Is that it?

I began this blog in March and, as is often the case, I never finished it. But a month ago, out of the corner of my eye, I happened to see some of the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

Yet again I was reminded of Dr Johnson’s words on the phenomenon of women preachers being like a dog walking on its hind legs – ‘The wonder is not that it is done well but that it is done at all.’

All those little Chinese girls walking along waving and smiling. Thousands of people, each doing the same thing at the same time, reminiscent of a Nuremberg rally or a Busby Berkeley musical, but as impressive as neither.

Then the inevitable fireworks. Is that what's supposed to make us go, 'Aah'? Is that all there is?

It was Sunday morning and British Summer Time had begun. As if in response to the new regime, the sun was shining and the sky was clear. And the song I was listening to was a jaunty ragtime piece by Peggy Lee, which seemed very much in tune with the mood of the day.

‘I’ve got those feeling-too-good-today blues.’ That was the song and that was Peg, always a little sting in the tail of a cheerful or romantic song, always that little touch of pessimism and world-weariness. I was already wondering if it might rain soon. Best not go forth without my cloak today.

I first heard Peg – she’s always Peg to me, although most people feel the need to use the more respectful ‘Miss Lee’. But then I knew her for a long time, since I was about five in fact when she slunk onto the cinema screen disguised as a dog to sing ‘He’s a tramp.’

Later I knew her for ‘Fever’, ‘All Right, OK, You Win’ and ‘I’m a Woman’, great songs which she delivered with that wonderful, controlled purr of a voice.

But it was a long time before I heard what for me is her greatest recording. It was introduced to me by a good friend, who may well have found that I was living proof of the song’s sentiments.

‘Is that all there is?’

Written, surprisingly, by Leiber and Stolle, who based it on words from Thomas Mann’s story, Disillusionment.

http://www.leoslyrics.com/listlyrics.php?id=9115

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_That_All_There_Is%3F

I heard it again a few days later on Desert Island discs, where the guest was Stan McMurtry, better known as ‘Mac’, cartoonist on the Daily Mail. Here’s a link to some of his work by the way:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=505282&in_page_id=1770

It’s a strange song, with lyrics, part-spoken, reviewing the disappointments of life, accepting that things will inevitably go wrong and that nothing will ever live up to expectations.

So don’t set your hopes too high or put all your eggs in one basket, for ultimately nothing is all that important.

We spend our lives avoiding pain and seeking pleasure and happiness. But we find that nothing is ever completely or lastingly satisfactory.

That bike you saved up to buy as a child, that dress, Christmas, a job, a lover, a wedding day, a divorce, retirement.

Don’t we prefer it that way? Like ancient Romans who would make themselves vomit to prevent the satiation of their appetite.

Imagine that one act of sex was so memorable and fulfilling that we never wanted to do it again; that we never sought it out once more in the hope that this time it would be better, or in some way just different.

Where would the human race be if we did not think that the grass is greener over the hill? Or that there might be a way of making ourselves run faster, jump higher and fight with greater strength.

Sisyphus’ apparently meaningless labour of pushing a huge boulder up a hill only to see it roll back down each time he reached the summit may seem like a cruel metaphor for our lives. But I know he took pleasure in his striving – the sense of accomplishment at the end of each climb; the sardonic laugh as he watched it rumble down; perhaps, as he strolled back down to begin again, he whistled and enjoyed the break from work; maybe he set his mind to methods of making his work easier or more efficient.

Does this seem like a philosophy of despair? Yes, it is despair but not the kind of despair which leaves no option but suicide. It is the despair of the day which creates hope for tomorrow.

Just one more day, please. Who knows?

Sunday Morning Coming Down

Ten o'clock Sunday morning and I was halfway through watching Emmylou Harris singing songs to illustrate her 'Ten Commandments of Country Music' concert.

There were tears in my eyes. Of course there were, all you unbelievers will say. But you'd be wrong. This was country music as it should be, 'three chords and the truth'. It had all the elements - the plaintive maundering fiddle, the playful mandolin, the plangent steel guitar, the discreet harmonies dragging against the aching vocals of Emmylou, herself as wonderfully mature and beautiful as the music.

When you wake up with a hangover and still tense from the night before's rugby match, it's the only kind of music to listen to. Especially when you have that horrible feeling that you might have fallen in love.

Boo-boo-bi-doo!

I heard once that Tim Rice, lyricist and cricket-lover once quoted as his favourite line in popular music: ‘I’d like to help you, son, but you’re too young to vote.’

That’s from Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues and I was reminded of it the other day when I heard Leonard Cohen on the radio talking about songwriting. He claimed that his own favourite line was ‘The moon stood still on Blueberry Hill.’ And who was it who said that the best line in all popular music was Johnny Cash’s ‘I killed a man in Reno, just to see him die?’

Naturally this led me to start jotting down some of my own favourites.

The first that came to mind was a line I’ve quoted before here is the one from Hank Williams’ I’m so Lonesome I Could Cry, namely ‘The moon just went behind a cloud to hide his face and cry,’ which I find terribly sad and evocative. To me, it’s all the more so, because Hank Williams does not strive to be ‘poetic’, in the way that Cohen himself, say, or Bob Dylan could be accused of doing.

I always liked Dylan’s line from Don’t Think Twice – ‘I gave her my heart, but she wanted my soul.’ As for Cohen, he wrote, in Bird on a Wire, about being like ‘a drunk at a midnight choir’ and ‘I have tried in my way to be free.’ That in turn reminds me of Kris Kristofferson’s Me and Bobby McGee with its wonderful line, ‘Nothing ain’t worth nothing, but it’s free.’

There was a time when I was always quoting Kristofferson. Sunday Morning, Coming Down is an all-time favourite, for I’ve endured many a long, lonely empty Sunday myself. And I wasn’t even ‘coming down’. ‘The beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad; so I had one more for dessert.’

I’ve realised that this exercise can be very revealing. Not just that I don’t go for rock music, but that I seem to be stuck in the 1960s, nursing a rather pessimistic approach to life. What does it say about me when I cite Cohen again? ‘I was looking for someone with lines in her face.’

So, what about favourite lines that are a little more positive? How about:

‘I love a good bum on a woman. It makes my day.’

Thus Jake Thackray opens one of his wittiest songs, On Again. He goes on to use the expression ‘a posteriori’ to provide a very clever rhyme and pun. That sort of thing impresses me, simple soul that I am.

I’ll get round to being positive in a moment, but allow myself one more snatch of misogyny, namely ‘Why can’t a woman be more like me?’ Actually, that’s irony, not misogyny.

It’s always worth checking out ‘The Great American Songbook’. Before I do, though, I’ll mention the song I’m listening to at this very moment, ‘Je ne regretted rien', by Edith Piaf. How can you not respond to that voice, its tremulous strength and desperate defiance? They say the film about her, La Vie en Rose, is a disappointment, by the way.

What about the child-like exuberance of ‘You make me want to go and bounce the moon Just like a toy balloon’ from You Make Me Feel So Young; or, ‘I’ve got you under my skin;’ or ‘Pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again.’

All of those are remarkable for their artful simplicity. Phrases that are used as clichés every day are made, with the aid of music, fresh and full of delight. In popular music, love is so often a meaningless concept, or a reason for despair, but here it’s fun and happiness. ‘Ho, ho, ho! Who’s got the last laugh now?’

Think of the sincerity in ‘Ah, but you’re lovely, Just the way you look tonight’; and ‘You look wonderful tonight. Even ‘I believe in miracles – you sexy thing,’ and ‘You’re simply the best.’

And, as I think of someone now, all I can say is, ‘Isn’t she lovely?’

Hank Williams

I’VE been meaning to write about Hank Williams for quite a while. I even had a title – I Can’t Help It – a reference to one of his best songs and one of my favourites. I see now that the BBC has had the same idea and are calling their new radio series on him, beginning later this week, In Love With Hank.

Some of my friends like Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly. Others are fans of Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald. Then there’s Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and the like. I even know someone who shares my affection for Al Jolson. But they look on me with pity, even contempt, when I declare my admiration for Hank Williams

They all love Elvis Presley and I sometimes say, with Boxcar Willie, ‘I know why you cried, the day Elvis died. When Hank passed away, I cried all that day.’ I didn’t, of course, because I was only two. But I would have done, had I been there in Alabama to watch the funeral cortege pass by.

I saw a documentary once about him, in which some old-timer from Alabama was reminiscing, and said of Hank’s mother, ‘She thought a heap o’ Hank.’ So do I.

SO WHY? Hank’s music was hardly sophisticated. I doubt he ever struck a minor chord or picked a flattened note. His lyrics are so simple they could be called trite and his rhymes are obvious – or should I say they don’t draw attention to themselves. He sticks rigidly to 4/4 time and a two or three verse plus bridge formula, with an instrumental break consisting of fiddle and guitar. He sings of love and loss, of hope and heartache, of faith and failure. And that’s just what he recorded as Hank Williams. A lot of his material was so depressing it had to be released under the name ‘Luke the Drifter’.

All true, but look at the song I mentioned earlier, I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love with You). Structurally it’s a perfect popular song, its bridge has a sense of inevitability and doubles as a quite emotional climax – ‘Heaven only knows how much I miss you. I can’t help it if I’m still in love with you.’

The words and rhymes, of course, are simple. The song is accessible, the details of lost love concrete and familiar. The tune is distinctive and memorable and lends itself to all manner of styles. Many of Hank’s songs are in fact part of the canon of popular music, making him one of the most covered artists of all, from Ray Charles to Tony Bennett.

Most of all, the song conveys emotion, an emotion most of us can share. This is the essence of Hank Williams. He sings non-macho songs for macho men, who prefer to have someone else do their crying for them, someone to display the self-pity their pride forbids them to show.

Hank’s voice fits the mood of the songs exactly. The country-boy accent, the nasal whininess, the emotional breaks. It fits so well with the ever-present sob and wail of the scraping fiddle, itself reminiscent of the lonesome train whistle he so often sings of, a symbol of freedom and loss. Kris Kristofferson summed it up in Me and Bobby McGee - 'Nothing ain't worth nothing, but it's free.'

I DON’T KNOW about you but if I’m feeling down, I might achieve some comfort through the distancing and sublimating effect of Shakespeare’s words, ‘When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state,’ but there are times when only ‘Everything’s agin me and it’s got me down’ will do. And when comfort seems an insult to my misery, I want to hear, ‘The moon just went behind a cloud to hide its face and cry.’ Did you ever see a robin weep? You don’t need to, do you?

It’s not all doom and gloom. There’s humour in I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive and My Bucket’s Got a Hole In It. And Hey, Good Lookin’ and Settin’ the Woods on Fire are full of bounce and happiness. Howlin' at the Moon is an exuberant hymn to the silliness that is being in love. It's like being drunk. We know it's daft and won't do us any good, but who cares? The hangover's a small price to pay.

HANK HIMSELF was weaned on the semi-commercial country music of the thirties and forties, a mix of gospel (I Saw the Light), honky-tonk and blues (My Bucket’s Got a Hole In It). But his own influence on others has been phenomenal, often expressed in songs about him. Johnny Cash sang of The Day Hank Williams Came to Town. Rock ‘n’ Roll owes him a debt – what is Rock Around the Clock if not a rip-off of Move It On Over? And, as I said before, he could ‘cross over’. Hank may have been in two minds about Tony Bennett’s insipid version of Cold, Cold Heart – ‘What the **** have you done with my song? – but no doubt the royalty cheques eased his concern.

This crossing-over, making raw country music acceptable to pop lovers, nearly emasculated the genre and led to an inevitable reaction. Waylon Jennings sang Hank Never Done it Thissaway and with his fellow ‘Outlaws’ turned his back on Nashville. His son Shooter carries on the tradition of rough, straight-talking music, as does Hank’s grandson, Hank III.

Well, sometimes a simple ‘I love you’ is more effective than flowers, chocolates and a especially composed sonnet. Sometimes it is better that a song speaks directly to you, without the need for a musicological reference book. Sometimes we would rather hear our petty tragedies, our sins and failures addressed directly and not veiled in irony, humour or artificiality.

I can only sum up in the words of Kris Kristofferson. ‘If you don’t like Hank Williams, honey, you can kiss my ass.’

* * *

More blogs to come, if the good Lord’s a-willin, and the creeks don’t rise.

Tom Lehrer

When I was talking about Spring the other day I found that I was quoting this to myself:

‘Spring is here, oh, Spring is here.
Life is skittles and life is beer.
I think the loveliest time of the year
Is the Spring, I do.
Don’t you?
Course you do.'

Do you know it? It’s a song which, despite its cheerful lyrics and happily waltzing tune, is called Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, written, performed and asked to be taken into consideration by Tom Lehrer.

Tom Lehrer, Professor Lehrer to give him his full title, because his day job was lecturing in mathematics, was one of those sixties liberal faculty types, who took pleasure in mocking the pleasures and the politics of the less intellectually gifted. He was – is – one of those brainy types who would knock off a song setting the table of the elements to the tune of I am the very model of a modern major-general, so that he was never stuck for a party-piece. All I can do is recite Albert and the Lion.

He’s like those old Oxford dons who argued about philosophy by means of limericks. Here are a couple discussing the relationship between perception and reality.

He can be, and often has been, criticised for sneering at easy targets like sentimental songs, racism, patriotism, the military-industrial complex, etc.

I discovered him when passing through my adolescent flirtation with cynicism and satire and was cultivating an air of world-weariness, something which stuck, I’m afraid. It was great fun, living with the cold war going on, to whistle in the dark to the tune of We will all go together when we go, consoling ourselves with lines like ‘There will be no more misery/When the earth’s one big rotisserie.’ So, despite all possible criticism of the great Tom, I still like him.

Surely it must be more than nostalgia for self-indulgent student revue days.

First of all, you’ve got to like someone who attacks, with what is after all gentle mockery, the complacencies and hypocrisies of people and their politicians. And the man is witty, with a nice touch of Jewish self-deprecation. His song mocking America’s National Brotherhood Week contains these lines:

All the Protestants hate the Catholics
All the Catholics hate the Protestants
All the Hindus hate the Moslems
- and everybody hates the Jews.

He likes to have fun with the English language, with inventive rhymes, such as these:

When you attend a funeral
It’s sad to think that sooner or’l
Later those you love will do the same for you
‘I have often thought it tragic
not to mention other adjec-
tives to think of all the weeping they will do

Or his piling up of rhymes in When You are Old and Grey.

Add to that his exuberant, even witty, piano-playing of his cleverly memorable tunes, often quite Berlinesque in that he provides two or three in the same song.

Add to that his natural wit. His introductory patter could be just as funny as the songs.

I was reminded of him the other day when Werner von Braun was the subject of a Times correspondence. Tom wrote an unusually angry song about this former Nazi, director of the V2 programme, and later ‘founding father’ of America’s space programme. Around 1960 a film was made about von Braun’s life. Predictably, posters around the country advertising the film, I aim for the Stars soon bore the added sub-title: ‘But sometimes I miss and hit London.’

Tom Lehrer gave up performing about forty years ago, probably bored and disenchanted and realising the truth of his admirer Peter Cook’s comments when he opened his Establishment Club. The Club, he said, was ‘modelled on those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War.’

Slaid Cleaves

I've always liked Country music, but I've always been choosy. Probably because I'm always hearing these jibes about dead dogs and other miseries.

So, I like Waylon and Willie, Hank and Jimmy, Bill Monroe, Box Car and Doc Watson, and Cajun stuff, and that old bloke I heard in Oh, Brother, Where art Thou?

And don't you think that only Dolly can sing I will always love you? Whitney Houston, please shut that huge mouth.

That's why I always listen to Bob Harris on a Thursday night. He seems to appreciate the same sort of music. And last week, he introduced me to Slaid Cleaves and Slaid's song New Year's Day. It is fantastic. I've listened to it 50 times trying to copy out the words. I shall buy the album, I shall re-string my guitar, I shall have it played at my funeral.

You can sample it here.

National Anthems

I like to claim Viking blood, as well as a little Jewish, but as far as I know I have no claim to Welshness, except when their team is playing Rugby. On such a day I am Welsh in spirit because they have the best national anthem.

I've never known why Flower of Scotland or The Soldier's Song are considered so moving - maybe it's something to do with drink. And as for those dirges invented for the colonies and those jaunty but interminable tunes that represent the Italians and Argentinians, what can I say, except that I believe them to be some sort of patriotic test.

Poor old England, as usual, is in two minds. Is it politically correct to use God Save the Queen for just one part of the United Kingdom? If not, then what? There'll always be an England is a bit music-hallish, Rule Britannia is British, not English, and so terribly imperialistic. As for the best potential anthem of the lot, Land of Hope and Glory, it is a martial, swaggering, triumphal tune, so at odds with our actual sporting achievement.

The Great Escape would probably not be taken seriously. So we end up with Jerusalem, an incomprehensible poem, associated with Christian Socialism and the Women's Institute.

But the Welsh have Land of My Fathers, a tune of such emotional charge and such majesty that I defy anyone, of any nationality not to be moved by it. And what's more, A Welsh crowd can actually sing it in tune, follow the tempo and reach the high notes. Just compare that with a Liverpool crowd singing You'll Never Walk Alone.

It's interesting that my three favourite national anthems all follow an odd pattern, not the standard 4-line structure plus chorus or bridge. La Marsellaise, The Star-spangled Banner and Land of My Fathers all sound as if they are made up as they go along.

http://www.wngga.org/HenWlad.html

A few songs

I was typing away the other day, when from another room I heard the unmistakable strains of The Beautiful South's song Don't Marry Her, Have Me (or) Fuck Me, if you prefer. As a matter of fact, I do prefer the f-word here and not just because it's slightly shocking to some.

It is obviously the original word used and is essential to the song's theme, namely the choice between the comfortable cage of family life, with all its restrictions and compromises, and uncomplicated fucking with an undemanding partner. What do want? A routine outline for lust, a panacea for loneliness and someone to do your laundry? Aren't those three L's the usual reasons for a man's marrying? And a woman's? Love, Lucre and Let's get the bastard!

OK, it's cynical, impracticable and juvenile. But that sweet siren voice singing along to that prettily seductive tune is tempting. The adult approach, of course, is to have both.

I first heard it a Lincoln pub, the William IV, at a low point of my life. I was hoping the flotsam and jetsam of failure would drift away on a tide of alcohol - good that! - and found the mantra of 'Don't marry her, fuck me' rather comforting. As was The Mavericks' Just wanna dance the night away.

It looks like I'm travelling down memory lane again. Perhaps I'm using this blog to exorcise nostalgia. But, to continue with songs that trigger memories, I shall move on to Nina Simone.

I was having lunch with a colleague one day (in Martha's Vineyard) when an instrumental version of My baby just cares for me came on. For some reason that middle piano riff just hooked me. I was told it was Nina Simone. Of course, I'd never heard of her, but now I'm a great admirer. She seems to been an awkward, angry old bat, with a chip on each shoulder, and probably a few more hidden under the piano. No doubt she had good reason. What was it she said once? 'Jazz is a white term for black people. My music is black, classical music.'

More important, 'I've got life. I've got my freedom. I got the life.'

It's amazing the music I only discovered by accident, long after it was first released. For example, I'd never heard of Credence Clearwater Revival until I watched An American Werewolf in London on video. Now they are the one rock group I would take to my desert island. Bo Diddley's I'm a Man was another pub discovery (Blandings), as was Frank Sinatra's New York, New York (George and Dragon). Ye Olde Crowne introduced me to Mustang Sally (Commitments version essential). I have a friend who does an excellent rendition of it.

The Levis Originals advertising campaign revived many great songs of the past - I'm Mad about the Boy (Noel Coward was thinking about a boy when he wrote it), Take another little piece of my heart (Irma Franklin), Heart Attack and Vine (Screaming Jay Hawkins - father of approx 100 children). And The Clash with Should I stay or should I go?

And this is where I come to Mavis, for she is associated with many songs. The Clash remind me of a long exposition of the musical reasons for the rise of punk, as a reaction against the prevailing pop culture, plastic pop, glam rock and sophisticated studio production. I'm still not convinced. I think most punk rocker were just tossers.

And then there were the Spice Girls, whose Wannabee we agreed was an excellent pop song, innovative, striking, worthy of its success, like it or not. And that Imagine opening to the Oasis song - was it Don't Look Back in Anger? - which had to be explained to me. But we both remembered Lonnie Donegan's Putting on the Style with affection and respect.

And back to Ye Olde Crowne for the Grease megamix, which I disgraced myself by playing on the juke-box at least six times in a row one Christmas Eve, and later doing the same thing with Hot Chocolate's You Sexy Thing.

And all that is quite apart from that Hank Williams song, I can't help it if I'm still in love with you.

When the air becomes uraneous . . .

. . . we will all go simultaneous.

Every transuranic, radioactive cloud has a silver - that's an element - lining. And the death of that former KGB thug from, first, thallium, then, correction, polonium has served to remind people of Tom Lehrer, the golden satirist of the sixties

Radio has a desperate desire to find a piece of music appropriate to the news item and, sick as it may seem, it has been playing Tom's setting of the periodic table to the tune of I am the very model of a modern major-general, whenever it reports on the current scare about mass poisoning.

Let's hope it leads to a revival of the great man's reputation.

Try this link: http://members.aol.com/quentncree/lehrer/elements.htm