tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33360661932216304962024-03-14T08:10:47.302-07:00Whistling ClarabellaAnd then John said "Dig this, for here's Paul, whistling Clarabella..." and a little girl who loved the Beatles thought that was a good idea.
Music, movies and the other things that make the world go round,Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.comBlogger71125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-12302145955555981052018-12-02T16:16:00.002-08:002018-12-02T16:16:36.500-08:00Wondering Where I Went?Hi<br />
<br />
I should've written this a year ago but time flies and I never quite made a clean break. So, if you've been wondering where I am......<br />
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I'm now over at Patreon! There's a mix of patron-only and open posts, free posts, paid posts, early access... and the mix of fiction and pop culture writing that I've<br />
<br />
Come and join me at <a href="http://www.patreon.com/clareworley">www.patreon.com/clareworley</a>!Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-14522811027651400032018-02-27T16:21:00.002-08:002018-02-27T16:21:29.912-08:00100 Awesome Things - Part 35 - From the Vault 2014<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">And at last, I'm caught up with all the 'previously on...' 100 Awesome Things posts...</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">~~~2014~~~</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">I'm not quite sure how to describe </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonnie_Donegan" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Lonnie Donegan</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> - or his cultural impact upon Britain - to the outside world. A bit like Rod Hull and Emu, if you were to describe him to an outsider they would like blink at you a few times, perhaps scratch their head and say "you what, now?"</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Lonnie was the King of </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skiffle" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Skiffle</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">: an odd little genre which didn't *quite* exist in its own right in the US and disappeared quickly. In the UK this became a form which was basically a hybrid of folk, jazz, blues performed on instruments which were or could be homemade or very cheap: guitars of course, and the old working-class standbys of paper-and-comb, spoons, washboards and the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea-chest_bass#Tea_chest_bass" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">teachest bass</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The best way I can describe how it always 'felt' to me was this: proto-rock and roll, or perhaps more 'acoustic rock and roll'... A gateway drug for what was coming from the USA at the time. A nice lead into Berry, Lewis etc. You may disagree with that characterisation, and it's the kind of debate I love, and that's what the comments section is for.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">It became a sensation here in the mid/late Fifties and gangly, quirky-looking Lonnie became its most famous performer. Skiffle might be forgotten except for one thing:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">There was a generation of young people who saw Lonnie on TV or heard him on the radio and thought "That's a good idea". The ability to put a skiffle band together cheaply - and the supposed 'easiness' of the music - meant an awful lot of young lads put together their own bands. Including a group called </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarrymen" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">The Quarrymen</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> up in Liverpool.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/biographyandmemoirreviews/9678833/Lonnie-Donegan-and-the-Birth-of-British-Rock-and-Roll-by-Patrick-Humphries-review.html" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">This review</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> of a book about Donegan includes a pretty good summation of the musicians he influenced, as well as his less-good personality traits and the fact that the kids who idolised him also swept him (and other British music doing interesting thngs at the time - the jazz bands ferinstance) away in 1962/3.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">To me, 'skiffle' and 'cockney' music are intertwined: When I was little, my granddad tried to teach me paper-and-comb and spoons, and although I was growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, my dad had been one of those little boys hypnotised by Lonnie's performances on TV of American songs like "Rock Island Line" and "Lost John" and "Puttin' On The Style", and so I heard more Donegan as I grew up than I heard contemporary pop music.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">You won't hear me complain about that, by the way. </span><a href="http://youtu.be/8qSKAYgtAzo" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">This link to Lonnie playing with Chas & Dave</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> later on is actually a perfect example of what I mean about the intertwining... not just in my head apparently.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">I've always loved the music, anyway. Imagine my euphoric delight to discover Donegan did a record of 'rocked-up' versions of his old hits in the 70s which included appearances by musicians of that era... including my own much beloved Rory Gallagher on guitar on </span><a href="http://youtu.be/pic_XLqR0Wg" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">ROCK ISLAND LINE</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> (The G-Man is also on a very similar sort of record by Jerry Lee Lewis called The London Sessions which I also massively recommend as a curiosity if nothing else.)</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">That version of Rock Island Line is great I think and features an impressively long sustain on a couple of lyrics, but as others have pointed out, it's still just 'seventies rock' and doesn't compare to the original's magic and wonder. </span><a href="http://youtu.be/KAgKx429cvo" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">His go at Sleepy John Estes' "Drop Down Baby"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> features beautiful slide work by RG and is something <a href="https://www.facebook.com/clarabellacryptkickers/">Clarabella & The Crypt Kickers</a> perform regularly- so much fun to sing.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">I love Donegan's music. Just the other night I was singing along very loudly to My Old Man's A Dustman on the way home, followed by Ham N Eggs. But there's only one thing I can use now, isn't there? It's just tremendous. A perfect encapsulation of a moment in cultural time that helped change the whole damn world.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">How can I describe Donegan to the outside world? WIth this:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Oh, last thing:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Donegan recorded a lot of Woody Guthrie music. Dylan and his cohort rediscovered the greatness of Woody in great part due to Donegan, not Guthrie directly.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Lonnie Donegan therefore, you could argue, invented both The Beatles and Bob Dylan.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">I'm exaggerating of course, but not as much as might be assumed.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">C 2014.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><b>100 Awesome Musical Things</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-16-from-vault.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-17-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-18-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Eighteen - The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-19-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Nineteen - Rock Me Baby - Willie Mae Thornton</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-20-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Twenty - Paint It, Black - The Rolling Stones</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-21-from-vault.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Twenty-One - The Ghost Song - The Doors</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-22-from-vault.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Twenty-Two - Your Long Journey - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-post-23-from-vault.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Three - Somebody Else's Dream - Philip Lynott</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-24-from-vault.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Four - Rita Hayworth's Stayin' Alive - The Bee Gees</a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-25-from-vault.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Five - Thursday's Child - David Bowie</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-26-from-vault.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Six - First Day Of My Life - Bright Eyes</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-27-from-vault.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Seven - Sealed With A Kiss - Jason Donovan</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-28-from-vault.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Eight - Ghost Town - The Specials</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-29-from-vault.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Nine - Live At the Palladium - Mario Lanza</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-30-from-vault.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Thirty - Riders on the Storm - The Doors</a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-31-from-vault.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Thirty-One - Q.U.E.E.N - Janelle Monae (feat. Erykah Badu)</a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-parts-32-and-33-from.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Thirty-Two and Thirty-Three - Whatever Gets You Thru The Night/The Soft Parade - John Lennon/The Doors</a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-34-from-vault.html">Part Thirty-Four - The Rainbow Connection - Kermit The Frog</a><br />
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-things-part-36-brand-new.html" style="color: #7c171d; text-decoration-line: none;">Part Thirty-Six - Rosalie - Thin Lizzy</a></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></span>Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-23153770911808072832017-11-25T17:02:00.000-08:002018-02-27T16:14:05.766-08:00100 Awesome Things - Part 34 - From the Vault 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">More <i>100Awe </i>and this time it's </span>muppety<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">...</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;">~~~2014~~~</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></span> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">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.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></span> <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">If I may quote (the horrendo) Max Bygraves: </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">'I wanna tell you a story...'</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> (Tonight's Reference for Senior Citizens)</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Once upon a time, there was a little girl who wanted to be</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> 'a comedian when I grow up</i><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">, like Fozzie Bear</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">'. It has been pointed out to her since that actually, Fozzie was a terrible comedian. To quote Bob Monkhouse: '</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: italic;">When I told people I wanted to be a comedian, they laughed. They’re not laughing now.’ </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">(Tonight's Second Reference for Senior Citizens). This little girl loved </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Muppets</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">, is what I'm saying. Preferred </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Muppet Babies </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">to the regular show, but it had lots of jokes about movies.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">A dear friend - a black American academic from Detroit - recommends a song called </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Connection" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">"The Rainbow Connection"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. 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.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">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".</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">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": </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">'Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices?'</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> I ended up writing two different pieces based on the line, </span><a href="http://apolla.livejournal.com/382353.html" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">"Have You Been Half Asleep?"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and "</span><a href="http://apolla.livejournal.com/382126.html" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Calling My Name"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">, such was the emotional resonance that one little phrase stirred within me.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">/largely pointless conceit.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">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 </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">had</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> to try it myself.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I love this song because it's one of the few times in the world I feel </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">hopeful</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> for all of us. That there </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">might just be a chance</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and also, that I am personally awesome and full of potential. </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock_%28song%29" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self"><i>I am stardust, I am golden...</i> </a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">and "The Rainbow Connection" helps me feel just a little closer to the Garden.</span><br />
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices? I've heard them calling my name.</i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">*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.</span><br />
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I've heard it too many times to ignore it. It's something that I'm supposed to be.</i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">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 </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">everyone else's personal awesomeness and potential</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. In that way, it is a life-belt of hope that the world might, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">just might</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">, not totally suck forever. That if only the lovers, dreamers, me and the rest of us could just find our connections, we could </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">make gentle the life of this world</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. (Tonight's reference to Robert F Kennedy). Or indeed, whatever 'better' looks like for us all.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"The Rainbow Connection" is possibility, potential, goodness and hope for all of us, whatever those things might look to you personally. I will </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">always</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> 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. </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Someday we'll find it...</i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">All this from a frog playing a banjo.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jSFLZ-MzIhM/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jSFLZ-MzIhM?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Jim Henson seems to have been personally awesome and fulfilled his potential to our very great benefit. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Kermit.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">00 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-16-from-vault.html">Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-17-from.html">Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-18-from.html">Part Eighteen - The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-19-from.html">Part Nineteen - Rock Me Baby - Willie Mae Thornton</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-20-from.html">Part Twenty - Paint It, Black - The Rolling Stones</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-21-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-One - The Ghost Song - The Doors</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-22-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-Two - Your Long Journey - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-post-23-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Three - Somebody Else's Dream - Philip Lynott</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-24-from-vault.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Twenty-Four - Rita Hayworth's Stayin' Alive - The Bee Gees</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-25-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Five - Thursday's Child - David Bowie</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-26-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Six - First Day Of My Life - Bright Eyes</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-27-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Seven - Sealed With A Kiss - Jason Donovan</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-28-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Eight - Ghost Town - The Specials</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-29-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Nine - Live At the Palladium - Mario Lanza</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-30-from-vault.html">Part Thirty - Riders on the Storm - The Doors</a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-31-from-vault.html">Part Thirty-One - Q.U.E.E.N - Janelle Monae (feat. Erykah Badu)</a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-parts-32-and-33-from.html">Part Thirty-Two and Thirty-Three - Whatever Gets You Thru The Night/The Soft Parade - John Lennon/The Doors</a><br />
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-things-part-36-brand-new.html">Part Thirty-Six - Rosalie - Thin Lizzy</a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-55002441343465216622017-11-23T16:50:00.000-08:002017-11-23T16:50:01.726-08:00100 Awesome Things - Parts 32 and 33 - From the Vault 2013<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><i>For the first time, 100 Awesome Things takes on two pieces of music at a time... and once more, grief and music are entwined.</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><i><br /></i></span></span> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><i>~~~2013~~~~</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></span> <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">One of the things about grief, in whatever form it takes, is how it eventually just </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">is</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. Perhaps it takes a very long time, but it's something one absorbs into the fabric of one's soul, one's existence, one's life. It simply </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">is</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">There are all sorts of ways to talk about it, to describe it. I very much liked </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Grief_Observed" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank"><i>A Grief Observed</i></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> by CS Lewis but didn't dare read it until I was out of the earliest stages of one of my epic griefs.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I also maintain that not only is grief different for every person, each grief is different from all the others. It is both one of the most universal experiences humans experience and one of the most individual. Yes, there are 'stages' one can track scientifically and there are common threads, motifs, and themes... but it's different each time for each person.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I like to think of each grief as a scar upon my heart and soul, not least because I'm a pretentious, la-di-da sort of personality, but mostly because it's the least-inept way I have of describing what they are, and what they become. Red-raw, oozing blood and pus at first, hard to ignore and, harder to deal with, new and unfamiliar... but eventually it stops bleeding, the infection clears and it closes up and eventually one hardly notices it anymore. It's simply <i>there</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I've got a few physical scars here and there. Not many compared to lots of people and nothing terrible. Some of my scars are a bit baffling - there's one on my left thumb which is from a very minor scrape with a cupboard shelf years ago, and I can't see why it would have scarred so permanently compared to all the idiotic scrapes, cuts, and the rest I've inflicted on myself over a lifetime of clumsiness and inattention.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Still, I'm pretty much unmarked when it comes to physical scars, which is nice. Then again the other kind, the unseen and emotional, are plentiful and if I'm honest, many are self-inflicted. Each scar is its own unique thing, without corporeality but definitely </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">there</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. Sometimes I wonder if souls are nothing more than a collection of scar tissue... past, present and future.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I'm probably being overdramatic. It could probably be argued that I've </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">chosen</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> some of my scars. I didn't </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">have</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> to give even the slightest, merest damn about any of those musicians, did I? Did I? Jury is still out on that one.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The thing is, the grief for those lost </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">before</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> oneself is very different to grief for those who one has loved in person. Lamented Maria and suddenly-lost Bill. Even as a small child I knew what it was to have lost someone you never had, and that's a very specific sort of pain. I have been </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">yearning</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> for them for as long as I have been alive, their scars the oldest on my soul. The never-had loss of them is so much part of me that to picture a life </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">with</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> them is almost impossible.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Now I get to the point of this. It's 8th December today, which means it's the day of the year when my griefs are concentrated. Yes indeed, tis both the birthday of Jim Morrison and the anniversary of the murder of John Lennon. It's a coincidence I've never been able to reconcile. Is it proof God has a sense of humour, or one of compassion, to keep it concentrated in a single day?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Doesn't matter. The grief of never-had remains, rendered in the broad brushstrokes of not-knowing and distance between myself and these heroes, the grief is stained with a sense of "I shouldn't" because they were not mine to grieve, were they?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I've had some interesting discussions with people over the years about whether fans are really entitled to grieve for their heroes. I naturally fall on the side of 'yes', but it is coloured with an understanding of the distance between them and I. Coloured by it, but it remains there.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I have felt dreadful all today, and no doubt some of this is down to acknowledging the loss and waste. That </span><a href="http://sachsmedia.com/rockheaven/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">ridiculous set of pictures</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> of 'what would they look like now' the other week woke up the anger I'd pushed aside - not least in fact because they suggested Kurt Cobain would've turned into the nincompoop from Nickelback - and realising that Jim would be </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">seventy damned years old</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">...</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Well, I thought I was over it. I thought the scars were good and healed up, that it simply </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">was </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">that Jim and John have always been dead.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I will never be </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">over </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">it. This I know. The titanic loss of talent, potential, insight, and wonder with the departure of these two is not something </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">one gets over</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. One learns to live with it. Nothing more. The scars remain even if I don't notice them all the time every day. Sometimes it's more difficult than other times. That's not to deify either person or overlook their genuinely troublesome aspects... I mourn the men and the music, not the legends... Cancel my subscription to </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">that</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> resurrection, as Jim sorta said.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">So there are two videos of awesome. The first is John, in a version of 'Whatever Gets You Thru The Night' with only him on vocals...</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The chosen Doors video is of "The Soft Parade", selected because I suddenly had the strongest recollection of being consumed by it when I first fell </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">hard and deep</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> in love with their music. The dissonance of styles, his scream, pseudo-religious opening... the cascading images of monks, lions, hunters, the overlapping many-and-arguing voices of Morrison... enchanting, terrifying, absorbing. Just like he always was to me. Also, please note that this "fat, bearded Jim" of the disdainful "he lost it/threw it away" legends is not that fat and still has immense power because </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">he's still him</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. The power of Morrison was never in his hard, tanned, bare chest.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /></span> <span style="font-family: inherit;">C 2013.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-16-from-vault.html">Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-17-from.html">Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-18-from.html">Part Eighteen - The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-19-from.html">Part Nineteen - Rock Me Baby - Willie Mae Thornton</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-20-from.html">Part Twenty - Paint It, Black - The Rolling Stones</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-21-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-One - The Ghost Song - The Doors</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-22-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-Two - Your Long Journey - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-post-23-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Three - Somebody Else's Dream - Philip Lynott</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-24-from-vault.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Twenty-Four - Rita Hayworth's Stayin' Alive - The Bee Gees</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-25-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Five - Thursday's Child - David Bowie</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-26-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Six - First Day Of My Life - Bright Eyes</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-27-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Seven - Sealed With A Kiss - Jason Donovan</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-28-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Eight - Ghost Town - The Specials</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-29-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Nine - Live At the Palladium - Mario Lanza</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-30-from-vault.html">Part Thirty - Riders on the Storm - The Doors</a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-31-from-vault.html">Part Thirty-One - Q.U.E.E.N - Janelle Monae (feat. Erykah Badu)</a><br />
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-things-part-36-brand-new.html">Part Thirty-Six - Rosalie - Thin Lizzy</a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-34947591277098473362017-11-21T16:53:00.000-08:002017-11-21T16:53:24.734-08:00100 Awesome Things - Part 31 - From the Vault 2013<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 0.75em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Another 100 Awesome Things piece from 2013...</i></span></div>
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<i style="font-family: inherit;">~~~~2013~~~</i></div>
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><br /></i>I've been listening to plenty of music since my last foray into the world of 100 Awesome Things, but any free time for writing has largely been consumed by editing the manuscript of <i>Walking in the Shadowlands</i> or watching awesome TV shows on Netflix (For the record; <i>Battlestar Galactica, House of Cards</i> (both the UK original and the US remake, both fab), <i>Castle</i> and some other stuff that escapes me right now).<br /><br />Today that all changes. I'm not going to write at length about today's choice because I'm not sure it's for me to do so. I will just sat that I think Janelle Monae is one of the most interesting, thoughtful and progressive artists at work right now. It's not for me to analyse or judge what she's doing and the reasons why - I'm not qualified to do so, but there are lots of people online speaking and writing thoughtfully and incisively about what it is to be a black woman existing in music. Janelle is one of them, actually. Search. Read. Learn. Understand a little more of what it is to be different to oneself.<br /><br />I will include some interesting and useful links though:<br /><a href="http://www.fuse.tv/videos/2013/09/janelle-monae-queen-interview" rel="nofollow" style="color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">"Janelle Monae Says "Q.U.E.E.N." is for the ostracised and the marginalised."</a><br /><a href="http://www.bet.com/video/betawards/2013/performances/janelle-monae-erykah-badu.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Janelle and Erykah perform the song at the BET Awards</a><br /><br />I will say this: it's been a very, very long time since an artist has grabbed me as completely as Monae. I spent a long night doing nothing but listening to her tracks online - longtime readers know I do this from time to time and it has to be for someone worthy...<br /><br />I will also say this: there are few songs recently that have gotten me dancing down the street like this one. I love it so much, but I find myself hesitant to sing along as I normally would because - thought its intentions are not exclusionary - this song is not <i>for me</i>. I am <i>weird</i> but I'm not ostracised. I'm an oddball who doesn't fit in most of the time, and I've felt pain over that, but I'm not truly marginalised. I love the song for the reminder of that, but also for the uplifting message of 'do your thing and apologise to no one' which I already try to live by.<br /><br />I keep meaning to head over to HMV to buy the album. My hesitation to do so has nothing to do with her brilliance and everything to do with my laziness (it's all of a ten-minute walk there and back...) and financial situation.<br /><br />Janelle, you are one fierce, brilliant human being and I can't wait to hear what you do next. Like a dear friend of mine posted, I look forward to seeing a Cindi Mayweather movie, but I won't hold my breath because apparently nobody wants movies about women, let alone black women. Despite the box office statistics for <i>Mamma Mia</i> or any of the other stats which prove that women go to the movies too and that a lot of us don't feel we need to be the same colour as the people in the movie to enjoy it... so Hollywood, get going.<br /><br />And finally, the video (which is itself beautiful, complex and clever):</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Listen. Watch. <i>Love.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>C 2013.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-16-from-vault.html">Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-17-from.html">Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-18-from.html">Part Eighteen - The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-19-from.html">Part Nineteen - Rock Me Baby - Willie Mae Thornton</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-20-from.html">Part Twenty - Paint It, Black - The Rolling Stones</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-21-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-One - The Ghost Song - The Doors</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-22-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-Two - Your Long Journey - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-post-23-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Three - Somebody Else's Dream - Philip Lynott</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-24-from-vault.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Twenty-Four - Rita Hayworth's Stayin' Alive - The Bee Gees</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-25-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Five - Thursday's Child - David Bowie</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-26-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Six - First Day Of My Life - Bright Eyes</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-27-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Seven - Sealed With A Kiss - Jason Donovan</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-28-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Eight - Ghost Town - The Specials</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-29-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Nine - Live At the Palladium - Mario Lanza</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-30-from-vault.html">Part Thirty - Riders on the Storm - The Doors</a><br />
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-things-part-36-brand-new.html">Part Thirty-Six - Rosalie - Thin Lizzy</a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-46433944235903766452017-11-19T12:38:00.000-08:002017-11-19T12:38:09.260-08:00100 Awesome Things - Part 30 - From The Vault 2013<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">For anyone who saw the Entertainment/Culture section of their news this week, or anyone who has ever spoken to me for any length of time, I don't suppose today's subject will be any surprise.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Because Ray Manzarek died the other day.</span></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It's been established time and again that I am a Doors fan, that I have my share of "Morrison Issues". I have, in point of fact, my share and the shares of at least nineteen hundred </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">other</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> people.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">That doesn't mean Morrison was the entirety of the Doors' success. Here's the truth of it: </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">without Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore, Morrison would've merely been the most beautiful Venice Beach acid casualties.</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> He wasn't a musician. Indeed, listen to some of his live improvisations and discover Morrison barely even managed a sense of rhythm at times.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">None of them wer</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">e </i><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">quite</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> typical. Densmore's drumming is/was more there's-magic-in-them-thar-silences jazz than chuck-it-all-in-be-as-loud-as-you-can rock. I actually got into it with someone the other day about Krieger's guitar playing. They said he "wasn't much of a guitarist". I countered that he just didn't play like most lead guitarists - not particularly rifftastic and without extended soloing. In fact, I'm not sure there are many guitarists who work like Krieger. Then there was Manzarek, who heard rock music and thought "Hey, this needs more Bach!" and was right. They didn't even have a bass player (most of the time).</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">My point? The Doors didn't sound like anyone else at the time. Nobody else was </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">quite</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> doing what they were doing. Even at the height of the psychedelic Summer of Love, they saw through the lie. There's not a single straightforward love song in their entire catalogue. Love, yes, but not <i>simple</i>. Lots of death, snakes, sex, pain and darkness but not much simple 'I love you' stuff. Their take on psychedelia is dark and cynical - not bad going given </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Doors</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> was released months </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">before </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">the so-called Summer of Love.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I've been listening to the Doors these last few days. Sucked into their fascinating, terrible world yet again. I've heard these songs so many times but found something more to appreciate, listening with an understandably keyboard-focused ear. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Manzarek was a classically-trained blues and jazz fan a few years older than most of the kids doing the psych thing back then. He was responsible for giving the bass life most of the time, using his left hand on the keys. I love his whorehouse/barrelhouse sound on </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Morrison Hotel </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">and </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">LA Woman</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> so much. I can't remember exactly which song it was I was listening to but I stopped walking in the middle of the street because it was so gorgeously baroque, fiddly, intricate and yet not at all 'too much'.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I asked a couple of people which Doors song they thought I should use for this post. I know that my view of them is skewed away from 'usual' and that I couldn't find enough objectivity to pick the best tune. The answer back was immediate and obvious:</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/k9o78-f2mIM/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/k9o78-f2mIM?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The funny thing is, I've never </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">loved</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> this song, but without it I probably wouldn't be a fan. It's one of their songs that actually gets </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">heard </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">thanks to ongoing radio rotation</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. Like my similarly-beloved Thin Lizzy, the Doors have a huge back catalogue which "civilians" simply don't get to hear. That's a darned shame, because there's stuff there which is better than the famous stuff.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I remember </span><a href="http://youtu.be/glUvLRW_vKQ?t=2m7s" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Tony Hadley & Bobby Davro, of all people, doing this on the Intros round on Never Mind the Buzzcocks</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> around the time I bought a </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Greatest Hits</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. Somehow that moment couldn't ruin the song for me. (Sidenote: This is one of the funniest episodes of NMTB)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Music has the incredible power to evoke feelings you didn't even know you had, to put you into a time and place you've never been. With that Fender Rhodes intro, Manzarek pulls one into a dark, rain soaked night. He's the doorman (pun intended) who leads one into the room where Morrison is waiting to seduce one into whatever Dionysian horror-delight is planned this time. As examples of Manzarekian brilliance go, this is one of the best, though there are plenty more. If it's been accused of being cocktail lounge music (it has), then it's at least cocktail lounge music with a seriously bleak edge to it: </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">There's a killer on the road, his brain is squirming like a toad.</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.. </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Into this world we're born, into this world we're thrown.</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">..</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">While I was writing, this article came up on my Google Alert for The Doors/Jim Morrison: </span><a href="http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/the-doors-musical-genius-who-made-the-organ-safe-for-rocknroll-29295026.html" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">The Doors Musical genius who made the organ safe for rock and roll </a>.<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It's a good read but as in my dissertation, I'd argue that the word 'safe' doesn't belong in the same ten mile-radius as the Doors.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Most of Ray's obits make plentiful mention of his love of the Doors. As irritating as it can be to listen to him <i>yet again</i> pushing the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Myth of Morrison,</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> I will never deny that he loved his old band. That he was largely willing to make out that it was All About Jim speaks to either a humility or canny understanding of what the media want, or both. He </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">knew, </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">man, that the Doors' initial pull was that beautiful boy, his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk8v5brTAmI" target="_blank">hard brown chest</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinous" target="_blank">Antinousian </a>curls. He </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">also<i> knew that the true magic</i></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> was the four points of the Doors diamond: Jim, Ray, Robby and John. All of them.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">In his book, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Riders on the Storm </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">(natch), Manzarek paints himself as Apollo to Jim's Dionysus. He was right, of course, but the important thing to me is that </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">you need both of them</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. Dionysus alone doesn't get anything done. Dionysus alone gets you drunk and wasted and you sit strung out in the darkness until you fade away. Dionysus left to his own devices dies at 27 in a breathtaking waste of life, talent and potential (I am bitter, yes).</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">On the other hand, Apollo doesn't have the same emotionally seductive power as Dionysus. He doesn't have the pull, the power, the overpowering charisma. Ray was an </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Economics</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> student! He was not a typical rock star (great hippie though). He was </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">brilliant </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">and hugely talented but as his required attempts at filling in for Jimbo attest, he wasn't a frontman.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Without Krieger's odd but inspired guitar-work, oftentimes echoing or countering the keys, and without Densmore's eclectic drumming, the Doors would've been just Another LA Band at a time when practically </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">everyone</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> in LA was in a band.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Doors needed all four points of the diamond</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. That's the truth of it.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">That's why </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Other Voices</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> is only OK. That's why when I saw "The Doors for the 21st Century" at Wembley Arena it felt like an extended </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Stars in their Eyes</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> for Ian Astbury. I've rarely been more profoundly angry... but when Astbury left the stage and it was just Manzarek-Krieger there </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">was</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> magic because they are supremely good musicians.</span><a href="http://youtu.be/CvVCCMG-JoQ" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank"> "Light My Fire"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> is not even </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">close</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> to being a favourite of mine but hearing Ray play it live was a moment to stick with me always. Hearing Krieger's explorations around </span><a href="http://youtu.be/pKmkOIlHbok" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">"Spanish Caravan"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> was a transcendental moment to rate with seeing Plant do "That's The Way" as the sun went down behind him at Somerset House.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">One last thing: were it not for Ray's tireless efforts to keep the Spirit of Jim alive through the last forty years, I have a terrible feeling that </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">he would've been forgotten</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. At once over- and under-rated, the Doors have been a group subject to the whims of music fashion, by turns deeply cool and deeply uncool. It was because of the oft-irritating Danny Sugerman and Ray Manzarek that the band was not forgotten.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">If I have my Morrison issues, it's because Manzarek made sure he did not go quiet into the dark night. Morrison's place in the pantheon is assured because Ray kept on about it. I agree with Densmore - not least the crap around adverts and the 'Doors for the 21st Century' stuff. Manzarek's maintenance of the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">myths</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> around Jim bothers me today as it did last week before Ray died... but I must acknowledge that the myth-building is what shored up their legacy.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">If not for Ray's devotion, Morrison might've been even more of a punchline than he is now. So dear, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">dear</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> Father Ray, thanks for your preaching. Thanks mostly though, for the music. Shine your Apollonian light into the dark corners, Manzarek. And give my regards to Jim...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">*</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2013/may/21/ray-manzarek-the-doors-legacy" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Ray Manzarek: keyboard maestro and custodian of the Doors legacy</a><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/ray-manzarek-keyboardist-and-founding-member-of-the-doors-dies-at-74/2013/05/20/8ebd6b56-c197-11e2-bfdb-3886a561c1ff_story.html" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Ray Manzarek, keyboardist and founding member of the Doors, dies at 74.</a></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">C 2013.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-16-from-vault.html">Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-17-from.html">Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-18-from.html">Part Eighteen - The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-19-from.html">Part Nineteen - Rock Me Baby - Willie Mae Thornton</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-20-from.html">Part Twenty - Paint It, Black - The Rolling Stones</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-21-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-One - The Ghost Song - The Doors</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-22-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-Two - Your Long Journey - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-post-23-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Three - Somebody Else's Dream - Philip Lynott</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-24-from-vault.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Twenty-Four - Rita Hayworth's Stayin' Alive - The Bee Gees</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-25-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Five - Thursday's Child - David Bowie</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-26-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Six - First Day Of My Life - Bright Eyes</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-27-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Seven - Sealed With A Kiss - Jason Donovan</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-28-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Eight - Ghost Town - The Specials</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-29-from-vault.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Twenty-Nine - Live At the Palladium - Mario Lanza</span></a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-33199554811277513962017-11-17T14:47:00.000-08:002017-11-17T14:47:27.747-08:00100 Awesome Things - Part 29 - From the Vault 2013<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I was in Milan last weekend. It was my first visit to the city, which is far more 'real' and 'working' than the city-sized museums of Florence and Venice. I liked it very much, though I can't say I </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">loved it</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> as I do </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">amata Firenze</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">On the Friday we did some art and wandering around; on the Saturday we had tickets for </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Supper_%28Leonardo_da_Vinci%29" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Da Vinci's Last Supper</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">, which in real life is way more powerful than any print or copy will ever be; and on the Sunday morning we visited the museum at </span><a href="http://www.teatroallascala.org/en/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Teatro alla Scala</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. The deal is simple: if they're not in the middle of rehearsals, you can go into a box and experience the auditorium itself. Given how outrageously expensive tickets to actual performances there are, this was my only chance to see inside.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Milan is the kind of place where it feels like everyone is richer and better dressed than you (in my case this is almost certainly true for almost everyone). La Scala is the kind of place which doesn't like the hoi polloi. This can be gathered from the prices in the gift shop, where fridge magnets were 12 euro and a small cloth bag was nearly 20.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I posed for a pic with the bust of </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mascagni" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Mascagni</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">, who composed</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalleria_rusticana" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank"> my favourite opera ever</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">, which remains the only time I've seen live opera to date (ENO at the London Coliseum with Pagliacci and it was great)... and then went into a box, joking with my dad about the most inappropriate thing one could sing at La Scala.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I decided on </span><a href="https://youtu.be/yShvgXZQBTs" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">A Hole In The Ground by Bernard Cribbins</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. So while I took some pictures, I sang it very quietly to my dad, who laughed. And yes, I am the kind of person who knows all the lyrics to comedy records from the 1960s. You expected anything else?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Anyway, as almost everyone who reads this blog (hi, both of you!), I am a singer. I'm not the world's greatest, but I have some skill. My dad had joked about me "singing at La Scala". It was quiet - there weren't many tourists visiting and there were only a few lighting tests going on - so I didn't think it would be the end of the world if I suddenly burst into song. Which to be honest, I do at any given time/place and singing at La Scala would be one of the more relevant places. I almost chickened out, embarrassed and scared that what would come out would be awful.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Then again, while visiting the Motown Historical Museum in Detroit, of my dearest friends pushed me forward to sing into their echo chamber and I sang a snip of "Dancing in the Street" at </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Motown</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> in front of a large group of black American seniors and didn't offend so...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Something occurred to me: </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Mario Lanza</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. As far as I'm concerned, there have been </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">no greater singers</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. </span><a href="http://youtu.be/u1QJwHWvgP8" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Caruso</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> was good, sure. </span><a href="http://youtu.be/mSSPElAK_NA" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">John McCormack </a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">was OK. Pavarotti tolerable. I grant that this is very much personal opinion and is not a statement of fact. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Simply, for me, Lanza is the tenor I love the best. We were formally introduced to each other via a documentary on TV that I watched with my Granddad not long before he was hospitalised (Granddad, not Lanza). My granddad was a lover of things Italian, like food, music and people to marry, and we enjoyed the documentary so much that I went and bought a 3-disc set of Lanza music that same week.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I quickly discovered that some of the songs are </span><u style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><i>utterly execrable</i></u><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. Some of it's that god-awful 1950s schmaltz with the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">dolcissimo</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">close-harmony backing singers which I dislike on Dean Martin songs and detest on Lanza's work. Can you say 'surplus to requirements'? However, no matter how crap the songs or the arrangements, the Lanza Voice remains tremendous at all times, though regularly mismatched to the song.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I watched </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Student_Prince_%28film%29" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank"><i>The Student Prince</i></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and laughed as Lanza's voice issued from weedy, charisma-free actor Edmond Purdom, and wished Lanza had played the part himself as originally intended. I watched </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Great Caruso</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and wished that </span><a href="http://youtu.be/1ebrnxY0Fuw" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Caruso had lived in a time of better recording technology</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> but was glad Lanza was there to fill in the blanks.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Yes, I loved Lanza's voice and grieved for the lost opportunities and tragedies of his life. Stood in La Scala, I wished to have heard his voice using the theatre's rightly-renowed acoustics. And so I opened my mouth, took a deep breath down to the diaphragm and without fully conscious thought, the first verse of "</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Because_You%27re_Mine_%28song%29" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Because You're Mine</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">" issued forth.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Next I thing know, my dad's tapped me on the shoulder. The security guard has apparently told me off for singing in a theatre. All the previous embarrassment flooded back as we shuffle out the box. He scowled and scolded in Italian so I just said sorry and that I wanted to know what it would sound like. He then proceeded to stare at me as I made my way through the rest of the theatre museum (Franz Liszt's piano! Portraits of the great and good of the opera world! Nureyev's costumes!)...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Perhaps I violated some great, sacroscant rule of the theatre, I don't know. I can't be the first museum visitor to do so.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">However, most important to me: I SOUNDED FUCKING AWESOME. The acoustics are truly fantastic and I projected right through that damned gilt and red velvet auditorium. I sounded GOOD, man. The nearby English visitors made some such comment to my parents but I was too busy being overwhelmed by the sound of my own voice rising through the theatre.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Lanza didn't sing at La Scala. He bloody well should have, but life can be cruel and we are sometimes our own worst enemies and sometimes even the hugely talented have bad luck. On the sliding scale of singing talent I'm probably closer to One Direction than Lanza: I'm a girl, not a tenor, and untrained... but for some probably mystical reason, it felt only right and correct that his song should be heard in that moment in that place. Maybe I broke some rule or tradition or something but... I'm sorry for disrupting the lighting crew for twenty odd seconds.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">So to the security guard, I apologise by quoting a line from </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">A Hard Day's Night</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">: </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058182/quotes" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">"Sorry we hurt your field, mister."</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">To the rest of you, this video of awesome is of Lanza's performance at </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Sunday Night at the London Palladium</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> in 1957, which was neatly featured in an episode of the brilliant and prematurely cancelled </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Hour</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. The first song is "Because You're Mine" and is followed by some operatic pieces. I get it if it's not your bag, if you don't particularly dig opera or 'classical music'... but I hope you'll give him a smidge of a listen anyway, because he's </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">that</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> good. A voice heard only once every century, as the saying goes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">You see, those people you hear on those Cowell shows? Some of 'em are OK. Some of 'em have some skillz... but </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">this</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> is what "great" sounds like. I think sometimes we've forgotten what "great" looks and sounds like and so settle for "mediocre" and "tolerable".</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I truly don't say this to be snobby or elitist. I mean, I like "A Hole In The Ground"! It's not about 'opera good, pop bad'. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></span> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">We deserve great in all things. "Mediocre" and "tolerable" have their place and if you love it then it's all good, but... It's voices like Lanza, Caruso and the rest that are why I don't dig the Cowell stuff, just as guitarists like Green, Kossoff, Hendrix, Gallagher ensure I'm unimpressed by so much/most current guitar music and so on.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">We all deserve the best of everything, whether it's opera or rock or pop or any of those things. </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">We all deserve "great</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">".</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span> <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">C 2013.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-16-from-vault.html">Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-17-from.html">Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-18-from.html">Part Eighteen - The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-19-from.html">Part Nineteen - Rock Me Baby - Willie Mae Thornton</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-20-from.html">Part Twenty - Paint It, Black - The Rolling Stones</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-21-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-One - The Ghost Song - The Doors</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-22-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-Two - Your Long Journey - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-post-23-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Three - Somebody Else's Dream - Philip Lynott</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-24-from-vault.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Twenty-Four - Rita Hayworth's Stayin' Alive - The Bee Gees</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-25-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Five - Thursday's Child - David Bowie</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-26-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Six - First Day Of My Life - Bright Eyes</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-27-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Seven - Sealed With A Kiss - Jason Donovan</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-28-from-vault.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Twenty-Eight - Ghost Town - The Specials</span></a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-8995209216638045302017-11-15T06:39:00.000-08:002017-11-15T06:39:05.384-08:00Philip At 25 - From the Vault 2011<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I knew I'd written a <i>lot</i> about Philip Lynott but I didn't realise quite how much until I was going through Ye Olde Blog to find anything worth keeping.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm not sure that this post will say much I hadn't already said, or have said since, but it felt wrong to ditch it entirely.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So here goes...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~~~2011~~~</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is twenty past eleven on the night of 4<sup>th</sup> January 2011. I am sitting in my cold living room, curled up in a duvet and I am watching a DVD called <i>Thin Lizzy – Greatest Hits</i>. At the O2 Arena (the Point last time I was there) in Dublin, a band calling themselves Thin Lizzy are on stage. At Vicar Street in Dublin, my favourite live music venue ever, the 25<sup>th</sup> Vibe for Philo is in full swing. According to the line-up on the website, the Hoodoo Rhythm Devils & Glen Hansard are playing as I type.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Although his name isn't splashed all over the place, Philip Lynott has not been forgotten today.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I've made various ramblings at this time of year for a long time. I recall the 19<sup>th</sup> being a bit of an epic, and I know exactly where I was for the 20<sup>th</sup> anniversary: at the front of Vicar Street, at the Vibe. I was either feeling sick, about to be sick or had just been sick (oddly enough, the exact time of emptying my stomach over the barrier has been forgotten) thanks to an Italian restaurant in Temple Bar which forever lost my custom that night.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As is usual for the 4<sup>th</sup> January, I've spent the day pissed off. First, it was trying to get up for my first workday since Christmas. Then it was morons on the tube, idiots in the street and the VAT increase on frappucinos. Then it was the imminent threat of root canal this evening. Then it was only having part of the root canal done and having to wait until next week for the long-winded bit. Then it was this cold. Then it was <i>CSI: NY</i>. All day, I've been cheesed off like a mouse who has just been told by a doctor to lay off the cheese due to a serious cheese allergy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The fact is, the 4</span><sup style="font-family: inherit;">th</sup><span style="font-family: inherit;"> January cannot be a happy day for me, and probably many people who ever gave a flying one about Lynott would agree. It is the day we lost him forever. It is the day that his work took on new, deeper, more tragic meanings.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5JOzKYmFefLExXcpaIB9nSVWY-RnGso9PfEUfNkqO14Qi3iRhGi-IZuN2fKBI6dS64bTyeP6wTF_qy7mr_APrd1jxJ6KRLiWy6DD3OweNr_eaygCP0aLTP0Pde_8HGC-GwQ5iHBYwaENe/s1600/Sunday4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5JOzKYmFefLExXcpaIB9nSVWY-RnGso9PfEUfNkqO14Qi3iRhGi-IZuN2fKBI6dS64bTyeP6wTF_qy7mr_APrd1jxJ6KRLiWy6DD3OweNr_eaygCP0aLTP0Pde_8HGC-GwQ5iHBYwaENe/s320/Sunday4.jpg" width="240" /></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is the day that hole in the middle of the stage opened up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tonight, a band calling themselves Thin Lizzy are up at the Point. Brian Downey and Scott Gorham are there, the two people I would categorise as 'Thin Lizzy' after Philip. Darren Wharton, who played keys for TL during their final Lynott days, is there.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Some other musicians are there, plugging the holes. I don't doubt that musically they'll be fine. There are no bad musicians in the line-up, but there is a </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">big</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">fucking</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">hole</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> in the middle of the stage, and ignoring it is like a broken pencil: pointless.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I've seen Thin Lizzy in recent years, before John Sykes left and before Downey rejoined. The music wasn't bad, and I consider those evenings mostly well spent, but there is no escaping the <i>massive hole</i> in the middle of the stage</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Philip is <i>gone</i>. I've seen and touched the chunk of damp Irish sod covering the hole they put him in.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet, here I sit, and looking at the television, it's almost as if I could reach out and touch the shiny red jacket he's wearing in the <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXFkRS3mZZM" target="_blank">With Love</a></i> video, and <i>jaysus, doesn't the smile on him warm my cold, broken heart</i>?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So much has already been said that there seems little more to say... except that seeing the lustrously-barnetted Scott Gorham on lead guitar reminds me of the one sorrow that can never be soothed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I met Scott Gorham in Starbucks on 26<sup>th</sup> Feb 2009, Hicks' anniversary. I got to look him in the eye and say <i>thank you</i>. Maybe I'll meet him again in this lifetime, but the important bit is done. I got to say 'you're one of my favourite musicians. Thank you.'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It seems incredibly important to say it. To look into someone's eyes and <i>thank them</i>. It seems the least I can do (actually, the least I can do is buy their music...) and at the same time, it's everything.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDdg0RHmOCUeZptKiDAbSAozvvWW2wKqU38MmW5w-yNqOkiSriXOnCtF_Jj78EeFZv-yl-e-aj9oVu2F80a6NEdeOkoVY0AQ-9JXPDvja_N2vBny4u0WC8ePrs16MJbsnm1nLcsCDAlipE/s1600/Concert31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="420" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDdg0RHmOCUeZptKiDAbSAozvvWW2wKqU38MmW5w-yNqOkiSriXOnCtF_Jj78EeFZv-yl-e-aj9oVu2F80a6NEdeOkoVY0AQ-9JXPDvja_N2vBny4u0WC8ePrs16MJbsnm1nLcsCDAlipE/s320/Concert31.jpg" width="192" /></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thin Lizzy's music pulled me out of more holes than it put me in. All the sadness, grief, tears and other woe I've felt because Philip is dead? These are <i>nothing</i> compared to the absolute, pure jubilation his music has given me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As I've said many times, it was Philip that gave me back Ireland, and I didn't even fully realise how much I needed it. He is my hero, an inspiration, a rock (natch) upon which to lean when I need, and the better part of happiness in my world. I can tell you truthfully that I believe him to be one of the great Irish writers of the late 20<sup>th</sup> century. I can tell you truthfully that I believe Thin Lizzy to be continually under-rated (partly through their own doing), and that as long as Thin Lizzy's music exists, U2 ain't even the best band from Dublin, never mind in the whole world</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Nothing compares to all that, and I'll shed a million more tears before I'll live in a world without him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I hope the two separate Philo nights are having a grand aul' time. Me, I was feeling like shit, and then I started watching Philip and funnily enough, I started to feel better, just a little. Now I've been watching for a while, I feel a good deal better. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The end of the <a href="https://youtu.be/z6ALdt53-_4" target="_blank"><i>Sarah</i> video</a> still cracks me up, and I will always smile back at that cocky, smug grin plastered on his face throughout<a href="https://youtu.be/XuoyHRGILyU" target="_blank"> <i>Dear Miss Lonely Hearts</i></a>. I still want sparkly purple trousers like Robbo in the <i><a href="https://youtu.be/2rUOxSAR8Sw" target="_blank">Wild One</a> </i>video. Sure, <i><a href="https://youtu.be/261uidoVOVk" target="_blank">Still In Love With You</a></i> makes me want to cry, but that's because it's a sad, sad song. I'm happier now than I was before the DVD started, and that's because of Philo's music.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I will never stop wishing I could look him in the eye and say thank you. I will always wish I could make some kind of difference to how it played out. I will always wish to have been there to see him. I will always believe that a world with Philip Lynott in it is better than one without it, but as long as the music plays, it'll be OK, and OK is all we get.</span></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-37246987749749989982017-11-13T14:42:00.000-08:002017-11-13T14:42:12.087-08:00100 Awesome Things - Part 28 - From the Vault 2013<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">ANother 100 Awesome Things that was entirely topical...</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">~~~2013~~~</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I am not going to make any comment on why I've chosen today's video.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I will however, post some links:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22067155" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Like this.</a><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/margaret-thatcher-dead---now-1818150" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">And this.</a><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/margaret-thatcher-dead---deserves-1818534" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Yet also this.</a><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11598877" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">While I'm at it...</a><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Today's Video:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RZ2oXzrnti4/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RZ2oXzrnti4?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Specials - Ghost Town</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">C 2013</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-16-from-vault.html">Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-17-from.html">Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-18-from.html">Part Eighteen - The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-19-from.html">Part Nineteen - Rock Me Baby - Willie Mae Thornton</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-20-from.html">Part Twenty - Paint It, Black - The Rolling Stones</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-21-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-One - The Ghost Song - The Doors</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-22-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-Two - Your Long Journey - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-post-23-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Three - Somebody Else's Dream - Philip Lynott</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-24-from-vault.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Twenty-Four - Rita Hayworth's Stayin' Alive - The Bee Gees</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-25-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Five - Thursday's Child - David Bowie</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-26-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Six - First Day Of My Life - Bright Eyes</a></span></div>
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-27-from-vault.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Twenty-Seven - Sealed With A Kiss - Jason Donovan</span></a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-21942599359265370202017-11-11T14:35:00.000-08:002017-11-11T14:35:13.525-08:00100 Awesome Things - Part 27 - From the Vault 2013<div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The latest 100 Awesome Things is perhaps more 'mortifying' than 'awesome' but it's honest, at least...</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">~~~2013~~~</span></span></div>
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When I was six years old, I fell in love for the very first time.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">He was a musician, of course. He had a leather jacket, of course. He had long hair, of course. He was gorgeous, of <i>course</i>.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Who was this great artiste, the first person that an already-picky creature such as I had dedicated myself to?</span></span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><a href="https://youtu.be/kjeJmrw5FJk" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Erm, this guy...</a><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I was <i>six</i>, ya'll. I'd love to say this is a good excuse, but given that I was already a Buddy Holly fan then, I'm not sure what it was.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Creatively, there is nothing about the song linked above that doesn't suck. The hollow drum machine sounds are the musical equivalent of bad CGI in movies (That Scorpion King at the end of The Mummy Returns springs to mind...). The lyrics are </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">almost </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">good but mired in cheap cliche and designed entirely to tug on the heartstrings of impressionable little girls who don't know any better yet. The guitar work is perfunctory and processed.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">And there's that mullet. Again, I was <i>six</i>. I couldn't yet see the difference between </span>this <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">and <a href="https://youtu.be/QdCZR9M5EKY" target="_blank">this</a>. I learned pretty quick, though.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Jason Donovan was the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Twilight</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> of 1989, the 1D of the 80s/90s cusp... *shudder* There's not enough bath bubbles in the world to clean this off my soul. Mind you, at least it's not </span><a href="http://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Rick Astley</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> (Warning: This is a link to Rick Astley.) I was six but I had </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">some </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">standards, you know.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">You see, I thought then, and maintain, that Jason Donovan is a fairly decent singer. Is he Robert Plant or Steve Marriott? Hell to the no. However, he was able to do </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> One has to have </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">some </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">ability to keep up with an ALW musical. The problem with Jase (as we used to call him, natch) was in the music itself. The cheap-ass <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_Aitken_Waterman" target="_blank">Stock Aitken and Satan</a> tunes and production, the notion that music for little girls didn't need to be good because they'll listen to anything as long as the guy singing is cute but unthreatening. Romantic but not sexual.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">You might call it the Bieber Effect these days. It's been around for decades. Remember the Bay City Rollers? David Cassidy? The Osmonds? Fabian and Pat fraking Boone? </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Pop is littered with these quality-vacuums. They serve a purpose, but does the music have to suck so badly?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">There's nothing inherently </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">wrong</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> with creating music designed for little girls. The problem comes when the producers of said music assume those little girls don't deserve </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">quality</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> music. I was six and recognised quality - Buddy Holly, people - but for Donovan and the need to fall in love with someone </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">and</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> fit in with my peers, I accepted sub-par music, and that's what bothers me.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Part of me knew it even at the time. Part of me knew it for years after, and it's the reason I feel guilty now. I don't feel guilty for liking it, I feel guilty for being part of the musical sausage machine. Guilty for giving my pocket money to Pete bloody Waterman... for accepting music videos featuring a </span><a href="http://youtu.be/CR3pQpqeqSc" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">guy 'playing' an <i>electric</i> guitar <i>on the side of a mountain</i></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">All these years later, with Morrison, Bowie, Lynott, Gallagher, Dylan, the Beatles and the rest cluttering up my brain in ways both simple and complicated, to return to something I loved in an uncomplicated way is kinda refreshing.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I found a Donovan song that doesn't suck. it's the one I loved best at the time. </span><a href="http://youtu.be/gliHl0xz5m4" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">It is a cover of a song from the early 1960s.</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jason Donovan - "Sealed With a Kiss"</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Even when I was six, even when I thought Jason Donovan was suitable affection bait, I loved the old songs the best. I don't say it's a particularly </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">brilliant</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> song, though I do feel it puts across that feeling one has as a teenager that anything slightly bad is </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">the worst thing in the world ever</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. The idea that actually, romances don't always endure a few weeks of separation when sun and sand and callow youth are involved.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Even when i was six, I </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">got</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> this song. My cynicism was pretty well formed by then. I knew that he was right to be a-feared, right to be wistful already. I knew that this song was really a tragedy, not a romance. The production isn't (to my nostalgic ears) as heinous as on a lot of his other songs of the time, and it being a cover at least means it's bubblegum but it's had decades to establish itself as a bit better than a lot of the crap in 1962 (and there was </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">so much</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">).</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I'm not doing a very good job of selling this as actually Awesome. It isn't, not really... but there's a little kid in the back of my head that really does love it still... and who misses being able to love without complications or reality or cynicism. That little kid doesn't know that Donovan grew up to sue a magazine for suggesting he might be gay, nor that he developed a ginormous gak habit, nor that he went on a reality show, nor that he did adverts for a cheap-ass frozen food store...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">That little kid still loves this song, and so do I, in truth. There are sometimes good moments to be found in the stinking sewer of manufactured pop music. One day, twenty years from now, I imagine someone not so very different to me will be sat in a FuturePod of Utopia with Bowie hair and a worn old Morrison t-shirt, and will admit that she loved Harry Styles once.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">There's nothing wrong with that stuff necessarily, nor with the reality talent show stuff. The problem is that it seems to be the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">entirety</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> of mainstream music at the moment. To find the decent stuff, you have to really dig deep and that's not fair on our cultural souls.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Now be honest: you didn't expect to see something like this on here, did you?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Post-script: searching for JD videos and the like on YouTube has </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">really</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> skewed the links offered on the sidebar. </span>Lynott <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">and </span><a href="http://youtu.be/gH9WnSOISv0" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Bowie</a> <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">are strange bedfellows with SAW 'artistes'... Off to clear my search history then...</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">C 2013.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-16-from-vault.html">Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-17-from.html">Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-18-from.html">Part Eighteen - The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-19-from.html">Part Nineteen - Rock Me Baby - Willie Mae Thornton</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-20-from.html">Part Twenty - Paint It, Black - The Rolling Stones</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-21-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-One - The Ghost Song - The Doors</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-22-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-Two - Your Long Journey - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-post-23-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Three - Somebody Else's Dream - Philip Lynott</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-24-from-vault.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Twenty-Four - Rita Hayworth's Stayin' Alive - The Bee Gees</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-25-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Five - Thursday's Child - David Bowie</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-26-from-vault.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Twenty-Six - First Day Of My Life - Bright Eyes</span></a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-57971022152837412212017-11-09T14:21:00.000-08:002017-11-09T14:21:03.008-08:00100 Awesome Things - Part 26 - From The Vault 2013<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Part 26 of 100 Awesome Musical Things, dedicated with all my heart to the Marquise Rachel, Mr Rachel and Small Rachel.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">~~~2013~~~</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I'm a quarter of the way through this particular challenge and it's been more than a month since I last posted. There's a whole lot of reasons for the absence, of which some are good and some are not.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">One of the reasons was that I spent the last month listening to Bowie </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">a lot</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. That was a good reason.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Another reason is that I was really sick the last couple of weeks. That was not so good.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The main reason was that I spent most of the energy I reserve for creative endeavours on rehearsing for a particular performance which meant rather a lot.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">My dear, dear friend Rachel got married a couple of Saturdays ago. Some months ago I got an email from her asking if I would possibly consider performing at her wedding during the register-signing. I couldn't have said 'YEAH' any quicker, so the only question left was 'what to play?'</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The bride and groom's requirements were as follows:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"All we really know at the moment is that we wanted you, we wanted something not traditionally wedding-y, and it mustnt't make me or Mr Rachel want to throw up on each other!". </i><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">On the other hand, I'm a Doors fan, so finding straightforward love songs in my iTunes library is not that easy... lots of songs like "</span><a href="http://youtu.be/B5MXGGcIbkI" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">I Hope I Don't Fall In Love With You</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">" and "</span><a href="http://youtu.be/gC1a5UAWIus" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">She Caught The Katy and Left Me A Mule To Ride</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">", or "</span><a href="http://youtu.be/lkVCciGuhOA" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">I Smell A Rat</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">" and "</span><a href="http://youtu.be/Ti4G1AX0v-g" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">I'm Movin' On</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"; not much in the way of uncomplicated, sweet songs. Even songs like Rory's "</span><a href="http://youtu.be/gyHymAxUVrc" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Moonchild</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">" have an edge of some sort...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I also needed a song which I could play by myself without too much hassle. I sent a list of songs which included "Because You're Mine" and "Speak Softly Love", "Nature Boy" and "True Love Ways" but it turned out 'not traditionally wedding-y' wasn't the same as 'something essentially obscure in this year of 2013'. Whodathunk?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Then the groom came up with the subject of today's Awesome.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bright Eyes - "The First Day Of My Life"</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />Now, let me first say that I was very glad he picked a song with a simple chord structure: C E Am F G C, basically, with a D7 chucked in occasionally.<br /><br />Confession: According to the tab I found online, there's a "Dm sus2" in there too, but I didn't like the sound, so I just went for a straightforward Dm. And in my arrangement I only picked out the bass line. But I had to sing at the same time so <i>ner</i>.<br /><br />Before I lose everyone but the guitarists, that's as 'technical' as I intend to get. Basically, it's pretty easy to get the guitar parts sounding OK. The words? A trickier proposition.<br /><br />To be honest, they gave me the song in September or October. On 22nd February, the <i>day before the wedding</i>, I still didn't have the lyrics set in my head. I do <i>not know why</i> but they just wouldn't fix themselves where they needed to be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Second Confession: The first perfect run-through I managed, after months of rehearsals (on and off), was <i>the morning of the wedding.</i> To suggest I was a bit nervous is to understate. I was stood in a Cornish holiday cottage with my newly-short hair wet from the shower, and only then did I get it, with fully fifteen minutes to spare before I needed to leave. I say 'to spare', I mean 'to dress and find my shoes and then leave, trying to actually remember to take my guitar'.<br /><br />Long story short: It went brilliantly. The vocal performance was very different to the one I'd rehearsed, but I somehow found the magic key to the vibe of the event and it was <i>on</i>, despite the cold weather threatening to take my hands out of commission.<br /><br />If I had fucked up, I don't think I would've forgiven myself, not at her wedding. This is a friend who has saved me from myself many times since we became friends, so this really was about the <i>least</i> I could do.<br /><br />It's not a song I would have chosen to listen to. Bright Eyes aren't my bag, mostly because I don't dig Conor Oberst's voice. I hear Bright Eyes, I think "ah, hipsters...", rightly or wrongly. I don't say they're bad, just not my thing.<br /><br />But I like that it's pragmatic and honest about love. It isn't 'I love you loads and loads and loads and I've never loved anyone before or since and it's all gonna be sunshine, roses, heart-shaped boxes of chocolates and it ends at Happy Ever After.'<br /><br />Because that isn't realistic. It's also not <i>love</i>.<br /><br />Love is way, way more powerful and entirely more complicated than "Happy Ever After". There is magic in the big moments to be sure, but the <i>power </i>is in the little things and the everyday. The power is in the decision one makes each morning to say "Yes, this is what I choose for myself", the power is in the choices made to bear witness to another person's life, to (sometimes) put them before yourself in matters both minor and major. <i>That's</i> what Disney lied to us about.<br /><br />I couldn't get the lyrics straight in my head for months. I kept switching lines in my head and because of the rhyming structure, the song fell apart each time that happened.<br /><br />It was not easy and it took more persistence than I would've liked. Just like most worthwhile things.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">C 2013.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-16-from-vault.html">Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-17-from.html">Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-18-from.html">Part Eighteen - The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-19-from.html">Part Nineteen - Rock Me Baby - Willie Mae Thornton</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-20-from.html">Part Twenty - Paint It, Black - The Rolling Stones</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-21-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-One - The Ghost Song - The Doors</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-22-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-Two - Your Long Journey - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-post-23-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Three - Somebody Else's Dream - Philip Lynott</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-24-from-vault.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Twenty-Four - Rita Hayworth's Stayin' Alive - The Bee Gees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-25-from-vault.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Party Twenty-Five - Thursday's Child - David Bowie</span></a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-64033267932527196162017-11-06T14:12:00.000-08:002017-11-06T14:12:09.606-08:00100 Awesome Things - Part 25 - From The Vault 2013<span style="font-family: inherit;">We're finally a quarter of the way through 100 Awesome Musical Things... This post was written not long after David Bowie surprised us all with a new album, back in 2013 when we didn't know we only had three more years left with him...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Did you hear that David Bowie released a new song?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Let's try that again, because I'm not sure you're excited enough:</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><b><i> <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20943160" target="_blank">BOWIE IS BACK</a>.</i></b></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I hadn't realised how much I'd missed his work unti his return. Hearing </span><a href="http://youtu.be/QWtsV50_-p4" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Where Are We Now?</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> was like sitting down with a dear old friend I'd lost touch with. I'm not going to analyse the minutiae of the Where Are We Now? video and what it may or may not mean.I'm not going to drive myself crazy trying to second-guess Bowie, the </span><a href="http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/01/the-humor-of-david-bowie" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">World's Greatest Troll</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span></span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I think one's view of Bowie is coloured when one first encountered him. To my dad, he will </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">always</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> be the man who did "The Laughing Gnome". To someone else I know, when he hears the name, his first instinct is "Tin Machine!". With me, it's a bit different... I think I encountered him for the first time more than once...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I don't remember exactly </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">when</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> I saw </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Labyrinth</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> on TV. It must've been its first television airing one Christmas: after 1986 but probably not much later than 1990. I vividly remember </span><a href="http://youtu.be/ZvyNOg4jSRg" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">fragments</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">: the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">hair</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and the tights, sure, but mostly I remembered how forcefully his charisma struck me. I didn't know it was called charisma but I knew it <i>mattered</i>. I didn't see it again until I was at university.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I did though, collect the name 'David Bowie' at that time, because I knew it was important. I kept hold of that name like a secret or a prayer, in the same way I clutched the name 'Ringo Starr' to my heart each time I saw the opening credits of </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Thomas and the Tank Engine </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">and my mummy would say "He was in The Beatles, you know". I didn't know, but I knew it was important.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Perhaps not quite the same. In between that half-remembered moment of 80s muppetry and seeing it again, I embraced music as a way of life and the name Bowie cropped up lots. I was a Queen fan even as a small child, so Bowie was 'the dude on Under Pressure'. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">As I submerged myself more in that world, he was that alien creature with the red hair and the guy in the dress and the waistcoat and all those other personae he's tried on for size. I remember my brother and I mercilessly ripping the hell out of "Hallo Spaceboy" when it was on the radio during a long car journey. At some point (roughly between Morrison and Thin Lizzy), I fell </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">oh so fucking hard</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> for his music. I think it must've been somewhere between that "Hallo Spaceboy" moment and </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">...hours</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Maybe I was just at an age (First Year Uni Student Self, that ridiculous creature!) where one </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">should</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> be a Bowie fan. Whatever the reason, I devoured </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Greatest Hits</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> - I listened to a lot of it on a mixtape on the sad train journeys between Lancaster and Euston when my grandmother died. Then I bought </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Labyrinth</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">, so in a weird way it all came full circle. I watched it over and again, my love of Bowie and Henson Workshop brought together in a rubbish-but-sweet story of a young girl challenged-seduced by a devilishly handsome older rock star. I forget why it appealed...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I pored over </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Bowiestyle</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and Mick Rock's books of glam photography. I wanted to </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">be</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> Bowie as much as I ever had a crush (might as well admit it...). In California, I took the cover of </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Low</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> to the hairdresser and said "I want that, please." And got it, following therefore in the steps of so many other Bowiefans.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Somewhere along the line, Bowie dropped out of my immediate consciousness. Partly, it was lingering bitterness at not being allowed to see him at Glastonbury. Partly, it was other people getting in the way - Morrison crashed the party again in a big way, then Zeppelin and Lizzy and </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Rory</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> pulled me away from the Shiny! Sparkly! music into the not-much-nonsense denim-clad world of 1970s Hard Rock. Whatever the reasons, we drifted a little, not least as my consumption of music changed - only a few tracks made it onto my iPod.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">So, the last few weeks have been a treat of rediscovery for me. I am </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">delighted</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> to say that I still adore Bowie's music, his aesthetic, just </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">everything</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. There's even things to like about </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Tonight</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Tin Machine</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> as far as I'm concerned.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Mostly, I love that I can now see far better the layers and the work going on than once I did. I've always been interested in the construction of "rock stars", the tropes and the conventions, but I can </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">see them better now</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. What I love about Bowie most of all is </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">what a sense of humour there is</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. He's screwing with us, man! He's screwing with us but letting us in on the joke, if you're looking. God, I love that.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Just Youtube 'Requiem for the Laughing Gnome' and you'll see what I mean. I faintly remember seeing it at the time but it made me laugh so much harder today.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">When I was first a Bowie-fan, I was shiny and young and though incredibly cynical, I still believed in the beautiful power of rock stars (I do, I do, I do believe in fairies!). I teetered on the edge of my own dark chasm but had yet to fall in. Well, I've been there and hopefully won't be going back there. I can now see these golden gods not as warriors and kings but as human beings.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">In short, I have empathy and compassion for them in a way that once I did not. They can't disappoint me anymore (ha! yeah right) because I see, accept and love their vulnerabilities and weaknesses as much as I love their power and brilliance. Seeing them as fallible creatures (just like me!) opens up so much more.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It might be why I'm one of the few people who seems to love late-period Dylan. I love his world-weary, well-used voice and songs. I love Bowie's later records as much (sometimes more) than the glam stuff. I'm almost a bigger fan of Solo Plant than of Zeppelin... I love Lennon's middle-aged 'How are you all?' as I love the angry young man songs. I'm still not down with McCartney but I think that's because in so many ways he seems more reluctant to grow old than we are to let him.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I would </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">love</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> to know what seventy-year-old Morrison and Lennon would be doing, and Lynott and Gallagher. I believe their work would still have something to say, something interesting and something to love, as long as they were true to themselves. And I wouldn't mind if they looked old or weren't skinny, or if their voices were barely croaks and growls, because </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">that's fucking life, right</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">When I started writing this post a few weeks ago (got interrupted), it was intended to be something jokey about Bowie's tights in </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Labyrinth</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. I was going to post </span><a href="http://youtu.be/VppuD1St8Ec" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">"As The World Falls Down"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> with a joke about how I wanted his clothes as much as I wanted to dance with him. Since then I've listened to far too much of his music, fallen into that rabbit hole again. I've listened to some other stuff and considered age and dying and mortality as part of </span><a href="http://shadowlandsmusic.blogspot.co.uk/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Walking in the Shadowlands</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.... I can't just make cock jokes because that's not where my head is at any more than it's what Bowie's doing now.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">And I still don't really know which video I want to post because so many are so awesome. </span><a href="http://youtu.be/A3roSrfvaU0" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">A live version of Wild is the Wind</a> <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">stopped me working earlier. I just stopped typing. Stopped everything to just listen. I've loved that song since before I knew he'd done it... </span><a href="http://youtu.be/VbpMpRq6DV4" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">his original cover</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> is fantastic but that live version just </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">got</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> me.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I think I'll go with this, because it covers all the bases. It's one of the first songs of his I really truly loved. I love the video, too:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><i><br />CW 2017: For reasons unknown to me, all the various versions of "Thursday's Child" have since been taken down from YouTube and His Nibs' own Vevo channel doesn't include it. So have a <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/2TxMPs02ZxUdI3oImLTINt" target="_blank">SPOTIFY LINK</a> instead... and if you really want to find the video online, you probably can.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I noticed the song back in '99 because I am, as it happens, a Thursday's Child.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday%27s_Child" target="_blank"> I have far to go </a>and it <i>feels </i>like it most of the time. '<i>Maybe I'm born right out of my time' </i>is also the sentiment <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdJqOcPcT2w" target="_blank">which pulled me into the Rory Gallagher orbit too</a>.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It sticks because we're both older, me and DB. We've been away from each other for a long time and now we return to each other. What I've loved about all this is that while I crack wise about crushes and being 'liek totes in luv!' with Bowie, that's not it. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The music... I return to my old friend the Music and discover we still click, like old friends. We might never have been away from each other, but the time apart gives me new appreciation and deeper understanding of my old friend. The love is stronger now, for the absence.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Oh, how I love the music. Whether he's trolling or prancing or contemplating or whatever the hell Bowie did/does/will do at any given moment, it's the music I love. I can't wait to hear what he does next.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">But I'd still wear the "As The World Falls Down" get-up. At work.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">C 2013.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-16-from-vault.html">Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-17-from.html">Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-18-from.html">Part Eighteen - The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-19-from.html">Part Nineteen - Rock Me Baby - Willie Mae Thornton</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-20-from.html">Part Twenty - Paint It, Black - The Rolling Stones</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-21-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-One - The Ghost Song - The Doors</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-22-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-Two - Your Long Journey - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-post-23-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Three - Somebody Else's Dream - Philip Lynott</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-part-24-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Four - Rita Hayworth's Stayin' Alive - The Bee Gees</a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-38330227123296429722017-11-04T13:50:00.000-07:002017-11-04T13:50:04.754-07:00100 Awesome Things - Part 24 - From The Vault 2013<div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">More from 100 Awesome Things...</span></div>
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This is different to anything I've posted before...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It's Rita Hayworth dancing to the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive".</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">You read that right. Lovely Rita dancing to "Stayin' Alive".</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I first saw it a while back, but Roger Ebert posted it (and another of Rita dancing to Belafonte's Jump In The Line) today and I've watched it three times in a row. Just hypnotising.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">A few things: whoever put this together has a </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">lot</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> of time. Just collecting the clips must've been a task and a half. Then to find the right bits to sync up... then to actually do it. It's amazing, incredible and terrifying.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I love the internet: it proves constantly that no matter how much of an obsessive fan I am, there's at least a dozen people even more so.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I love what a great reminder of Hayworth's brilliance it is. She wasn't a Cyd Charisse-league dancer (pretty much a club of One Person Called Cyd), but she was full of vivacious energy. One can tell she's working hard without looking like she's working hard. And anyone who can keep up with Gene Kelly must be </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">at bare minimum</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> a Pretty Bloody Good Dancer.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I love how it shows she could do All-American (once she was whitewashed by the studio, naturally) Cute Girl stuff like </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Cover Girl </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">and harder-edged (for musicals) like </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Pal Joey</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I love how the song also pulls out even more of the raw sexuality of </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Miss Sadie Thompson</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. That's a very good film, by the way, and I recommend it to you all. Not a musical in the way you're probably used to, though she sings and dances a bit.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Mostly what I love is that, a bit like the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">That's Entertainment!i </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">movies, this one little video reminds me why I love the movies. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Why I love those old musicals more than almost any other kind of movies (Valentino and Flynn's swashbucklers rate higher, but barely), and the undiluted </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">joy</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">comfort</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> they've provided me over the years. A window into a world where everything was beautiful, right triumphed over wrong by the end, where everyone was skilled in their arts. I knew then as I know now, that such a place exists only in movies.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">In the depressed 1930s and in the martial 40s, musicals were spectacle and escape. Though there are notable variations, you more or less knew what you were getting with a musical. A nice love story, some comedy and fun, some great songs and some excellent dancing, and beautiful things on screen.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Singin' In The Rain</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> is the best musical motion picture of all time because it does all of those things spectacularly well.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The genre worked itself to death, of course, like any successful genre will under capitalism. The great practitioners retired or died and weren't replaced. The death of the Studio System (sucky though it was to say the least) also meant that the training grounds disappeared. You don't get many true Triple Threats like Gene Kelly any more.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Mind you, I don't think there were many then, either... that kind of talent is always rare. That's probably why watching a clip like this is so enthralling. To see Miss Hayworth at her best, in such a strange variety of roles... I defy anyone to be unimpressed.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I know a lot of people think I'm grumpy, that I'm over critical, that I'm hard to please and don't like anything. None of those things are exactly true, because I have stuff like this running in my head.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">My standards are higher than most people and things will ever meet, but I have access to unparalleled wonders and all I have to do is </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">dream</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I also have a sekrit love of the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Saturday Night Fever </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">soundtrack. Movie is </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">dark as hell</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> but brilliant for it. Soundtrack is the stuff one dances to in the living room at 2am. I apologise to no one.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">C 2013.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-16-from-vault.html">Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-17-from.html">Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-18-from.html">Part Eighteen - The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-19-from.html">Part Nineteen - Rock Me Baby - Willie Mae Thornton</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-20-from.html">Part Twenty - Paint It, Black - The Rolling Stones</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-21-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-One - The Ghost Song - The Doors</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-22-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-Two - Your Long Journey - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/11/100-awesome-things-post-23-from-vault.html" target="_blank">Part Twenty-Three - Somebody Else's Dream - Philip Lynott</a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-19926515707541202182017-11-02T13:40:00.000-07:002017-11-02T13:40:02.819-07:00100 Awesome Things - Post 23 - From the Vault 2013<div>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">Like the last couple of entries in this series, this post was time-sensitive. It was originally posted on 5 Jan 2013, which was a little later than intended...</span></span></div>
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I started on this challenge in Spring and wanted to get a final post in before the Year of Suck ends. And then I didn't.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">This has been a fascinating experience so far. So often I sit down with a specific video or theme in nind and almost always end up going in a different direction, sometimes even choosing a different video.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">This time may be the same. I don't know yet. I've had this particular post in mind for awhile but the chosen video has changed each time I considered it.</span></span><div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I don't think I'm going to say much this time.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Twenty-seven years ago yesterday, Philip Lynott died. I've had this blog over a decade now and I've probably run out of things to say in my doomed-to-fail attempts to express what is in my heart about Philo's life, death and the life we've lived without him.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I thought about posting </span><a href="http://youtu.be/d2OcIqwmSaY" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">the video for "Old Town", in which the King of Dublin walks amongst his subjects</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Then I thought about posting </span><a href="https://youtu.be/nM1jMCln050" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">the video for "King's Call" which is about the death of Presley</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. It felt appropriate to use a song about the death of hero to illustrate the death of the writer, my own hero; how he appeared to feel about his subject the way I felt (feel) about him. But that was a downer and I really try not to associate too much pain with Philo. It's not good for me.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Indeed, I use anniversaries in an attempt to get on with life during the rest of the year. Otherwise, I might just crumble under the weight of such varied sadnesses.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">So, no downer. </span><a href="http://youtu.be/39bici5Vh2k" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Have a link to a documentary about him, if you want more info</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I got to thinking about Philo's particular strengths. You couldn't call him the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">greatest</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> bass player in the world, but I like his work, and how his starry side means the bass is often prominent in Lizzy songs. I thought about his abilities with language, especially rhyming (Around/Town in "Jailbreak" notwithstanding).</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">There's one thing I think Philo truly excelled at, and that's writing </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">rock songs about rock music.</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> "The Boys Are Back In Town" qualifies for this in one of its interpretations. "Don't Believe A Word" is in my opinion the most perfect song </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">about</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> rock music, but I've already told you that.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I mean, who else </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">lived that life</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> as whole-heartedly, full-throatedly, all-encompassingly as Philip Lynott? Who else has embraced the highs, lows and contradictions of that life as much as family man/lothario, romantic/hard man Philip Lynott? There's precious few people in that club, and maybe only Keith Richards is alive to tell the tale. (Membership of club, like so much in rock, is up for argument.)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Thusly, I leave you with nothing more than the video I've picked. The song is a solo B-Side from 1981. I bought a copy of the German 45rpm just for this song. I love it for possessing a cool bassline and being another example of Philo's ability to put into words how 'rock star' works. More importantly, for how it </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">doesn't.</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">..</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Did I mention that Philip was also brilliant at telling dark truths by lying through his teeth and vice versa?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0KfFz4mu_Wo/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0KfFz4mu_Wo?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Maybe a downer after all. Then again, he's been dead 27 years so finding an up-side is tough. A downer or just an honest (for once, from him) examination? Discuss.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">C 2013.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-16-from-vault.html">Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-17-from.html">Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-18-from.html">Part Eighteen - The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-19-from.html">Part Nineteen - Rock Me Baby - Willie Mae Thornton</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-20-from.html">Part Twenty - Paint It, Black - The Rolling Stones</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-21-from-vault.html">Part Twenty-One - The Ghost Song - The Doors</a></span></div>
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-22-from-vault.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Twenty-Two - Your Long Journey - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss</span></a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-12315647394614247192017-10-30T13:29:00.000-07:002017-10-30T13:29:15.747-07:00100 Awesome Things - Part 22 - From The Vault 2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">This was originally posted on 13 December 2012, a date of great meaning for me. Why? Read on...</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I started writing this yesterday. It was going to be about Led Zeppelin. They're all around at the moment what with the Kennedy Center Honors and the release of Celebration Day. I saw a bit of the O2 gig aired on BBC2 on Saturday, impressed with how not-sucky it was. The three of them and Jason Bonham are all good enough musicians that it doesn't matter how snake-hipped or lion-maned one is these days.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I listened to the playlist I titled 'The Zeppelin Has Landed' on my iPod and pretended to edit the novel o' doom. I hadn't decided what song to feature for certain.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Then, in conversation with my dad and my brother at Costa Coffee at lunchtime, I realised the date. No, I cared not about 12/12/12. It's my brother's birthday on 14th so I gave him his present - a Noam Chomsky t-shirt, because that's how the kid rolls. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Then, I remembered what </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">today's</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> date must therefore be.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">If Wednesday was 12/12/12 and Friday was 14/12/12, then it follows that Thursday must be 13/12/12. And once we'd done birthday things, that mattered a great deal to me.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">You see, my grandmother Maria died on 13/12/72, so today marks forty years since my family had to learn to live without her.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Once my brother had headed back to work, I settled in his vacant spot next to my dad and asked him to talk about Maria. He doesn't do it much, and usually cries off with 'I can't remember.'</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsBtcOSLZjDE82o0KvXuMSLq3Rny6IBjkbhjgMkQg-u67DUfhIJXKa9QgwkwF4S-n9J7ZvVGlkaX6SJ4tbMpTRUAoNckpOtCcVWqRqSeinv37TEKw_2T9S6ax4FHmoMyL0tw0ZyKrJpz8A/s1600/scan0004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1172" data-original-width="797" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsBtcOSLZjDE82o0KvXuMSLq3Rny6IBjkbhjgMkQg-u67DUfhIJXKa9QgwkwF4S-n9J7ZvVGlkaX6SJ4tbMpTRUAoNckpOtCcVWqRqSeinv37TEKw_2T9S6ax4FHmoMyL0tw0ZyKrJpz8A/s320/scan0004.jpg" width="216" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I discovered something: with a bit of time and a few gentle prompts, he </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">can</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> remember. Sadly, he is like my granddad in that he doesn't tend to talk about these sort of things.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I grew up with two of the four grandparents you're generally assigned. A maternal grandmother and a paternal grandfather. Awesome, and more than a lot of people get. I missed having Maria, though. I knew it even as a small child. My middle name is Marie, by the way. As a primary school child I went through a phase of using Maria instead, as if it could bring me closer. She was a ghost; someone else's memory.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I have never believed in the phrase "You can't miss what you never had" because I always, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">always</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> missed her.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Maria was born in the twenties in a town which was Italian at the time but had been Austro-Hungarian when her father embarked on his sailing career (embarked, boom boom) and would be Croatian by the time he retired. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">She was a teenager at the start of the war and an adult by its end. During that time, she did some work for the local resistance (details sketchy), was blown down a set of stairs in an explosion, and </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pula#Austro-Hungarian_rule_and_union_to_Italy" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">otherwise existed under an occupying force</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Oh, and she had to live with the knowledge that her cousin of the same name was marched off to Auschwitz. They never knew </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">which</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> Maria the bastards intended to take. (Other Maria survived but was not allowed back home because the then powers that be presumed survivors must've collaborated with the enemy).</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I ask you, could you live with wondering if your cousin was sent to </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">the ultimate horror</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> in your place? All the while living in or near starvation under an oppressive regime, while also being both young and pretty? If you think that sounds familiar, that's because it's quite like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audrey_Hepburn#Experiences_during_World_War_II_.281939.E2.80.931945.29">Audrey Hepburn's adolescence</a>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">By the end of the proceedings, my granddad's unit had fought its way through North Africa and Italy. Long story short: Pretty young woman. Handsome young soldier uses Supply connections to 'borrow/commandeer/nick' some meat for her family. Marriage ensues in late 1945. My dad born in Italy in September 1946. Family goes to London. They live happily ever after.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEqLgaBef1pczeDgx0yp3nabvwHaO3rvBduh1mxSxqSoHiR-U8dzMYrUzF-yvnLLleNB42E8hygVpwB999EoT42YSgbJ5m3GGsatSrpd7wwWbFxlUaCU7d7q71khH1iYjxL68Z4Y1GkToy/s1600/William+and+Maria+Worley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="721" data-original-width="1084" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEqLgaBef1pczeDgx0yp3nabvwHaO3rvBduh1mxSxqSoHiR-U8dzMYrUzF-yvnLLleNB42E8hygVpwB999EoT42YSgbJ5m3GGsatSrpd7wwWbFxlUaCU7d7q71khH1iYjxL68Z4Y1GkToy/s320/William+and+Maria+Worley.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">That last bit isn't <i>entirely </i>true. The London to which Maria came was a bomb crater. The people had </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_Kingdom#After_the_war" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">practically naff all for years after the war ended.</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> I've seen film, photos and bomb maps of the area she came to (where I live, give or take a few metres) and it was a </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">crater</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. She arrived in a big, stinking, deprived city where she knew nobody and they spoke a language that wasn't hers. She had to present herself and her child to In-Laws she'd never met, who hadn't seen their eldest son since he'd gone off to the war at the outbreak - almost a decade by that point.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It's at about that point that I think I'd probably break down as a quivering wreck of PTSD, fear, disappointment, hunger, fatigue and </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">everything</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Well, Maria did have a breakdown in the 50s and I don't blame her or judge her for a nanosecond. I haven't mentioned yet that nobody who has spoken of her to me has a bad word to say about her. They speak of her endless generosity and kindness, her willingness to talk to just about </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">anybody</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> no matter who they were, how she was so often the centre of any gathering. In conjunction with my granddad, a man with more charm than Errol Flynn and Clark Gable combined with a beekeeper, I can only imagine that people swarmed around them, that they were most always the centre of any group of people, as my dad describes. I would've loved to have seen them together...</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I cannot express to you the deep, abiding sense of loss I feel when I consider Maria. I'm sure my relationship to my granddad would've been different. I even worry we would not have been so close. I wonder what he would've been like with her around. He never remarried after she died. He lived more years without her than with her, and rarely spoke of her to me. He didn't talk much about things he found painful: not the war, not her.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">We once had a brief exchange when I found some jewellery in a little box in a drawer in our living room. 'You know whose that is, don't you?' he asked. I don't know if he was just being his cheeky self or if he truly felt like he couldn't say her name right then. I don't </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">know</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. So much is supposition, guesswork and just plain wondering...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">To pull this back to music, which I always intended to do... as I said, I was listening to my Zep playlist. It also includes Solo Plant, of whom I am a big fan. The last album on the list is </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_Sand" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Raising Sand</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">, which he made with Alison Krauss and T-Bone Burnett. The last song on there is called "Your Long Journey" by a country musician called </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Watson" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Doc Watson</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. It's a lovely, very sad song... the record was released in October 2007, not many months after my granddad shuffled off the mortal coil, so you can imagine how I felt about a song all about a loved one dying before oneself.</span></span><br />
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"God's given us years of happiness here, now we must part/And as the angels come and call for you, the pains of grief tug at my heart."</span></i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Yesterday, after my dad and I went our separate ways, I put my iPod back on. The coffee shop we'd been hanging out in is about three units down the street from the church my grandparents attended, and I went inside to light some candles and take a moment for her. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I have many issues with Catholicism, but it was </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">her</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> faith and </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">her </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">church so it's not a hardship for me to make a gesture for </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">her</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> there. And as I left, the song that came on my iPod was "Your Long Journey".</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Religion/faith/spirituality aside, I think it's a great but very sad song: one of the best on the album in terms of the blend of the two voices. Plant's performance is restrained, understated. The harmonies are quite lovely, the arrangement simple and evocative. The lyrics are at once deeply sad and yet hopeful.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Regardless of a specific faith or religion, I know what I </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">hope</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> is waiting after death. All I really want is to see Maria and my other ghosts. I </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">hope</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> more than entirely believe it will happen, but that hope is what gets me out of bed some days. To see Maria at long, <i>long </i>last.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Then yesterday, I was listening to "Your Long Journey" and thinking about Maria and Granddad. They were married for 27 years but he lived another thirty-five without her. I only ever knew him in the context of his widower-hood, I knew only the man required to live without her. I only knew the man for whom 'Your Long Journey' is so very appropriate. In 2007 when I first heard it, I thought of it in terms of him and me, but now it seems much more appropriate for him and her.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"Oh the days will be empty, the night so long without you my love</i><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">/And when God calls for you I'm left alone/But we will meet in Heaven above. Oh my darling... my darling... my heart breaks as you take your long journey."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">As far as I'm concerned, this is on a par with </span><a href="http://youtu.be/tGivnGv-HXs" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Joe Brown's version of "I'll See You In My Dreams"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> in terms of loss music, different to that I talked about in </span><a href="http://apolla.livejournal.com/375329.html" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">my post about "Paint It, Black."</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> The grief is different. Less raging, more hopeful. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Because, if we meet again, we can handle a separation for a while, right? We're at either 'Bargai</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">ning' or 'Acceptance' in the Five Stages of Grief. It also rather pointedly reminds me that I do not - cannot - know the pain of losing someone with whom you were in love and who returned that same kind and depth of feeling. "Your Long Journey" is not </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">for me</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">One final thing: I asked my mother for her favourite memory of her mother-in-law. She emailed back with just: </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">'Lots of memories of Maria, always smiling.'</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">After </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">everything</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">, Maria was </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">always smiling</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. She must've had a steel backbone after all, to be smiling after everything.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">You can miss what you never had...</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">20 May 1972. Hoxton Square</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />C. 2012</span><div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-16-from-vault.html">Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-17-from.html">Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-18-from.html">Part Eighteen - The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-19-from.html">Part Nineteen - Rock Me Baby - Willie Mae Thornton</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-20-from.html">Part Twenty - Paint It, Black - The Rolling Stones</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-21-from-vault.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Twenty-One - The Ghost Song - The Doors</span></a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-18794182648514118972017-10-28T13:03:00.000-07:002017-10-28T13:03:01.501-07:00100 Awesome Things - Part 21 - From the Vault 2012<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I posted this on 8 December 2012. This is a date that has a great deal of meaning to me, given that it's Morrison's birthday and Lennon's anniversary.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Sixty-nine years ago today, give or take some hours, Jim Morrison entered the world. I assume he did so kicking and screaming.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I started writing this post a few days ago after a comment on one of my favourite feminist blogs related to a Doors song, then I got caught up in a conversation with a work friend slash bandmate I shall call Mark (because it's his name).</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Then I ditched it, because it was the same old "boo hoo me I was a freak at school" toss. Let me try again. Once more, with brevity.</span></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I would not be a Doors fan if I'd been happy at school. The Doors aren't for happy, contented people. The cool kids might put up the poster and wear the t-shirt, but they don't feel it in their <i>souls</i>. They don't need to because they are happy, contented people. Or think they are. Like Alec Guinness as Yevgraf in </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Doctor Zhivago</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> said of the war: <a href="https://youtu.be/k7B-nlmdX0g">"Happy men do not volunteer."</a></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Doors are for the outsiders, freaks and despairing children, and you're supposed to grow out of it. Well, I'm still waiting to grow out of it. I suspect I won't now. Every time I think I'm over them, done with them, every time I think he no longer has any power over me, something proves me wrong.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I <i>clung </i>to Jim back in the day. I needed him, just as I'd needed Lennon a few years earlier, would need Philip Lynott and Rory Gallagher a few years later. Lennon taught me to not give a rat's arse what people thought of me, Morrison helped me </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">believe</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> it. I listened to The Doors' </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Greatest Hits</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> constantly on the flight to New York City when my mum took me there for a weekend in honour of my 18th birthday (and no, I still can't believe she did such an amazing thing either).</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Jim Morrison was literally the sound of my coming-of-age, not just that weekend, but when I began to put myself back together in California. I loved Jim when I arrived in California on the evening of 10th September 2001 (yes, really. My first morning was 'interesting' to say the least) but when I left in July 2002, I was entirely consumed by him. Just click the Doors or Jim tags on this very journal - it's partially recorded here. </span><a href="http://apolla.livejournal.com/173174.html" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">This post in particular does a good job of reflecting what was going on in my head.</a><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Like the guy in </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/285092.High_Fidelity">High Fidelity</a></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> asks: "What came first – the music or the misery? Did I listen to the music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to the music?"</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I know the answer for me: I was already dying from the inside out and the music sometimes made it worse but mostly, I was saved by it. I'm </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">truly not</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> exaggerating to say Lennon and Morrison saved my life, far more than they ever made it worse. Jim Morrison was an outsider and a freak just like me and he was there when I needed him the most.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">And Mark, if you're reading, that's what I was trying to say and basically took a million words to babble at you. Sorry about that. Pubs aren't really conducive to deep or intricate conversation, are they?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Right, that's the Me Nonsense out of the way. Now for the Doors nonsense and the video we're all here for.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I think it's fair and accurate to say that Morrison's poetry divides opinion. I've seen it described as pretentious and 'Sixth Form' and I've seen it described as fantastic. I think the answer is somewhere between the two. There are some turns of phrase which are quite, quite beautiful and some lines which are cringeworthy. He is the sublime, the ridiculous, the clown prince.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">You know, I think 'pretentious' is missing the point. He was trying, at least. Had he lived, had he cleared his mind, I think he had the potential to be truly great, but that didn't happen (also something I was trying to say in my pub conversation that got mangled). He </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">could've</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> been the incisive voice of his generation but his personal weaknesses prevented it. That's life, right?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The video I'm posting today is of the first Doors song I ever truly loved, and it's also a fantastic example of the sublime and ridiculous nature of Jim's work. Ladies, gentlemen and those betwixt, between and otherwise, I present to you "The Ghost Song".</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"The Ghost Song" was put together after Jim died, using bits of his poetry he'd recorded on his birthday in 1970 and music recorded by the other Doors in 1978. The music is very much 'of its time' but I like it. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Most of all, I love Jim's voice. His voice is the first reason I loved him back then, and I think he has one of the most gorgeous speaking voices I've heard. Up there with Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole in my book.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">There are also some </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">beautiful</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> images conjured up in the song. The first lines are among my favourite in popular music: </span></span><br />
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Awake. Shake dreams from your hair my pretty child, my sweet one. </span></i></div>
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Choose the day and choose the sign of your day.</span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">There's some stuff in there I could live without. I'm still not convinced by his Native American fixation. There's been too much appropriation of Native American culture by white America, and in some really damaging ways, for me to like or wholly believe it. You might see what I mean in the video. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Rich Hall made a great programme about it which you might find on BBC iPlayer but long story short: Native American history and culture are not ours to play with, to find faux-spiritual enlightenment by stealing from a culture which was nearly wiped out and made invisible except for when it suits the victors. Given some of what has been said about Morrison's attitude toward race, it's uncomfortable to say the darned least.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">For every beautiful line: </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"Music enflames temperament</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">", there is another less accomplished: "</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">We need great golden copulations</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">", methinks someone trying a little too hard. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">But then there's this: "</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Oh great creator of being, grant us one more hour to perform our art and perfect our lives."</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> I love that so much.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Morrison is the great contradiction of the profound and shallow. He is high art working in the low art form, or the low lurking in the high. From reading more of his work than just the song lyrics, I have a suspicion that he </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">knew</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> that, that it was probably intentional at least to some degree. He wasn't stupid. Up his own arse and as much as he was drunk off it, yeah. But not stupid. He was baiting us as much as he was consumed by his own high opinion of himself, I think. Or maybe I </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">hope</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> that's true... because otherwise I have to accept that he was a pretentious, cock-fixated wannabe-poet - have you read </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Lords and The New Creatures</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">In dying so early, Morrison relinquished control over his image, his legacy, his work and gave it to the rest of us. I choose to see one version of Jim, you may see another. He is what we each need or want him to be. To me, he is a deeply flawed human being, a poet of skill with some bad moments, a voice I will love my whole life through.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">He asked a question once, in one of his good lines: "Did you have a good world when you died, enough to base a movie on?"</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The answer for his life is 'Yes', but did it have to be such an awful film?</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-16-from-vault.html">Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-17-from.html">Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-18-from.html">Part Eighteen - The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-19-from.html">Part Nineteen - Rock Me Baby - Willie Mae Thornton</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-20-from.html">Part Twenty - Paint It, Black - The Rolling Stones</a></span></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-47447909862895490832017-10-26T12:02:00.000-07:002017-10-26T12:02:11.778-07:00100 Awesome Musical Things - Part 20 - From the Vault 2012<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><i>Reaching towards the end of 2012 as </i>100 Awesome Things <i>continues...</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Thanks to </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane" rel="nofollow" style="color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Crossfire Hurricane</a></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopmusic/9610328/Rolling-Stones-London-concerts-could-set-you-back-over-1000.html" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">certain small-scale, cheaply priced concerts</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">, the Rolling Stones are all over the news again... my feelings towards Stones are probably best categorised as "ambivalent". I think "Satisfaction" is one of the greatest songs in the rock and roll genre. The lyrics are sublime, the riff unforgettable... and yet their Isle of Wight 2007 set was so... </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">bad</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> that I can't forgive or forget somehow.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I don't know. Maybe I bought into the 'Beatles Vs. Stones' rivalry toss and didn't realise. Maybe I'm sick and tired of the constant mythologising. Maybe it's that Brian Jones was a despicable human being. Maybe it's that Jagger's got a face only a mother could slap. Dunno.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I do know that I love "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Dancing With Mr D." but I only own a couple of actual studio albums - </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">, and for reasons passing understanding, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">A Bigger Bang</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. I really dig </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">, although they're not even the third best act on the bill. </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Forty Licks</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> is a great collection...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Actually, there's quite a lot of Stones tracks I love. From recent years, I even like "Don't Stop" and their new one "Doom and Gloom". Or, as Jagger mangles the vowels, </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DWiB7ZuLvI" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">"Doom and Glaaaaooooooom."</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> The more I listen, the more I like it. Also, I really like the Noomi Rapace video. Her Jagger impersonation is <i>tres</i> amusing.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Hang on: Moment of Pause to consider and acknowledge that Noomi Rapace is just plain awesome. Even in </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Prometheus</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> running around 2 minutes after a Caesarean section... if you don't know why that's stupid, google it.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">On the Brian Jones point, let's be honest: if I removed every book and record and movie I own because the creator was a despicable human being, my flat would be empty. I am, after all, an Errol Flynn fan... (CW 2017: I really was talking about that git a lot back in the early '10s...)</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I still really want to smack Jagger every time I see him. He really winds me up for reasons not fully understood by me, really so much. When I saw footage of the O2 gigs my first instinct was to Chuck Norris that trilby off his head. Maybe it's because he is, at this point, a parody of a mockery of himself. And I found the 60s Jagger irritating too. He just winds me the hell up.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I was talking to someone just yesterday about how basically, the Stones are a singles band. Last week I saw a bit of a show on BBC Four about pop singles and someone idiotic said 'oh, albums are for boys but girls like singles'. Her reasoning for this was unsound and general. I love albums. I love the journey from start to finish and even in these days of iPods and playlists, I try to keep albums intact. Not always, but oftentimes. With </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Led Zeppelin III</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> I left out the songs I didn't like so much for a long while but had to reinstate them because it felt incomplete whenever I'd listen.. and lo and behold, those songs ("</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klh4Ms67AzM" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">Celebration Day"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rp2lnRjNh8" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank"> "Out on the Tiles</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">") have become favourites since.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">So maybe my issue with the Stones is that I've never been able to latch onto them like other bands because they really are a song band, a singles band. Watching </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Crossfire Hurricane</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> I was surprised by the number of times I thought 'hmm, yeah I do really dig that song.' I think I like them more than I remember I do.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Perhaps my biggest problem with the Stones is this: They kinda reflect everything that's wrong with music: resting on one's laurels on a thirty-year greatest hits tour; ridiculously inflated concert ticket prices; creative bankruptcy; myth over music; cool over content...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Not all of this is their fault, I know that. Mick's only charging a million quid a ticket because he knows someone will pay it, and if he doesn't, they'll end up on eBay or secondary ticketing sites for a million quid he won't see. Their creative bankruptcy for decades </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">is</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> their fault but is in the eye of the beholder and "Doom and Gloom" certainly hints at a long-overdue revival, maybe the swan's last song?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Perhaps I'm just pissed off that the Stones survived where the bands I love </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">didn't</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. How is Keef alive while Morrison's long been wormfood? How did they manage to stay together where the Beatles imploded into the Sue Me, Sue You Blues? Why are they lauded as The World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band when they're really only a pretty good blues band? Why were they the lucky bastards where Thin Lizzy were, in Scott Gorham's words, the 'unluckiest lucky band in the world'? These are my issues, not Jagger's, I acknowledge, but the end result is the same.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Let me state it clearly for myself as much as anyone: I like the Rolling Stones. I am a fan. Probably not of much beyond 1972(ish) but I do like them. There are even songs I truly love.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">There's one Rolling Stones song I think is truly, unquestionably </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">great</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. On the basis of this song alone they deserve their place in the Pantheon of Rock Gods (although maybe not quite such a prominent place as they snatched for themselves.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Milords, ladies, gentlemen and everyone else: "Paint It, Black."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">This is their most perfect song. There are great lines in other songs but I think "Paint It, Black" is fantastic from start to finish.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I've lost people I've loved with my whole soul, and there's no song I know of that comes as close as this to getting to the heart of deep grief. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">"If I look hard enough into the setting sun/My love will laugh with me before the morning comes." If you've known the pain of deep grief, you know the dark implications of that line. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">The line that stops my hear momentarily: "I wanna see the sun, blotted out from the sky." because that's how it is. CS Lewis' short book <i>A Grief Observed</i> does an excellent job of examining and deconstructing grief (he used his own example after his wife Joy died) and describes the way the veil drops down onto the grief-stricken, like a blanket separating them from the world. That's what it is.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Grief is different for every person and for every person they've lost. My grief for Philip Lynott was different to that for Jim Morrison which was different to that for Rory (and I'm lying when I refer to any of it in the past tense). They're different again from how it felt to lose other people, ones I'd actually met and held and been held by, who had loved me in return, who had given me so much, whose pain had been my pain..</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">When actor Peter Cushing's wife died, he spent the night running up and down the stairs trying to induce a heart attack. I walked into traffic. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">That's still my early-warning system for those low mental health periods: when I cut it too fine when I cross the road. There are a lot of ways of staring into the sun. I've been into that cold, empty cave and stared into the heart of darkness, my friends, and I dearly hope that for you the closest you ever get to the feeling is listening to "Paint It, Black."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I don't remember most of 2007 and a chunk of 2008. Until the veil lifted a little, I just </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">don't</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> remember. I know theoretically what I was doing, and I must've passed for 'OK' most of the time.... As far as I was concerned, the sun </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">was</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> blotted out from the sky. I certainly worked hard to make it so, to "fade away and not have to face the facts."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">There are other great songs about death, dying, grief and the rest. I'd recommend Golden Earring's "Radar Love" as another excellent grief rock song. There's a whole genre of 1950s death ballads, too.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">"Paint It, Black" though, is the one which gets to me most every time. Jones' sitar riff, the hollow, driving rhythms from Watts and Wyman... its feeling of being very much of its psychedelic period and yet timeless. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">There is <i>nothing </i>wrong with "Paint It, Black" except that rogue comma in the title.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">C 2012.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-16-from-vault.html">Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-17-from.html">Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-18-from.html">Part Eighteen - The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-19-from.html">Part Nineteen - Rock Me Baby - Willie Mae Thornton</a></span></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-52320533692702046592017-10-23T14:00:00.000-07:002017-10-23T14:00:00.183-07:00100 Awesome Musical Things - Part 19 - From The Vault 2012<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I'd love to give you reasons for my absence which are exciting - "I've been on the Nostromo!" or "I was recruited by James Bond for sekrit spy work!" or even "been on holiday" but no, nothing like that. No good excuse, in fact. I haven't even really been editing the Novel O' Doom...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I did, however, play a gig last week with a fab bunch of musicians. We call ourselves Clarabella and the Crypt Kicker Five and we play 'pre-decimal blues', that is to say, mostly blues songs which are from before 1971, which was when Britain went decimal.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">As an aside, I'm incredibly grateful for this because my maths skills are not super and I have enough issues counting decimal currency.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">So we played a show in a little basement club on one of the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark_Street" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">most musical streets in London</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. The Rolling Stones recorded their first album in the same building, so on that basis you can expect tickets to my shows in 2060 to cost about a million quid. Start saving.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I'm fortunate enough to work with a bunch of people who are super musicians away from the electronic yoke of our office jobs. They don't seem to mind that my aforementioned issues with numbers mean I sometimes get stuff a bit screwy. Funny that music, which is so crucial to me, is fundamentally about The Math. Counting bars and figuring out key changes and stuff are actually tough for me because it's </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">maths</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. Ugh. They're patient with me, anyway. We don't play together very often but when we do it's fabulous fun.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Last year we did a Christmas thing where we performed a Sleepy John Estes song called "</span><a href="http://youtu.be/JxBVxU6VVvg" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Drop Down Baby</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">" (ripped off by Led Zeppelin for "Custard Pie") in a later, Lonnie Donegan/Rory Gallagher arrangement (no prizes for guessing who suggested it, and unfortunately no YT link) which has </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">fantastic</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> slide guitar going on, </span><a href="http://youtu.be/2pLKo4lPSTw" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">"Please Mr Jailer" by Wynona Carr</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> which some of you might recognise from John Waters' movie </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Cry-Baby</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and </span><a href="http://youtu.be/sP0crYPCHV0" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">'Got My Mojo Workin' by Ann Cole</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">..</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"Mojo" is probably</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Got_My_Mojo_Working" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self"> one of the most famous songs</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> in the blues canon. It's also a good example of the many issues around 'borrowing' and 'copying' and 'homage' and 'plagiarism' and 'copyright infringement' one finds in blues.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Now, as far as I'm concerned, Ann Cole did the original. </span><a href="http://youtu.be/FhTCYqJsfqs" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Muddy Waters heard it and put his own version together</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. Lawyers then made some money but both versions of the song retain their own copyrights. You can probably make a decent argument that Muddy's version is pretty different. Certainly they </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">feel</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> different.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">As far as that goes, fine. I love both versions and I'd no sooner choose my favourite child than say which is 'best'. Mind you, I have no children...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">There's something about </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">performing</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> a song which (if you're doing it right) gives a person a deep feeling and understanding of a song. Or for me, anyway. I'd been shrieking along to</span><a href="http://youtu.be/Q6RD9J4oo3w" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self"> Rory's version</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> of the song for ages, and felt I knew it. I did... to an extent. But standing on a stage and putting it across as one's own self is, for me anyway, a different matter.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Who was I singing to? Who was I singing for? Why?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Remembering the words comes with repetition. Hitting the right notes comes with practice. Feeling it requires effort. That's why there are people with good pitch, decent tone, never get a word or note wrong and leave me cold (see Buble, Michael) and yet there are singers who are barely able to get in the same </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">room</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> as the right note that move me to tears.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It's why I'll put my heart and fucking </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">soul</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> into every damn thing I sing even if there's only five people in the audience. It's why I needed some idea of the answers to those questions.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">When it comes to Mojo, the answers are actually pretty simple: I'm singing to every lost crush, every unrequited lover as every frustrated, heartbroken crusher. Pretty universal... more specifically, it's me to every single person who fails to recognise how totally </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">brilliant/fantastic/wonderful/awesome/co<wbr></wbr>ntinued superlatives here</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> I am with all the impotent rage of the unsung genius.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">My ego-monster </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">loves</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> Mojo. My inbuilt self-bullshit meter recognises the tragedy of it. After all, not all the black cat bones and hoodoo ashes in the world change the outcome. To me, it's far more than just 'girl can't catch guy's eye', and that's before even dipping into other interpretations - the stalker language, the different vibes born simply of the performer's gender, different arrangements and interpretations of the music.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Intrepretation is at the heart of anything creative shared amongst humanity. It takes different forms depending on the medium, of course, but it's what makes the work </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">live</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. It's what transforms passive consumption into passionate engagement. Incidentally, this is what 'non-fans' so often misunderstand about fandom. They don't see - don't feel - the effort, the emotion, the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">work</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> fans put into their item of interest. Go to FictionAlley and you'll find Harry Potter fans </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">still </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">going at it years after the publication of the last book... or hang with </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Ulysses</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> fans (both of them) on Bloomsday... it's not so very different to me diving into 'Only the Lonely' or all those Thin Lizzy songs I've sung over the years.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Interpretation is also what makes singing someone else's song an entirely different beastt to performing something of one's own. Not better or worse, but different. I have to try harder with someone else's choons than my own. With my own, I've already </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">done the hard work</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. I've already stabbed myself in the heart and let the results run across the page, after all. I already have the key to the song because I built the lock myself.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It keeps the songs alive, too. I'm not talking about dull-as-scuff identikit covers, or that terrible habit of getting a girl to sing with nothing but an exaggerated Generic American accent, acoustic guitar accompaniment and calling it 'stripped down' and 'reimagined' because most of those are only fit for TV adverts for middle-class lifestyle products.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Now, to the song I'm actually featuring in this post. As well as as the three songs mentioned, we did a few others last week. One was </span><a href="http://youtu.be/Fk8B8cUkM10" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Big Mama Thornton's "I Smell A Rat"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> which we kicked off so fast I practically rapped it; I had the audacity to think I could take on </span><a href="http://youtu.be/hajBdDM2qdg" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">"I Heard It Through The Grapevine"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and did OK precisely because I did my way and not Marvin's. We also did Ike Turner's </span><a href="http://youtu.be/fptq7CmrG_A" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">"She Made My Blood Run Cold"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> which feels different just by switching genders. And we turned Memphis Minnie's </span><a href="http://youtu.be/rD2GUKwqliU" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">"Me and My Chauffeur Blues" </a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">into what I would almost describe as electrified country-blues for want of a better description.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">We finished with the many-times-covered </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Me_Baby_%28song%29" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">"Rock Me Baby"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. I think most every blues band and every wannablues band has probably done it over the years. You know, people with names like "Hendrix". I like the Doors' version, of course. Otis had a go. I've got more than one of Big Mama Thornton's version on my iPod...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I cannot speak highly enough of the brilliance that was </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mama_Thornton" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Willie Mae Thornton</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. Singer, songwriter, just fantastic. As she says in this very video "I can't sing like anyone, but I have to do it my own way." Which is why when we did it last week, we used her tremendous interpretation as a start and moved on from there to something entirely our own.</span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">As </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Yevonde" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Madam Yevonde</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> said: BE ORIGINAL OR DIE!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It's actually really easy to be original: </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">be yourself</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;">C 2012.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-16-from-vault.html">Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-17-from.html">Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-18-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eighteen - The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy</span></a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-62453266158287032792017-10-21T13:51:00.000-07:002017-10-21T13:51:00.148-07:00100 Awesome Musical Things - Part 18 - From The Vault 2012<div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eighteen already!</span></i></span></div>
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I have a new (to me) computer for which I bought some speakers which came with a subwoofer. I did the obvious: hopped over to YouTube for some funk music to appreciate said subwoofer. It's not big but it does what I want it to.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I've always been fond of a stonking bassline. I love how they can move me from stillness in a way that few other things can. A nifty drumline might get my fingers or feet tapping, great guitar riffs stick in mysoul forever, but fab basslines move my entire being like nothing else.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">So I suppose it's not much surprise that one of my favourite bands was led by the bass guitarist.</span></span><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Yes, it's Thin Lizzy time again! I wasn't going to post them for awhile, but they've been in the news again.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Bad News: Mitt Romney thought it was acceptable for him to appropriate "The Boys Are Back In Town" during the US Presidential campaign.</span></span><div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Good News: </span><a href="http://www.hotpress.com/Philomena-Lynott/news/Philomena-Lynott-rejects-Mitt-Romney-campaigns-use-of-Philip-Lynotts-music/9132932.html?new_layout=1" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Philomena Lynott is still a fierce old thing who won't take that lying down from gobshites like him.</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/stop-phil-lynotts-widow-orders-mitt-romney-not-to-use-thin-lizzy-music-8139575.html" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">And so has Philo's widow, who actually has the copyright.</a><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Weird News: </span><a href="http://www.hotpress.com/archive/9190351.html" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">"Thin Lizzy" are recording again.</a><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Super-Bad News: </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Lynott" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Philo is still dead.</a><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/sep/18/thin-lizzy-phil-lynott-interview" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_blank">The Guardian also republished an old interview with Your Man</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> which brought a little sunshine into a stressful day, which featured the song "The Boys Are Back In Town" heavily.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I forget, being a devoted fan, that most people </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">only</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> know Thin Lizzy for that song. I forget because to be honest it's not my favourite. I </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">love and adore it</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">, but it's not my favourite. It's not even my favourite song on </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jailbreak_%28album%29" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self"><i>Jailbreak</i></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> because I'm the kind of mad fool who loves strange album cuts like "</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOoCt8FpMPQ" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Angel from the Coast</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">".</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Of course, "The Boys Are Back In Town" was my introduction to the group. I couldn't tell you exactly when I first heard it. It was probably some unimportant, unimpressive day during an unimportant, routine journey in the car. My mum would've been driving, I woudl've been in the seat behind her and my brother would've been in the seat behind the passenger. Maybe my dad was there too. The radio was almost always tuned to Capital Gold when I was young, because that's the music my dad loved and my mum disliked least.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Car journeys always seemed to take such a long bloody time back then. I would read, but that made me feel sick. I have so many memories of staring out of the window, as I'm sure many of us do, as unknown and often very dull landscapes would pass by. Memories of journeys in the dark with the orange glow of a town's street lights in the distance or below as our car climbed up a road. The endless line of lights on a motorway, or the eerie blackness of unlit country roads.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">There's one time we went on holiday somewhere without my dad but with my granny. We must've got lost or something because it just seemed to take even </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">more</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> than forever and it was so dark and ugh..... all that to end up in a caravan for a few days in a place so unimpressive I don't remember anything </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">but</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> that long journey.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">All that kept me going on journeys like those was the music on the radio. It's a double-edged sword: a holiday during the summer of Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" was ruined by its constant presence on the radio - we were out of Capital Gold range - and same with the summer of 'Everything I Do (I Do It For You)" by Bryan Adams. Our holiday in Florida was defined by "All I Wanna Do" by Sheryl Crow which I swear was playing </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">every single time</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> we got in the damn car and was </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">always</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> followed by "Oh What A Night!"</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It's in that realm I would've heard "The Boys Are Back In Town." Probably it was one I sang along with the chorus, like I did for anything which caught my ear. I knew it, is what I'm saying, very well by the time I fell in love with the group.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Philip. I suppose I really fell in love with Philip. Not </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">him</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> exactly, though I adore him. I fell in love with his songs and the beauty of his lyrics. I fell in love with his combination of hard and soft, of tough and romantic. A heavy rock band which could produce such heartrending songs as "</span><a href="http://youtu.be/QNoMSi1ztt0" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Still In Love With You</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">" would always be a winner with one such as me. Hard shell, soft centre. Darkness with just enough light. The rough end of town, but fun.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Philip was a storyteller, above all things. Poetic in it, yes... but first and foremost a storyteller. There's a grand tradition of those in Ireland. Travelling bards, or the folks in town who you could depend on to spin you a great yarn guaranteed to be 99% fantasy (please, let's not call it blarney) and 1% tragic truth. Stories to make you laugh while you're weeping, to rouse your soul as they break your heart.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I do love this song, but it's almost too </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">universal</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> for me to truly devote myself to. It is about anything, therefore can be everything, about anyone therefore about everyone. That is its true genius. Maybe "The Boys" are returning from war, maybe from prison, maybe just from a trip out to the desert or from the big football game. Who knows? They're back, and everything just got </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">interesting</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> because of it.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">In the specific version which plays in my head, they're a rock and roll band. Young, impossibly gorgeous, hugely charismatic. incredibly naughty. Thin Lizzy, in other words. Or for me, Shadowlands. They are everything a rock and roll band should be, and they're back to entertain, carouse and leave you wanting more.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I can't tell you that it's my favourite Thin Lizzy song, not even my favourite on </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Jailbreak</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. Without it though, I don't think I'd love the band as much as I do. It is their calling card, their mission statement. "The Boys Are Back In Town" is the sound of a group at their best, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">now that's summer's come</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. Things may never be as good again (and for Lizzy they weren't, truly) but it's ok because </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">the nights are getting warmer and it won't be long...</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Many years ago when I was a callow youth, I wrote a series of probably not very good wish fulfilment short stories based around a nightclub in heaven where all the rockers and rollers hang out. Naturally I went to visit them there. I hung out while the house band played, got a dancing lesson from Gene Kelly, charmed by Errol Flynn.. The Works. The name of that club? </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Dino's</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Not just because I love Dean Martin (though I do) but because of this song. Why? The notion of getting to spend time with </span><strike style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The</strike><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> My Boys listening to them play, while my heroes and dearest people are around me? That </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">is</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> heaven. Philip wrote it for me, many years ago.</span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I rather think I love "The Boys Are Back In Town" even more than I thought.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">An observation about this series so far: I almost always end up talking about something completely unexpected and unrelated to my intent at the beginning. Hmm.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">C 2012.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-16-from-vault.html">Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-17-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seventeen - Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll - Nat King Cole</span></a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-43389444602494941702017-10-19T13:45:00.000-07:002017-10-19T13:45:10.416-07:00100 Awesome Musical Things - Part 17 - From the Vault<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The beat goes on... this time, it swings...</span></div>
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Once upon a time, when I was an impressionable teenager, I saw a TV documentary about a man called Dean Martin. This was around 1997 or 1998 when suddenly (or rather, part of a marketing strategy), the Rat Pack dudes were back everywhere. Dino's tune "That's Amore" was used in a Pizza Hut commercial here and suddenly everyone was singing it. It must not have been long after Sinatra died and the coverage that got... and since then, marketing people have been misusing swing/easy listening/lounge to their selling advantages.</span></span><div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a name='more'></a><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Anyway, I liked it. I </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">loved</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> Dean's voice. Wrote </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">poems</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> about it at one point. I was screwed up, OK? After awhile listening to Dean, and somewhat to Frank and Sam, and boosted by seeing </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Ken Burns' Jazz</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> when I was in my first year at Lancaster, I started to stumble more onto another fantastic voice</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Nat King Cole. Love that voice. Love the piano too. Just a fantastic performer, even when made-up what I can only really describe as 'whiteface' (</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq0XJCJ1Srw" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">see here</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">) or any number of humiliations. However, this post is not about that. Better-qualified people than I have discussed the racism Cole endured and the ways in which he dealt with it.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I'm going to post my most favourite Cole track </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">ever</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. I mean more than '</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfAb0gNPy6s" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">When I Fall In Love</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">" or "</span><a href="http://youtu.be/gxZG0w8YS7A" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Unforgettable</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">", "</span><a href="http://youtu.be/A9wA-bOBHuA" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Smile</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">" or even "</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq0XJCJ1Srw" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Nature Boy</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">".</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ue19D5YxJgE/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ue19D5YxJgE?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It's a live track, nearly eight minutes long and is called "Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll". Recorded aroundabout 1960, during the last true great hurrah of the old singers.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.*</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Rock and roll was to singers like Sinatra what Sinatra was to Crosby. Rock and roll was to Sinatra and his pals what punk was to the rock giants of the late 70s. A fresh new sound which made everything before it sound old and fusty whether it truly was or not.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Picture this: Elvis, in his pre-army gloriosity: slick quiff, jeans, sports jacket, smouldering gaze and curled lip. Most of all, recall his barely-caged, hip-swinging masculine sexuality on stage. Now set that next to Frank Sinatra in his tuxedo, baldness-covering fedora, middle-aged swing. I happen to think both Presley and Sinatra were hitting music peaks in 1956, but they're </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">very different</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> notions. The gorgeous Nelson Riddle strings-and-swing of </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Songs for Swingin' Lovers</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> is for grown-ups. </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Elvis Presley</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">, featuring "Blue Suede Shoes" is for </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">the young</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Tom Lehrer hilarious refers to "rock and roll and other children's records" on one of his comedy records. He's right, of course. Early rock and roll was simple and sometimes crude. There were some real stinkers released, especially once the big labels got hold of the genre. A lot of the crap then deserves lampooning.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Enter Nat King Cole, 1960. What I love about "Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll" is that it is </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">hilarious</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. The mockery is spot on. The versions of his old tracks - "Pretend" becomes "Pretend you're sloppy when you're blue.." and "Answer Me" becomes "Answer Me, Daddio" and "Mona Lisa" becomes "Moaning Lisa, you're too wholesome. Won't you dig me at the coffeehouse tonight? Many cats have been drug on your doorstep..."</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">But the one I love most is "Nature Boy":</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> "There was a cat, a very strange enchanted cat. They say he traveled very far, played guitar, in his hopped up car. He said come dwell in Heartbreak Hotel, I think Elvis was his name. And then one day, the crazy day he passed my way. And while we spoke of many things, hot rod kings, Daddio said he. The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to rock and be rolled in return."</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The first time I heard the song I thought I might die laughing. I love rock and roll music to the core of my soul. It is the first music I loved, the first stuff I had spinning on my record player. Once upon a time, Elvis </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">was</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> music to me. But you see, I love the older stuff too. Again, not all of if. There's as much rubbish, commercial "swinging" music as there is the same for rock and roll... both can and should be lampooned. For me, there's enough room for the good stuff of both.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I loved that "Mr Cole Won't Rock and Roll" was so funny but didn't seem to be </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">bitter</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. It wasn't churlish or contemptuous as so many people were at the time. It was clever (written by Jimmy and Noel Sherman) and did a good job of exposing some of the weaknesses in those early rock and roll tunes. It even poked a little gentle fun at Nat's music.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">But then right at the end, as he's singing that "Mr Cole won't rock and roll!" he says "...could if I wanted to, though."</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I suppose that if he really wanted to, Cole would've made some passably good rock and roll-style songs. But I can't see how it would work. His "thing" was neat, cool, swinging music. HIs piano-playing was bright and delightful. He could do dark, of course, but it's all very dignified and </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">grown up</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. He was forty in 1960. Elvis and Jerry Lee were 25; Little Richard was 28. Frankie Avalon and the Everlys were in their very early 20s.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">So, I'm not convinced he necessarily </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">could</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> have rock and rolled... but I wouldn't have wanted him to. Music doesn't have to be one genre all the time. It doesn't have to be rock OR swing OR punk. The endless variety of music is what makes it so beautiful. On my iPod Enrico Caruso and John McCormack share space with Rory Gallagher and Howlin' Wolf. There are one-hit wonders like Baccara and "Whispering Grass" by Don Estelle & Windsor Davies next to The Doors and Jimi Hendrix. Dean Martin has his own dedicated playlist, as does Julie London. The dark psych-pop of Love sits near Luke Kelly. A broad church from A-Ha to "Zorba the Greek", Abba to the Yardbirds. Bernard Cribbins. Betty Hutton, Big Bill Broonzy. Cream, The Clancy Brothers, The Connaught Rangers. You get the idea.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Mr Cole wouldn't rock and roll, but he didn't </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">need</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> to. Being Nat King Cole was much more than 'enough.' It's about playing the music you love to the best of your ability. His abilities were extraordinary, just as Elvis was a great purveyor of </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">his</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> music. There's room enough in my heart for both of them, and many more besides.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Music at its best transcends everything, including labels, genres and pigeonholes. All that matters is this: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-style: italic;">do you love it?<br /><br /><i>*</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Thanks to Inigo Montoya</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">C 2012.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-things-part-16-from-vault.html">Part Sixteen - A Million Miles Away - Rory Gallagher</a></span></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-8510050896282976542017-10-16T13:41:00.000-07:002017-10-16T13:41:02.026-07:00100 Awesome Things - Part 16 - From The Vault 2012<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Up to Part Sixteen already... handy when someone already wrote your posts for you...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I was going to post about a Certain Irish Guitarist but decided to dodge the bullet again. I was going to post some Dean Martin or something.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><a href="http://www.rorygallagher.com/#/news/2012/08/a_blue_day_for_the_blues_-_lou_martin_rip" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">And then Lou Martin died.</a><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Almost every truly great musical legend worked with other great musicians. They might not be as flashy or as charismatic. They might not be songwriters, but behind practically every single Golden God there is a backing group of brilliance.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Jimi Hendrix had Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell in his Experience.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">James Brown had the likes of Alfred Pee Wee Ellis</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Freddie Mercury had Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Elvis had Scotty Moore and Bill Black</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Miles Davis... basically just worked with the best.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Philip Lynott had his revolving door of guitarists, but he also had a fantastic constant in drummer Brian Downey.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It's not a coincidence that Clapton did his best work with Bruce & Baker and then with Duane Allman.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Rory Gallagher was no exception. One of the real </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">great </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">guitarists, he was also a charismatic frontman with a decent voice, but even he needed something behind him. He, like the other legends, knew the importance of working with the best.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Lou Martin was a great pianist. He could do blues, boogie-woogie and rock for sure but he wasn't a slacker when it came to classical. </span><a href="http://youtu.be/4goqLAJb1vo" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">This link pretty much proves my point</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Funny thing is, Lou died on 17th August 2012. On 17th August 2008, I walked into the Cork City branch of HMV and bought my very first Rory Gallagher record: </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Essential</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> 2-disc compilation. It was raining on and off of course, it was a Sunday and I'd been wandering the town since 8am waiting for things to open. I'd even gone to Mass at the cathedral for something to do.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I wandered, listening to The Dubliners on my iPod. </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronnie_Drew" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Ronnie Drew</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> had died the day before and I was dealing with it in the only effective way I knew: immersing myself in his voice. I had french toast at a trendy cafe and continued my wander.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Rory Gallagher was a name I knew, but I didn't really know the music. I could've told you he was a blues rock guitarist, a dead Irish one no less. I had one of his songs - "Born on the Wrong Side of Time" on my iPod. The title appealed for obvious reasons. There in his hometown I decided I really </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">should</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> buy some record of his. In HMV I was confronted by a giant poster of Ronnie Drew, of all things.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I'm so glad I was in Ireland that weekend. Ronnie </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">mattered</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> there. Not so much here. 'They' knew how I felt. I was at home, geographically and musically. I couldn't summon the necessary to walk into a pub on my own so I didn't check out any of Cork's famous live music scene. I stayed in, watched the Ronnie Drew documentary on RTE 1 and read the liner notes of my new CD.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I went to Cobh, a pretty little port with a strong feeling of grief sewn into itself thanks to the Titanic, the Lusitania and the dreadful legacy of the famine and emigration. I read the liner notes again.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I got on a train to Dublin, where I ate at Gallagher's Boxty House as usual, ate at O'Neill's as usual and went to see Philip on his birthday, as usual. I stared at the Music Wall of Fame in Temple Bar, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">caring</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> for the first time about the guitarist with the long brown hair. I nipped up Grafton Street to visit Philip's statue and there got into a conversation with two Dub rock fans about Rory.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It wasn't until several days later, back at work, that I actually </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">listened</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> to the CD. A secret: at first I wasn't all that impressed. I mean it was </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">good</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> but it didn't grab me totally. I liked the second song, "</span><a href="http://youtu.be/TYlc56Awtlo" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Moonchild</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">", for sure. Then I listened to "</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIAn5FqTNjg" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Barley And Grape Rag</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">". But I didn't get sucked in immediately. I'd be silly to, right?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">According to this very blog, I listened to "Barley and Grape Rag" one hundred and eighty-seven times between late August and the end of 2008. I sang it at the work Christmas gig while wearing a Rory t-shirt. It was awesome.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">But I wasn't sucked in. Oh no. I was up all night watching videos on YouTube, but I wasn't sucked in. I literally bought the t-shirt, but I'd have to be really fucking stupid to get obsessed by </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">another dead rock star</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">, right?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">By 2008 I'd already carved plenty of other names on my heart. Lennon, naturally. Harrison. The lizardy fellow. Philip. Dean Martin. Valentino. Flynn. You pretty much know them if you've been here before. I'd be really daft to left someone else come along and gouge another scar, right?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I am </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">that fucking stupid</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. By the time I even </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">noticed</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">, I was much too far gone. I should've noticed when I was on the tube late one night, returning home from being in the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Just A Minute</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> audience and I was dancing in my seat to the delta-like sound of </span><a href="http://youtu.be/lQPcWUbhdo8" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">"Who's That Coming"</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and I should've noticed when every visit to HMV began with a trip to the 'G' section of Rock and Pop. I should've noticed when the panic of leaving my gymbag in Starbucks was more to do with losing the newly-purchased </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Against The Grain</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> CD than my sneakers.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">No, I should've known exactly what was going to happen on 17th August 2008. He is a dead Irish rock musician who was fantastically good at his job. King Cnut had better odds against the tide.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Truly though, I didn't quite </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">get it</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> right away. It took a little while for my ears to get attuned to his work. It took even longer for me to beleive that he </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">meant it</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> about not selling out, about being dedicated to </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">the music</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and even longer than that to believe he wasn't secretly a bastard.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Turns out he </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">was</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> that dedicated to the music and I've still yet to find anyone who has a bad word to say about the man himself.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Four years later, I love that man's music more than I can tell you. That's why it's taken until now for him to be the subject of the challenge, because I can't speak about it. I can't </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">tell you</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> how I love it, only that I do. I can't tell you how deeply it is now scored into my soul, as if forty years had passed with me stood by the side of his stage every night.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I picked one video above all for this post. It is the song which probably ensured a part of my heart will be forever Rory's, because he wrote down my pain and gave it voice:</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Rory Gallagher - "A Million Miles Away" - which incidentally features footage of Cork City and some excellent Martin organ.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><a href="http://www.rorygallagher.com/#/songs/a_million_miles_away_crest_of_a_wave" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self"><i>"There's a song on the lips of everybody/There's a smile all around the room/There's conversation overflowing/So why must I sit here in the gloom?.... I'm a million miles away, I'm a million miles away, sailing like the driftwood on a windy bay."</i></a><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I have been that bleak, adrift and disconnected. Sometimes I still get close to it. Knowing that one of my heroes was able to write a song which so exactly described the state of my soul worries me: I wouldn't wish it on anyone. That he might have felt the same breaks my heart, and I hope it was one of those occasions where a writer was able to portray a world without inhabiting it.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I have been that bleak, adrift and disconnected and that song was, ironically if you like, an anchor I used to drag myself back to shore. That's one reason I love his music so.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Most of it is Rory's guitar and his voice, his songwriting, his grasp of the genre he loved so much. But he wasn't alone on that stage. First with Taste, then with his various Rory Gallagher line-ups, the classic of which involves Lou Martin's keys.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I can't </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">tell you</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> what I love and why without writing a dissertation, and I already wrote one of those for Jim Morrison. You have to listen to the music itself and decide for yourself. It's between </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">me and the music</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and it's between </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">you and the music</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. The contract is personal and non-transferable.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">For me, the most succinct I think I can be is this: It is a deep scar on my heart and I wouldn't have it any other way. Well, there is another way, but nobody's managed to resurrect the dead yet.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;">C 2012.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-15-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Fifteen - FBI - The Shadows</span></a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-21955166091128800482017-10-14T13:35:00.000-07:002017-10-14T13:35:07.185-07:00100 Awesome Musical Things - Part 15 - From The Vault 2012<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I was going to post about a Certain Irish Guitarist, but I had another idea pinged at me and I can sense a Matt Damon/Jimmy Kimmel type theme beginning...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Awhile back, a friend at work linked me to </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcM3xOvb82o" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">an advert for junk food nastiness which features thousands of mini-Hank Marvin clones</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> in the schoolyards of Britain, who are naturally transformed back into their own selves once they are fed the junk food. "Hank Marvin" is, of course, rhyming slang for 'starving'.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I was just taken aback that fifty years after the Shads' greatest successes, someone thought filling our screens with Fiesta Red Stratocasters and Those Specs was a good idea. It was a good idea.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">My relationship towards The Shadows is complex. if there is a single sound to </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">truly</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> define my early years - that is, my childhood </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">before</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> I picked the records myself - then it's the Shadows. Not Buddy or Elvis... the Shadows. They were crucial and often on the record player, but my dad loves The Shadows.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I liked the Shadows. I couldn't understand why they didn't have a singer and was introduced to the notion of 'the guitar instrumental', a form my dad loved so much that I once hunted down three singles by a group called Nero & The Gladiators for his Christmas present because he loved "</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb0l6wa0TUs" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Trek To Rome</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">", the B-side to their "</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL-hRKqqRLU" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">In The Hall Of the Mountain King</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">My dad is, at heart, such a rock geek. The man loves B-sides and has a great memory for the stuff he used to dig. He even saw Screaming Lord Sutch play Shoreditch Town Hall </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">and</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> ran rock and roll nights at his local youth club there in the heart of London; he hung out with Kenny Ball at Ronnie Scott's and had a drink more than once with Viv Stanshall. And wasn't impressed by any of it ;) He's also still angry that my Granddad didn't let him go to the Buddy Holly concert in 1957, being told he could go 'next year'...</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">So if you ever wondered where I learned this from, you have your answer. And the Shadows, today's subject, are integral to it all. If I love guitar music - and you know I do - the Shads were a big part of it. I needed Hank Marvin, Duane Eddy and Link Wray to put the later guitarmeisters in context.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">In short: No Hank, No Eric. No Duane (Eddy), no Duane (Allman). No Link, No Rory. (incidentally, </span><a href="http://youtu.be/RLEUSn8y9TI" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">this vid</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> of Jimmy Page listening to Rumble is my new favourite thing)</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Shadows were my introduction to that world. Thanks to Hank and The Holly, I wanted a Stratocaster. That's what </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">rock stars</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">played. I've mentioned before how disappointed I was when I finally got guitar lessons only to discover they were </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">classical guitar</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">lessons. I was an ungrateful little sod, of course. I was 21 when I finally got my Strat (a copy, natch). The </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">feeling</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> when I held my darling, sparkling gold Strat named Jimmy (for Page, natch)... nothing like it. I </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">was </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Hank, I </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">was Buddy</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. I was every kid who ever dreamed of being a rock star.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Then I tried to play and as a rock guitarist I make a passable classical guitar student. I can't do it. It's not in me. I can play melodies, but I can't play riffs. I can passably accompany my own singing with some chords and even some finger-pickin' but I'm </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">not</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> Hank Marvin.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">When The Shadows come on the radio or whatever, my fingers find that imaginary fretboard and they find the invisible strings. For those three or so minutes, I am one of the Shadows in their suits and ties doing that odd Shadow Walk. Which makes for an interesting walk home. In this, I am like most every Shadows fan ever, including my own dad, whose only musical skill is playing a two-note Eddy riff.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I'm getting off the point. Which was this: when I was five, I would've told you that The Shadows were fantastic. Mind you, I liked Cliff Richard then too. I believed my dad when he said they were the best. And they were, for a time, some of the best out there. This was also before I'd seen the "Wired for Sound" video which I can neither forgive nor forget.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">And then The Beatles happened. Nothing was quite the same after that, and I do feel sorry for the Shadows and other pre-Beats bands who woke up one day and found themselves outdated and outpaced. For an example: try watching </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Summer Holiday</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> starring Cliff and the Shadows and then watch </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">A Hard Day's Night</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. Light years' cultural difference and yet the latter only released a year and a half after the former.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">But I get that. Things change. Punk screwed with a lot of people's plans and I'm fairly sure Crosby's still pissed at that Sinatra upstart.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">What turned me against the Shadows was the elevator music they put out later and which my dad still seemed to want to play. Awful bland renditions of crap like "Don't Cry For Me Argentina". Boring, bland, safe covers of previously awesome songs. The musical equivalent of tapioca pudding.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It was the opposite of what rock music is supposed to be, a betrayal I believed of the dangerous power that is inherent in the electric guitar.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I was disappointed. I was bitter. I decided the Shadows were beneath my notice. </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Beatles</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> was where it was at, man! I was living out the chronology of 1960s popular culture in the 1990s. The Beatles, Dylan, Cream, the Stones, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">this was real music</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">! Who wants to listen to rubbishy, tremelo-heavy instrumentals by Cliff's backing band? Not I!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">And then... one day some years ago, my dad was driving me home from a weekend at their house in Suburbia. As our family's ill-advised journey to the bourgeois heartland was coming full circle for me in a triumphant return to the Worley Stomping Ground, we listened to compilation CDs he had in the car.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">And wouldntcha know it, "FBI" by The Shadows was one of the tracks. I hadn't heard it for </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">years</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">- I really did turn against the Shadows pretty wholeheartedly - and it was </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">amazing</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. Oh, the feeling of meeting a dear old friend after so many years, being able to appreciate its economy, its crisp, clean notes, the driving rhythm.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">In the car, I found my shoulders moving in time with the Shadow Walk and my fingers searching for that imaginary fretboard again. I swear if I my dad hadn't been driving through North London, he'd have been doing the same. And for a minute or two it felt like his Renault Scenic was a Thunderbird and we weren't on the A1 towards Hendon, we were on Route 66 getting near Joplin, MO. Or something. Music can have such power. Mostly though, we were caught up in the euphoria of a shared memory and a shared love of </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">the music</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. I hadn't asked him, but I came to realise that he was disappointed somewhat in how the Shadows eroded their own reputation - he refused tickets for the recent Cliff N Shads reunion shows - but he'd kept his love of the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">great stuff</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> where I'd kicked it aside.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Which was silly. I didn't need to do that. Tunes like "FBI" and "Apache" stand for themselves and no cover of "Parisienne Walkways" can wreck them. Nothing, not even the group themselves, can wreck how "Foot Tapper" and "Frightened City" make me feel.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">And that my friends, is </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">good</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> music well-loved.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">C 2012.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html">Part Thirteen - <span style="color: #333333;">The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-14-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Fourteen - I Found a Dream - Marilyn Monroe</span></a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-15214705123007932752017-10-12T13:28:00.000-07:002017-10-12T13:28:05.699-07:00100 Awesome Musical Things - Part 14 - From the Vault 2012<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">Part 14...</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I was going to write about a certain Irish guitarist, but Sunday was the 50th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death. I've been a big enough fan of hers over the years to be moved to write about this.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">For months - literally months - I had a tune stuck in my head. Just the dah-dah-dah of it, and I </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">knew</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> I knew it from somewhere. I couldn't have told you from where and I felt like I just needed </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">the next two notes</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> of the tune and I'd be </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">there</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. And for days, weeks and then months, this tune haunted me. It was haunting anyway, melancholic and psuedo-classical. If I hummed it long enough it turned into Brahms' Tales from the Vienna Woods. I could </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">not</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> recall where it was from but I finally got the hint of a lyric, something about "you will have nothing to lose if you lose your heart."</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Do you know how many songs there are with that sentiment? It was driving me round the proverbial twist, knowing I </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">knew</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> it, liked it and yet... nothing recollectin'. Ask the guys I work with - it probably annoyed them almost as much as it annoyed me.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">And then, more or less by chance, I decided to watch a motion picture I had not seen in a long time. </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">the Prince and the Showgirl</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. It stars Laurence Olivier, who I can't stand, and Marilyn Monroe, who I've always adored. I've seen it a few times because while it is not a good film it has two things I like: a fake Ruritania type country (I also like </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Prisoner of Zenda</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> despite it being crap because of this) and MM.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">My attachment to La Monroe is complicated, much like herself. I was drawn in by that face and kept by her charisma. Her true life story broke my heart and yet uplifted it. When I discovered Marilyn, my own self-esteem was about as buggered as it could've been. I truly believed I was a total troll in both body and mind, of no use or worth to myself, anyone else or the world. I believed everyone hated me and I could actually eat worms and not only would people not care, they'd use it as an excuse to hate me more.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">So I drowned myself in movies and music. I threw myself at beautiful people: MM, Ava Gardner, Errol Flynn, etc. I spent hours staring at pictures of MM, trying to see what it was which made her </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">so beautiful</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. It wasn't her sex appeal for me, so what </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">was it</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">? I didn't want to have sex with her, and I didn't want to be her... so why did I stare at her? Why did I watch </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">How to Marry a Millionaire</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Ladies of the Chorus</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">? And the really-not-very-good-would-be-forgotten-i</span><wbr style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"></wbr><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">f-not-for-that-one-scene </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Seven Year Itch</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. Why did I sit through </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Prince and the Showgirl</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> more than once, despite Olivier always causing me partly-irrational anger?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Sidenote: I couldn't tell you exactly why I detest him so much. It was before </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Prince...</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and before I knew what a colossal douchebag he could be in real life. But I really do.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I've still not got a satisfactory explanation, by the way. I couldn't tell you what it is about Marilyn I adore. I like the vulnerability she brought to roles, I like her sassy moments. I love her comedy. </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Some Like It Hot</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> is one of the greatest movies ever made, in large part because of her performance.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">So I have to just say weakly that 'she has a quality'. But you know, writers have been trying to quantify and explain Marilyn since about 1951 and haven't come up with a decent answer yet.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">She has such a quality that I watched a below-quality movie starring a man I detest enough times for a fragment of a song to ping back into my head years later. She is gorgeous - Olivier shot her well, I have to say that - and her performance elevates the role. I would like to have seen Vivien Leigh's take on it as well, but MM is wonderful. Broken and beautiful and luminous and most of all, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">most of all: a survivor</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">So many people look at Marilyn Monroe as a victim. And she was in many important ways. But most of all, beyond all things, she was a survivor. You and I do not need to pity La Monroe. I feel sorrow for the bad times in her life and I despise those who took advantage of her. But I do not pity her.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I think I've just explained what I love about her after all: for everything that people tried to do to her, she never </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">truly broke</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. Watch </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Misfits</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and you'll see a spark of defiant humanity there. That's what I love and it's what I needed back then: to see someone bend but not break. If Marilyn could survive, so could I. I hadn't her beauty but I hadn't even half her sorrow.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">So sure, I watched </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Prince and the Showgirl</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> even though it didn't deserve it. It's worth it for the end, when still wearing her evening gown, Marilyn tosses aside the heavy borrowed overcoat and struts out into the Edwardian London morning...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Worth it enough that a stray fragment of a tune stayed lodged in my memory, waiting for the day it would bug the hell out of me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">C 2012.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-13-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Thirteen - <span style="color: #333333;">The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie - Rambling Syd Rumpo</span></span></a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-17082412275082299142017-10-09T13:23:00.000-07:002017-10-09T13:23:09.554-07:00100 Awesome Musical Things - Part 13 - From Vault 2012<div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">More 100 Awesome Musical Things...</span></span></div>
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I was going to make this post about a certain Irish Guitarist, but then tonight BBC Four showed a documentary about </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Williams" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Kenneth Williams</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and I changed my mind.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I loved the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Carry On </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">movies as a kid. They were just so </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">silly</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">naughty</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> without being so explicit that it was unsettling. Kenneth Williams was so snooty and repressed, and Sid James was so common and lecherous in contrast.</span></span><div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a name='more'></a><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Later, I realised that there was so much more to Williams than that, in ways good and bad. I discovered how repressed he truly was, what an unpleasant fellow he could be, how incredibly intelligent, erudite and well-read he was. And yes, tragic.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Then I discovered </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambling_Syd_Rumpo" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Rambling Syd Rumpo</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. It was a moment in which my loves of language, folk music and comedy smashed together into something quite brilliant. Written for </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Round the Horne</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> by Barry Took and Marty Feldman (comedy writers par excellence both), the songs of Rambling Syd are smart parodies of existing folk tunes which twist the pedestrian English language into fantastic innuendo.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">That these were being performed at a time when homosexuality was illegal in England gives some of the tunes a very real sense of naughtiness in the same way the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Round The Horne</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> characters' Julian & Sandy (Hugh Paddick and again, Kenneth Williams) used the then-secretive gay slang </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polari" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Polari</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. It's funny if you don't quite get all the jokes. It's hilarious if you do.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Rambling Syd Rumpo is a fantastic character and most of the songs are tremendous. This is my favourite:</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"The Ballad of the Woggler's Moulie" - Rambling Syd Rumpo (Kenneth Williams) - 1967.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">What I love most about this song is how much it's mocking the homosexuality laws themselves. </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_Kingdom#Decriminalisation_of_homosexual_acts:_The_1967_Act" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">1967</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> is usually cited as when being gay stopped being illegal, but even a cursory glance shows the change in law was relatively limited in scope and did not even scratch the surface of decades' worth of stigmatisation.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The language is gorgeous. What the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">hell</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> is a cordwangler or a moulie? It </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">doesn't matter</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. Ken's performance gives you a bloody good idea of what they </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">might</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> be. The performance is what makes it. Williams knew words and how to wring out what he wanted from them. It's why he was such a master on </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Just a Minute</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and why Syd is </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">so</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> funny. He elevated the silliness to sublime.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I love good comedy records. Peter Sellers, Derek and Clive. Kenny Everett. The Rutles. Tom Lehrer. They combine comedy and music in different ways, sometimes subtle and sometimes not. Rambling Syd isn't subtle, but it isn't a frying pan to the head either. The songs might not </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">seem</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> clever but oh, they </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">are</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-12-from.html">Part Twelve - Rabbit - Chas n Dave</a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3336066193221630496.post-16116363916503935362017-10-07T13:18:00.000-07:002017-10-07T13:18:01.714-07:00100 Awesome Musical Things - Part 12 - From The Vault 2012<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">100 Awesome Musical Things continues...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Given the opportunity and the right subject, I can talk for </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">hours</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> without let up. Most of you know this: in person I'm not much different to my blogging self. Never one short word when sixteen long ones will do (except the f-word, of course)...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">As a child I was no different. Upon reaching their tether, more than once I heard one or other of my parents say "You've got more rabbit than Sainsbury's!". Sainsbury's sold rabbit then - I remember seeing them in the freezer section. The website suggests this is no longer the case, despite occasional newspaper articles suggesting it's making a comeback in the nosh department.</span></span></div>
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It took me awhile to understand what they meant. My parents both grew up in east central London in the 50s and 60s, so speak cockney rhyming slang with fluency. My dad's work at Smithfield meat market as a young man also means he speaks their backtalk with ease (feeb = beef etc). "Rabbit" is rhyming slang from the phrase "rabbit and pork" which rhymes with "talk" (barely). The phrase was then used in </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_%28song%29" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">this song by Chas and Dave</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> which was a pop hit in 1980.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/i1fOZjiDaw4/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/i1fOZjiDaw4?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"You've got more rabbit than Sainsbury's, why don't you give it a rest?" can therefore be translated into English thusly: "At this juncture your verbosity is putting some strain on my patience and good nature so I would appreciate it very much if you would consider the possibility of bringing your remarks to a timely end."</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chas_&_Dave" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">Chas and Dave</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> were first popular in the late 70s and were on TV a fair amount when I was a kid, so "Rabbit", "Gertcha", "Margate", "Snooker Loopy" and other rockney hits became familiar. They did the theme tune for the Alf Garnett sitcom called </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Sickness_and_in_Health" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">In Sickness and In Health</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and it was on a record I listened to a lot. </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chas+n+dave+tottenham&oq=chas+n+dave+tottenham&gs_l=youtube.3..0.50.50.0.871.1.1.0.0.0.0.676.676.5-1.1.0...0.0...1ac.FTVNqZEyuMs" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #56763a; font-weight: 700;" target="_self">They did a bunch of songs for Tottenham Hotspur football club too.</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> They were pretty goshdarn successful.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Rockney, for the uninitiated, is derived from the kind of informal folk music being heard in pubs in the East End of good old London town where the only instruments available were aged, out of tune pianos and anything a punter might have brought in (ergo, cheap and portable such as mouth organs, banjos, guitars, spoons, washboards, paper-n-comb). Music by the people for the people, if you like, </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Now, I think there's a good argument to suggest that a lot of Chas n Dave is very much playing the stereotype to its extremes but they were so popular in their day that it must've struck a chord. The apparent simplicity of rockney belies their abilities: Both were well-regarded session musicians before. Chas Hodges was one of Joe Meek's house band The Outlaws along with Richie Blackmore. Chas and Dave are both from Norf Lahdan, so it's at the very least an authentic put-on (if such is possible).</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">A funny thing happened when I was living in Southern California in 2001-2. There in the glorious sunshine, amongst the friendly, dentally-perfect young people of UC Irvine, I used Chas n Dave to combat homesickness.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">There, I admit it: I was occasionally homesick for the overcrowded, grim, ugly spit of land we call Britain. In truth, I was only homesick for London town and so a bit o' Rockney was just what I needed. The sound of my parents' London, my grandfather's London.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Again, it's partly a lie: they </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">know</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> the songs but I don't know that my parents would call themselves fans. Indeed, my dad's so old school that if you mention Chas n Dave, he'll talk about The Outlaws. Their accents got softened over years of grammar school and living in Hertfordshire, and my mother in particular worked hard to break out of that sound and attitude. It's hilarious when she slips back into a real Old Hoxton accent...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The recent gentrification of Hoxton (which she finds amusing) and Shoreditch led to the rise of the Mockney (see Ritchie, Guy) and the Shoreditchean hipsters. I'm sure many of them would lay claim to being fans of C&D in a suitably ironic sense.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">As an aside: It hasn't escaped my notice that "Rabbit" reinforces stereotypes of the "Trouble & Strife", the nagging wife. Does it bother me? I'm a radical feminist, of course it does. However, were I to stop listening to music because it's problematic I'd have a very empty iPod. I acknowledge it, I dislike it and I move on for now.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I don't love Chas and Dave ironically. I just love them and I won't apologise for it. Is rockney a great art form? No. Is it very good at what it sets out to do? Yes. Will you have the songs stuck in your head for hours afterward? Yes. It's as close to the sound of lost communities as we're likely to get outside of documentary clips.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Rockney could be the swansong of the 'East End' as you'd understand it from stereotypes and movies. Most of those communities were torn apart during and after the Second World War. What wasn't levelled by the Luftwaffe was knocked down on purpose. Not all of that was bad - it's nice to have </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">decent</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> housing with such things as indoor toilets - but a lot was lost in the redevelopments and suburbanisation of the 1960s and 1970s.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Nostalgia, plain, true and simple: It's not a coincidence that Chas n Dave came to prominence just as the chickens were coming home to roost for councils which had ripped up old neighbourhoods to throw up cheap, dangerous tower blocks and estates, and just as those who'd moved out to the soulless, history-less suburbs realised what they'd done by leaving the old places behind. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Gentrification was already happening to Islington in the '70s and these days the only way natives get to live there is if they've made some money or they're council tenants who've managed to stay such. I'm here because my granddad stayed. He's the only one of five brothers who did: Fred went to Kent, George to Bournemouth, Ted to Bristol, Ron to Bury St Edmunds. Of the two surviving girls, Auntie Aileen stayed but she died unmarried in 1992... but even she was moved out (about half a mile) from where they grew up. The house they lived in is now a small park all of 8 minutes away from where I am right now.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">You can't buy history. When I walk these streets, my footsteps ring with the echoes of my adored Granddad, just as his echoed with his grandparents, and our forebears. We go back about 350 years here, by the ancestry reckonings of me and Cousin Elaine. That twig anyway; the rest of my ancestors are Irish, naturally.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Chas n Dave, jellied eels and rollmops, pie and mash, pearly kings and queens... these are the stereotypes and cliches which have basis in a truth which matters to me. I don't expect it to matter to anyone else, nor for the same reasons. I don't cling blindly to them or wish things were the same as they were in some unspecified time in the past when we </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">was poor but we was 'appy</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">. That time never existed, not truly. The truth was that a lot of people lived in shoeless, hungry, flea-and-lice infested poverty (and still do). My family pulled itself up into some comfort by graft, education and dedication.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I am a arts centre card-carrying member pretentious wordy cheeky little madam, because of the efforts of my ancestors. The last time I tried to eat pie and mash I was six or seven and it made me want to vomit, but I adore sun-dried tomatoes and tapas. I've been to the opera and loved it. I watch BBC Four and I went to university (twice). I should not love Chas n Dave music, but I do because it's possible for those disparate worlds to coexist in my life, just as it's possible I enjoyed both </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">the Dark Knight Rises</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> and </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Shakespeare's Henry V</i><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">today. People are complex little sods, aren't they?</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">100 Awesome Musical Things</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-1.html" style="color: #7c171d;" target="_blank">Part One - Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://clareworley.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-2-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Two - Octopus Jig - The Dubliners</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-3-from.html" target="_blank">Part Three - Got To Give It Up - Marvin Gaye</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-4-from.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Four - Who Cares What The Question Is? - The Bees</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-5-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Five - Doctor Who Cold Open - Craig Ferguson</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-6-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Six - Monster Mash - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-7-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Seven -Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy</span></a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-8-from.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Part Eight -These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/09/100-awesome-musical-things-part-9-from.html">Part Nine - Who Do You Love? - The Doors</a></span><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-10-from.html">Part Ten - The Mooche - The Duke Ellington Orchestra</a><br />
<a href="https://clareworley.blogspot.com/2017/10/100-awesome-musical-things-part-11-from.html">Part Eleven - I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles</a></div>
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Clare Worleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00134344349616583593noreply@blogger.com0