Did you think the whole month of October would go by without David Bowie in it? I don’t think so.
So, Boys Keep Swinging, maybe a little gay, no? Depend on what kind of boys you think he’s referring to. I really don’t think ‘boys’ is meant in a gay way. I think it’s about the pleasures and benefits of being young (Bowie was 32 in 1979). The music is supposed to sound young as well. Bowie, of course, always worked with the best musicians. For this song he wanted a punky, unproffessional sound – like “kids…just discovering their insrtuments”. The only way to achieve this effect was to have all the musicians swap instruments. So Carlos Alomar played drums, the drummer played bass, etc and that is why the guitar solo sounds shrieky and out of key. How the drag show in the video ties in with the song I’m not sure and it frankly is a little gay, in the best possible sense of gayness.
From the 1939 film Destry Rides Again. In 1939 filmmakers weren’t concertned much with versimilitude. Hence, sparkly cowgirl outfits. Dietrich was a real trooper and managed to bring some sexiness and glamour to even the silliest costumes. Dietrich had an incredible life, and she was always far ahead of her time. She lived and loved freely, thought for herself and didn’t care too much for conventions. Her roles and songs always reflected her own attitudes. She was often cast as a bad girl, but one with brains and heart. When most other stars warbled about love and romance, many of her signature songs were raunchy, or had dark themes. Her greatest hits include songs about war, death, sexual prowess (his), sexual largesse (hers), gold digging, capital punishment, smuggling, and drinking and that’s just off the top of my head. At a time when fun things like drinking and smoking were still considered unseemly for nice ladies, Dietrich popularized this perky little number about boozing her way to the grave.
Official video for Boys and Girls, 1985. Very shoddy visual quality, ufortunately. I’m sure if I could see it a little bit better, it’s a fantastic video. There’s a huge compilation DVD of Roxy Music videos available, and it’s begging for a companion piece of Bryan’s solo work. Like all his videos, it features a few familiar themes; grand interiors, tuxedos, and beautiful women. The blonde in this particular piece is the late Paula Yates, a British ‘journalist’ and famous groupie. Before her fatal overdose in 2000, she was best known to Americans as Micheal Hutchence’s gazongalicious widow.
The Smiths, kings of 80s new wave mope rock. I love Morrissey’s vocal style – he sings every song exactly the same. If you snuck into the studio and switched out all the vocal tracks for all the songs, nobody would know the difference. In related news: Morrissey was hospitalized a few days ago after collapsing onstage during a gig. He’s already had to cancel several gigs on his world tour due to unspecified illness. His reps say he’s now fine and will continue with his tour. At the age of 50, he’d better not go pull an MJ on us!
UPDATE: I’ve lost my glorious gallery of all-nude Stephanie Seymour pictures due to the source website being taken down. As that Stephanie’s page is the most popular post on this blog, I had to replace the lost pictures with something. Instead of nakedness, we have Stephanie dolled up in a collection of scrumptious lingerie from olden times (i.e. the early nineties – funny how Victoria’s Secret doesn’t sell stuff like this anymore.) Don’t worry, I will soon put up another Stephanie page, one with nudity, and then maybe another one with actual fashion being modeled. All in good time.
Has anyone ever been sexier than Stephanie Seymour? She is so, so sexy. At 41 she’s sexier than ever. She’s not trashy sexy or cartoonishly sexy (not like Karen Mulder, who looks like a blonde Jessica Rabbit) or look at me sexy. She’s naturally sexy. Did I mention how sexy she is? I know I repeat myself. There’s just something so sensual about Stephanie. It’s her womanly curves, her luscious hair, everything about her really. All that and she’s always classy. She’s got incredible taste, her art collection is legendary, she’s extremely intelligent and well spoken. You may have noticed that she’s not shy about getting naked. Of course, plenty of models take their clothes off. I just like the way Stephanie does it. She’s unselfconscious about herself, she seems to feel comfortable being nude and most importantly, totally unafraid. I admire her because she doesn’t care if she has visible ‘flaws’ or if her thighs look like thighs or if her rolls show. I also like that she had a tattoo decades before tattoos became trendy – and it’s a sign of how respected she is that her tattoo doesn’t (always) get photoshopped away.
You know what’s annoying about Wikipedia? The way they cite magazine top 100 lists. As if being #485 on Rolling Stone’s top 500 is some kind of actual achievement. Speaking of which, I’m totally going to sit down one day and compile my own top 500. When I do, Graceland here will definitely be in the top 20. It’s a totally and amazingly perfect album. A solid gold-er. And it itroduced the world to Ladysmith Black Mambazo and the beauty of African music in general.
The Boy in the Bubble
It was a slow day,
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road,
There was a bright light,
A shattering of shop windows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio,
These are the days of miracle and wonder,
This is the long distance call,
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all,
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky,
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby don’t cry
Don’t cry,
(Pause)
It was a dry wind,
And it swept across the desert
And it curled into the circle of birth,
And the dead sand,
Falling on the children
The mothers and the fathers
And the automatic earth,
These are the days of miracle and wonder,
This is the long distance call,
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all o-yeah,
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky,
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby don’t cry
Don’t cry
(Pause)
It’s a turn-around jump shot
It’s everybody jump start
It’s, every generation throws a hero up the pop charts,
Medicine is magical and magical is art think of
The Boy in the Bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart
And I believe
These are the days of lasers in the jungle,
Lasers in the jungle somewhere,
Staccato signals of constant information,
A loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires and baby,
These are the days of miracle and wonder,
This is the long distance call,
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all o-yeah,
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky,
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby don’t cry
Don’t cry don’t cry
When I’m a world famous film director I will most undoubtedly use this song in one of my movies. I have it all planned out. The heroine is riding her bicycle down a tree lined Paris boulevard. In black and white. She rides until the city ends and she’s now riding down a tree lined country lane. Or, alternately, it could be a tree lined avenue in Savannah, in color, at sunset, on a horse. Either way, as long as it’s tree lined. Why this song makes me think of trees, I know not.
Last year when I did a comprehensive post on Kurt Weill’s super classic Alabama Song I couldn’t find any footage of Marianne Faithfull singing it live. So now there is, and I just had to post this great performance. Besides, can I resist an excuse to post another sexy Marianne picture? No, I can not.
Remember how I said that there’s rarely any room in popular culture for a band that makes intellectual music and requires some slight bit of effort on the listener’s part? I think I was talking about it just yesterday. I was pointing out how amazing is the popularity of Jethro Tull, despite the fact that they make references to classical music that don’t take the form of looped samples. JTull has been dormant for a long time, and really brainy rock stars are in short supply in these dark days. Well, now we have The Decemberists, from their name to their lyrics a band notable for lack of mindlessness.
The first time I heard the Decemberists (yeah, they’re one of those bands) was in 2005, when NPR played Song For Myla Goldberg as the theme music for an interview with Myla Goldberg (I like how NPR does that). I thought “huh, clever” and took a mental note. Very serindipitous and appropriate, right? The second time I heard the Decemberists was in 2007, when Legionnaire’s Lament came on the air on WUVT (greatest. radio. station. ever. BTW). That was a real “Who IS this?!” moment. Now I have all their albums and I’ve been listening to them every day. (Incessantly listening to the same two albums is a traditional rite of passage for groups on their way to being canonized [by me]). I always get the feeling that this is music I’ve been listening to all my life, not in the sense that it’s derivative but that it’s so sympatico. It’s one of the best feelings in life to discover a new thing that fits in with my world (to paraphrase Syd Barrett).
When The Crane Wife was released in 2006, some clever wag called it “the best Jethro Tull album since Heavy Horses”. (See, I was going somewhere with this talking of JTull). I’m not sure how he meant it, but I say it’s the highest of compliments. And he’s right. On The Hazards Of Love it’s even more evident. They really recall Jethro Tull at their most epic, in the best possible way. The Hazards of Love is a concept album. No one’s made a concept album in two decades, and the form is unlikely to make a comeback, especially since the album itself is a threatened species. I’ve gotten used to just clicking ‘shuffle’ and playing my favorite songs at random. It’s so pleasantly surprising to find an album that requires to be played all the way through in a specific order. At first I couldn’t figure out what exactly the concept was, except that there were several characters voiced by different singers. After a few hundred listens, I’ve got it straight. Hazards is a fairy tale, in the grimmest Brothers Grimm tradition. Not to spoil it for you, but it’s a love story in which an ‘amorous entwine’ with a changeling leads to nothing good for the heroine. You need to discover it for yourself. I will say I can’t think of any other album that makes such a powerful emotional impact.
I’ve already missed two chances to see the Decemberists play. They played SXSW this spring. I had way too much chaos going on in my life to even think about doing SXSW. I had another chance with ACL, but I had to make a sophie’s choice of which day I would attend, and Dead Weather day won. I have high hopes for the future, though. Judging from what I’ve seen on the ‘Tube, Colin Meloy isn’t going to be canonized as one of the greatest rock stars. Sorry. For one thing, he has an emo haircut. Emo haircuts are so over. They are all disappointingly normal looking, and they can’t even come up with neat uniforms. You know I judge rockers by their style. The Decemberists seriously need to dress better. What is it with these lazy bands these days who think it’s ok to just roll up on stage in civilian clothes? Don’t they know they have a civic duty? God that bugs me. Yeah, I’m sorely bummed out because Colin Meloy isn’t sexy enough.
And after all that, I leave you with a two minute fragment of a song. That should be enough. It reperesents the spirit of the album pretty well. There’s the sonic contrast of folky softness and very ‘eavy rock. There’s the smarty smart smartypants lyrics that you can’t imagine anyone ever singing until he sings them and they sound great. (I always knew the words “irascible blackguard” would some day make it into a song, didn’t you?). One little thing bothers me. “Our heroine withdraws to the Taiga” in search of her true love. I’m assuming that Mr Meloy with his huge vocabulary knows what Taiga is. Surely he is aware that taiga is a frozen inhospitable terrain ill suited to erotic frolics. Just a quibble.
I found this magical video of Jethro Tull playing Bouree to an empty stadium at sunset, which is just how it should be played. Although I strongly suspect the music you hear is an overdub of the original studio recording. No way they could get that level of sound quality playing outdoors live. Bouree is a reworking of a composition by Bach. JTull always was far too classy for the common denominator. Just when it seems there’s no place in popular culture for a band with a working knowledge of classical music (or classical anything for that matter), along comes somebody who proves the rule by being the exception. Bouree was quite a hit. Not in a top of the pops way, but it did become a song discerning rock fans revere, not a forgotten gem but a real classic.
Recent Comments