Saturday 25 November 2017

100 Awesome Things - Part 34 - From the Vault 2014


More 100Awe and this time it's muppety...

~~~2014~~~

I never quite get over my amazement at how a piece of music can unite seemingly-unconnected, disparate people. I should hardly be surprised: the power of music upon the human soul is, after all, my life's study. Yet sometimes, something truly extraordinary comes along.



If I may quote (the horrendo) Max Bygraves: 'I wanna tell you a story...' (Tonight's Reference for Senior Citizens)

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who wanted to be 'a comedian when I grow up, like Fozzie Bear'. It has been pointed out to her since that actually, Fozzie was a terrible comedian. To quote Bob Monkhouse: 'When I told people I wanted to be a comedian, they laughed. They’re not laughing now.’  (Tonight's Second Reference for Senior Citizens). This little girl loved The Muppets, is what I'm saying. Preferred Muppet Babies to the regular show, but it had lots of jokes about movies.

Sidenote: as a kid, she also had a 'gang' at primary school called 'The Wirdos' (spelling mistake intentional) whose codenames were variations of "Gonzo": Gonzo Girl, Gonziyo, Gonzana, Gonzeela and Bourbon Biscuit (don't ask). Hunter would've been proud.

So some years pass and this kid (we know it's me, I'm working with a conceit here) grows up (nominally) and after years adrift, connects with all sorts of people around the world thanks to the power of the nascent online world and fandom.

A dear friend - a black American academic from Detroit - recommends a song called "The Rainbow Connection". Kid listens and a whole half-forgotten world reopens itself. Kid picks up guitar to learn it. The compulsion to be able to perform it is overwhelming and undeniable, such is the mental and emotional chord it chimes.

Years pass. The song floats in and out of Kid's life in various ways and forms and she never quite gets round to putting it into a set, though she performs open mics and gigs from time to time.

The wedding of a dear friend - a white lawyer/writer from New Zealand (amongst other places). The bride and groom's first dance is "The Rainbow Connection".

A few months later, Kid is suffering serious writer's block and begs requests some prompts for some flash-fiction writing. Anything to get back into being creative. Different friends suggest different things. One friend, made via the above Detroiter, herself a black teacher from America, sends a prompt which is simply a line from "The Rainbow Connection": 'Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices?' I ended up writing two different pieces based on the line, "Have You Been Half Asleep?" and "Calling My Name", such was the emotional resonance that one little phrase stirred within me.

/largely pointless conceit.

My point is this: "The Rainbow Connection" has a power that transcends simple demographics of race, geography and society. The only thing the above people have is a relatively similar age, but other less definite examples of the song coming into my life have been from all sorts of people and places and for different reasons. The long list of cover versions on the wiki page alone confirms that I'm hardly the first or last to love it so much that I simply had to try it myself.

Every lyric pulls some kind of heart-string: the thought-provoking ones, the heart-rending ones, the jaysus-my-eyes-are-suddenly-a-bit-damp ones, the hopeful ones. It's music-as-emotional-manipulation at its very best, but that's why it means so much to so many people: it is so universal that we can almost all find something personal in it.

Like "The Boys Are Back In Town" means almost anything to anyone, so can mean everything to everyone. Some things are just part of universal human experience, aren't they? No matter how different, how individual our lives, experiences, personalities and characters are, some things really are as universal as it gets.

I love this song because it's one of the few times in the world I feel hopeful for all of us. That there might just be a chance and also, that I am personally awesome and full of potential. I am stardust, I am golden... and "The Rainbow Connection"  helps me feel just a little closer to the Garden.

Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices? I've heard them calling my name.

*shiver*. Do you know how many years it took me to realise that no, everyone else isn't making up stories constantly? Do you know how long it took to get that my internal fictional, make-believe world isn't something everyone else has? Answer: I still don't quite understand it beyond a factual/intellectual sense.

I've heard it too many times to ignore it. It's something that I'm supposed to be.

Maybe I sound arrogant. I don't mean to. The point of the song is that we're ALL personally awesome and full of potential. Universally so! For me, I then take from it the need to be creative, to invent, to take the siren's song and make something of it. It is also, to me, the sound of everyone else's personal awesomeness and potential. In that way, it is a life-belt of hope that the world might, just might, not totally suck forever. That if only the lovers, dreamers, me and the rest of us could just find our connections, we could make gentle the life of this world. (Tonight's reference to Robert F Kennedy). Or indeed, whatever 'better' looks like for us all.

"The Rainbow Connection" is possibility, potential, goodness and hope for all of us, whatever those things might look to you personally. I will always believe that I will someday find my Rainbow Connection, that we all will... and I have the song to remind me when I forget, or when I get lost in the forest or the black dog is at my heels. Someday we'll find it...

All this from a frog playing a banjo.


Jim Henson seems to have been personally awesome and fulfilled his potential to our very great benefit. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Kermit.



00 Awesome Musical Things



Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners
Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye
Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees
Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson
Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band
Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy
Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen
Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors
Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra
Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles
Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave
Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo
Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe
Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows
Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher
Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole
Part Eighteen - The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy
Part Nineteen - Rock Me Baby - Willie Mae Thornton
Part Twenty - Paint It, Black - The Rolling Stones
Part Twenty-One - The Ghost Song - The Doors

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