Music – Page 3 – Don't Gel Too Soon

Prettiots! Just a Little Listen

I went to YouTube to hear (and see) these girls because proud papa Danny Goldberg posted them on Facebook and he never does that. He’s spotted so many talents and supported so many more that I figured I should at least take a look.

They’re adorable, ironic and so young. How exciting it must be for someone who has been spotting talent for – well — a long time, to find some so close to home.

Once in a while it’s good to remember that music — all art really — evolves. We miss so much if we stick to our old favorites all the time. There are always new folks adding to the adventure.

So for your pleasure, meet these three Prettiots. Thanks for the introduction Danny, and all the other music you brought us, and congratulations!

Jules et Jim: That Was MY Song!

Jules and Jim. One the best movies ever. Really. Ever. Certified. Directed by Francois Truffaut and released in 1962, it appears on several best films lists and was, it is written, the biggest success of the influential French New Wave. The story of two men and one woman, all of whom love one another, and Paris, and World War I, and friendship, it is wry and romantic and original and wonderful.

And that song! Listen to it just above here, and watch Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner and Henri Serre as Moreau sings Cyrus Bassiak’s Le Tourbillion. The song did not deserve to be amputated and appropriated. It, and the emblematic film, have always stood for a time, a dream, a view of war and life, friends and love — and Paris.

Then TurboTax, a pox upon them, came along and stole it. Probably not technically; I’m sure they paid for permission to stick it into a dumb commercial about tax deductions and weddings. I am NOT posting or linking to it here. One less place you have to see it.

Of course there’s nothing to be done. There never is. There are scholarly books about it. And we know it works, or they wouldn’t do it, right? But oh what a violation.

Many commercials have used popular songs to strengthen the marketing message conveyed. When a commercial uses a popular song well, the music is aligned with the visual imagery and words. It creates a synchronized message that brands hope will induce purchase of their products. by David Mitchel, Vice President of Marketing at Norton Mitchel Marketing on Duetsblog

This is not my first musical outrage. I refused for years to buy Nikes for my sons because they were using Revolution in their 1987 commercial. (Only later did I learn how mean that really was; they had so wanted those shoes…) and that the Beatles, who had sold the song rights to Michael Jackson, had sued Nike [who had legitimate rights] to get the thing off the air.) The lawsuit finally wore everyone out and the ad stopped running but it had aired for a long time. Here’s the commercial:

Of course by now every song we’ve ever loved has been exploited — er, I mean licensed — to sell something. I can remember doing a story when the trend revived in the late 80’s and interviewing plenty of high-profile musicians who were devastated that their songs had been appropriated and others who were happy for the money. Some no longer owned their catalogues and had no control over how their music was used.

I get it. It’s part of capitalism and all that. It’s just that, once in a while, it feels like they go too far (if that’s possible) and use something that meant too much, at least to me.

Paris to Strawberry Fields to City Hall: Needing Each Other

It was impossible to watch Sunday’s enormous march through traumatized Paris with any detachment; events that touch us all invariably drive us to gather, so we felt it too. Stating the obvious, certainly, but, as I grow older and my inventory of remembered public sadness grows — JFK, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Oklahoma City, 9/11 — it remains remarkable.

I am somewhere in this crowd, gathered for a vigil and moment of silence six days after the assassination of John Lennon. Imagine all the people, living life in peace he wrote. Grief and anger at his loss drew us then, as, so many years later, grief and anger summoned the people of Paris.

I am somewhere in this crowd, too: another Sunday, in 2014, 34 years later. We’re in San Francisco, not Paris, but once more have come together, a continent and an ocean away from the millions in France. We too mourn, and rage, and join together for comfort — but look. Thirty four years later, John Lennon is still present, asking the same questions, demanding, even as we mourn, that we do better.

That’s How I Got to Memphis – Music and the News

Will, Charlie's grandson and Jim sing That's How I Got to Memphis — Will, Charlie’s grandson and Jim sing That’s How I Got to Memphis

Stuck in my head ever since the end of The Newsroom, this song really seems to want to spend today with me, which would be fine if it didn’t make me so sad.

It won’t matter much if you didn’t like the show, or if music doesn’t carry you forward and back or if you don’t mourn the decline of integrity as a core value of journalism, but the use of it at a funeral for Charlie Skinner, (Sam Waterston,) the keeper of the flame, the leader who defended the honor of every journalist and story, is a spectacular metaphor. YouTube won’t let me embed it, but here it is if you have the patience to link, it’s worth it.

Aaron Sorkin says Charlie represented the loss of decency offered by each of us to the rest of us, but for me, as Newsroom closed down, he stood for the rules that made journalism credible and critical to our country*; rules eroded in surrender to commerce and coarseness and fear. Even so, The Newsroom closed with the first moment of yet another day’s show. As Sorkin said, “They’re going to keep doing the news.” It will, though, be with the loss of just a little more of the combination of honor and power, the Charlie Skinner, that had protected them, and us, for so long.

*The Atlantic called it a funeral for “old media” but I’ve lived in “new media” for decades now and the show wasn’t about that change – at least not to me.

Patti Smith, Big Eyes, Mr. Turner and Into the Woods: Women and Art

How do the artists we admire find their way? What do they sacrifice to share their vision with the rest of us? How does it feel? Were they ever satisfied with what they made?

The great Patti Smith answered many of these questions, and more, in her 2010 memoir Just Kids. It was, to me a real gift – a peek behind the curtain that stands between the journey and the outcome. It was a long time before another such revelation turned up. But first, consider this:

“Of course women aren’t as creative as men,” he said. “After all, they create children. They don’t have the same drive to do anything else. How many female composers do you know of?”

That wasn’t some 21st century sexist. That was a professor at Smith, the excellent, committed, women’s college where I spent four years in the late 60s. He was sitting in the “housemother’s parlor” after dinner, speaking with whomever of us had turned up for coffee. I remember thinking “Huh. That’s interesting.” and feeling, at his declaration, not outrage but sadness — and humiliation.

I remembered this moment for the first time in decades as a rash of holiday films raised questions about creativity and art, agency and power, commitment and sacrifice. Into the Woods offered a grim view of women’s lives, where mothers imprison their daughters, daughters abuse their sisters, bakers long to become mothers and deliver their most important lessons after they’re dead, and it’s all the witch’s fault. Steven Sondheim’s beloved musical includes some lovely songs and I went mostly to see Anna Kendrick but still…

No witches but a desperate mother who sells her soul for her art (and, kind of, for love) emerges in Tim Burton’s Big Eyes. It’s the story of American painter Margaret Keane, whose husband Walter stole her art, her talent and her reputation and took them for his own. The cost of continuing to paint and still support herself and her daughter was to surrender the right to take credit for her own work. A woman in the 50’s making art for a living was unthinkable, or so he told her. Her story is a bridge – she owned her creativity but not the product.

Then came Mr. Turner, an exquisite profile of the brilliant JMW Turner, a maker of art, no matter what the cost. The film is a journey through his life as a painter of sea and landscapes and the invincible drive to create images of the beauty he saw. His singular vision, the decisions he made to preserve that vision, his almost Asberger’s detachment from most people and his startling depth of commitment to the two people he truly loved combined in a thrilling consideration of art and love and living with both: a portrait of what is required of any artist, woman or man, to share what they see and feel and understand.

And so we return to Patti. She and Turner are bookends on this shelf. As with Mr. Turner, we learn what she lived and learned and made and what she left behind to do it — a woman slamming through barriers with commitment and with love. An woman’s tale of what must be done – and of a woman expecting, demanding and embracing — as did Turner — all it took to share what she sees with the rest of us.

Tears for the Music (and Cheers too.) So Many Emotions

WHY is it The Girls in Their Summer Clothes? Of all songs. My heart is in my throat – I really might cry. It’s just one of many Spotify ambushes. Mark Knopfler’s Cannibals. Nils Lofgren’s Black Book. About 30 other Springsteen songs including Thunder Road, Jersey Girl (Yes I know Tom Waitts wrote it, but still) and My Hometown ( I just don’t listen to that one anymore.) Oh and from another end of the universe, of Scarlet Begonias.

Every once in a while Peter Rothberg at The Nation posts Top Ten Songs (from a The Nation perspective of course:) Top Ten Veterans Day Songs, Top Ten Back-to-School Songs, Top Ten Songs About the Environment, Top Ten Labor Day Songs, Top Ten Death Penalty Songs (In Tribute to Troy Davis),Top Ten Songs About Class, Top Ten Songs About Nuclear War, Top Ten July 4th Songs, Top Ten Memorial Day Songs. They always inspire a lively conversation on his blog, including nominees to join his own ten. Many of these are offered with deep feeling and conviction, the power of music spread across issues as well as hearts.

Nothing original here; we all know it. In a stadium, at a demonstration, a party, the beach, the gym, in a car, a crowd or a quiet moment, it’s always there for us when we need it – often taking us places we didn’t mean to go.

Bruce, Sting, Tangier and Us

Amazing day. Of course Rick found Said (center,) the guide who worked with Bruce Springsteen and Sting during the 80’s Amnesty tour. He was a trip and a pleasure. Tangier is not as romantic or exotic as I had expected but it certainly was interesting.

It was May Day so lots of things were closed including the famous, visited-by-George-Washington American Legation Building. Morocco was the first country to recognize the new United States in 1777 so it would have been cool to go inside the place so long a part of our shared history, but this country has a real workers’ May Day and public buildings are all closed.

The holiday also meant no garbage collection so the streets were kind of scruffy, too.

tangier synagogue edited

We went to see the old Sephardic synagogue but the guard had lost the key (seriously !) We did look in through the open windows though, which actually offered a pretty good view.

Oh, and in case I forgot to tell you , here’s a reluctant undertaking. For the record. Yes. Camels.

Say Anything – Anything At All

Say Anything turned 25 last week. My lovely older son, now a father, was sick. Cold. Fever. But we had planned to go with his friend Ivan to see it in Chelsea at a funky old theater there. Bad mother that I was, I took them, Kleenex and all.

I was rewarded with wonderful memories – I could see the wheels turning in their 14-year-old heads as this very special love story unfolded. I could see it as we left the theater. There is something about that particular tale and its lessons of acceptance and growth and loyalty and disappointment and joy – and music – that have impact well beyond the sum of their very substantial parts.

I’m so glad someone remembered, so I get to remember too.

Through the Looking Glass, 21st Century RFID-Style

iTunes stations2 Equation of the day: Cognitive dissonance = searching for travel accessories that will hold a passport and credit cards AND provide RFID protection AND go under one’s clothing — while at the same time listening to the “If You Like the Grateful Dead” Channel on iTunes Radio. OR I could switch to the Leonard Cohen one for the same result. I’m usually pretty good at avoiding over-60 vertigo but this…

We can’t take our laptops or iPhones overseas without the capacity to completely cut off data and email. Everything but text. The data pirates I first met all those years ago in Neuromancer are legion now, having moved from (fictionally) stealing corporate data to (really) pulling infinite amounts of information from our passports, phones, laptops and credit cards. At least the kind they use in Europe.

Pretty dark, and way beyond simple identity theft, right? Now available: where we’ve gone and for how long, what we’ve bought and from whom, phone calls, emails, passwords and personal information out there like a big buffet just waiting for them. As I listen to the music, I keep thinking of anthem-saturated marches, pot-scented dorm rooms, grey afternoons with the Sisters of Mercy and a vital, curious, well-educated self who could never have imagined, much less understood, our modern vulnerabilities. Even in the 90’s, with its “Information wants to be free” mantra didn’t prepare me for this.

A Quick Trip with Leonard Cohen

I can see the room. It’s a little scruffy and smells like pot and incense. (Yes that’s a cliche but there you are.) There’s a mattress on the floor, crazy Berkeley posters on the wall, a turntable and speakers, one window over the bed, another on the long wall. Lots of bookcases, record albums, a coffee grinder for stems and seeds, a big old stuffed chair, and us.

It was a long time ago. Hasn’t crossed my mind in years. Then, right there, on the Spotify singer-songwriter channel, comes a young Leonard Cohen singing this:

Music is dangerous. Suddenly I was back in Massachusetts almost half a century ago, when Suzanne, and Sisters of Mercy too, were part of my lexicon, along with everything from Milord

to Ruby Tuesday

to Blowin’ in the Wind.

Years ago Garry Trudeau published a Doonesbury thta included the line “You’ve stolen the sound track of my life!” I don’t remember the context but it’s disconcertinly accurate, as he usually is. Every song is a movie of the past, running — sometimes joyously, sometimes with enormous sadness, in my head.

It was such a different time, full of righteous anger and, at the same time, joy at being alive, sometimes in love, always part of the changes taking place all around us, many at our instigation.

Now, as we face the rage and disappointment of many of our children and their peers, it’s kind of heartbreaking to look back with such nostalgia at a time that they clearly see as debauched and destructive and, even worse, egocentric and selfish.

It’s paricularly hard when these songs rise up, so transporting. Everyone, if they’re lucky, has fond recollections of the younger times in their lives. But for me, as the music carries me there, it was so much more. Hope, freedom, equality, beauty, love and peace — every song an anthem moving us forward. And lovers in a scruffy dorm room, a little bit stoned, listening, and sometimes, singing along.