Musicals

I went to see the film Les Miserables on Sunday For some reason I can't quite get to the bottom of, I've scorned the show in the past, on the basis of very little knowledge. I think I probably scorn most modern musicals (I use "modern" in a relative sense) whilst adoring the output of Rodgers and Hammerstein/Lerner and Loewe/Kander and Ebb. So - what do I scorn? Definitely the Andrew Lloyd Webber oeuvre. Oh - except for Jesus Christ Superstar which I saw on stage in the 70s at a very impressionable age, fresh from the convent. Dear heavens, my socks were quite knocked off. And I quite liked Evita. I saw that with David Essex as Che... Sorry, lost concentration there for a minute.

OK - I'm back. Did you see That'll Be The Day and Stardust? I suspect they were dreadful films and I would be appalled today at the sexism, for one thing, but the soundtracks - oh the soundtracks! I still have the double albums. Dear old Ronco...

Where was I? Oh yes, musicals. I'm still trying to pin down what makes a good one for me. Cracking songs, obviously (and this does not mean taking one tune and fiddling about with it for the rest of the show - you know who I'm talking to) but also a tightness about the structure, a progression in the songs, a sense of being in the hands of experts - one can rely on the next song being the right one for the job. And I like a crisp delineation between speaking and singing. I'm tremendously fond of Gilbert and Sullivan and always have been. As a child I used to go and see a local G&S society perform (and later joined them, but that's another story) and my memory of my experience goes something like:

blah blah blah SONG!!!! blah blah blah blah SONG!!!! blah blah blah SONG!!!! etc...

When I was older I appreciated the dialogue more, but as a child I just wanted those people on the stage to get on and SING!!!

And Les Mis? Well, it wasn't tight, there was no crisp dialogue/song delineation, I didn't feel entirely in the hands of experts and I'm not sure about the song progression, but by golly I enjoyed it! Tremendously stirring stuff. To the barricades, citizens!* 

*sorry about the clip, but all of the current film ones are very poor and this was the least unbearable.

Thanks for popping in - do visit the comments salon before you you leave. Do you like the tricolours? Knitting allowed - just ask Mme Desfarge if you get stuck.

PS I've realised that I've overlooked the masterly Stephen Sondheim, whom I would categorise as "modern" but certainly not scorn. Sigh.

Notebooks

Hello! It's been a while - life has been (and continues to be) rather distracting lately. I wouldn't like you to think I'd forgotten you, though.

As you know I'm a pen geek and a notebook geek. In my untiring (and unselfish) search for the perfect notebook, I reluctantly concluded that there is no such thing. Humph. I was forced to change my quest to the perfect notebook for the job in hand and lo! my life became simultaneously more complicated and much, much more fun. I now legitimately seek out new notebooks. (No matter how distracting life is, I will seek out new notebooks.) In my trawl, I recently came across this. I cannot speak to the notebook as I do not possess one (er, watch this space) but aaaaah!

The act of writing is a tempting one for me. Writing as a physical activity, I mean. Making marks on a page with a pen. Looking at a blank page and then changing it with my hand. I remember the first novel I read which gave me a shock of nostalgic recognition and it was about writing. The novel wasn't, the particular bit was. It was You Must Be Sisters by Deborah Moggach.

It was published in 1978 and I can't remember when I read it, but it must have been on publication or shortly afterwards. There was I, thinking I was all grown up and that novel flew straight into my younger heart. The part I particularly remember was about the joys of writing with your first Osmiroid italic pen and I squeaked aloud. That was me! And the joy of realising that a complete stranger  thought the same things I did and put them in a book was sharp and glorious.

Let us briefly consider the subject of book cover art. I was searching for an image of this book and I carelessly did not stipulate "1978" in the search terms. Imagine my horror when this came up

Compare and contrast. 1978 was before the invention of chick-lit, that hideous term used to demean the writing of women which now it surrounds us and seems to dictate a certain kind of cover image - look at me! I'm colourful and frothy! AND NOT REAL! The term "chick" when used to describe women is repulsive - a fluffy, immature creature incapable of supporting itself. I am tremendously fond of the The Marx Brothers and I remember being horribly disappointed when I discovered that Chico wasn't "Cheek-o" but "Chick-o", nicknamed for this habit of chasing the ladies.  Incidentally, if you want a jolly good read, seek out Harpo Marx's autobiography, called Harpo Speaks! I don't know if it would strike me as a good read these days, but it did when I first read it. If my memory serves, he outlines his three dream jobs - an umbrella mender, like his grandfather; Eddie Nelson's (think about it) top C singer and the King of Spain's anthem man, the King being unable to recognise pieces of music and needing a nudge when the anthem was playing so he could stand up.

Ooh -  here's a musical offering - the late lamented Phoebe Snow singing Harpo's Blues, as one of my favourite songs of all time. Enjoy!

Thanks for popping in. The salon is open - do drop in and leave a comment, an aside, or something completely irrelevant.

Solstice!

Ho the Solstice! Light your fires and candles and wreathe your dwelling with winter greenery (as opposed to Mountain Greenery, one of the finest songs ever written. Don't believe me? Get a load of these rhymes - here. If you look on YouTube you'll find a surreal Mickey Mouse version, which I was going to offer, but they SING THE WRONG WORDS!!!!)





Continuing the theme of my favourite Christmas songs, let's have a
bit of  Jethro Tull,  with a fine example of Bad and Aggressive Miming from 1976.

And here's Greg Lake, bewildering some Bedouin. I don't know the date of the video, but it looks authentically '70s to me.






Whatever you are doing, may your solstice be bright. It may be the longest night, but remember that in the dark of winter lies dies natalis solis invicti - the birthday of the undefeated sun.

Thanks for popping in - do leave a comment in the salon.

Waes Hael!

Christmas!

Swedish Yule Goat. Bit small, isn't it?

Well, it's not far away. I have been mainlining Christmas songs in my singing groups (one of them since October) and I thought I'd share a few of my favourites here, after the rip-roaring success of The Bitter Withy. Panic ye not, no folk music here - we are in the popular music world.


I have few traditions at Christmas, and most of them have fallen by the wayside. I used to play two albums on Christmas morning. On a turntable, obviously. One song from each of those for you - first, from Phil Spector's Christmas album, here are The Ronettes singing Sleigh Ride. (I do like it when people post videos of artists singing a different song.)

And from Bing Crosby's White Christmas, here are Bing and the Andrews Sisters singing Mele Kalikimaka.

Isn't that festive?

And here we have what must be the greatest Christmas number 1 EVAAAH...(It's a peculiar video in many ways (note comment about the drummer) but as the only ones I could find from the 1970s were from Top of the Pops and rather sullied by the appearance of a discredited disc jockey, I couldn't bring myself to post any of them.) Are you hanging up your stockings on the wall? Have a dance on me. 

Thanks for popping in - hope to see you in the salon.

Spiders

Halloween is here, and spiders abound. Check out the fabulous Halloween art from Words and Pictures here.

I used to be terrified of spiders. I think it's the speed at which they move. Or I might have caught the fear from my sister, who remains terrified. Many years ago, my sister was at home from college, and Sleeping In. My younger brother decided it would be a wizard wheeze to creep into her room and place his huge black plastic spider on her knees as she slept, so that it would be the first thing she saw when she woke up.  I can still hear her screams. Younger brother went into hiding for some days. Shortly after the Tate Modern opened, I went with Sister and there was a large (and I mean massive) Louise Bourgeois sculpture of a spider.

Spider!

Sister was prepared - we knew it was going to be there. We could not refer to it as a spider, only a spiderous thing, and she managed to get past it without screaming. I'm not sure how.

Spider song number one - from the great and glorious Who - here

I stayed terrified of spiders until I did NLP training, when I chose that as my phobia when we did the phobia cure. I wouldn't say I grew to love arachnids, but I'm not running-around-the-room-screaming-when-I-see-one-scared and I've even managed to catch a few with a card and glass, in order to free them outside.

Some cats that I've had have enjoyed catching and eating spiders. That's an unpleasant sight - a cat with spider's legs waving around in its mouth as it chomps happily. At least the cat didn't emulate the Old Woman and then swallow a bird. Oh wait...

And spider song the second, from the ineffable Bowie - here. I went to see Bowie on his Ziggy tour in the early 70s (gosh, we're back there again). I was 14 or 15 and sitting right in the front stalls of the Colston Hall as Bowie gyrated his way through thrilling music in brief and glamorous costumes, I began to suspect that there was indeed more to life than the nuns were telling us...

Thanks for popping in - and watch out for the ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties. Not to mention things that go bump in the night...

Mondegreens

I promised more about these in a previous post. Well, here we are.

A mondegreen is a mishearing of a phrase - often a song lyric, but not originally. I used to have terrible trouble remembering the word  - how bizarre, I would think, but how excellent that the phenomenon has a proper name. I must remember it. Remember it? Did I heck as like (I live in the north now. It rubs off.) Then I found out (through the miracle of the interweb) why it's called that and now I can remember it because it's linked to something, not floating untethered in the wordsphere.

In November 1954, Harper's Magazine published an essay by Sylvia Wright called The Death of Lady Mondegreen. (As befits a masters' student, I tried to check the primary source. I found this. Those of you with powerful eyesight will no doubt be able to read it. I would require a subscription (or a prescription) in order to do so. Well, pooh to them. Have you read The Belfry Witches? If you have, you'll recognise the reference. If you haven't, what are you waiting for?)

I am indebted to Wikipedia for the following quotes from the essay:
“When I was a child, my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy's Reliques, and one of my favorite poems began, as I remember:

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,

Oh, where hae ye been?

They hae slain the Earl O' Moray,

And Lady Mondegreen.

The actual fourth line is "And laid him on the green". (Wright explained the need for a new term: )

The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original.” (My underlining)

The concept has been extended, but sticking to Ms Wright's original definition,  I don't think I have any personal mondegreens. The only genuine mishearing I remember is thinking Elvis Presley was singing "Don't be cruel to a hard-backed stool" which is clearly not better than the original. Or is it? And I was singing all kinds of nonsense to Life on Mars, but I think we all were. Including Bowie. (I seem to have angered the gods of Blogger by copying from Wikipedia and now I can't get my font right. Well, pooh to them.)

At a singing workshop once someone introduced me to the wannabe Lady Nerth  which I think does qualify. 

I don't seem to have a relevant picture to post, so here is an irrelevant one. Go on, take the weight off for a few minutes.

Thanks for visiting - see you soon. Look - the font's back!

Atavism

I've been back to the seventies. Musically, but when music comes the memories come with it. Something - I don't know what - put me in mind of Althia and Donna and their glorious hit Uptown Top Ranking. Here's a picture of my copy!

Gosh, I've just posted a picture of a record. Next thing, I shall be posting a poor-quality video of it playing on YouTube. No I won't. Someone else will have done it already.

Anyhoo (sic - American) it took me right back. Apparently it was released in 1977 and got to number 1 in the Hit Parade (oh how I miss that term) in February 1978. I thought it was earlier but the interweb tells me otherwise. Not to mention the date on the record. I like to think that I was ahead of the game and bought it in 1977 but I really don't know. What I do remember - vividly, sharply and with a stab to the heart - is the effect it had on me. I had no idea what they were singing about and I don't think I ever did (until yesterday when I Googled the lyrics) but that song bypassed my brain and went straight to the viscera. It was wild. It made me jump up and down. It filled me completely. I wasn't well-versed in reggae - possibly my only exposure at that stage would have been Desmond Dekker's The Israelites (or "My Eyes Are Alight" as the mondegreen has it. Do you know about mondegreens? Another time.) I was more of a Roxy Music/Pink Floyd/T Rex/Jethro Tull/Blondie sort of girl. Perhaps I somehow knew that two women (and they were young - 17 and 18) singing reggae was unusual. Perhaps it was that one of them wore big glasses (I would have seen them on Top of the Pops, but possibly not initially). Perhaps it was those horns. Perhaps I did understad the lyrics on some level. All I know is that it electrified me. And still does.

Here it is then - I chose the clip of them on TOTP so you can see them, but it doesn't beat putting your own copy on your own record player (yes, I still have one) and dancing round your front room in your nightie, like I've just done. And wining up your waist like billy-o.

Thanks for listening - see you soon...