Music and snobbery
As part of my newish – or rather, renewed – interest in popular music, I’ve been listening to a lot of music old and new. No doubt it’s at least partly as an escape from the political dolors du jour. … Continue reading →
Category Archives: Arts
“Get Back”?
There’s a huge number of reviews and discussions about the new Beatles documentary “Get Back.” I won’t even bother to link to any; they’re easy enough to find. Lots of people are raving about it, but they tend to be … Continue reading →
Instant cultural gratification
Commenter “Zaphod” offers this quote: “Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to pour a drink for myself and my wife, and we are going to watch The Magnificent Ambersons. One wonders what Tarkington would have thought of … Continue reading →
Your Love Will Save the World
Bee Gees time again! The Bee Gees wrote over 1000 songs, and many of them were never released. Particularly during the early 70s, when their sound was in transition from their earlier baroque rock British Invasion sound to a more … Continue reading →
RIP Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim, one of the giants of the American musical theater, died three days ago at the age of 91. Sondheim’s Wiki entry describes him this way: Sondheim was praised for having “reinvented the American musical” with shows that tackled … Continue reading →
Songs of broken hearts
There are countless songs about broken hearts. It’s a natural subject, because the phenomenon of hearbreak is so common, and people undergoing the pain of the experience often turn to music to release their emotions, universalize them, and even for … Continue reading →
Dave Brubeck, fake it till you make it
One of the things I’ve discovered through my recent delving into popular (and unpopular) music has been how many musicians have quirky, interesting life stories. In particular, so many came from a musical parent or parents, and so many were … Continue reading →
Dancing and singing and drumming and bass playing in the rain: Part II
[nOTE: Part I can be found here.] Singing while doing much dancing is rare for several reasons. The first is that unless the dance is very simple and slow, the dancer gets out of breath (that also can be a … Continue reading →
The return of the lost: searching for…
Recently a friend of mine mentioned that her book group had been reading the 1975 Anne Tyler novel Searching For Caleb, and after she’d read the copy that she’d found in her bookshelf, she noticed that my name was written … Continue reading →
All that jazz
In Wednesday’s open thread this week I alluded to the fact that I don’t like jazz. I’ve tried; I’ve really tried, but it just doesn’t work for me. To my ear and brain it sounds like formless chaos, music dissolving … Continue reading →
Can you walk and chew gum at the same time?
I can. Hey – I can even walk and listen to music at the same time, and I often do. So what? But Roger Taylor. Ah, Taylor could sing up a storm and drum up a storm at the same … Continue reading →
Revolution and lyrics: personal change versus structural change
Commenter John Tyler writes: Speaking of the meaning of songs, consider John Lennon’s “Imagine,” which came out in 1971. If one did not know any better, you would think the lyrics were written by Karl Marx or Lenin. This song … Continue reading →