Friday, August 23, 2002
Adding to my list of books I want to read is: Stardust Melodies: The Biography of Twelve of America's Most Popular Songs by Will Friedwald. I recently read the life-story of the song "In the Jungle"--a fascinating story. Did you know it orginated in Africa? The in-depth essay was published by Rolling Stone last year and collected in Best Music Writing of 2001, where I read it. Friedwald's book looks a little uneven--I imagine your interest in the story would depend on your interest in the songs, no? But he picks some classics (Mack the Knife, I Got Rhythm, My Funny Valentine).
This got me to thinking the other day when I heard the Beatles version of Please Mister Postman. (Yes, I'm still listening to that album!) My personal experience with the song comes from hearing the Carpenters' version growing up, as they're my Mom's fave group. I'm tempted to crack on them, but I'd be a hypocrite--I learned to love the Carpenters. Anyway, I went dashing off to see who else had done the song. The original was by The Marvelettes ("probably the most pop-oriented of Motown's major female acts" says the All Music Guide), and interestingly it was Motown's first #1 single (1961). So the Beatles redid it just two years later. (I love that they show so much early influence by girl groups.) Then after the Carpenters, I didn't see any other major acts scoring with it. But the song is imbedded in our culture. It's a classic. They use it during David Letterman's Friday night mailbag segment, and I have the feeling it's been used in movies and commercials galore.
The song was actually written by a team: Bateman, Dobbins, Garrett, Gorman and Holland, who don't seem to have reteamed. So in answer to the original question I asked myself--who gets credit for this wonderful song?--the answer's pretty complicated. As always it involves the fans and djs as much as the writers and performers. It would be nice if the original writers had just a tad more glory, though.
One thing that I like about this song's history (like that of many others, I'm sure), is that since both men and women have sung it, the lyrics have changed in one spot: boyfriend to girlfriend and back. I like the fact that on that hinge, it's anyone's song. It's queered. A similar issue is the minor "dilemma" faced by someone singing along. The version that's on the radio is to a boyfriend, for example, but the person listening has a girlfriend. Of course, it doesn't matter. You sing along, or you change that word maybe, probably just in your head. You enjoy the song either way. Pop music's contribution to equal rights and opportunities? I know Natalie Merchant has covered songs written from a man's pov without changing the lyrics. It's interesting. It's singer as performer, wearing one mask as easily as another. Which reminds me of an ideal that a great actor should be able to play any part through sheer expressive power--could Judy Dench play James Bond? could Tom Hanks play a little girl? When you sing lyrics to a song, it's very personal. Those words are in YOUR mouth. You're vulnerable, esp. if someone else is around. Singing along with recordings is like vocal training wheels. Riding piggy-back. The radio stars are our teachers and friends. Maybe that's what Moby means: "We are all made of stars."
Wednesday, August 14, 2002
Note to self:
Next time you're sad, remember to put on a Beatles record and sing along. Better yet, sing in harmony with Paul or John. You will feel better. You will start to feel the most amazing feeling of being special. You will start to see what it feels like to be a Beatle.
This works best with early to middle period Beatles, a song like "All my loving" or "Help!" or "Ticket to Ride."
It's in the music itself. It has the power to transform you. All you have to do is join in.
Tuesday, August 13, 2002
Movies and Music #2 (sort of)
So we rented Shallow Hal the other day--not as bad as you might think, but not good enough to really recommend--and there was a song on the soundtrack which got stuck in my head, and I realized that I've heard it before. It's one of those songs that's catchy but not great, but in order to exorcise it you have to hear it or at least find out who did it.
Trouble is, it's not on the soundtrack. Using that trusty musiclover's pal, Google, I found out that the song is called "Edge of the Ocean" by Ivy. It's on the soundtrack for Roswell (which I've never seen), and apparently they had this skirmish over who got to have exclusive rights. How annoying. Like I said, it's an okay song, kind of girly and dreamy. But almost ruined by a sort of corporatized blandness.
Have there been any really good singles this year? Anything worth anthologizing in some future cheesy "Pure Zeroes" or something? The Chicago Tribune did a fluff piece about contenders for this year's summer songs that had staying power. Their choices:
-Nelly, "Hot in Herre": Equal parts rhyme, braggadocio, danceable beats and well-timed grunting. This could be the one.
-Eminem, "Without Me": An ode to himself told with humor and gusto.
-Sheryl Crow, "Soak Up the Sun": The traditional favorite with feel-good hooks and no pretensions whatsoever.
-Avril Lavigne, "Complicated": A summer romance song for those unlucky in love.
I like Crow's song ok, though it's a little generic (I like "Steve McQueen" better); Eminem's over with; "Hot in Herre" isn't good enough; and I'm not sure I've heard the last one.
Saturday, August 10, 2002
Listener's Diary notes:
- The French movie Read My Lips has a beautiful theme. Apparently by a composer named Alexandre Desplat. Fantastic film.
- The album Freakazoidz by Praga Khan has a couple really excellent songs: "Glamour Girl" (track 1), and "Tausend Sterne" (track 5). German techno. Recommended if you liked the Run Lola Run soundtrack as much as I did. "Glamour Girl" is a much better stab at retro-80s music than anything off of Felix da Housecat's Kittenz & Thee Glitz album, which got a fair amount of hype around Chicago. And "Tausend Sterne" is like an updated Kraftwerk sound, except much dancier.
The Magic Garden
I woke up the other morning with a song going through my head (I could write pages about how much I LOVE it when that happens and how fascinating it is). Instead of having the last catchy song I heard from the radio/tv, it was a song from deep in my childhood.
It was a song from an old kids' show from the 70s called The Magic Garden, which was broadcast from a NYC station, WPIX "Eleven Alive." The hosts, Carole and Paula, were cool hippie chicks with straight long hair who made a routine circuit in their studio garden from the tree where Sherlock the squirrel lived to the Story box, to the shed where Flapper the bird often perched to the giggling Chuckle Patch (of flowers with jokes for leaves) . The song was about the days of the week, probably written as a silly ditty to teach kids their day of the week. I don't remember it clearly, but it went something like:
Today is Friday,
Today is Friday.
Monday peanut
Tuesday pistacchio
Wednesday walnut
Thursday cashew
Friday almond...
I thought maybe by chance I could find the lyrics on the Internet. I mean, that's why the Defense Department invented the internet, right? Lyrics.
Alas, no. But what made my morning was that I did find a few web pages about the show. It was just a regional show (no one in Chicago seems to know it unless they come from NYC), so I didn't think there was much of a chance, but I was surprised to find a few sites.
The first one I visited made my jaw drop with these words: "...I've talked with people who remember seeing it in the 80's too. And of those, most are people who are very into music. Since I feel like they had such a large effect on my musical sensibilities, it doesn't really suprise me. " WOW!! Another site actually has a scan of an old LP the gals put out, with a picture of them (and Sherlock and Flapper) on the cover. Their faces are green because this guy and his sister crayolaed the cover as kids. Cool.
I was stunned to see that Carole and Paula still perform at malls and fairs and are much beloved and remembered in the NYC area still. I found pictures of guys my age (early 30s) posing with them! And best of all they have tapes, videos and CDs available. Would I be a pathetic nostalgist if I ordered one? Too bad, I think I will.
It amazes me that music forged such a strong bond between artist and audience. Such simple music. It awes me to think of the power that music has to socialize and educate and inspire kids. I'm quite fascinated by the recesses of memory. I have really slow recall, and really selective long-term memory. To think these songs have stayed in my brain for so long, like tar bubbles preserving some ancient bug from the dino-age. I have similar gems in my inner jukebox from Sesame Street. What will today's kids be remembering 30 years from now?
Powerpuff girls?
Barney songs? (oh, the poor things)
Sesame Street?
Winnie the Pooh?
Would it be corny if I suggested you sing a song to a kid today? Or ask her/him to sing a song they know for you?
Wednesday, August 07, 2002
Movies and Music #1
I recently saw the movie Donnie Darko. I loved it! Very weird, Lynchian, and very satisfying.
Anyway, I see a LOT of movies, but this is the first time that a film has reached so profoundly into my personal musical history. I'm 31, and the audience was mostly 20-something students, art crowd. At times I gasped to myself and wondered, am I the only one who's going to get that? I'm sure I'm not. It's just that if I hear the word DeLorean, I'll always think: Ding! Back to the Future. I was conditioned. It was an 80s thing. Pity us.
Anyway, the movie powerfully uses songs by Tears for Fears (among other bands), esp. Head Over Heels and Mad World. There are other songs--great ones--used, too. But Tears for Fears were MY BAND when I was a teenager. They were my quintessential TEEN ANGST band. After the addictive Everybody Wants to Rule the World came Shout!! The ultimate song that expressed everything I needed at the time. (I was a closeted gay kid.) I bought Songs from the Big Chair and worshipped every song, made my family listen and LEARN TO LOVE them.
Head Over Heels: I was in the middle of my Casey Kasem's American Top 40 obsession phase. I used to listen every week and actually chart the countdown. I never missed a week. And I do mean never. I put my poor family thruogh hell so I could be near a radio every week. When disaster struck, I bought Billboard magazine to hand-copy the chart into my notebook. (I've since found healthier outlets for my obsessive streak.) I'll never forget how disappointed I was when HOH failed to hit #1 (its manifest destiny, after the first two TFF singles hit #1). I think I loved the song MORE just to spite the fickle American public.
Mad World: After I sucked Songs from the Big Chair dry of every drop of solace and pleasure I could get from it I moved on to their earlier album, The Hurting (EVEN MORE PERFECT for teen angst! Cover features a small boy holding his face in his hands in UTTER despair!)--which had been a smash hit in the UK, though did nothing in the US, a fact which embittered me toward my fellow citizens and began to nourish an inner expatriot who lives on to this day, witnessing great bands like Blur get their full respect overseas and not here in the US. (Though the success of the Gorillaz starts to remedy that particular grievance.) ANYWAY, the version used in Donnie Darko is a gorgeous cover by some guy named Gary Jules. I've been wandering around singing this song again, especially in the morning as I shower--morning voice is the best for singing! This song has been renewed for me. THAT'S what covers should do!
Hearing the lyrics sung over the closing images of the film, it felt as if Richard Kelly has written the whole story just to feature this song, like a jewel. I was so happy--happy/sad, actually, and nostalgic. It was one of those genuine moments of connection you have, soul to soul, with an artist. My painful yet embarassingly generic adolescence was redeemed. I felt like I'd just met an even bigger TFF fan who could relate to everything I went through, everything in my heart that I heaped onto those songs, everything I made them carry. Kelly proved to me that I should never have been embarassed about those songs (as I was years later), that they were every inch up to the task.
Mad World (written Roland Orzabal)
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
And their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
'Cos I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very
Mad World
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me
My very first blog! (My first Sony?)
This will be a place where I talk about music.
PLEASE feel free to introduce yourself to me, email me, post an opinion. Let me know about your blog, if you have one.
Stop by and say Hi !!!
Robomonkey
