...which is, after all, the purpose of a good deal of popular music. Yes, there are protest songs, songs of anguish written to exorcise the writer's demons, songs meant to inspire and songs of worship, but at their core, the idea, spoken or unspoken, is that the songs should be entertaining enough to cause the listeners to pay enough attention that they'll get the message.
This is the same principle that advertising uses: a TV or radio spot contains a quick blast of entertainment as a kind of bribe to get the viewer or listener to pay attention to the message the advertiser wants to communicate. The Catholic Church figured this out centuries ago, and took over the general production of music to help sell their message to the masses. When the phonograph was invented and became commonly available, the music was freed to become an advertisement for itself alone, and record sales were the expression of their message.
At some point, it became apparent that video could be used to improve the entertainment value of the music and, presumably, sell even more records. Most music videos were about the same length as the songs they were created to sell, primarily because of the expense of filming, but a couple of artists had enough budget to add a longer set-up and perhaps a coda to the storyline. Twisted Sister had a great little intro on "We're Not Gonna Take It," and Michael Jackson created arguably the best music video of the Music Video Era with the charming little story that framed "Thriller."
I remember one video, though, which was audaciously long, a short film that 'happened' to have a song in it. I haven't heard anyone mention it in years, but at the time it was considered to be groundbreaking and was expected to trigger a new wave in narrative videos. Of course we know now that didn't happen, but I found it (inevitably) posted on YouTube, and it stands up remarkably well for its age. Here's Julien Temple's "Jazzin' for Blue Jean" starring (twice) David Bowie:
Wednesday 19 June 2013
Friday 7 June 2013
Oh I Can't Sit Down
Today's post isn't any kind of analysis of any kind of musical genre, it's a little journey I went through concerning a particular song.
When I was growing up, we had the soundtrack album from the movie of "Porgy & Bess," a work which suffered through more than its fair share of troubles on its way to release, and more afterwards. (For the whole long, sad story, check out the Wikipedia entry) As a small child, I noticed something I thought was strange in the lyrics to one of the songs, "Oh I Can't Sit Down," which is an otherwise innocuous song about a celebration called Picnic Day. The male singer sang, "Guess I'll take my honey and his sunny smile along" at one point in the song, and also, "Hey there, Andy, be my sugar candy!" Another lyric in the song a little later on is, "Today I am gay and I'm free...," so when I got a little older, I guessed I had figured out the song's secret.
Fast-forward to a few days ago, when, for whatever reason, this song appears in my memory again; who knows why, perhaps I heard someone say, "I can't sit down" and that triggered it. I start thinking about the theory I've held for decades that this is a gay anthem, and then I realize that's impossible; when the opera was written, being gay was so illegal that no one in their right mind would even obliquely refer to it in public. Curious now, I google the lyrics, and find that the lyric is actually "Guess I'll take my honey and her sunny smile along," and the line about Andy doesn't appear at all. The plot thickens. Now I'm trying to figure out if the music director of the movie has hidden an Easter Egg for gay friends in the movie by switching the lyrics in that one song. Seems unlikely; Andre Previn was married 5 times and had several children.WTF??!
Eventually, I run across a YouTube video of some songs from the movie, including "Oh I Can't Sit Down," and I get my answer. In the movie, instead of being sung by a man, the song is sung by Pearl Bailey, a deep-voiced woman who for decades I have assumed is a man from the sound of her voice.
The music from the original opera is amazing, but often runs long and involves a lot of crashing and banging onstage in the recordings I've heard. Previn's edits to Gershwin's arrangements brilliantly highlight the lovely songs and dispense with the filler. If you want to skip straight to "Oh I Can't Sit Down" to see what I was talking about, skip ahead to 18:04, but all of this music is pretty great:
When I was growing up, we had the soundtrack album from the movie of "Porgy & Bess," a work which suffered through more than its fair share of troubles on its way to release, and more afterwards. (For the whole long, sad story, check out the Wikipedia entry) As a small child, I noticed something I thought was strange in the lyrics to one of the songs, "Oh I Can't Sit Down," which is an otherwise innocuous song about a celebration called Picnic Day. The male singer sang, "Guess I'll take my honey and his sunny smile along" at one point in the song, and also, "Hey there, Andy, be my sugar candy!" Another lyric in the song a little later on is, "Today I am gay and I'm free...," so when I got a little older, I guessed I had figured out the song's secret.
Fast-forward to a few days ago, when, for whatever reason, this song appears in my memory again; who knows why, perhaps I heard someone say, "I can't sit down" and that triggered it. I start thinking about the theory I've held for decades that this is a gay anthem, and then I realize that's impossible; when the opera was written, being gay was so illegal that no one in their right mind would even obliquely refer to it in public. Curious now, I google the lyrics, and find that the lyric is actually "Guess I'll take my honey and her sunny smile along," and the line about Andy doesn't appear at all. The plot thickens. Now I'm trying to figure out if the music director of the movie has hidden an Easter Egg for gay friends in the movie by switching the lyrics in that one song. Seems unlikely; Andre Previn was married 5 times and had several children.WTF??!
Eventually, I run across a YouTube video of some songs from the movie, including "Oh I Can't Sit Down," and I get my answer. In the movie, instead of being sung by a man, the song is sung by Pearl Bailey, a deep-voiced woman who for decades I have assumed is a man from the sound of her voice.
The music from the original opera is amazing, but often runs long and involves a lot of crashing and banging onstage in the recordings I've heard. Previn's edits to Gershwin's arrangements brilliantly highlight the lovely songs and dispense with the filler. If you want to skip straight to "Oh I Can't Sit Down" to see what I was talking about, skip ahead to 18:04, but all of this music is pretty great:
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