Tag: Revolution

Trump, Kennedy, Kemp and Les Miz (and Maybe Paris)

Donald_Trump_Laconia smDonald Trump is important.  Maybe he’s channeling Huey Long, maybe Lonesome Rhodes, maybe just “the Donald,” but despite his xenophobia and thinly veiled racist take on immigrants, he has spun a new American dream and captured those who have been without one for a long time.

Despite those excluded, whom Ta-Nehesi Coates describes so well, the belief that the dream exists is a gigantic part of the American story even though, for many, it’s faded from view. Today, in the shadow of the attacks in Paris, I wonder whether his message will thrive or wither in the face of such horror and fear.

Jack KempTeddy Kennedy smWith all that in mind, what does Trump have to do with John Valjean? What did the story mean to Jack Kemp (there’s a new biography ) and Teddy Kennedy (there’s a new book about him, too) both of whom, from opposite parties and ideologies, saw Les Miz multiple times? Can what spoke to them teach or maybe comfort us as we recoil from another bloody revolution in the streets of Paris?  Tell me that this* is not what they – and we – are feeling today.

dan kidThis little boy is now a father, but when he was six, we took him, along with his brother, to see Les Miz. At the end, he dissolved in my lap in tears, a wise child who understood, as so many do, especiallu today, what we may have lost and must struggle to recover? Listen and then, you decide.

*When Les Miz opened in New York, both Teddy Kennedy and Jack Kemp saw it multiple times. It might have been about a revolution, but it was everyone’s revolution:

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?

Then join in the fight that will give you
The right to be free!

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.