Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: Music
Today
Laundry laundered, shopping shopped, and dishes dished, most of a clean bright Saturday stretched out before me and I had nothing to do but sweep the floors or futz at the computer or — here’s a thought — get some sunshine. So I accused The Boy of being a Keyboard Potato and told him we were going out. When he refused, I sapped him with a heavy gel wrist-rest and dragged his limp form out to the car.
Is that a batliff in your pants, or are you just glad to see me?
It doesn’t get much higher concept. Portland death metal band Stovokor insists they are Klingons, will only appear in public in full makeup, and — oh yeah — they sing in Klingon, too.
The fun starts at 0:31.
From their Wikipedia entry:
Occasionally the band take their personas too far. At a concert held at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, lead singer pInluH HoD attacked a crowd member after a short exchange of insults.
Someone must have told pInluH HoD that his mother had a smooth forehead.
Um, I’m not kidding. That really is a Klingon insult. And pInluH HoD’s mother really does have a smooth forehead.
D.
The post-MTV generation
Jake was watching music videos on YouTube tonight.
“That’s the one that turned me on to the Dandy Warhols,” I told him. “Trent Reznor did a special on MTV, something like two hours of his favorite videos. The stuff he listened to at the time.”
“Now THAT is a great video,” I told him a little later. “It’s a good one because I didn’t much like the song until I saw the video, and then I really liked the song.”
So he was like all meh to the whole thing. We watched a few more videos. I made him search YouTube for “Mark Romanek” and I pointed out that he had seen Romanek’s videos for Perfect Drug and Closer.
Still no interest from The Boy.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why are you even watching this stuff?”
“I like listening to the music,” he said.
D.
State-dependent memory
You have to understand, the faceless dude and the werewolf and the guy spouting technicolor blood out of his neck only make sense if you’re stoned. Then, these things make perfect sense. But not once the high wears off. Oh, you can try and write out an explanation for everything while you’re high, but you won’t be able to understand it later. That’s okay, though, since you’ll understand what you’ve written next time you’re high.
I saw The Song Remains the Same at the Rosemead multiplex, when the movie first came out. That means I was fourteen going on fifteen, which means some adult had to drive me to the movie and pick me up. Think about that for a bit. At the time, I thought my parents were overprotective, but they really weren’t. I don’t think they much cared where I went or who I hung out with. They had already conceived my brother and my sister, so I was Darwinian gravy.
Mind you, I didn’t smoke pot at The Song Remains the Same. I didn’t have to — everyone else in the theater was doing it for me. I had never paid much attention to Led Zeppelin before this movie, nor did I pay much attention to them afterwards. Still, the movie clung to me like dope smoke . . . shower and sleep it off and it’s gone from the memory banks.
I mean, I really don’t remember the chick at the end of this 9 minute snip, the one with the glowing red eyes. You’d think I would remember something like that.
Just now I was trying to explain to Jake that the merit of The Song Remains the Same is that it deepens one’s appreciation for This is Spinal Tap. But now I’m not so sure. The Spinal Tap movie made sense.
We got off on this tangent because for some reason, my boy had discovered The Great Stairway to Heaven Backmasking Controversy (with audio of the relevant passage played backwards and forwards!) Remember when subliminals were a big deal? Remember when there was so little else fucked up in the world that subliminals could be something even remotely big dealish?
I remember those times.
Several days ago, quite out of the blue, my subconscious pushed the words into my forebrain: who will remember our works. I’m still not sure what it means. But it strikes me that the nature of art is that is remembered, while crap disappears with a shower and a good night’s sleep. This is as it should be. Otherwise, the clutter would be horrific.
D.
Still on my mind
You know how some books and movies linger? I still have The Road on my mind. That whole what does it mean to be human theme gets to me, I guess. McCarthy’s point (one of his points, anyway) is, we’re not solitary creatures, and even the family unit does not raise us to a much higher level. Altruism is key. And sometimes you have to take risks on people.
At least, I think that’s what this book is all about.
Somehow this seems appropriate:
And besides, Natalie’s a cutie.
D.
Mondegreen? Get the hell off it, then!
In a recent AP story*, I learned that Webster’s Collegiate recently had added 100 new words to their dictionary, including such head-scratchers as “dirty bomb” (it took them this long to add that?) and edamame (if I’ve been eating it for over twenty years, it sure as hell better be in the dictionary). One new addition is mondegreen, defined as a word or phrase frequently mistaken for another word or phrase . . .
It comes from an old Scottish ballad in which the lyric “laid him on the green” has been confused over time with “Lady Mondegreen.”
The AP story provides a few examples: ‘Lucy in the sky with Linus,’ from the Beatles song of almost the same name; ‘there’s a bathroom on the right’ (Creedence Clearwater’s ‘there’s a bad moon on the rise’); and “‘scuse me while I kiss this guy” (kiss the sky — Hendrix).
Funny how all of these come from song lyrics, but that’s all I can generate, too. Iron Butterfly’s “In A Gadda Da Vida” came to mind, and Wikipedia confirmed that the title may be a mondegreen of “In the Garden of Eden,” or perhaps, “In the Garden of Venus.” Also, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” is full of mondegreens.
Guess that Bob Dylan song.
The challenge is coming up with mondegreens not derived from song lyrics. The American Pledge of Allegiance has a famous one (who the hell is Richard Stands, after all? or is it “where witches stand”?) And when I was a med student, one of my dictations — “a large abdominal aortic aneurysm” — became “a large abdominal area cancerism.”
“Cancerism” still makes me cringe. What a word!
Also in the medical vein (sorry, sorry, I know we’re not doing puns today), there’s a famous one, perhaps apocryphal, that has a woman believing “fibroids of the uterus” is actually “fireballs of the Eucharist.” Christ the Avenger, I guess.
When I snuck a look at the Wikipedia entry, I saw that a whole song was composed of mondegreens. Release date 1943, and one of the writers shared my last name. Can you guess it without cheating?
How about it — do you have any favorite mondegreens?
D.
*AP had a hissy fit not long ago about bloggers linking to and quoting from their articles. Why they want to shoot themselves in the foot like this, I don’t know — but fine, I’ll reference it without providing a link or attribution. Nyah, nyah.
Oh, and here’s a whole great pile of mondegreens, if you’re enjoying this.
In addition to Simon alone, there are still more Simon and Garfunkel mondegreens, including Aaron Bernstein’s mishearing of “silence like a cancer grows” as “silence like a casserole” (from the hit song “The Covered Dishes of Silence”), and Clare Tiss’ joyful singing of “I have a watch, I have it o-o-o-o-o-n . . .”
“I am rock, I am an island,” of course. Makes more sense if you’ve heard it.
Worst wedding music ever
. . . unless you can think of something worse than Carly Simon’s “That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be.”
My friends from college they’re all married now;
They have their houses and their lawns.
They have their silent noons,
Tearful nights, angry dawns.
Don’t get me wrong, I love this song. It’s biting, insightful, a real eyeopener. It does for marriage what Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s In The Cradle” does for fatherhood. But does it really have any place at a wedding reception?
You say we can keep our love alive
Babe – all I know is what I see –
The couples cling and claw
And drown in love’s debris.
The old gf and I are friends now. We write each other regularly. Tonight, she mentioned her sister’s wedding, which I also attended. Her sis played this song at her wedding, and when I asked her why (why, why, for the love of God why*), she said, merely, “I like that song.” She stopped talking to me soon afterwards, but that’s another story.
You say we’ll soar like two birds through the clouds,
But soon you’ll cage me on your shelf –
I’ll never learn to be just me first
By myself.
So, what do you think? Worst choice ever, or can you think of one which tops this?
Here’s the video, in case you’re having trouble remembering the song.
D.
*Never the diplomat, I believe I cried, “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? Have you ever listened to the lyrics?”
Thirteen musical memory triggers
Anduin* writes:
List thirteen songs that when hearing them, take you back to a moment in your life.
Never one to say no to a beautiful woman, I thought it would be best to comply.
Covers redux: Mama Told Me Not to Come
The radio is blastin’
Someone’s knocking at the door
I’m lookin’ at my girlfriend
She’s passed out on the floorI seen so many things
I ain’t never seen before
Don’t know what it is
I don’t wanna see no more— from Mama Told Me Not to Come, by Randy Newman
My first reaction: Randy ‘Don’t Want No Short People’ Newman wrote this song? Are you kidding me? But it’s true. Newman was about 24 when he wrote it. According to Wikipedia, the song satirizes the late 1960s Los Angeles music scene. But then, Wikipedia also claims “(t)he song is loaded with the black humor, sarcasm, and double entendre that made Newman famous.”
Meh. I don’t see it.
YouTube has a number of the song’s covers. I can’t find the original by Eric Burdon & The Animals, but they have the Three Dog Night version, of course. Too white trashy for my taste. I prefer the funkier version cut by Wolfgang Press, but damn it, I can’t find that on YouTube, either. (You can hear a tiny bit of it here, at Amazon. Track 3.) Harmony’s cover doesn’t veer much from Three Dog Night’s, but dig those striped pants. The Slacker’s cover is just plain lame.
You know who has the best feel for the song? Don’t laugh. Please.
Tom Jones.
This dude keeps impressing me.
D.
Tuesday Night Jam
So Steven Van Zandt, Dave Grohl, Bruce Springsteen, and Elvis Costello walk into a bar, beat the crap out of the Country/Western band that’s singing some kind of Dwight Yoakam caterwaul, steal their guitars, and jam on The Clash’s London Calling.
Something like that.
My pick for best vocalist in this quartet: Dave Grohl. That’s the guy with the goatee, in case y’all aren’t fans.
***
As some of you know, I like to complain bitterly about not being able to embed videos on my version of WordPress.
Well, I’m going to do something about it. To the first person who gives me advice leading to the successful embedding of a video on this blog (yeah, no fair telling me I can embed back on my Blogger blog), I’ll give a $25 gift certificate to the online vendor of your choice, assuming they offer gift certificates, and what yutz doesn’t?
Hint: copying and pasting the embed code into my post’s HTML does NOT get the job done.
D.