It is rare, dear readers, that my opinion of a song is a negative one. I will always try to find some redeeming factor in the mess, some future salvation, even. But this song makes that task a hard one.
Why? Is it because of the horns, the large choir of "awe," the general sense that Martin took this song as no one else wanted it? Hmm, in part, but only in part. There is a reason the BBC banned this, and it has nada to do with standard 50s boilerplate singing or production. It is the lyrics.
"Walk hand in hand with me/Through all eternity/Have faith, believe in me, give me your hand."
"Love is a symphony/Of perfect harmony/When lovers such as we/Walk hand in hand."
"Be not afraid for I am with you all the while/So lift your head up high and look towards the sky."
"Walk hand in hand with me/God is our destiny/No greater love could be/Walk hand in hand, walk with me."
Unless you are a nun (in which case, hey! Welcome to MSBWT, and no offense to you, ma'am) this is an icky song, to say the least. There are certain topics - religion being one of them - that are best avoided in what could be called 'mixed' company; at large family gatherings, work, the bus stop, etc. Music most likely (as I understand it) came out of religious rites and languages, and the lyrics from before the Greeks up to the 50s usually were that of men and women singing in praise/fear/hope of their creator. (If I am wrong about this, I'd be very happy to hear about it.) No one but no one presumed to know what the creator would sing to them, let alone how to suggest his/her/its majesty and power.
But the 50s was a time when all kinds of lyrical boundaries were being stretched if not broken altogether, and the lyricist here thought he had a fine idea in somehow comparing a couple in love walking hand in hand to the creator's general attitude towards us mortal creatures. WRONG. Like I said, only a nun (who "marries" Jesus, in effect) could hear this and get all gooey-eyed. Does God really want to take us on a date? (Does God have a crush on me? as the teen girl magazine might ask, with a handy quiz to figure out the answer.) "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands" says one song, and yet here this unfathomably large hand is holding yours - a rather awkward situation, at best. I'm sorry, but to paraphrase a play: Your Voice Too Short To Sing Like You're God.
(Alert readers may notice this was a number two single just before "Hound Dog"; I will soon be catching up with the story of the number twos in proper order, while at the same time introducing a profound and unpredictable man. Sorry for the delay in posting this but I am nearly settled in London!)
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
Whaddaya Got?: Elvis Presley: "Hound Dog"
At the heart of rock 'n' roll there's...well, there's a lot of things, of course, but rebellion is one of the main elements. (This rebelliousness has continued on, in various forms, including the act of staying awake - i.e. U2's "Bad" or the neat Arcade Fire summation - "Rebellion (Lies).") The first act of rebellion is to rebel, the second is harder - either to find someplace/person/thing more to your liking, or to somehow create it (if it can be created) yourself. Being a rebel is glamorous and hard, and comes either through personality or circumstance. Artists of all kinds are natural rebels, though just about anyone can be one, though some are more...convincing than others. (Simply misbehaving in school or getting into 'wacky hijinks' is never enough, unless the school is indeed corrupt or said hijinks are done with some forethought and have some kind of point. Even in rebellion, logic prevails.)
The fall of '56 was a time of disruption and disillusionment. The Suez crisis was a prime example of the UK in the post-war period, presuming to have the answer and then blowing it. The Soviet invasion of Hungary is also worth mentioning, as well as the re-election of Eisenhower in November.
Against this comes Elvis, his voice starting the song with an angry contempt towards "you." Is this "you" a man, a company, a country, a way of thinking? The exhilarating thing is, to all of those things and more, YES. DJ Fontana and Scotty Moore attack and damn while Presley spits out "high-classed" as if it is the least harmful thing he could say.
During the instrumental breaks, the Jordanaires - brought in by Colonel Parker and seemingly pointless here - hold on to their notes for dear life, as if they were tied together by ropes in the back of Elvis' truck and forced to sing at gunpoint. They are lame, dull, the very representation of the animal in question, their "aahs" as flat, unconvincing and frustrating as they ought to be. They're never going to catch a rabbit and they sure don't sound high-classed. The Jordanaires would remain on Elvis' records on & off for the rest of his life, barking or yelping or crying, sometimes helpful, sometimes not. (Then Play Long has already chronicled some of these battles, as most of you likely know, and will be doing so again soon.)
And so, Elvis has arrived - "Blue Suede Shoes," "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Hound Dog" being the effective hook, line and sinker for the whole world, or at least the UK, to a state of Elvis fandom which I will faithfully describe as best I can in this blog.
(I should also note that the song which kept "Hound Dog" from number one - Frankie Laine's "A Woman in Love" - is lovably demented in its own right, but clearly feels like another era's music hanging on in the face of Elvis vs. The Man.)
The fall of '56 was a time of disruption and disillusionment. The Suez crisis was a prime example of the UK in the post-war period, presuming to have the answer and then blowing it. The Soviet invasion of Hungary is also worth mentioning, as well as the re-election of Eisenhower in November.
Against this comes Elvis, his voice starting the song with an angry contempt towards "you." Is this "you" a man, a company, a country, a way of thinking? The exhilarating thing is, to all of those things and more, YES. DJ Fontana and Scotty Moore attack and damn while Presley spits out "high-classed" as if it is the least harmful thing he could say.
During the instrumental breaks, the Jordanaires - brought in by Colonel Parker and seemingly pointless here - hold on to their notes for dear life, as if they were tied together by ropes in the back of Elvis' truck and forced to sing at gunpoint. They are lame, dull, the very representation of the animal in question, their "aahs" as flat, unconvincing and frustrating as they ought to be. They're never going to catch a rabbit and they sure don't sound high-classed. The Jordanaires would remain on Elvis' records on & off for the rest of his life, barking or yelping or crying, sometimes helpful, sometimes not. (Then Play Long has already chronicled some of these battles, as most of you likely know, and will be doing so again soon.)
And so, Elvis has arrived - "Blue Suede Shoes," "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Hound Dog" being the effective hook, line and sinker for the whole world, or at least the UK, to a state of Elvis fandom which I will faithfully describe as best I can in this blog.
(I should also note that the song which kept "Hound Dog" from number one - Frankie Laine's "A Woman in Love" - is lovably demented in its own right, but clearly feels like another era's music hanging on in the face of Elvis vs. The Man.)
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Green Fields Remembered: All-Star Hit Parade: Dickie Valentine, Joan Regan, Winifred Atwell, Dave King, Lita Roza and David Whitfield
First, let me explain my absence from this blog - I have, since writing the latest entry, moved from Toronto to London and have now acclimated myself, as best I can, to the city and the slightly different keyboards & ways of thinking I have encountered. I hope I can write with even more perceptiveness, if I have any, in the future.
To the single!
While out & about I have seen some boxes of Green & Black's chocolate - about six miniature bars all in a row, different but complete versions of chocolate. And that is what this unique - a word I am very deliberate about - single is like. A charity single on a 78 rpm disc, so as to fit six different songs. Yes, it's a charity single, the funds going to help create and preserve green spaces so that children have somewhere to play and run and have fun. A place where the sun shines and you can lay on your back to watch clouds...meanwhile, in a nearby apartment house, six people hear six different songs...
First up is the hitherto unknown to MSBWT Dickie Valentine with "Out of Town"; a song full of longing for the countryside, where the sun is a "yellow duster" and the trees are wearing "blossoms in their hair" - Mother Nature is shiny, yellow and something of a hippie, `though the music itself is jaunty and open as you'd expect it to be - I'll admit I wasn't sure about Mr. Valentine, but this is a warming and welcoming song...
...next is "My September Love" by Joan Regan. Is it soppy? Yes. Does it reek of wistful women in tea shops having epiphanies or at least 'moments' when they look out the window and see someone who looks like 'him'? But of course. Months have passed, maybe years, but HE is forever hers for that month and now it is December, and she walks the streets full of shoppers in her own special world, or maybe just stays at home, gazing into the fire, perpetually remembering. This is a solid song and one that isn't too downbeat...maybe she will meet this man again?...
...next door, a younger woman gets ready to party - looking sharp and fine, as gaily loud as...Winifred Atwell's "Theme From The Threepenny Opera." If you know Winifred you know just how Andrew W.K. she is about playing and pounding out this classic, though everyone, including me, has forgotten her number two from 1953, "Let's Have A Party" (well, I will soon rectify this, as soon as I can actually get hold of it, physically or digitally.) No medley of songs could be complete without Winifred, could it? No! And so side one ends...
...and side two begins with Dave King singing (to Joan Regan, perhaps?) "No Other Love." This is a song of surprising depth and sensuality (again) with the longing being not for green pastures but the Other, the One - will she return is avowals of loyalty? At night he paces his penthouse needing her...yet a few floors down...
...Is Lita Roza, yet another newcomer to the MSBWT world. "A Tear Fell" here isn't so much Pop Art as poor Lita almost sounds as if she is singing this song to herself, while in full ballgown and Aquanet glory, not quite reaching the melodramatic heights of Teresa Brewer. (In apartment terms, if I may, it's a 'model suite' version as opposed to Brewer's fully-furnished disdain and pain)...and now for the big finish, our old friend...
...Dave Whitfield! The king of enunciation is back! Well, who else could it be? It almost doesn't matter 'what' he is singing ("It's Almost Tomorrow" - yes David, if only you knew) as it sounds as if he needs no microphone, like he's all but in Dickie Valentine's green valley already, calling out to his love, passionately serenading her as she herds sheep or picks flowers....
As you can see, this is a group of performers who came together for a common cause and had the good sense to perform a medley instead of finding a song they could all contribute to ~ in their own way, not shoehorned in and cramped as the Hampstead tube elevator at rush hour. And it's fun - six moments of joy, anticipation, longing, regret and hope in just about as many minutes.
One more look at the receding past, before a certain other kind of longing and rude health begins to take over.
Big thanks to Mike Atkinson for finding this for me.
To the single!
While out & about I have seen some boxes of Green & Black's chocolate - about six miniature bars all in a row, different but complete versions of chocolate. And that is what this unique - a word I am very deliberate about - single is like. A charity single on a 78 rpm disc, so as to fit six different songs. Yes, it's a charity single, the funds going to help create and preserve green spaces so that children have somewhere to play and run and have fun. A place where the sun shines and you can lay on your back to watch clouds...meanwhile, in a nearby apartment house, six people hear six different songs...
First up is the hitherto unknown to MSBWT Dickie Valentine with "Out of Town"; a song full of longing for the countryside, where the sun is a "yellow duster" and the trees are wearing "blossoms in their hair" - Mother Nature is shiny, yellow and something of a hippie, `though the music itself is jaunty and open as you'd expect it to be - I'll admit I wasn't sure about Mr. Valentine, but this is a warming and welcoming song...
...next is "My September Love" by Joan Regan. Is it soppy? Yes. Does it reek of wistful women in tea shops having epiphanies or at least 'moments' when they look out the window and see someone who looks like 'him'? But of course. Months have passed, maybe years, but HE is forever hers for that month and now it is December, and she walks the streets full of shoppers in her own special world, or maybe just stays at home, gazing into the fire, perpetually remembering. This is a solid song and one that isn't too downbeat...maybe she will meet this man again?...
...next door, a younger woman gets ready to party - looking sharp and fine, as gaily loud as...Winifred Atwell's "Theme From The Threepenny Opera." If you know Winifred you know just how Andrew W.K. she is about playing and pounding out this classic, though everyone, including me, has forgotten her number two from 1953, "Let's Have A Party" (well, I will soon rectify this, as soon as I can actually get hold of it, physically or digitally.) No medley of songs could be complete without Winifred, could it? No! And so side one ends...
...and side two begins with Dave King singing (to Joan Regan, perhaps?) "No Other Love." This is a song of surprising depth and sensuality (again) with the longing being not for green pastures but the Other, the One - will she return is avowals of loyalty? At night he paces his penthouse needing her...yet a few floors down...
...Is Lita Roza, yet another newcomer to the MSBWT world. "A Tear Fell" here isn't so much Pop Art as poor Lita almost sounds as if she is singing this song to herself, while in full ballgown and Aquanet glory, not quite reaching the melodramatic heights of Teresa Brewer. (In apartment terms, if I may, it's a 'model suite' version as opposed to Brewer's fully-furnished disdain and pain)...and now for the big finish, our old friend...
...Dave Whitfield! The king of enunciation is back! Well, who else could it be? It almost doesn't matter 'what' he is singing ("It's Almost Tomorrow" - yes David, if only you knew) as it sounds as if he needs no microphone, like he's all but in Dickie Valentine's green valley already, calling out to his love, passionately serenading her as she herds sheep or picks flowers....
As you can see, this is a group of performers who came together for a common cause and had the good sense to perform a medley instead of finding a song they could all contribute to ~ in their own way, not shoehorned in and cramped as the Hampstead tube elevator at rush hour. And it's fun - six moments of joy, anticipation, longing, regret and hope in just about as many minutes.
One more look at the receding past, before a certain other kind of longing and rude health begins to take over.
Big thanks to Mike Atkinson for finding this for me.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Escalator To Transcendence: Elvis Presley: "Heartbreak Hotel" pt. 2
With this list of number two UK singles, there are a few that I call ‘oppositional’ singles; which is to say, they stand far away – in opposition – to the number one song. The number one song for “Heartbreak Hotel” is “I’ll Be Home” by Pat Boone – a song that I’m sure has its merits (I haven’t heard it yet) – but there is no way it is anything like Elvis, either in style or performance. Indeed, looking at the chart, it’s clear that there is everyone else…and then there’s Elvis. (I am also aware that his first try in the charts, “Blue Suede Shoes,” only made it to #9 – Carl Perkins’ original version got to #10, making their friendly contest a draw, which is about right.) So clearly there were those who preferred the good-boy sentiments of Boone in the UK (in the US it only got to #6, tellingly), but there were those clearly caught up in Elvis, without the benefit of seeing him on tv – just by mere photos of him, and hearing the song. The UK’s…oppositional…attitude towards Elvis (as opposed to the US’ reaction, which was to have him at #1 for a very long time indeed) could be due to lack of tv exposure – it is, from this distance, hard to know, but I would guess his roughness (the guitar with a twine strap; the sense that he is enjoying himself and likes to dance) might have caused more than a few English girls to uncontrollably scream as well.
In any case, Elvis has arrived. He has, so to speak, entered the MSBWT building and will be here for a good long time, though there will be times when he seems to be absent. I say seems because, like it or not, Elvis was a prototype, not to mention an inspiration, to just about everyone who wanted something a little bit more raw than the polished and likable and grown-up perfomers we have met so far. Elvis was all of twenty-one when he recorded this (to give some perspective, performers who are twenty-one as of this writing include Joss Stone, Kate Nash and Hilary Duff – with Rihanna coming around the bend) and his youth and style brought an undoubted wave of freshness to the scene. (Not long after him, Gene Vincent comes back to the chart, and Fats Domino and Chuck Berry and Little Richard also begin to chart.)
But to the song!
It is stark and dirty. The hotel in question is dark, illuminated only by the barest of lightbulbs and staffed by the most miserable and indeed funereal of attendants. And yet the song is not a lament. He is miserable and lonely (so lonely he could die: hello, Burt Bacharach, hello Morrissey) and yet he is not alone – how could he be? – and if she – the Other – becomes heartbroken, well, she knows where to go. Where to find him. They can be together in their misery…
…which isn’t really too miserable, as it sounds more like pouting, sexy misery, like an audible James Dean. Elvis was a good boy, but he looked and sounded bad. As if he wasn’t always what society or The Man wanted him to be, that his rebellion was in that he was always himself, twisting and jerking and Buh-Bay-Being for fun. How dare a man shake and show passion? How dare a man inhabit the song as he does, taking his loneliness and throwing it in the listeners’ faces? (He sounds as if he enjoys being miserable, even as he is miserable; hello, David Gedge and hello emo, for that matter.) The piano tinkles and the stand-up bass thumps, the guitar solo is stark and hardcore and not at all interested in being pretty. Elvis’ voice is handsome, as handsome as he is; and I cannot leave out the fact that he is from the South, the poor-grew-up-in-a-shack South that is an exotic plus for any UK listeners. Put plainly, everything here is different and confusing and there are no choirs or string sections or messages of genial consolation. The world is a dark, lonely and unhappy place, Elvis says; but everything else implies that this can be overcome, even mined for its own kind of gold.
In any case, Elvis has arrived. He has, so to speak, entered the MSBWT building and will be here for a good long time, though there will be times when he seems to be absent. I say seems because, like it or not, Elvis was a prototype, not to mention an inspiration, to just about everyone who wanted something a little bit more raw than the polished and likable and grown-up perfomers we have met so far. Elvis was all of twenty-one when he recorded this (to give some perspective, performers who are twenty-one as of this writing include Joss Stone, Kate Nash and Hilary Duff – with Rihanna coming around the bend) and his youth and style brought an undoubted wave of freshness to the scene. (Not long after him, Gene Vincent comes back to the chart, and Fats Domino and Chuck Berry and Little Richard also begin to chart.)
But to the song!
It is stark and dirty. The hotel in question is dark, illuminated only by the barest of lightbulbs and staffed by the most miserable and indeed funereal of attendants. And yet the song is not a lament. He is miserable and lonely (so lonely he could die: hello, Burt Bacharach, hello Morrissey) and yet he is not alone – how could he be? – and if she – the Other – becomes heartbroken, well, she knows where to go. Where to find him. They can be together in their misery…
…which isn’t really too miserable, as it sounds more like pouting, sexy misery, like an audible James Dean. Elvis was a good boy, but he looked and sounded bad. As if he wasn’t always what society or The Man wanted him to be, that his rebellion was in that he was always himself, twisting and jerking and Buh-Bay-Being for fun. How dare a man shake and show passion? How dare a man inhabit the song as he does, taking his loneliness and throwing it in the listeners’ faces? (He sounds as if he enjoys being miserable, even as he is miserable; hello, David Gedge and hello emo, for that matter.) The piano tinkles and the stand-up bass thumps, the guitar solo is stark and hardcore and not at all interested in being pretty. Elvis’ voice is handsome, as handsome as he is; and I cannot leave out the fact that he is from the South, the poor-grew-up-in-a-shack South that is an exotic plus for any UK listeners. Put plainly, everything here is different and confusing and there are no choirs or string sections or messages of genial consolation. The world is a dark, lonely and unhappy place, Elvis says; but everything else implies that this can be overcome, even mined for its own kind of gold.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Escalator To Transcendence: Elvis Presley: "Heartbreak Hotel" pt. 1
“Walk with me.” – Levi Stubbs, “Still Waters”
If you want to, come with me down my street. It’s not a long walk; you can see the destination just by looking east: the HMV Superstore on Yonge St. in Toronto. The walk takes us past the charmingly named World’s Biggest Bookstore (it’s a big place, but not the biggest) and to Yonge St., where we have to walk north a little to cross the street at Gould. Having crossed, and walked past the fashionable clothes shop and a Belgian waffle nook, the warm smell of maple syrup pouring out – we walk into HMV, the doors automatically opening…
The ground floor is almost all devoted to dvds; there are cds, of course, but they are stashed here and there, the new ones up front at the heads of aisles, and the chart cds and a few more ‘obscure’ new releases on the left-hand wall. The inevitable 2/20 and 2/25 cds are here, but not much else…
So we go up the escalator (yes there is an elevator, but you have to know where it is, in the back) up to where the cds actually are. Again there are aisles; and at the heads of the aisles, various new releases are displayed in a vaguely thematic way. The Rock/Pop section is right here. To the right, if you walk only a few meters, and down a step or two, is the Urban section, which goes from Gospel to R&B, Electronica to Reggae and World Music, with an island, so to speak, of Hip Hop right there in front of you as you walk in…
…if you turn around and go back to the Rock/Pop section and hang a left, you’ll walk around to the Heavy Metal/Industrial/Goth/Punk area, not far away from the magazine section; and around the corner are rock/pop dvds, but we aren’t interested in them and so go up another escalator to…
Face the classical room – not of interest to us today – and so we go into the right-hand door to find Easy Listening, Movie/Broadway/TV soundtracks/compilations, Francophone (music from Quebec & France)…and going around the corner there’s Blues, Jazz, Folk and Country, taking us back to the other side, right by the exit/entrance where there’s a water cooler, where we can have a little pause before deciding what, if anything, to buy.
The regular guy/gal who comes into the store is no doubt aware of the layout, but (depending on how narrow his/her tastes are) they may never go to certain areas, or even certain floors. Each large section has its own music, which you only hear if you are in said area (there is some overlapping of course, but not much) – and you may as well know that this was my usual route to wandering around almost every time I went in, especially if I felt like buying something but had no idea what it was I was going to get (an exhausting process, at times, thus the very necessary water cooler stop).
I would like to think that if I was with a certain elderly gentleman – the subject I will write about more directly in my next posting – that he would happily tag along with me, if of course he was alive. Elvis was a musical omnivore; in as much as he grew up immersing himself in whatever he could either hear in person or on the radio. Nothing wasn’t of some interest, from Dean Martin to gospel, folk to blues, country to Sinatra. It was all of a piece to him – it was, quite simply, music. The idea of a ‘monoculture’ would not have made much sense to him, simply because ‘polyculture’ was where he was at. (As the woman in the 70s commercial used to say loudly – “Abundanza!”) He might even agree with me that even this Superstore didn’t have enough; as exhausting as it can be, you really cannot have enough music if you really love it. My childhood and Elvis’ were vastly different, to say the least, but I grew up in a household were music wasn’t just background but foreground – a profound, if invisible, expression of life itself.
Certainly, you cannot forget that music is a business in a place so full of sales and specials and deluxe this-and-thats, but music has a freeing quality and any barriers you find in it (besides those of geography and time itself) are artificial and worth tearing down or ignoring altogether. Elvis’ casual disregard for these barriers wasn’t his alone – many other musicans had it before him, primarily in jazz – but in the static world of the UK charts of 1956, it was new.
If you want to, come with me down my street. It’s not a long walk; you can see the destination just by looking east: the HMV Superstore on Yonge St. in Toronto. The walk takes us past the charmingly named World’s Biggest Bookstore (it’s a big place, but not the biggest) and to Yonge St., where we have to walk north a little to cross the street at Gould. Having crossed, and walked past the fashionable clothes shop and a Belgian waffle nook, the warm smell of maple syrup pouring out – we walk into HMV, the doors automatically opening…
The ground floor is almost all devoted to dvds; there are cds, of course, but they are stashed here and there, the new ones up front at the heads of aisles, and the chart cds and a few more ‘obscure’ new releases on the left-hand wall. The inevitable 2/20 and 2/25 cds are here, but not much else…
So we go up the escalator (yes there is an elevator, but you have to know where it is, in the back) up to where the cds actually are. Again there are aisles; and at the heads of the aisles, various new releases are displayed in a vaguely thematic way. The Rock/Pop section is right here. To the right, if you walk only a few meters, and down a step or two, is the Urban section, which goes from Gospel to R&B, Electronica to Reggae and World Music, with an island, so to speak, of Hip Hop right there in front of you as you walk in…
…if you turn around and go back to the Rock/Pop section and hang a left, you’ll walk around to the Heavy Metal/Industrial/Goth/Punk area, not far away from the magazine section; and around the corner are rock/pop dvds, but we aren’t interested in them and so go up another escalator to…
Face the classical room – not of interest to us today – and so we go into the right-hand door to find Easy Listening, Movie/Broadway/TV soundtracks/compilations, Francophone (music from Quebec & France)…and going around the corner there’s Blues, Jazz, Folk and Country, taking us back to the other side, right by the exit/entrance where there’s a water cooler, where we can have a little pause before deciding what, if anything, to buy.
The regular guy/gal who comes into the store is no doubt aware of the layout, but (depending on how narrow his/her tastes are) they may never go to certain areas, or even certain floors. Each large section has its own music, which you only hear if you are in said area (there is some overlapping of course, but not much) – and you may as well know that this was my usual route to wandering around almost every time I went in, especially if I felt like buying something but had no idea what it was I was going to get (an exhausting process, at times, thus the very necessary water cooler stop).
I would like to think that if I was with a certain elderly gentleman – the subject I will write about more directly in my next posting – that he would happily tag along with me, if of course he was alive. Elvis was a musical omnivore; in as much as he grew up immersing himself in whatever he could either hear in person or on the radio. Nothing wasn’t of some interest, from Dean Martin to gospel, folk to blues, country to Sinatra. It was all of a piece to him – it was, quite simply, music. The idea of a ‘monoculture’ would not have made much sense to him, simply because ‘polyculture’ was where he was at. (As the woman in the 70s commercial used to say loudly – “Abundanza!”) He might even agree with me that even this Superstore didn’t have enough; as exhausting as it can be, you really cannot have enough music if you really love it. My childhood and Elvis’ were vastly different, to say the least, but I grew up in a household were music wasn’t just background but foreground – a profound, if invisible, expression of life itself.
Certainly, you cannot forget that music is a business in a place so full of sales and specials and deluxe this-and-thats, but music has a freeing quality and any barriers you find in it (besides those of geography and time itself) are artificial and worth tearing down or ignoring altogether. Elvis’ casual disregard for these barriers wasn’t his alone – many other musicans had it before him, primarily in jazz – but in the static world of the UK charts of 1956, it was new.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
It Came From The Basement: Lonnie Donegan: "Lost John/Stewball"
If the previous entry had a woman at its centre – sitting late at night by herself, listening to a record – then here we have a different venue and a different attitude. At momentous times like this, it’s good to look at the surroundings and see what is up.
The charts look like they are not just at a crossroads, but are at a place where two rivers meet. It is dangerous, I feel, to say that the one river is more ‘natural’ or ‘spontaneous’ than the other; there is only so much credit I can give for ‘authenticity’ or ‘purist’ qualities, these being at the very heart of music which may well be good, but which lacks a vital something – you might call it punctum – once it exhausts whatever innate qualities it has.
That is why the transatlanticism (thank you, whoever coined that word) of 50s music matters so much. Already on this blog there have been many US as well as UK artists; any idea that Americans suddenly ‘invaded’ the UK charts with rock ‘n’ roll must be put aside. As an American myself, I find it strange to read the story of Lonnie Donegan reviving a fairly casual and homey music – skiffle – and being so successful; but it is often in the strange that something new can happen. Much has been made of Donegan’s being from the UK and making simple, direct and easily playable music as being a cornerstone of what is to come; but staying in the here and now (June 1956), a great deal is happening, and “Lost John/Stewball” (songs about a prisoner and a racehorse) has gone up the charts, amidst movie themes, instrumentals and a song improbably called “Rock and Roll Waltz” – a clear indicator that this new thing is at least worth a dance, even if said dance is all wrong. (Just as “Rock Around The Clock” is described as a ‘foxtrot’ to those unable to jive and swing.) Lonnie’s woebegone narratives, delivered with a voice like cheery 5th grade teacher who wants the whole class to join in (and thus, they do) are not aimed at those who know dances, or have aspirations to sing with full orchestras. It is fairly clear that the teenager (that now no-longer mythical creature, if s/he ever was) is starting to buy singles and hang out in clubs like The Two Is and others where skiffle is played. Acoustic guitars are bought; bands are formed; but this has yet to happen. Lonnie Donegan has his foot in the door and a young man – even younger than Lonnie – is about to rip the door down altogether.
(Let me now also pause and note that Donegan is from Glasgow, Brewer is American, and how nice it s to have them together, just as Marcello and I will soon be together in London.)
The charts look like they are not just at a crossroads, but are at a place where two rivers meet. It is dangerous, I feel, to say that the one river is more ‘natural’ or ‘spontaneous’ than the other; there is only so much credit I can give for ‘authenticity’ or ‘purist’ qualities, these being at the very heart of music which may well be good, but which lacks a vital something – you might call it punctum – once it exhausts whatever innate qualities it has.
That is why the transatlanticism (thank you, whoever coined that word) of 50s music matters so much. Already on this blog there have been many US as well as UK artists; any idea that Americans suddenly ‘invaded’ the UK charts with rock ‘n’ roll must be put aside. As an American myself, I find it strange to read the story of Lonnie Donegan reviving a fairly casual and homey music – skiffle – and being so successful; but it is often in the strange that something new can happen. Much has been made of Donegan’s being from the UK and making simple, direct and easily playable music as being a cornerstone of what is to come; but staying in the here and now (June 1956), a great deal is happening, and “Lost John/Stewball” (songs about a prisoner and a racehorse) has gone up the charts, amidst movie themes, instrumentals and a song improbably called “Rock and Roll Waltz” – a clear indicator that this new thing is at least worth a dance, even if said dance is all wrong. (Just as “Rock Around The Clock” is described as a ‘foxtrot’ to those unable to jive and swing.) Lonnie’s woebegone narratives, delivered with a voice like cheery 5th grade teacher who wants the whole class to join in (and thus, they do) are not aimed at those who know dances, or have aspirations to sing with full orchestras. It is fairly clear that the teenager (that now no-longer mythical creature, if s/he ever was) is starting to buy singles and hang out in clubs like The Two Is and others where skiffle is played. Acoustic guitars are bought; bands are formed; but this has yet to happen. Lonnie Donegan has his foot in the door and a young man – even younger than Lonnie – is about to rip the door down altogether.
(Let me now also pause and note that Donegan is from Glasgow, Brewer is American, and how nice it s to have them together, just as Marcello and I will soon be together in London.)
Friday, December 12, 2008
The Teardrop Explodes: Teresa Brewer: "A Tear Fell"
The scene is set: the young woman is still in her party dress (something with tulle and and a big skirt, in a color between drab and vibrant) and is sitting in a chair, slumped a little, looking into space. She has recently been unceremoniously dumped by a man she thought was ‘the one’ and has in fact been out to see who he was with at the dance, in a move somewhere between masochism and vain bravery. She stood there watching him, crying large teardrops, teardrops that fell on the floor and that he danced on, as he swirled with his new girl, fixated on her and oblivious to the woman he has left behind.
The room the young woman is sitting in is so vividly colorful and yet she is so grey and lost; but the melodrama she is in is real, hyperreal. Brewer sings in a way that sounds like a crane carefully walking along, placing one leg in front of the other just so; she has her dignity, even as she sings about what a fool she is, even as the huge tears explode from her eyes, for her ex-boyfriend to dance over…
…the young woman may as well be in a cartoon; or should I say, a collage – not unlike the one Richard Hamilton made in ’56 entitled Just What Is It that Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing? (I will not go so far to say that Brewer makes Bryan Ferry possible…but Original Pop songs such as this are not that far from “Don’t Stop The Dance” – the wetness there being from ‘stormy weather’ and not crying. That said, the super-sexualized figures Hamilton shows are va-va-vooming all over the place, with the big bang, so to speak, just around the corner.)
The young woman in the chair may well believe that she has to snag the right man or else; but also probably believes that the man is always right, in the end. (In her 50s memoir Manhattan, when I was young, Mary Cantwell eventually marries a man because he gives her an ultimatium – get married or break up – and instead of seeing this as a forecast of what’s to come, she gives in.) Our heroine doesn’t fight her fate but is a sad witness, full of the ingrained stoicism the average listener, but who is the average listener? And do they all experience being dumped this way?
(I should note that “A Tear Fell” was written in 1956 and immediately covered by all kinds of singers, in the UK and the US. I doubt if anyone’s version sounds so noble and precise as Brewer’s, complete with a harp glissando every time her tear falls; the young woman in the party dress as sad angel.)
The room the young woman is sitting in is so vividly colorful and yet she is so grey and lost; but the melodrama she is in is real, hyperreal. Brewer sings in a way that sounds like a crane carefully walking along, placing one leg in front of the other just so; she has her dignity, even as she sings about what a fool she is, even as the huge tears explode from her eyes, for her ex-boyfriend to dance over…
…the young woman may as well be in a cartoon; or should I say, a collage – not unlike the one Richard Hamilton made in ’56 entitled Just What Is It that Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing? (I will not go so far to say that Brewer makes Bryan Ferry possible…but Original Pop songs such as this are not that far from “Don’t Stop The Dance” – the wetness there being from ‘stormy weather’ and not crying. That said, the super-sexualized figures Hamilton shows are va-va-vooming all over the place, with the big bang, so to speak, just around the corner.)
The young woman in the chair may well believe that she has to snag the right man or else; but also probably believes that the man is always right, in the end. (In her 50s memoir Manhattan, when I was young, Mary Cantwell eventually marries a man because he gives her an ultimatium – get married or break up – and instead of seeing this as a forecast of what’s to come, she gives in.) Our heroine doesn’t fight her fate but is a sad witness, full of the ingrained stoicism the average listener, but who is the average listener? And do they all experience being dumped this way?
(I should note that “A Tear Fell” was written in 1956 and immediately covered by all kinds of singers, in the UK and the US. I doubt if anyone’s version sounds so noble and precise as Brewer’s, complete with a harp glissando every time her tear falls; the young woman in the party dress as sad angel.)
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