numbers that SRG made available on the web are pretty minimal, and don’t tell me anything about outliers at all. That is, of the people who want to put 2,000 songs on their portable digital music players, how many have iPods? Of the people who put less than 50 songs, how many chose some cheaper, smaller alternative? Are there more iPods with more than 5,000 songs than there are with 1,000 to 4,999? That is, are most people small-numbers, with another large group of big-numbers, but very few in-betweens? I have no idea.

Anyway, I don’t own a portable digital music player, myself. I made the switch from CDs to the hard drive a few years ago, and I really like it. My current library is 8,800 songs. My usual listening is a shuffle that draws from 5,772 songs (at the moment) out of 7,268 that I’ve called Rock, Jazz or Klezmer, but various restrictions trim that list down to a trifle over 1,000 (but that changes frequently, depending mostly on how much I’ve been listening lately). I suspect that if I had an iPod or its near equivalent, I would just port those thousand tunes, but I might well decide to move the whole 5,772, if it didn’t interfere with the thing working properly.

But then, I can’t quite figure out why I want an iPod (or something like it). I spend most of my time either at a computer, in which case an iPod is clearly second-best, or with friends or family or acquaintances, in which case I wouldn’t have the earphones in anyway. The times I use my portable CD player are when I am going for a Walk for Exercise, which doesn’t happen as much as it might, and which takes about an hour anyway. I don’t come up against the limitations of the CD player, except I suppose if I bump it around too much. If I want to, I can make myself a mix CD, very nearly as easily as I can make myself a playlist, or I can listen to one of the hundreds of discs I have in the rack.

There is the car. If I had to drive a lot (and thank the Lord and my Best Reader that I haven’t had to drive a lot), I could imagine the benefit of having an iPod-like-device in my dashboard. I understand that there are devices which allow you to play the iPod through the car, and I suppose I could just leave it hooked up like that, but it seems gimmicky. I’d rather just have a little USB connecting device for my external hard drive or my laptop or some such. Anyway, something like that would work just fine. But, as I said, I don’t need it at present, and with any luck, by the time I do need it, they will have invented something better.

I listen to music a lot. I mean, a lot. I hate silence; silence makes me tetchy. So I almost always have music on in the house. If I’m in the house a lot (and I am these days), I have music playing all day, and I like that. But as far as the portable digital music player goes, the question isn’t when I listen to music, or how many songs I listen to, but where I listen to music, and who I’m with when I listen. What I imagine a portable would be really good for would be gardening, if one liked to garden. Or a longish commute on public transportation, although I did that once upon a time, and didn’t really like to have the earphones in.

Just to ramble for a moment longer, my current playlist is a party shuffle out of (1) those songs I have rated 3, haven’t listened to in the last four weeks, and haven’t listened to more than a total of n times (through the player), where is currently equal to 2; (III) those songs I have rated 4 and haven’t listened to in the last week; and (3) those songs I have rated 5, haven’t listened to in the last day, and haven’t listened to more than n times, where n is currently 8. The reason for the variable n is that it assures me that I will listen to pretty much all my 3s eventually and won’t go more than a month or so without hearing each and every one of my ninety-six 5s. Of course, getting a portable device would screw this up, unless I bothered to calibrate the last-played and playcounts every day or two (which I assume one can do).

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (26)

My Perfect Non-Reader is listening to a Long Playing record, which plays for more or less twenty minutes before YHB has to go and flip the disc. I don't remember eight-tracks very well, but of course cassettes played for 45 minutes on a side, doubling the time between having to flip. Then CDs made it an hour or even an hour and a quarter before changing discs, and now digital music players can play for—what—four or five hours? And when I'm home in front of the computer, I can put on a playlist and have it play for twelve hours, or for twelve weeks without human intervention.

But that's not what I was going to talk about. I was going to talk about the actual album to which my Perfect Non-Reader is listening. Any guesses? It's the 1983 reissue, although we also have in the stack the original 1972 release, complete with lyrics booklet. And what I was going to say is that I had totally forgotten it, but it turns out that this is the album (and it was totally, completely, utterly influential on my character, for good or ill) that impressed on my the voice of Edward Everett Horton. Well, and I suspect it was at more or less the same time that I heard Mr. Everett Horton as the voice of Fractured Fairy Tales. I wonder when I first got a look at him. Anyway, as a grown-up I associate him with, you know, the sexually ambiguous best friend of the protagonist. OK, not very ambiguous. But the point is, I don't think of him as the older voice, a bit forbidding but gentle, with a hint of malice, and some unidentifiable but very clear sense of wit and intelligence that was really strong in my formative years. chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Top Five Musical Heroes Before I begin: Your Humble Blogger will quote from a Tohu Bohu note:

Your Humble Blogger uses the term ‘hero’ for a bunch of people who are really really good at what they do, who in some way do what I would do if I wanted to be in their field and had hella talent and dedication. It’s not a great use of the word ‘hero’, since many of these people have performed no acts of heroism. They’re not exactly role models, either. Some of ’em are assholes, and many of them are doing things I wouldn’t ever want to do. But they’re my people, and the emergence of, say, a new column by Jon Carroll or Molly Ivins, or a new Elvis Costello or Klezmatics album or a new Terry Gilliam movie is an Event for me.

• Duke Ellington
• Elvis Costello
• Stephen Sondheim
• Benny Goodman
• Klezmatics

Benny Goodman gets a boost, actually, because I think of him as admirable, particularly in integrating his band in the late thirties, when doing so was a risk, just because Teddy Wilson was so damned good. Just left off were, um ... David Byrne, I suppose. Mark Knopfler. Cole Porter. XTC. Shane McGowan and the Pogues. Billie Holliday. Mel Torme. But now I’m well past the hero stage, and into the like-a-lot stage.

That’s the last of them, and it was a lot of fun. Maybe I’ll do a wrap-up, but I’m three book reports behind, now, and there’s always the possibility I will rouse myself to comment on the world outside of the arts as well.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 8:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Top Five Albums You Must Hear From Start to Finish

Before I begin: I assume that this is specifically those albums which work best as albums. Those albums which derive power from their construction, and work best if you listen to the whole thing. The stuff left off the shuffle, but which I like anyway. Which means, mostly, cast recordings.

• Evita. By the time we get to “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina”, it’s actually moving. Really. No, not when Madonna sings it, obviously.
• The Rocky Horror Show. Not the Picture Show, which is fine, and all, but the original NY stage recording, which hits the musical parodies perfectly. It’s easy to forget, with all the ridiculousness around it, that the show itself is really very clever and funny, and the cleverest and funniest thing about it is the way it lampoons song styles.
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. In particular, I have to hear this from start to finish, because if I listen to the one-disc ‘highlights’ version, I get all cross.
• Quadrophenia. Oh, I actually have this on shuffle, along with everything else, but it is so much better to listen to the whole story. In fact, I used to get annoyed at having to switch CDs, back in the days when actual physical CDs were required to listen.
• Little Shop of Horrors: This is mostly a start-to-finish album for me because if I only listen to one or two songs, I’ll have strains of all the others stuck in my head all the next day.

Your Humble Blogger is, as you surmise, not a big fan of concept albums. That is, I have nothing against the idea of the concept album, which I like a lot, but there aren’t very many actual concept albums I like a lot. I’ve been shuffling my music for three years, more or less, and in that time, I haven’t felt the need to listen to very many albums from start to finish.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 7:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Top Five Artists You Think More People Should Listen To

Before I begin: I used to collar people and demand that they listen to some particular track. It wasn’t generally successful. I did manage to ‘give’ a musician to a particular friend once or twice, but on the whole, people weren’t impressed by what I was spinning, and honestly I can’t imagine that I would have enjoyed the tracks while under the gun like that. Since that time, I’ve grown to understand that people are different, one to another, and that different people like different things, and that’s what makes the world interesting and fun. I have no way of knowing whether people will like a particular band, and I certainly don’t want people to have to listen to stuff they don’t like. That’s what radio’s for.

So, what criteria are left for me? First of all, there are artists who I think might not continue recording unless more people start listening to them. Then, I suppose, there are the artists whose work I would like to have in the referrosphere, just so my references to them would actually communicate something other than my own pretentiousness. That said, here are my Top Five.

• The Klezmatics: I happen to like the lineup of this group, and would like to see the members rewarded for their stuff together, rather than for their other projects.
• Jim’s Big Ego: I doubt he’d actually give up, and in these internetty days I don’t actually have to go to the CD release party to get any new stuff he puts out, but it would be nice to see him make a little money doing what he does.
• Gilbert & Sullivan: Actually, now that my filking days are done, I would be happy if people just committed the libretti to memory. Being witty isn’t much fun if nobody knows I’m being witty.
• Ben Thomas: By ‘more people’ here, I actually mean Your Humble Blogger. I special-ordered my old college buddy’s first album at Tower Records, and five years later they closed the store. Without coming up with the disc. I’ve been too lazy to get the thing since. He’s the only person I know in the music business, and I would like to see him become rich and famous, so he could lend me money. Hey, wait, he owes me money!
• Woody Guthrie: It probably wouldn’t work, but it’s possible that if more people listened to Woody Guthrie, the current administration and its cronies would be tossed out on their collective ear, come the election. And, I suppose, it would annoy the right to listen, so there’s that petty benefit as well.

Sadly, I don’t think that any family members or close friends are in a band, so there’s no cash incentive in it for me. This is a tragic oversight.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Top Five Live Musical Experiences

Before I begin: I am not counting experiences I actually participated in, which for Your Humble Blogger would date back to high school. Well, or singing to my Perfect Non-Reader. That sort of thing. Not what the question is about, as I understand it.

It will become obvious that I don’t go out to see music very often. Well, I don’t go out at all very often these parental days, but even before the little alibi, I was too (1) lazy and (b) cheap to go to concerts very often. Actually, a fairly high percentage of my experience listening to live music has been in and around the Harvard Square T station, and a fairly high percentage of that has been lousy. Banjo Bob Sundstrom was always a treat, of course, and I may be the only person in the whole world who still listens to that Katie & Arina demo cd. Oh, and I saw John Kiehne in front of the CVS, and recognized him. How cool am I?

...anyway, I doubt this Top Five will be chock full of gosh-I-wish-I-had-been-there moments.

• The Klezmatics, at the Somerville Theater. I think it was the Somerville that was the great concert, and the Newton JCC that was the pretty good concert. Anyway, they were amazing, and when they played Shnirele Perele, I was afraid they really would bring the Messiah.
• Escape from New York tour, the Tower (Philadelphia). Debbie Harry opened, and people treated her like an opening act, walking around, chatting. The Heads (Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison) came next, and were better than I had expected, playing mostly non-TH stuff. The headline act was the Ramones, and they were ... the Ramones.
• David Byrne, the Tower (Philadelphia). This was the Rei Momo tour, and he didn’t play much TH stuff, either. Still, damn it was funky.
• The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Great American Music Hall (San Francisco). I’m pretty sure that this was the first show of the too-old-to-dance-all-concert days. I was exhausted by halfway through. It was the Jelly’s Jazz tour, and they kicked ass.
• Dave Frishberg, some church basement on Noe in San Francisco. Just him at the piano. It was hella funny, and afterwards I just went up and said hi.

On a different day, I might have mentioned the final exam of the Berklee College of Music Big Band (seeing an undergraduate conduct with his ass while playing the tuba is not easily forgotten), either the Philip Glass solo piano concert (in a high school cafeteria) or the Philip Glass Ensemble live Koyaanisqatsi show (very loud indeed), Jim’s Big Ego opening for The Nields at the Somerville, Zap Mama at the Somerville, Arturo Sandoval in Copley Square when the power went out, Sweet Honey in the Rock at the college theater, or the time Richard Bob wore my hat.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Top Five Lyrics that Move Your Heart

Before I begin: This one was difficult even to decide what the criteria are. The big problem is that (as with all Top Fives in whatever fields) so much of my attachment to a piece has to do with the initial circumstances in which I heard it, and with how much I later heard it, and when, and with whom. It’s not easy to tell whether it’s the lyric moving me, or my own memories, particularly as the way a good lyric moves me is to evoke my own memories.

But here: an example. “My Funny Valentine” is a terrific song and a terrific lyric. I love the song, and find it moving, and so does my Best Reader. Because of that, we chose it as “our song”; in the course of preparing a musical soundtrack to our wedding reception YHB sought the best possible version, gathering ten or more versions before settling on Frank Sinatra’s Paris recording with the Septet. Of course, all that listening in that context heightened the association of the song with my Best Reader and our wedding, not to mention our marriage. In the event, although I’m sure the song was played, I have no recollection of it, or indeed of much of the events of that day. Still, every time I hear the song or even come across the lyrics, I am moved to the point of goofiness. Which is nice and all, but in considering the Top Five, I wound up deciding that what was moving me was not the lyric, but the marriage that we deliberately chose to associate with it. So I left it off. Maybe that’s wrong, but that’s my decision. At least today.

I also, after much struggle, ruled out liturgical songs. My heart is much moved when we sing v’zot ha-torah (that is the torah) or col hanshamah t’hallel’yah, hall’lu yah (let all creatures that have breath sing praise to the Lord), but I think that’s all beyond the scope of the question. On the other hand, what I’ve done is to leave out precisely those lyrics that move me the most: those that I have invested the most in, and those that have had the most invested in them by my community. Perhaps this is pointing out the silliness of trying to separate the lyric from those that listen to it, when our criterion is emotional anyway. Still, I tried. The following are lyrics that I find incredibly moving, trying as best I can to judge that it is the lyric that moves me, and not my own investment in it (or the melody or whatnot).

• Every Time We Say Goodbye, Cole Porter: “There’s no love song finer/but how strange/the change/from major to minor/every time we say goodbye”
  This is simply one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking songs YHB has ever heard. The combination of resignation and hope. The pretense at near-indifference, as ‘a little’ is tacked on to the end of the real feeling. I’m inclined to the Ella Fitzgerald version, myself, but really, it’s a terrific song no matter who sings it.
• I Want You, Elvis Costello: “It’s knowing that he knows you now after only guessing/It’s the thought of him undressing you, or you undressing”
  I know Mr. McManus is Mr. Revenge-and-Guilt, but he really outdoes himself on this descent into jealousy and obsession. The scary thing, the thing that really moves me, is the way he makes it almost attractive, almost as if what he’s describing is true love, and if you aren’t making mad threats, you aren’t really in love. It’s not played for that effect, though; that’s just the background to the sympathetic and scary portrait.
• I’ll Be Seeing You, Irving Kahal and Sammy Fain: “In that small café, the park across the way/The children's carousel, the chestnut tree, the wishing well”
  I can’t really defend this one. It’s mawkish and sentimental, and all that stuff. Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.
• Ver Es Hot, Abraham Reisen and Chava Alberstein: Ver es hot a templ, Ver es hot a klayzl/Ver s'bazukht a shenkl, Ver a freylekh hayzl/Epes muz men hobn, Eynem muz men gloybn/Tsi a tayvl untn, Tsi a got dort oybn. In English, more or less: “One man goes to shul, one to a library, one to a bar, one to a brothel. You’ve got to pick one, you’ve got to believe something. There’s a devil under there, there’s the Lord up there”
  Yes, Your Humble Blogger is aware of how unutterably pretentious it is to include a lyric in another language. Particularly as I don’t speak it myself. Still, I know enough German and enough Hebrew to catch a sense of the original, I think. And it’s wonderful, isn’t it? The second verse says, more or less, ‘otherwise, you will walk the earth like Cain, and people will cross the street to get out of your way, and the whole world will be a cemetery.’ But it’s so much better in Yiddish.
• Finishing the Hat, Stephen Sondheim: “And when the woman that you wanted goes/You say to yourself, "Well, I give what I give."/But the woman who won't wait for you knows/That however you live/There's a part of you always standing by/Mapping out the sky/Finishing a hat/Starting on a hat/Finishing a hat/Look, I made a hat/Where there never was a hat”
  I surprised myself by including this one, after all. I mean, I love the song, and I used to love it even more, back when I considered myself ambitious and George-like. Now, Lord knows, I can leave the hat unfinished. Still, even when the memory of that drive to that hollow victory is dim in my own self, Mr. Sondheim makes it powerful again.

The temptation, of course, was to include “Oop-Pop-A-Da” or even “De Doo Doo Doo De Da Da Da”. The other issue was that the question specifies lyrics that move my heart, rather than my brain or whatnot, so I left out many of my favorites, and wound up picking sadder songs, rather than joyful ones (despite being aware that joy moves my heart as well). My just-left-off list includes Mark Knopfler’s “Romeo and Juliet”, about half-a-dozen songs by Mr. Costello, Billie Holliday’s “Strange Fruit”, Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car”, Paul Simon’s “Born at the Right Time”, Tom Waits’ “Soldier’s Things”, Eric Bogle’s “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda”, and dozens and dozens more, I’m sure. If I did the list on a different day, I’d have come up with a different list.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

A while ago, Amanda Marcotte, the ultimate maximum over at Pandagon, wrote a response to a music meme which led me to spend way too much time thinking about my answers. And, since I really am a verbose and prolix sonofagun, I wound up writing answers, and comments on the answers, and comments on the questions, and generally wasting my time. And since it’s a blog, I’ll try to waste yours, too, Gentle Reader. And on the off chance that it’s less annoying this way, rather than more, I’m going to split the six questions into six posts, plus, you know, this one.

First of all, the six questions are all Top Fives, in honor of High Fidelity. That makes it more difficult for YHB than the One Absolute Fave. For one thing, if they were One Absolute Fave questions, I’d probably never have thought enough about them to bother writing the thing up. I mean, One Absolute Fave is patently absurd, but surely I should be able to come up with a Top Five. The problem, of course, is that the Top Five is just as absurd as the One Absolute Fave. Surely I am absent-mindedly just blanking on one or two songs I would want to have included. The good part, though, is that I don’t have to number the list, and declare which fits the number one slot and which the number five. On the other hand, once I have five, if I come up with another, I have to decide which of the five to turf, and that’s just impossible. I know, as it’s come up already more than once.

And, of course, even if I were happy with the Top Fives I’ll be putting on pixels, and even if I didn’t forget to consider any, it’ll surely be the case that tomorrow or next week I’ll find myself perplexed that I made the stupid-ass choices I did. Because, you know, my tastes have changed. Ten years ago, I didn’t like Klezmer, and couldn’t tell you any working klezmorim. Twenty years ago, I had no particular interest in jazz. Five years ago, I didn’t know what early music was (OK, seven years, and I still don’t really know). At the moment, I don’t much like country and western, or hip-hop, or orchestral music, or salsa, or a billion other styles. I sure hope I add something to the collection of kind-of-music-I-like over the next five years, but who knows what it will be.

OK, enough blather for the moment. Time for the questions:

Top Five Lyrics that Move Your Heart
Top Five Instrumentals
Top Five Live Musical Experiences
Top Five Artists You Think More People Should Listen To
Top Five Musical Heroes
Top Five Albums You Must Hear From Start to Finish

That’s them. I think they’re well chosen, as they are narrow enough to make me perhaps think about them in a different way than I have done in the past, but broad enough that they apply to a variety of different tastes. I don’t like each of them the same; the Instrumentals was surprisingly hard, and therefore interesting, and the Live Experiences was just a matter of choosing, more or less randomly, five out of ten or so great ones, with no real criteria. But looking at them, it’s pretty clear that the ones I find less interesting will be more interesting for some people, and the ones I find more interesting will be less interesting for some people. Which is a good thing in one of these memes, right? OK, one more thing... I’ve split these up into different posts not only to indulge myself in talking about the selections, and the criteria for selecting, but to encourage you, Gentle Reader, to participate. This should (a) make it easier for a fellah to just put down one Top Five, without committing to the whole shebang, and (2) give a fellah space for including songs that nearly made the cut, pointing why my criteria are all wrong, suggesting songs I might like, or whatever. The whole thing is preposterous, so don’t worry about getting any of it right, right?

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, and after talking about Your Hit Parade and great or lousy songs, it occurred to YHB that one distinction some would make (and I failed to) is between melodic and lyric stupidity. When I presented my case that there was bad and stupid music a-plenty before 1957, I’m afraid I was thinking pretty solidly about lyrics. “Elmer’s Tune” is a stupid song, but it’s pretty catchy despite the Tin Pan Alley lyrics, and although I still can’t make the case for it being any more impressive than “Blue Suede Shoes”, I’m afraid I was probably too harsh on it. The problem is that I know nothing whatever about music (much as I like it), and my excessive fondness for lyrics overwhelms my judgment.

Take, for instance, Harry Warren. Harry Warren (born Salvatore Guaragna) had 42 songs on Your Hit Parade, the closest competitor was Irving Berlin, with only 33. So why don’t I know his name, and why don’t I immediately associate it with the big hits? It’s because he wrote the music. He teamed with various lyricists over the years; I know those names. Johnny Mercer wrote “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby”, “Jeepers Creepers”, and of course “Atchison, Topeka, And The Santa Fe”. Al Dubin wrote “You're Getting To Be A Habit With Me”, “We're In The Money” and “Lullaby of Broadway”. Mack Gordon wrote “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”. Jack Brooks wrote “That’s Amore” (OK, I didn’t know that). But I forget that Harry Warren wrote the music to all of those.

And, of course, if I like those songs (and I do, even “Jeepers Creepers”), I have to give a good deal of credit for it to Mr. Warren. P.G. Wodehouse said, more or less, that if it were up to him, he’d wind up writing all his lyrics with eight beats to the line, with rhymes at the end, four lines to a verse. All the songs would sound exactly the same, and they would all be incredibly dull. With somebody writing the music, though, he would use internal rhymes, lines and verses of different lengths, and generally be more interesting. With that in mind, try to imagine these lyrics (by Mack Gordon) being somehow separate from the melody and rhythm.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H
I got a gal in Kalamazoo
Don’t want to boast but I know she’s the toast of Kalamazoo
(Zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo)

Years have gone by, my my how she grew
I liked her looks when I carried her books in Kalamazoo
(Zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo)

I’m gonna send away, hoppin’ on a plane, leavin’ today
Am I dreamin’? I can hear her screamin’
"Hiya, Mr. Jackson Everything’s OK”-A-L-A-M-A-Z-O-

Oh, what a gal, a real pipperoo
I’ll make my bid for that freckle-faced kid I’m hurryin’ to
I’m goin’ to Michigan to see the sweetest gal in Kalamazoo
(Zoo, zoo)
(Zoo, zoo, zoo, Kalamazoo)
K (K)
A (A)
L-A-M-A-Z-O
(Oh, oh, oh, oh what a gal, a real pipperoo)
(We’re goin’ to Michigan to see the sweetest gal in Kalamazoo)
(Zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo)
(Kalamazoo!!)

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:49 PM | Permalink

Your Humble Blogger happened to be listening to All Things Considered t’other day, and I heard a twelve-minute piece by John McDonough called “A Look Back at ‘Your Hit Parade’”. The piece focused on what killed the show, rather than (as you might expect) on what kept the show alive for more than twenty years. Mr. McDonough identifies two trends which he seems to muddle with each other, both of which are highly dubious, and he misses two things which seem obvious to me and which seem to have been far more likely to bring about the ultimate demise of Your Hit Parade.

I should start, as Mr. McDonough appropriately did, by pointing out the distinction of Your Hit Parade, which is that the songs were performed anew each week by the Hit Parade orchestra and singers, unlike Casey Kasem’s later countdown show America’s Top 40, which played popular recordings. There is a big difference between a show that highlights songs and one that highlights recordings. Another way of looking at it is that the cast of Your Hit Parade was simply not as successful as the cast of America’s Top 40, the latter of which was by definition the most successful recording artists of the time. So if we’re looking at what killed Your Hit Parade, the answer has got to answer the question of why Your Hit Parade died, but ten years later, America’s Top Forty flourished.

The first killer that Mr. McDonough identifies is the stylistic change from jazz and theater based songs to blues and rock, which he claims was a shift from writing to performance. “The blues was either a performance or it was nothing at all.” Unlike the previous two decades, he claims, the songs that became popular were associated with their writers, and with a particular performance. “It [rock and roll] was a place where authenticity was valued over artifice, where singers would become their own songwriters and vice versa, where only the author would have the authority to render the authentic version, where the performance would become the central product and the song, accessory or worse [a statement?].” I have no idea what he’s talking about, and it’s not just that I can’t make out the last word in the sentence. In 1959, when Your Hit Parade was cancelled for the last time, Bob Dylan was a Minnesotan nobody named Zimmerman; in 1959, John Lennon and Paul McCartney had recorded nothing. Yes, Chuck Berry had a hit with his self-written “Maybelline”, and Buddy Holly had recorded “Peggy Sue” and “Rave On”, but the singer-songwriter was scarcely common. In 1958, the Everly Brothers had two massive hits: “All I Have To Do Is Dream” and “Bird Dog”. These were added to their two hits of the previous year: “Bye Bye Love” and “Wake Up Little Susie”. All four of those songs were written by Boudleaux and Felice Bryant. I’m not convinced that the success of Buddy Holly clearly signaled the rise of the singer-songwriter more than Johnny Mercer’s or Hoagy Carmichael’s hit recordings of their own songs. That rise happened, and would clearly have signaled the end of a house-band style of countdown, but it hadn’t happened by 1959.

It’s also, by the way, possible to say that while the ‘authenticity’ of the singer-songwriter hadn’t been a big deal, songs were associated with stars in a way they hadn’t been earlier, and that the house-band style worked against that. The problem there is that it doesn’t seem to be true. In 1938 the house band played “Ti-Pi-Tin” 12 times on its way up to and down from the number one position. The Andrews Sisters had recorded it in March, and although there were several recordings both before and after, it’s hard to escape the fact that “Ti-Pi-Tin” was on Your Hit Parade pretty much because of the Andrews Sisters. Ella Fitzgerald recorded “A-Tisket A-Tasket” in 1938; it was on Your Hit Parade for eleven weeks. “Whistle While You Work” never got to the top place, peaking at # 2 in 1938, but as it climbed up and down it was broadcast eleven times, all shortly after 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Again, none of these were singer-songwriters, but all of them were stars, or from a blockbuster movie, just as they are now, and the house band version was clearly a reference to those recordings. And yet, Your Hit Parade survived. Anyway, Mr. McDonough doesn’t mention the issue of the star or of the star recording outside of the context of the singer-songwriter.

(The information about what was played when comes via The BigBands Database, by the way, and although it seems plausible enough, I have no way of verifying it.)

The second killer, according to Mr. McDonough, was simply that popular music after 1955 or so sucked. “The Hit Parade might have survived if enough good tunes had come along, but in 1955, the American Songbook was about to be challenged from below by a rudimentary folk form called the blues.” He then says that the 12-bar blues of hits such as “Dance with me, Henry” was, you know, boring. He quotes Russell Arms, who was on the show from 1952 until 1957, calling the last years “kind of a tug of war between rock and good songs”. Now, I happen to like the popular music of the thirties and the popular music of the fifties. And I can’t deny that a fair amount of the popular tunes of the fifties are stupid songs that, divorced from blistering performances, have little to recommend them. But how is that different from “A-Tisket A-Tasket”? And then there’s “Elmer’s Tune” (fifteen weeks in 1943), and “How Much is That Doggie in the Window” (twelve weeks in 1953), and “Jeepers Creepers” (eleven weeks in 1938), and “Mairzy Doats” (eleven weeks in 1940), and “Sam’s Song” (twelve weeks in 1950), and “The Umbrella Man” (eleven weeks in 1939), and “Woody Woodpecker” (only nine weeks in 1948).

Mr. Arms asks “How many weeks in a row can you do ‘Blue Suede Shoes’?” How many weeks in a row can you do “Peg o’my Heart”? They did it for twenty weeks in 1947, without killing the show. In 1953, Mr. Arms and his colleagues performed “Vaya con Dios” twenty-three times without killing the show. In 1954, Mr. Arms and his colleagues performed “Mister Sandman” eighteen times without killing the show. And the problem was a tug of war between rock and good songs? In 1955, Mr. Arms and his colleagues performed “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” fifteen times without killing the show. The problem was neither the prevalence of lousy songs nor the dearth of good ones, or the show would not have lasted twenty years. There’s got to be some other reason.

By the way, one of the legends of the Great American Songbook that Mr. McDonough is that Frank Sinatra pretty much invented it out of the frustration of being the boy singer for Your Hit Parade. The format of the show meant that even as the star, he got only very limited choices. Sure, he got to sing such magnificent songs as “Don’t Fence Me In” and “I’ll Be Seeing You” and “Paper Doll” and also such ... other ... songs as “The Trolley Song” and “Shoo Shoo Baby”, not to mention “Swinging on a Star”. He sang “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby” and “Besame Mucho”. He sang “Milkman Keep Those Bottles Quiet”. He evidently sang “No Love No Nothin'” four times in January and February of 1944 in addition to the six other performances the band did with other singers that year. Later, after his career died and he had his first great comeback, he decided to have his own damn’ record company and not record any more crappy songs just because they were popular. As a result, he wound up selecting the basis for what became known as the Great American Songbook, and defining what was a standard and what was not. This isn’t true, in any significant sense, but it is illustrative. It also points out one reason the show lasted as long as it did: Frank Sinatra.

Anyway, Mr. McDonough does not notice a couple of things that I think are much more likely to have killed the show. The most important, I think, is simply the generation gap. The baby boom started in 1946 (more or less); by the late fifties, the baby boomers were entering their teens, and starting to have a significant impact on popular music. They pull the ratings (particularly of television shows, but also of music), because there are so damn many of them. So unlike the situation from 1935 to 1955, when the radio-listening population changes only gradually, from 1955-1959 the television-watching population changes quickly and drastically. Things become old-fashioned much quicker. And old-fashioned things get cancelled quicker. Meanwhile, there is suddenly a ton of competition. By 1957, ABC is broadcasting American Bandstand. As Rodney Buxton writes for the Museum of Broadcasting, “the increased spending power of American teenagers in the 1950s attracted advertisers and companies marketing products specifically targeting that social group.” Their parents were, perhaps, watching the Lawrence Welk show, which premiered in 1955. These two shows were hugely successful for a long time, in part (I suspect) by carving up the audience, and sharpening their appeal. This was something Your Hit Parade couldn’t do. The problem wasn’t that people wouldn’t tune in for “Blue Suede Shoes” every week, it was that the people who tuned in for “At the Hop” or “Hard Headed Woman” weren’t tuning in to hear “Volare” or “It’s Only Make Believe”. No music show was ever going to bring parents and children together to enjoy the same music. Ten years later, when the boomers could fully dominate the music scene, the countdown came back.

The other thing that I think killed Your Hit Parade is that it just wasn’t very good. Really, why would you think it would be a good television show? What about the thing makes for good TV? Honestly, it’s much harder to understand why Lawrence Welk stayed on television than to understand why Your Hit Parade got cancelled. Lawrence Welk was, however inexplicably, a star; Your Hit Parade had, um, Gisele MacKenzie. And Russell Arms. And Snooky Lanson. Seriously, Ms. MacKenzie was the closest thing to a star they had during the TV years, and she left in 1957, shortly before the show was axed for the first time. Coincidence? You be the judge.

I suspect that even if Your Hit Parade had stayed on the radio, it would have died in the sixties, when Elvis, Dylan and the Beatles completed the shift from song to recording. But it would have had a chance. On TV, it had no chance. And it didn’t have much to do with the rise of the singer-songwriter or the death of the popular song.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 7:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

So, Bobby Short died the other day. This is, in its way, bad news; I never met him or heard him, and it appears that my library contains all of three of his songs, but I appreciate his stuff. In case anybody missed the last thirty years or so, Bobby Short came to define a certain kind of retardataire urbanity, and to be what many of us wanted to be: a charming, witty, knowledgeable, highly sought-after raconteur.

When I call his style retardataire, what I’m getting at is that when Mr. Short settled in at the Café Carlyle, it was already more urbane, more sophisticated, and more cosmopolitan to go to Studio 54. The purpose of going to the Carlyle was block that fact out for an evening. Even last year, when Mr. Short announced his retirement (no, he didn’t retire), what was lost was clearly an era rather than a career. It was no longer possible to pretend that it was 1934 for an evening. The astounding part of it is that in 1934, he was a ten-year-old vaudeville prodigy opening for the Three Stooges in Providence, Rhode Island. Well, there it is.

In honor of the late Bobby Short, then, here are the lyrics to the Cole Porter classic “How’s Your Romance”, as he recorded them in or around 1952. I’ve rambled on in between stanzas.

In Italia the signori
Are so very amatory,
That their passion, a priori,
is l'amor.

Cole Porter, in keeping with style and tradition of musical theater, often wrote intros to his songs that differ substantially from the song itself in style, meter, and orchestration. They weren’t just song cues, but little mini-songs in themselves. Often these intros were left off recordings made for radio and jukeboxes. Ella Fitzgerald is credited for reviving the practice of including them. It’s still a tough call; some of the cleverest puns and wildest gags are in the intros, but they can be distracting just for that reason. In this song, though, clearly the intro is absolutely necessary. In the recording, Mr. Short uses just a very light touch of piano accompanying a conversational, if animated, style that sets up the intimately conversational style of the whole song.

And from Napoli to Pisa,
Ev'ry man has on his knees
A little private Mona Lisa
To adore.
always l'amore
S� sempre l'amore.

I’m impressed, listening to this closely, that Mr. Short does not give in to the temptation to sings “... on his knees-a / Little private ...” The outrageous rhyme is funny enough without emphasizing it that way.

Result, is when Italians meet a friend who's been away,
Instead of sayin' "How's your health?"
They say...

Mr. Short builds up, both with voice and piano, the sense that the actual song is about to begin. It works remarkably well, and distracts from the awkwardness of the lyric

How's your romance?
How is it goin’?
Waning or growin’,
How's your romance?

I’ve dropped the g here, as he does; don’t interpret that as making the word one-syllable. He neither sings ‘gohn’ or ‘gwan’ nor yet ‘gwine’, but ‘go-in’. For some reason, this sounds urbane. Nobody uses that pronunciation in real life, but real life doesn’t sparkle.

Does she or not
love you an awful lot?
Cool, tepid, warm, or hot,
How's your romance?

For some reason, Mr. Short changes ‘cold’ to ‘cool’; I’m not sure if it improves the song, but it certainly doesn’t ruin it. In general, I’m skeptical of these kinds of changes, but then I’m reminded of Irving Berlin’s comment about Ella Fitzgerald. Mr. Berlin was notorious for his grouchiness about the liberties singers took with his melodies, and of course Ms. Fitzgerald brought an improvisatory attitude toward melody to her brilliant recordings of his song. When asked if he disliked them for that reason, Mr. Berlin replied to the effect that it was different when the singer was a better composer than he was.

Do you from the moment you met her
Swear that you will never forget her?
Do you when she sends you a letter,
Begin to go into a dance?

Boy, ‘letter’ doesn’t work here at all, does it? Oh, well. The tempo picks up at this verse, and at the last line he hits the gas, and we all begin to go into a dance ourselves.

Break me the news,
I'm with you win or lose,
Please tell me who's—and how's your romance?

Evidently, Mr. Porter wrote this the other way, that is, “how’s—and who’s ...” I can see why (there’s a joke about the rhyme placement there), but this works better for me, at least with Mr. Short singing. The Porter way has the singer’s real curiosity finally overwhelming his delicacy; the Short way has the singer’s real curiosity slipping out, and then being guiltily covered up with the title line. Well, and I could be wrong about the way it was originally written; I’m going by internet facts, here.

Do you from the moment you met him
Swear that you will never forget him?
Do you, when he wants you to let him,
Begin to go into a dance?

The reversal in the second time through the bridge was originally meant, I believe, for the girls chorus to come in and relieve the male singer. In the Short version, I can’t help hearing this as addressed to a man, just as the first time through. Or is that just me? And the switch from ‘letter’ to ‘let him’ makes it even worse. But the song survives that.

Break me the news,
I'm with you win or lose,
Please tell me who’s
... and how's ....
your romance?

Oddly enough, the main thing I hear in his voice as he heads into the final repetition of the verse here is triumph. It’s incredibly uplifting, joyous, and fun, but it’s also triumphant. It’s not clear what Mr. Short is triumphant at, other than singing the song really well, but then that’s really all I want. It’s one of the things that always gets me, and it’s actually fairly common at the end of good songs. It’s called ‘bringing it on home’, right? Or whatever Herr Beethoven called it in the Ninth. It caps the song, and brings you to your feet, and actually makes it a bit of a relief when it’s all over and you can applaud and sit back down (and Alban takes off his wig). It makes this song from a conversation, and an inane one at that, into a sort of drama.

Anyway, find a copy and listen to it. It’ll cost you a buck on iTunes (where it’s on the Bobby, Noel and Cole album), or presumably on your preferred music supplier. Pay attention to the way in which performance sounds light, instinctive and improvisatory and simultaneously polished, thoughtful and well-structured. It’s that combination of the sense that it’s all off the top of his head, just a free-flowing joyous outbreak into song with the sense that he’s prepared and examined the thing in tremendous detail, considered the options, and created a perfect gem, a recording that can’t be improved.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

OK, because this Tohu Bohu was getting lonely, but Your Humble Blogger hasn’t the mental capacity at the moment to write an actual note: The latest iTunes meme! (Ooh, I’m using meme that way again. Ooh!)

How many songs? Oddly enough, at the moment, there are seven thousand, seven hundred and seventy-seven songs in my Library. 19 days.

Sort by song title, first and last Last is “Zoot Suit Thing”, by, you guessed it, Zoots and the Swingin’ Suits, closely beating out the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies and “Zoot Suit Riot”. First by sorting is the “’49 Mercury Blues”, by the Brian Seltzer Orchestra, although if you don’t like the way computers alphabetize punctuation, it would probably be “A Bad Case of the Blues”, in the Dinah Washington version.

Sort by time; first and last?Well, there are the sixty or so 4-second segments of Dots Will Echo’s annoying “Within or Without You”; they split the song up into a zillion four-second slices so that there are 99 tracks on the CD. Then, of course, there are the Fingertips, mostly under 10 seconds. There’s Jim’s Big Ego’s four-second “Intro” to Noplace Like Nowhere, a couple of six-second pause tracks from the Benny Goodman Carnegie Hall Concert (1938), and a few intros of various kinds. The shortest track I would call a song is “Miracle Cure”, from the Who’s Tommy (the band’s album, not the movie soundtrack or the show’s). It’s twelve seconds. The longest track is Winton Marsalis’ “Blue Interlude (The Bittersweet Saga of Sugar Cane and Sweetie Pie)”, at 37:14; it beats out the Rebirth Brass Band’s “The Main Event” by more than five minutes.

Sort by album; first and last? ’Round Midnight, a Mel Torme album. Again, if you don’t count punctuation, or numbers, or whatnot, the first would be the Billie Holiday collection called A Fine Romance, but that’s the eighth album listed (two of which I own only one track from). The last is Zoot Suit Riot, by the aforementioned Cherry Poppin’ Daddies.

Top five played songs? The most played is “Sleepwalkers”, of They Might Be Giants’ No, with eleven. Second most is “Cockles and Mussels”, and third is “Friends Lullaby”, both from Larry Grace and the Disneyland Children’s Sing-Along Chorus recordings released as Disney Children’s Favorites (vols. 1-4). Fourth is They Might Be Giants’ “Lazyhead and Sleepybones”, also from No, and fifth is Tom Chapin’s “I Need a Lullaby” from Making Good Noise. These are all from a lullaby playlist, if y’all hadn’t guessed. I should add that we’ve only started using iTunes fairly recently, so the playcount doesn’t really denote how often I listen to stuff.

Find “sex”; how many songs show up? 54. Mostly from the Bodeans album Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams, the Dave’s True Story album Sex without Bodies, and the shouldn’t-count-at-all Sinatra and Sextet Live in Paris. In fact, leaving out album titles, and instances of ‘Sussex’ or ‘Essex’, I have three: “War between the Sexes”, off the Jabbering Trout album Swell, the final track off Live Stiffs Live where Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello and the rest join Ian Dury for “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll & Chaos”, and the title track from the aforementioned Dave’s True Story album.

Find “death”; how many songs show up? Again, most of the 30 songs have the word only in the album title, in this case from the Punk anthology Forward Til Death. Going with song titles only, there are seven: “Death of Zorba”, the Jody Grind; “The Death of Suzzy Roche”, the Roches; “My Death”, a Christopher Tye number recorded by Hespèrion XX; “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll”, Phranc’s cover; “Death is a Star”, the Clash; “Angel of Death”, Shane MacGowan; “Death and the Lady, a John Renbourn group version.

Find “love”; how many songs show up? 405. (52 of these turn up because of album titles, though).

Oddly enough, this probably gives a Gentle Reader a fair picture of what’s on the ol’ hard drive.

Thank you,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Well, and Francis points out the unfortunate prevalence of inappropriate wedding music. His solution is to hold tight to the wedding list. Sadly, this is not really sufficient, or wasn’t in the case of Your Humble Blogger and his Best Reader. We made what would now be called a playlist of 44 songs (three and a half hours or so). Now, certainly most of those are appropriate for weddings, such as “From this Moment On” or “Moonlight Becomes You”. There are some on the list that if not absolutely dead-on lyrically at least are irrelevant, such as “Stompin’ at the Savoy” or “Jumpin’ Jive”, or instrumentals such as the “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo”. But I count sixteen songs that are unambiguously inappropriate for a wedding.

OK, categories:

Rueful Breakup: “Better Luck Next Time” There ain’t gonna be no next time for me, “Just One of those Things” So good-bye, dear, and amen/Here’s hoping we meet again, “Hello Young Lovers” Don't cry because I'm alone, “Solitude” I sit in my chair/Filled with despair/No-one could be so sad

Bitter Breakup: “Makin’ Whoopee” The Judge says 'keep her/You'll find it's cheaper/than Makin Whoopee', “What’ll I Do” What'll I do?/When I am wond'ring who/Is kissing you/What'll I do?, “Kissing Bug” You wouldn’t, you couldn’t, be true if you tried

Unrequited Love: “Change Partners” Can't you see I'm longing to be in his place?, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” Don’t you know you fool, you never can win, “I Can’t Get Started” But now I'm broken hearted/Can't get started with you

No Love At All: “But Not For Me” When ev'ry happy plot ends with the marriage knot/And there's no knot for me

Viagra jokes: “Too Darn Hot” I ain't up to my baby tonight, “A Fine Romance” I never mussed the crease in your blue serge pants

Maybe Baby: “At Long Last Love” Is it the good turtle soup or merely the mock?, “Do Nothin’ ’Til You Hear From Me” True I've been seen with someone new/But does that mean that I'm untrue?, “Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby” Seems my flame in your heart's done gone out

Not Actually Inappropriate, but Just Sounds Wrong: “Beat Me, Daddy, Eight to the Bar” He can play piano any way that you like it/But the way he likes to play is eight to the bar

The thing is that Your Humble Blogger likes these songs. We talked about it, beforehand, and decided that it was OK to have songs we like, even if they aren’t appropriate. And, as it turned out, with one thing and another, the carefully planned three-disc set didn’t get played front to back, but interrupted, restarted, skipped, and whatever. Not that I would remember the details now; I barely remember any events of that day after around seven in the morning. At the end of the day, we were married, inappropriate songs and all, and are still happy now. So there.

Thank you,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 8:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Your Humble Blogger is not very knowledgeable about music. Considering how much time I spend listening, and how high a priority it is for me to listen to music I like, I hardly ever talk about music. That’s a shame, really, as I might enjoy talking about music more (back in my misspent youth, I misspent a lot of time talking about music, and enjoyed it a lot at the time) if I acquired the vocabulary.

Oddly enough, one of the genres of music I like best is one of the ones I really know nothing about. In my player, I’ve called it Early Music; I’m not sure what that means, though. It’s just a part of the Classical section of the record store. And, of course, I am vaguely aware the Early Music isn’t technically Classical (a bit of research yields that Bach isn’t technically Classical, either, which gives you an idea of the trouble conversing about this stuff). And as it happens, I’m not terribly fond of vocal Early Music (either choral or soloists); I like instrumentals. The lute, the viola da gamba. It’s consort music I like, I suppose. I have something like 18 artists (groups, composers, performers) in my player’s list under Early Music.

OK, here they are: The Baltimore Consort (three albums, and I don’t even have some of my favorites), Bare Necessities (two albums; most people would have them under folk, but to me they seem to fit in this category), Belladonna (their only album, and it’s lovely), Christopher Wilson (one album of sweet, if not terribly exciting, lute music), the John Renbourn Group (two fun albums, also found in the folk section of your local), Ensemble Unicorn (two great albums), Telemann (one album, brand new and so far I like it), Hespèrion XX (only one album, and not even my favorite of theirs), the King’s Noyse (one album), Musicians of the Globe (two albums, including a sampler), Paul O’Dette (three albums of lute music), Piffaro (two albums of Renaissance dance music), The Toronto Consort (one album, enh, too much hey-trolly-lolily-lo), The Virginia Company (local and co-lohhhhnial, one album), Steeleye Span (I put a lot of the early Hills of Greenmore stuff in this genre), Ockeghem (one album, mostly because an old college acquaintance sings on it), Kitka (again, not sure why this goes into the genre but it seems to).

I also have two albums of Christmas Music that are Early-Music-ish, one Maddy Prior and one Oxford Camerata. I’m not sure how to count those. The whole genre thing, as you may have guessed, Gentle Reader, is a source of confusion for me. I tend, for myself, to slide things into genres based on when and how I want to listen to them; I’d rather find John Renbourn when I’m looking for Early Music, and don’t want him showing up when I’m randomly selecting other stuff. None of this has much to do with when the music was written, or even in what style. I don’t want to listen to Christmas Music between Jan. 1 and Dec. 1, even if it’s lovely, Latin, and fifteenth century. Well, I might make an exception for Gaudete; I like Gaudete. Although, just to be obnoxious, I should mention that I prefer the cover by the Medieval Baebes to either the kick-ass Steeleye Span version or the genteel Oxford Camerata version.

Anyway, given that information, Gentle Readers, who will give me recommendations? Or, more to the point, who will chat with me about the stuff I already like, and help me think about it? Who will tell me that she likes Wilson better that O’Dette, and why, and why Rumsey is better than either? And more important, who’s going to buy me this out-of-print box set?

Thank you,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Your Humble Blogger has often complained about reviews that are more about the wit of the reviewer than about the thing being reviewed. It’s the curse of Dorothy Parker; her stuff is clearly about her, but then she is actually more entertaining than many of the books she reviewed (which were often enough chosen for that purpose). Her generation of imitators had no such excuse. On the other hand, I admit to chortling at a really nasty, vicious pan. Ben Brantley, in this morning’s Times (regreq), begins with the premise that To Everything There Is a Purpose, and concludes that the purpose of Good Vibrations, the Mamma Mia of the Beach Boys, is “to make all other musicals on Broadway look good.” The best (and nastiest) part is the first three paragraphs, culminating in suggesting not that the performers are enjoying it more than the audience, but that the performers are somewhat less pained by it. Later, he excuses himself from mentioning any of the performers names, since they “aren’t really to blame”.

Ooh, it’s a cold morning on West 49th Street.

Thank you,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 7:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It probably isn’t worth getting in to the whole story of how I came across it, but for any Gentle Reader familiar with the ballad of John Barleycorn, there is a rather entertaining ballad of Juan Coffeebean (There were three men come out of the south...) by a group called the Wild Oats. It’s on their album A Few Oats Shy of a Haggis, which is available through their website and through iTunes. The Wild Oats are evidently defunct, so it exists as a historical document only.

It’s quite likely that any Gentle Reader who cares already knows about this, but it’s new to Your Humble Blogger. I laughed.

Thank you,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Is it a good day for song memes when Your Humble Blogger attacks two of them, or a bad one? This is from the inimitable John Scalzi, who asks whether the three-minute songs in our collections are perfect pop songs. So, the songs that come in at 180 seconds.

A Smooth One, Mel Torme & Meltones (Back In Town): No. No, no no.

Across The Blues, Duke Ellington (The Blanton-Webster Band (Disc 2)): No.

Alexander's Ragtime Band, Bessie Smith (The Essential Bessie Smith (Disc 2)): Yes. Of course, if your definition of pop is very narrow, I can’t help you, and you may as well stop reading now.

Ave Maria, Bing Crosby (Swinging On A Star): No, just no.

Carried Away, Leonard Bernstein (On The Town): This isn’t the perfect pop song from that show.

Celia, Bud Powell (The Verve Story 1944-1994 (Disc 1)): No.

Clementine, Duke Ellington (The Blanton-Webster Band (Disc 2)): No, but close

Clowntime Is Over, Elvis Costello (Get Happy!!): No, and y’all would make fun of me if I said yes.

Coloratura, Duke Ellington, (Black, Brown & Beige (disk two)): I’m going to say no on this one, too.

Days Of Old, Eric Clapton & B.B. King (Riding With The King): Not perfect, no.

Dick's Maggot, Bare Necessities (English Country Dances): Pop, but not perfect.

Doina Un Sirba, (Klezmer Pioneers: European And American Recordings, 1905-1952): Not.

Far Away Places, Bing Crosby (Sounds of the 20th Century (Disc 1)): Um, well, no.

Frankie and Albert, Leadbelly (Goodnight Irene): I think this is one part of the two-part track, split in two to fit on the two sides of a 45. In other words, no.

House of Fun, Madness (Madness): Yes. Yes. Yes.

I'll Never Read Trollope Again, Dave's True Story (Sex Without Bodies): Great song, but a trifle to articulate for Pure Pop

I'm In Love Again, Paul McCartney (Choba B CCCP - The Russian Album): Yep.

I'm Putting All My Eggs In One Basket, Ella Fitzgerald (The Irving Berlin Songbook Volume 2): Yes.

I've Got My Eyes On You, Fred Astaire: (Astaire Story (disc 1)): Naah.

I've Never Been In Love Before, Mel Torme & Meltones (Back In Town): Can down-tempo tunes be perfect pop? Anyway, no.

I Cover The Waterfront, Billie Holiday (My Man): No.

I Hope You're Happy Now, Elvis Costello (Goodbye Cruel World): Way no.

In A Sentimental Mood, Django Reinhardt (The Complete Django Reinhardt and Quintet of the Hot Club of France): You know, in a better world than this, Django would play in elevators instead of muzak, and we’d be in really good moods when we reached our floors. Still, no.

In Dulci Jubilo, Maddy Prior with The Carnival Band (A Tapestry Of Carols): Um, no.

Jack Haggerty, Touchstone (Steal This (Disc 2)): I can’t remember this track from the compilation at all.

Just A Touch, R.E.M. (Life's Rich Pageant): Not really, no.

Lazy River, Benny Goodman: (Stealin' Apples (Small Groups)): Yes, I think.

Let's Pretend There's A Moon, Rani Arbo & Daisy Mayhem (Cocktail Swing): No, I think not.

Meet Me In Uptown, Mighty Blue Kings (Meet Me In Uptown): Yes, I’ll say so.

My Funny Valentine, Sarah Vaughan (We'll Have Manhattan: The Rogers & Hart Songbook): I actually don’t much like this version.

Ol' MacDonald, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (This Beautiful Life): not sure. It’s catchy, sure, but is it art?

Oliver's Army, Elvis Costello (Armed Forces): Yes. Totally yes.

Parfum, Django Reinhardt (The Complete Django Reinhardt and Quintet of the Hot Club of France): Have I ever mentioned my idea about elevators?

Payday, Elvis Costello (Kojak Variety): No, not really.

Pinball Wizard, The Who (Tommy): Oh my Lord, Yes.

S'posin', Bing Crosby (Sounds of the 20th Century (Disc 2)): No.

Saint Louis Blues, Benny Goodman (Small Groups: 1941-1945): I’ll say Yes, and I’d like to see the person how says no.

Someone Else's Heart, Squeeze (East Side Story): Yes? It’s scarcely their most perfect, but it’s a heckova earworm, innit?

Sophisticated Lady, Duke Ellington (...and His Great Vocalists): No, too poignant to be pop

Southbound Again, Dire Straits (Dire Straits): I don’t think so, no.

The Dream Police (Cha Cha Cha), David Byrne (Rei Momo): Not accessible enough to be pure pop

The Elephant in Aisle Four, Lisa Atkinson (The Elephant In Aisle Four And Other Whimsical Animal Songs): No.

The Great Unknown, Elvis Costello (Goodbye Cruel World): Too angsty to be pure pop

The Gypsy, Dinah Shore (Hits Of The Thirties And Forties (Disc 2)): Too, um, what’s the word I’m looking for, oh yes, awful

The Mood That I'm In, Billie Holiday (All Of Me): No.

The Skeleton Song, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones (Pay Attention): Pretty close, but I don’t think so.

The Sun, Whose Rays Are All Ablaze, (The Mikado): No, no, no.

The Way You Look Tonight, Fred Astaire (Astaire Story (disc 1)): You’d think so, but no

Time Never Forgets, Scruffy the Cat (Tiny Days): Strangely enough, no; their perfect pop song is Shadow Boy at 192 seconds.

Undecided, Benny Goodman (Jazz Tribune 65: The Indispensible Benny Goodman, Vol 5/6 (1938-1939) (Disc 1)): No.

Watch Your Step, Elvis Costello (Trust): Um, maybe.

Winter's Song, Cowboy Junkies (Black-Eyed Man): Not really, no.

Wishin' And Hopin', The Jody Grind (One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Treasure): Too honky-tonk for pure pop.

You Showed Me The Way, Billie Holiday (All Of Me): No.

What is that, a dozen out of fifty-five? Now, out of those, what’s the poppiest? It’s pretty much between “Pinball Wizard”, “House of Fun” and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, I think. They’re all toe-tappers, but songs about bizarre religious cults and about prophylactics, poppy as they may be, can’t be as poppy as a song about a pop band making pop music, right?

Anyway, that’s about enough of that. We now return you to your irregularly unscheduled ramblings.

Thank you,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 7:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Your Humble Blogger had been thinking about writing a music note, having finished rating six thousand songs on the old hard drive, and then Wayman told us everything we could ever want to know about his musical tastes. So, I’ll be riffing off that list of questions. Sadly, I am not enough of a music geek to actually fill out the whole survey (question 21), but herewith some thoughts.

1) Of all the bands/artists in your CD/record collection, which one do you own the most albums by? Let me think ... no, um, no, don’t tell me. Oh, yes, Elvis Costello. I have eighteen ‘albums’ plus the live on Broadway bonus disc that came with my KoA cd. He also makes appearances on at least five other albums I own, in addition to being name-checked on one in Spanish. And if we wanted to count appearances by his wives, it goes up a bit more. And, by the way, I’ve given up on being a completist; I’m aware of half-a-dozen EC songs I don’t own for one reason or another (in addition to three entire albums) which I could, I’m sure, now buy as singles.

The interesting thing about this question (the answer can’t have been interesting to those Gentle Readers who know me) is how it totally sits in the 70s mindset. I have, for instance, more than a dozen Duke Ellington ‘albums’, two of which (I think) were recorded as albums and intended to be albums. I own one Katrina and the Waves song; I don’t own any albums. I have that 70s mindset myself, but I suspect we are seeing the end of it. Like the bands of the 30s, bands now have tracks (or sides, or files, or whatever they are now called), and people will count those, rather than albums. For the record, that’s more than 300 EC sides, compared to a measley 250 by the Duke.

2) What was the last song you listened to (voluntarily)? Meaning I picked that particular song to play? I don’t remember. If I count songs listened to because I was listening to the whole album, it would be the last track on Chris Difford’s CD I Didn’t Get Where I Am, “Parents”. But a song would be, I don’t know, maybe “Lucky” by Jim’s Big Ego (off the album They’re Everywhere).

3) What's in your CD player right now? Dang, I saw that thing recently. Oh, yeah, there it is. No, it’s empty. I think the last thing in it was Eddie from Ohio’s Portable EFO Show. If the question is what I’m actually listening to at the moment, it’s “Just You, Just Me” from former Squirrel Nut Zipper Katherine Whalen’s Jazz Squad. No, wait, that’s ended, now it’s “Pearl from Warsaw” off of the Klezmer Conservatory Band’s A Jumpin’ Night in the Garden of Eden.

5) What's your favorite local band? If local means within a radius of twenty miles of my apartment, it would be Bagels & Fraylox, I guess. If I’m able to include the DC region, in state but out of town, it’s the aforementioned EfO. On the other hand, if by ‘local’ I can just mean ‘without a label or national following’, I can say Jim’s Big Ego, notoriously a local Boston Band.

7) What was the greatest show you've ever been to? Well, and I swear when the Klezmatics sang “Shnirele Perele”, I started to get afraid that they would actually bring the Messiah. On the other hand, seeing Dave Frishberg in a church basement in Noe Valley was a great time and a lot less exhausting. Seeing the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Beausoleil opening for Geno Delafose was a lot of fun (and totally perplexing), but I don’t think it was the best show ever. And the moment when the power went out and Arturo Sandoval just took out his horn and blasted Copley Plaza all by himself has got to be the most memorable single moment. I think, after all, I’ll pick the Escape from New York tour with Deborah Harry, Jerry Harrison and the Tom Tom Club, and the Ramones, in Philadelphia in 1990 or 1991. No, wait, I’m going to take a different route, and say that it was the Nields show at the Somerville in perhaps 1996? Anyway, not only were the Nields just totally amazing, but Jim’s Big Ego opened for them, and so I got a whole new band to follow.

Did I mention the Berklee Big Band Concert and Final Exam? That may be the best value-for-money, and besides how often do you get to see somebody lead the band whilst playing the tuba? And the time Richard Bob wore my hat? And paying three bucks to sweat through two sets in un-airconditioned Preservation Hall in late June, where the fans where shut off for down-tempo songs?

22) What was the greatest decade for music? The first one, presumably. No, given that the question assumes ‘of the twentieth century’, I’ll go with the thirties, for the coming together of jazz, klezmer and the theater. On the other hand, recording techniques weren’t so hot. And, of course, I’m a child of the 80s; some of the music of that era will be forever seared into my very being. Not because it was very good or anything, but just because I was within a few years of fifteen, and awfully passionate about one thing and another. And much as I would like to say the 1650s, or some such, I couldn’t pick a decade that I felt had as much stuff I like as the 1930s.

23) How many music related videos/DVDs do you own? This question certainly doesn’t have a 70s mindset, and so I’ll have trouble answering it. Not counting stuff owned by my Perfect Non-Reader, I think I have one: a videotape of the Bobfest, which I don’t think has been taped over. I also have a videotape of two of the Secret Policemen’s Balls, which contain songs, some of which I wouldn’t necessarily forward past. I also own Holiday Inn and Royal Wedding, and in The Lemon Drop Kid Bob Hope sings “Silver Bells,” but I’m not sure that’s music related.

26) What is your favorite movie soundtrack? Mishima. And since I don’t have any more to add on that one (and can’t really imagine argument), I’ll mention that although the actual soundtrack to Tous les Matins du Monde wasn’t mind-blowingly terrific, without its success I would never have heard many many recordings that I totally adore. So props there.

27) What was your last musical "phase" before you wisened up?Quite likely my next one. I don’t really remember wisening up, although it’s certainly possible I have wisened down. Still, I don’t think there’s any music I once really enjoyed that I no longer like at all.

28) What music is your "guilty pleasure" that you don't often admit to liking? Well, and I don’t think I have any. I feel guiltier about stuff I don’t like; I’m not fond of Coltrane, and I really don’t like most Miles. I have never been able to get into Hip-Hop or CW (not that I’ve tried very hard). But, yeah, I don’t go out of my way to mention to people just how much I like dirty songs such as “I’ve got a sister Lilly” or “Green Grow the Rashes-O”.

29) What album have you purchased the most copies of in your lifetime? Now, that’s a question for 70s children if I’ve ever heard one. Buying things on LP, on cassette and then later on CD. Not to mention wearing out the LP and buying another, although that would have been more likely with the Boomers’ singles. Anyway, I know I have bought three copies of Imperial Bedroom for myself; I may well have bought another for somebody else at some point as well. On the other hand, there are the sides I have bought multiple times on collections and whatnot; I believe I have bought der Bingle’s “White Christmas” four times over on collections of Berlin, of Crosby, and of 30s pop.

Thank you,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 2:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

OK, here’s where those of us who listen to jazz get all cranky about how the database hearts of music players don’t accommodate us. No, there’s no need to get started about orchestral music, which certainly deserves its own players and databases; can we focus on my whinging for a minute here? Thank you.

When setting up my robotic dj to amuse me aurally, I want it to come up with stuff I wouldn’t have thought to put on, so I want to more or less maximize randomness, but on the other hand, I don’t want to be annoyed, so I regulate that randomness in a variety of ways, one of which is to make sure that songs do not get played more than once a day. Actually, I probably wouldn’t mind listening to a good song once in the morning and again in the afternoon, but I don’t want to listen to it three or four times, or twice in an hour, or like that. You know. And the system understands that; it remembers when the song was last played, and you can control how long before repeats are acceptable. Which would be fine, if there was only one version of each song. And in rock and roll, that’s pretty much how it is. Oh, you may have a studio version and a live version, and if you are a nut, you may also have a bootleg or even two, but probably at least one of those will suck, so you can relegate it to the bin of only-when-I-deliberately-choose-them. So realistically, you are talking about two or three covers of a song in your list of a couple of thousand or more, and if once a year or so you happen to hear the two versions on the same day, you can either just enjoy the coincidence or switch windows and hit the forward button. Hitting a button once a year seems like a reasonable amount of aggravation.

But the whole cover thing is very different in jazz, and even more so in the popular music that preceded rock (and its later practitioners). I currently have more than thirty songs with five or more different versions, a dozen with seven or more versions. That is only going to increase; if I buy a Count Basie album, say, or Queen Latifah’s new album of standards, it’s fairly likely to have a cover of “Caravan” or the “Honeysuckle Rose” or something else. That’s the point, really. Not to mention that (a) I actively sought out versions of “My Funny Valentine” for a couple of years and still do to a lesser extent, and (2) the inclusion of the “St. Louis Blues” on a track listing is a selling point for me.

So, let’s choose for example “On the Sunny Side of the Street”, a magnificent song of which I have seven recordings, each quite a bit different but each sticking pretty close to the melody. I would be perfectly happy listening to one version once a day over a week, that is, the Nat King Cole version on Monday, and the Sidney Bechet version on Tuesday, and the Judy Garland version on Wednesday, and so on. I don’t want to listen to two different versions in the same day, much less in the same hour, nor do I want to relegate six perfectly good versions to the bin. Can I do that in any of the popular jukes? I’d be willing to do some sort of clicking (or even typing) on these versions to indicate that they are connected, but I don’t think there’s a way. Is iTunes, or Real, or WM or Winamp or any of them prepared to do it? In other words, include or exclude a song based on not how recently that file has been played, but on how recently another file has been played, with which that file has a relationship?

It occurs to me that within the rock field that could be used for people with really big collections who don’t want to listen to the same vocalist twice in a day, or even two tracks of the same album. I don’t think that’s as likely to be an issue, though.

Oh, and while I’m at it, does iTunes not have a tool for checking to make sure all the tracks are still there, and deleting from the library all the ones that are no longer associated with actual files? Real has it, but I can’t find a way to do that in iTunes.

                           ,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

OK, so YHB has been noodling around with an idea of making a mix CD of Kiss-Off songs. It was almost a year ago when I first talked about the kiss-off song. I’m still deciding what songs to put on and what won’t make the cut (not to mention putting them in a good order), so I thought I’d ask for some advice. Or what good is a blog, anyway?

I’m looking for about an hour of music, here, which given the length of some of these would make for about fifteen songs. A year ago I talked about two categories: the I’m-leaving-you song, and the I’m-glad-you-left-me song. I’ve tried to mix those up, here. The really obvious gap is songs with female vocals (and viewpoint), which is a result of my collection of music, I’m afraid. Anyway, here are some of the candidates:

“Lucky” by Jim's Big Ego, was the first song that got me thinking about all this, so I’m not likely to leave it off.
“Black Coffee in Bed” by Squeeze was the second song on the list, and it’s one of my favorite songs ever. “From the lips without passion/To the lips with a kiss/There's nothing of your love/That I'll ever miss.” And you can dance to it.
“It's All Over Now”, almost certainly in the Dr. John/Dirty Dozen Brass Band version. Yes, the Rolling Stones version is the classic, but dang. This is unbelievable. And this may be one of the absolute classic kiss-offs of the I’m-leaving-her category. It’s a Bobby (and Shirley) Womack tune, covered by everybody from the Dead to Panic.
“Lovable” is, I think, the best Elvis Costello kiss-off song. “It’s going around the town/You’re so Lovable.” And, of course, it takes EC to call a girlfriend “lifelike”. Ooh, that’s cold.
The BoDeans get on the list with “Misery”; I like the touch that he’s called her a taxi. Oh, well, that’s not the only thing he calls her. “I’m gonna give you back the only thing you gave to me/Misery!”
Is it a kiss-off if she hasn’t so much left him as killed him? The Jody Grind’s “Death of Zorba” is going on my list, although it clears the one-per-artist rule only because I’m leaving their cover of the Peter Gunn theme off for technical reasons. Now that’s a kiss-off: “Bye...bye/Bye...baby!/This is the last time we meet/on the street/going your way/So...long/I’m...leaving/Tomorrow I may be splittin’/to Britain/or Norway.”
“Don't Think Twice, It's All Right” in the Eric Clapton cover at the Bobfest. Nobody can sound as indignant as Clapton’s guitar; if I didn’t make a one-per-artist rule, I’d fill the thing with his blues. “Five Long Years” and “Before You Accuse Me”, at least.
“B.J. Don't Cry” by Moxy Früvous has the drawback of being in the third person, but the absolute triumph in the song (of love and illin’) can’t be denied.
Writing her name “Upside Down” is the worst insult Scruffy the Cat can ever give someone. At least I think it’s addressed to an ex. “All my friends will move off your side” is a nice touch, too.
“Regretting what I Said...” is, in fact, a musical apology, which is the opposite of the kiss-off, but then it’s Christine Lavin, so the song is the opposite of what it says it is anyway. “You thought I didn’t have a temper/ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha surprise!”
I’ve picked the live post-Pogues “Fairy Tale of New York” off Shane MacGowan’s live album for the meta-joke that it’s a kiss-off to the Pogues and, in a drunken ranting sense, to his fans. Whoever is singing the girl’s part doesn’t seem to know all the words, but gets the line “You scumbag/You maggot/You cheap lousy faggot/Merry Christmas your arse/I pray Gd it’s our last” right.
XTC also gets ripped off by the one-per-artist rule. I’m inclining to “Me And The Wind” for its buoyant not to say celebratory spirit, but “Your Dictionary” deserves a spot, as does “Dear Madam Barnum” and “The Man who Murdered Love” just off the top of my head.
The beginning of “Fat” qualifies it: “I hope/You got/Fat”. It turns out, though, that, you know, he still loves her, the nerd. With the one-per-artist rule, it might be second to “Kiss-Off” even though you could argue the latter isn’t really a kiss-off song at all. But, you know, it’s called Kiss Off, and he forgot what eight was for.
“Just Because” is my Paul McCartney choice. I know, I know, the Elvis version is the canonical one. Well, tough. Paul’s is better. On the other hand, Paul is also singing on the Beatles’ “Another Girl”. Hmmm.
“Cruel to Be Kind” is a great Nick Lowe tune, although it isn’t quite a kiss-off song. He doesn’t quite leave her. But what a good song ... so, in or out?
“No Mercy for Swine” has the great line about getting over someone by getting onto someone else; it’s a deeply psychotic tune, like most of the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies’ best stuff.
“Don't Come Around Here No More” might not actually be a kiss-off song, as there are hardly any lyrics to figure out what Tom Petty is on about really.
“Don’t Let’s Start” is pretty obscure, like a lot of They Might Be Giants, but the line about how “I don’t get around how you get around” is pretty good.
“You Took My Breath Away”, and I want it back again. The Traveling Wilburys song, again, isn’t clearly a kiss-off song (as opposed to, say, a lovelorn song, a torch song, or a take-me-back song).
“Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Cryin’” might be better on a Jazz mix of these (more on this later) but that’s the whole Louis Jordan thing, isn’t it?
“Fountain of Youth” is a bit wistful for a kiss-off, and even the immortal line “I was your fountain of youth/And you were my mountain of truth/But you have drunk me dry and I'm afraid of heights” may not make up for the fact that whichever Nield is singing at the moment hasn’t left him yet. Gi-irl!
“Everybody Loves Me, Baby” is another one where Don McLean’s contempt is mixed with the clear sense that he’d take her back in a minute. Which is, of course, perfectly traditional.

Well, that’s a start. All advice welcome. Oh, and I’ve restricted myself to rock songs to make it easier to mix them; an hour of jazz would start off with “Goody Goody” and have “I Cried for You” (now it’s your turn), “Meet Me at No Special Place” (and I’ll be there at no particular time), and probably “Most Gentlemen Don’t Like Love”. Lots of others to choose from, particularly if I am willing to include showtunes. Does the “Cell Block Tango” from Chicago count as a kiss-off?

                            ,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Over at Kos, Chik Patty asks What Should Kerry's Campaign Song be? Your Humble Blogger thinks it’s a fun, fun question. There are two ways to play, boys and girls; seriously or less so. Da Boss? Ray Charles (may he rest in peace) singing “Let the Good Times Roll” or “Hit the Road, Jack”? They Might Be Giants singing “Kiss Me, Son of Gd”? XTC “Burning with Optimism’s Flames” or “Sgt. Rock” (or, of course, “Here Comes President Kill Again”)? How about “That’s How You Got Killed Before”? “Straighten Up and Fly Right”? How about The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ “The Impression that I Get”? “Would I Lie to You”? “I’ve Had Enough”? “Talkin’ ’Bout a Revolution”? “S.O.L. Blues”? “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”? “What I Like about You”? “Just in Time”? “Caravan”?

And how about Bill Clinton entering the convention to “Can’t Run But”?

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-Vardibidian.

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-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My wonderful bloghost Jed wrote nicely about his favorite songs, which reminded me that I’ve been meaning to write about my own music collection.

In preparation for moving house, I ripped almost all my CDs to my computer; at the moment I have some four hundred hours of music, of which two hundred hours is, broadly speaking, rock, with a hundred and fifty hours of jazz (again, broadly speaking), fourteen hours of klezmer, thirteen of Early Music (again, broadly speaking), and fourteen of classical, and a smattering of other stuff. One thing that the computer music does is give me totals on my music, which I would never have done without it. Nobody who knew me in high school or college will be surprised that I have more Elvis Costello music than anything else, but even I was surprised to discover I have over sixteen hours, not counting stuff he wrote for other people, or produced, or sings backup on. If I sat down at eight in the morning to start listening to all my EC, I wouldn’t be done until past midnight. And there are three albums I haven’t bothered buying yet, in addition to the random songs on soundtracks and such, which I may track down and buy someday, not to mention the extra tracks that asshole keeps putting on the third or fourth release of his albums.

Second place is Duke Ellington, with more than 14 hours (including the magnificent Louis and Duke, where he plays the piano with Louis Armstrong’s small group, so it doesn’t have the orchestra with him, but I’m counting it anyway). Needless to say, that’s a small fraction of the Duke out there, but what I’ve got is all good.

Any guesses for third place? No? Quick hint: I had to combine solo work with the group he fronted in the 80s, and it totals nearly nine and a half hours of music. David Byrne and Talking Heads, you say? No, that tops out at 8:52 for fourth place (I didn’t count the Heads album or the Jerry Harrison album, which would put the T-Heads alumni into third but be stretching the point.). It’s Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits; and I don’t have the Twisting by the Pool EP yet. XTC is in fifth, just two minutes behind David Byrne.

After that top five, we drop down quite a bit, to six and a half hours of very fine Benny Goodman music. Artists in the five to six hour range include the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, the Klezmatics, Jim’s Big Ego, the Pogues (if I include Shane McGowan’s solo work, which I do), and Billie Holiday.

What do we learn from this? Well, I suppose that I was born in 1969, and buy tickets to John Cusack movies. And that my Jazz History prof was a Salesman.

That’s enough music chat for now, I think. I’ll post later about rating the songs. I still have four thousand songs to rate, so it’s a bit intimidating.

Redintegro Iraq,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)