Crooked Timber

Humphrey Lyttelton has died. The Guardian has an obituary written by George Melly, who also happens to be dead.

I first came across Lyttelton not on Radio 4, but in Peter Winch’s The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy, of all places. He pops up there in an anecdote showing why some kinds of social practice are in principle not amenable to precise predictions derived from some (putative) social physics. Lyttelton was once asked if he knew where jazz was going, and replied “If I knew where jazz was going, I’d be there already.”

For our many George Formby fans, the first of a two part bio of George Formbys Sr and Jr. Less mournful than the bio of Kenneth Williams, and more hard-hitting than the one on the SWP (though that’s not saying much!). Here’s George jr, with his greatest hit of all.

Who would win in a fight between the Rhythm Bug and the Rhythm Thief? (By the by, I think the Swingology Prof. of Katnip Kollege could go toe to toe with Roosevelt Franklin any day.)

Like Henry, I bought the Old School Sesame Street collection for, uh, my kids. Yeah, totally for them. There’s all kinds of good stuff in there, including the God of the Classroom, Roosevelt Franklin. The improvised interactions with children who don’t always do what they are supposed to are also great. For instance, here is a great moment where Paul Simon sings an short version of “Me and Julio Down by the School Yard.” Slightly sour as always, Simon takes the song quite fast, as if he wants to just get it over with. He is immediately upstaged by the improvisations of the little girl sitting next to him. After he cuts her off, so he can start singing, she waits for her opening and then upstages him again. But by then even he is enjoying himself.

And as an added bonus, Here is Stevie Wonder playing “Superstition” live on Sesame Street. Beats the shit out of Barney, I’m telling you.

Rebecca Solnit has an interesting piece in Orion Magazine on Elvis, country music, environmentalism, racism, “rednecks”, stereotyping, and one or two other matters.

How utterly depressing to surf over to Amanda’s excellent site only to discover that Arlo Guthrie has endorsed Ron Paul . I thought I’d wash this out of my head by listening to his father singing Plane Wreck at Los Gatos. Guess what? There’s not a clip of Woody singing it at Youtube, but there is one of Arlo covering it with Emmylou Harris. Did the man not listen to the lyrics? May he die of shame if he ever sings it again.

Talking of music, can it really be 4 years since we asked what the most annoying Christmas record is? Well, since then, youtube has enabled us to play them for you. So, instead of most annoying, this year I’d like your favourites. Here are the rules. The recording must be recognisably related to Christmas, must be non-traditional in some hard to define way, and while jokes are entirely welcome, they must be funny. One more rule: no wry, ironic, or mean references to Cliff.

Let me kick off with two secular songs, and two religious. First Jona Lewie’s Stop the Cavalry. Despite the wierd anachronisms and slightly unrespectable ott anti-war message, I love it simply for the refrain. When I used not to be home for Christmas, I would sing the whole thing to myself over and over, knowing neither the name of the song nor the singer. I know our British readers will be appalled by my complete lack of sophistication, but I also love Merry Christmas Everybody (even if you hate it, as I’m sure you do, it’s worth watching the first few seconds just to see Kid Jensen and John Peel not enjoying themselves). My wife won’t allow it to be played in the house.

From the ridiculous to the sublime (and religious). I once read that In the Bleak Midwinter is Britain’s favourite carol, which surprised me; sung here by Bert Jansch, with slightly different words than I remember. And finally, for Lindsey in France and Val in Madison, here is Def Leppard (yes, really) with what I find the most moving Christian pop song of the lot, Lindisfarne’s Winter Song. (“for Lindsey and Val”—I should have been Michael Aspel, or perhaps the other Cliff). And after you’ve listened, whatever you think of the religious message, take up the secular message, get out your credit card, go to Oxfam and donate a little bit more than you think you can afford.

What a relief. December 1st show here.

Over at Brainiac, Josh Glenn discusses the theme of “the intellectual, slightly mysterious rock-and-roll woman,” as a recent book calls it, running throughout songs from the Boston scene over the years. All those smart but fragile girls that Jonathan Richman sang about with the Modern Lovers, for example.

Josh suggests that there is a strain of hipster misogyny in this: the revenge of the sophomore spurned, no doubt. And he reads Mission of Burma’s “Academy Fight Song” as a response to that kind of thing—its lyrics “written from the point of view of a cool, educated young woman who was sick and tired of the obsessive attention paid to her by a would-be boyfriend….”

This seems plausible. But it would not be the first song from the Boston scene to approach this archetype (or whatever it is) from the inside. I’m thinking here, of course, of “Ballad of the Hip Death Goddess” by Ultimate Spinach.
Continue reading “La Mal Babe Sans Merci”

I’m enjoying Bryan Talbot’s new – not exactly a graphic novel, is it? Alice in Sunderland [amazon]. Subtitled: ‘an entertainment’. Visit the official site of this ‘dream documentary’, call it what you will.

Anyway, it is set in the Sunderland Empire – that is, a theater – and the rabbit onstage explains to the lout in the audience, who is, oddly, a George Formby fan:

George Formby played here, and his father before him, from whom Chaplin steals his stick-twirling routine. All great northern comedy is drawn from tragedy. One of the biggest ever Music Hall stars, George Formby Senior – the Wigan Nightingale – is born into dire poverty and learns his trade as a singing beggar. His songs and jokes are punctuated by a hacking cough – a symptom of the tuberculosis that kills him in his forties – which he cleverly works into his act.

That’s fairly black. To be a tubercular Music Hall performer, hacking away on stage. The book says Formby, Sr., invented ‘Wigan Pier’ – see also, George Orwell – as part of a running gag to the effect that Wigan was a classy seaside resort, as opposed to a landlocked mining town. I never knew that. (Is it true? Talbott warns us that everything in the book is true except for one, which will be revealed at the end. I haven’t got to the end yet.)

Anyway, YouTube has some fine George Formby (Jr.) material: “When I’m Cleaning Windows”; “Fanlight Fanny”. So that’s where the Beatles learned to sound like that.

Link. Truly, Freakonomics has now entered the mainstream/jumped the shark. Hustlenomics tips from Yung Joc on YouTube (1, 2, 3).

August is the time for our annual household argument about Jesus Christ Superstar. We’re all fans (apart from #3 whose tastes are not yet his own), but disagree about its meaning. Before elaborating on the disagreement I should make a preemptive strike against two charges – the charge of liking Andrew Lloyd Webber (can’t stand anything else he’s done, not even Joseph, which I had always thought I liked until hearing it recently) and the charge of snobbery that response naturally prompts (I’m a snob about some things, no doubt, but when it comes to culture I revel in my lower-middle-browness).

The disagreement is basically this. My wife thinks that JCS is fundamentally anti-Christian, because it presents Judas as the most sympathetic character, and Jesus as vain and rather directionless. I disagree – Judas is, indeed, presented with the maximum sympathy compatible with Christianity, but ultimately his failing is a lack of trust in a power and mystery that is beyond his understanding. Jesus? Well, when I watch the movie (a very good deal at the moment, more on that later), and even when I listen to the soundtrack, I can sort of see her point. But my reading of Jesus Christ Superstar was a response not to the movie or soundtrack, but to the original concept recording.

Continue reading “Ian Gillan Superstar”