The French Lieutenant's Woman

 

The French Lieutenant's Woman is on Amazon Prime -- last Friday it said on there that it's only on for six more days, so must play it tonight and tomorrow before work -- I don't know if they started counting the six days on Friday or on Saturday, and don't know whether on the sixth day, that's the last day it will be on, or, on the sixth day that's when it disappears, one second after midnight.

(Those people are so non-specific in their communications....)

That movie is a mood.

A "vibe," as the Kardashians might say.

I saw it in the movie theater when it came out, soon after reading the novel.  I read about it beforehand (in TIME magazine, I think) and waited and watched for it's arrival.

That was near the start of Meryl Streep's career.  (It seems funny to think about that now, as she's an icon....)  At that time I had seen her in two movies before -- 

Kramer vs. Kramer

and

Woody Allen's Manhattan.

In the book, which was published in 1969, the author John Fowles "breaks the fourth wall" at the beginning of chapters, speaking to the reader, telling him what life was like for people living in Victorian England, in the 1800s, when the story takes place.  He describes it with the voice and point-of-view of the twentieth-century author that he is.  It's a lot of social history and social commentary -- when you get done reading it, you feel like an expert.

The question in 1981 was:  how would you do the author-speaking-to-audience parts in a movie?  You can't just put type-script up there on the screen -- well, you could, but they weren't going to.

So what they did for the film was make it a film within a film:

Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons play actors who are shooting a movie of the story about the fictional characters in the novel:  Sarah Woodruff and Charles Smithson.

I thought it was perfect.  Intensely involving for the viewer, memorable, and haunting -- the music gives the atmosphere, the visuals so beautiful, spooky, and  affecting, and the dialogue and style in which it is spoken -- spectacular.

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spoiled for choice

 

Last week I was writing here that when rock-and-roll burst forth in the 1960s, it was like a door had been opened -- today I read a comment on a Beatles article in The Guardian:

"I was 13 when they changed the world from black and white to technicolour."

Two more Comments:

-------------- I remember walking to school, aged 9, and my friend Steve claimed he knew an even better band than the Beatles called The Hollies.  Probably 1964 if my memory serves me correct...

--------------- Back in 63-64 favourites were so transitory and one great song replaced another in the charts and radio playlists.  Possibly the Hollies' "Stay" had just come out and "Please Please Me" had finally dropped from number 1.  We were spoiled for choice.

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help you on the way down the road

 

...And if they had the words I could tell to you

To help you on the way down the road

I couldn't quote you no Dickens, Shelley or Keats

'Cause it's all been said before

Make the best out of the bad, just laugh it off, ha

You didn't have to come here anyway

So remember, every picture tells a story, don't it

Every picture tells a story, don't it

Every picture tells a story, don't it, whoo!...

♪♪♪    ♪♪

These British guys --

Rod Stewart

the Rolling Stones

the Beatles

the Who

Eric Clapton

and many more.  What happened?  In the early 1960s these people just started exploding out onto the world with their revolutionary, positive sounds, and listeners were lifted and transformed, and life on earth was different from how it had been before.  It was as if a door had been opened.

When Rod Stewart references Dickens, Shelley, and Keats in "Every Picture" -- it's so typical of these English people -- they savor, treasure, and refer back to their history, literature, and traditions.

The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, named in the song "Every Picture," wrote these lines:

The sun is warm, the sky is clear,

       The waves are dancing fast and bright,

     Blue isles and snowy mountains wear

     The purple noon's transparent might,

       The breath of the moist earth is light,

     Around its unexpanded buds;

       Like many a voice of one delight,

     The winds, the birds, the oceans floods,

The City's voice itself, is soft like Solitude's.

--------------------------------------

Today's Rod Stewart song is not in the tradition of the last three, where they had movements, and different styles in various parts of the song -- this one is straight-ahead blues-based rock and roll.  Verses -- chorus -- instrumental break.

Go on You Tube, find the song

Hot Legs,

hold onto your hat,

and PLAY - !

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every picture tells a story don't it - WHOO!

 

Recently the subject of "story" keeps returning to my mind.

Stories.

I noticed and considered the fact that some stories (or maybe most or all stories) are told over and over again, sometimes under the same title, sometimes re-named.

The 1995 film Clueless is based on the Jane Austen novel Emma (originally published in 1815).

---------------------------------

Each of these is the same story (with some variations) --

The Front Page - 1928, a Broadway comedy, playwrights:  Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur

1931 - The Front Page, a pre-Code comedy drama film, starring Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien

1940 - His Girl Friday (Rosalind Russell; Cary Grant)

1974 - The Front Page, starring The Odd Couple's Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, and directed by the venerable European immigrant Billy Wilder

1987 - Switching Channels

-----------------------------------------

And speaking of The Odd Couple --

first a Broadway play  (1965)

then a feature film, 1968

and then the 1970s television situation comedy series of the same name, starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman.

___________________________________

In theater, Broadway to local community, there are always what they call "revivals" (not of the religious nature) but rather --

a revival of The Sound of Music

a revival of Cabaret

a revival of My Fair Lady

etc.

______________________________

My Fair Lady:

1913 - a stage play titled Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw

1956 - a stage musical, composers Lerner and Loewe, starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews

1964 - musical comedy-drama film starring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn.

_____________________________

Each of these was built from the one before...

1939 - Goodbye to Berlin, semi-autobiographical novel by Christopher Isherwood

1951 - I Am A Camera, play by John Van Druten

1966 - Cabaret, a musical stage play, Kander and Ebb

1972 - Cabaret, movie - Liza Minnelli.

___________________________________

_________________________________

"I Am A Camera" -- we have got to love that title.

Today it would be "I Am A Smart Phone."

--------------------------- Rod Stewart's song, "Every Picture Tells a Story" is the third in a trilogy of Stewart songs we're featuring here, where the song has different tempos and styles in its various sections.  

Movements, like Beethoven.

Played back-to-back,

Maggie May,

Mandolin Wind, and

Every Picture Tells A Story

effectively represent a Rod Stewart musical style.

This style emerged in the 1970s, and can be listened to anytime.

You-Tube up

"Every Picture Tells a Story" (the song)

and play.

♪♪  ♪♪♪

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coldest winter - in almost fourteen years...

 

Another Rod Stewart song from the same era as "Maggie May" is "Mandolin Wind," and it too has a flexible, wandering structure, with different movements -- part of the song is one way, and parts of it are other ways, and each part leads naturally into the next.

The melodies are "answered" so satisfyingly in each section, I think the first time a person hears this song, they feel like they have somehow heard it before.

Like when the mind can occasionally turn a present-time observation into a memory immediately, resulting in what we call deja vu.

Rod Stewart is the deja vu songwriter, right?

When you go on You Tube to play "Mandolin Wind," a video I can recommend as having good sound was uploaded by "Radio King."

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it's late September and I really should be back at school

 

There was a segment of Rod Stewart's career where he put out some songs where they kind of had "movements" -- like classical music.

By movements, I  mean various parts of the song are different, it doesn't stay on the same attitude or beat the whole time.  Parts of the song are slower and more contemplative, parts of the song are fast and furious, some parts are in-between.

When you have a contemplative, floating section in the song and then it gradually narrows, gets more focused, builds to moving a little faster, and then bursts out into a compelling swing-and-groove, it gives drama to the song and rivets the attention.  It makes you remember the song forever.

It seems like I heard somewhere that the Rod Stewart song "Maggie May" was the "B" side of a single that the record company was positioning as the hit.

        But a Cleveland D.J. flipped it over and played "Maggie May" and said, "That's the hit."  And it was.

        It starts with a gentle, bubbly instrumental that's just pretty, and it leads into a sudden percussive WHUMP WHUMP! - Wake up, Maggie, I think I got somethin' to say to you...

-------------------------------

On the Internet, or in your music CD collection, find this song and play it for yourself.

♪♪ ♪

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can I get a witness

 

Rod Stewart

__________________________________

Woody Allen:

        "...I'm balding slightly on top, that's about the worst you can say about me."

Mia Farrow:

        "Hold my beer."

________________________________

____________________________

"Can I Get A Witness" is a song written by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland, for recording artist Marvin Gaye.

The record was issued on Motown's Tamla imprint in September of 1963.

What does "can I get a witness" mean?

It's supposed to ask a group, or an audience, "Hey -- anyone agree with me?!" in kind of a boisterous way.

Where does the phrase come from?

From old-time revival meetings and churches with vocally and sometimes physically active participation in their services.

"Can I get a witness?!"

"We hear yah!!"

"Preach!!"

------------------------- When I think of this song, the Rolling Stones come to mind immediately, & also Rod Stewart.  I used to have the Stewart recording of it on cassette and would listen while driving.

        Yesterday I typed in Rod Stewart and was shown a news-item where he and his son were going to have a court appearance because of an incident with a security guard outside of a party.  (??)

It said Rod Stewart's son put his face up very close to the face of the security guard in an aggressive style, then the security guy said or did something, and Rod Stewart punched him.

Punched?

My first idea was, his son must be 19 or 20 years old -- an age when he wants to prove his strength or whatever, so I Googled him:  he isn't 19 or 20, he's 41!

        41?  And my singer-man threw the actual punch, and if his son is 41, how the hell old is he??  

76, it turns out.

76 years old, havin' dust-ups with Security.

This is not the sort of event that I would have associated with the lovely man who recorded "Tonight's The Night," "Downtown Train," and The American Songbook.  God.

Today's news sounds like they're going to have a plea deal agreement...

_______________________________

On You Tube, type in

can I get a witness, rod stewart

There's a video,

uploader:  Rod Stewart.

Play it and enjoy.

The sound is funny -- it might be mono rather than stereo, it's still great.  It's sort of got that "drone" that Keith Richards talks about, which Jimmy Reed had in his blues style.

        (Just play it on your device with the best sound and pretend you're living in 1964...)

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no good can come of it

 

Brian Jones, Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger

"The proof is in:  TV really does rot your brain"

is the headline of a Mon 13 Sep 2021 article in The Guardian.

In the Comments section "btl" (below the line) one reader quoted C.P. Scott:

"Television?  The word is half Greek, half Latin.  No good can come of it."

        Sometimes those Guardian readers quote people I haven't heard of.  Googling C.P. Scott, I discover he was a British journalist, publisher, and politician - born in Bath, 1846, and died in Manchester in 1932.

        Then I thought, if he died in 1932, how could he have commented on television -- that didn't come out until the 1950s...?

        It turns out (with more Googling) that although a TV in almost every home in the western world only became the norm in the '50s, television itself was invented in 1927.  So Mr. Scott was still alive to comment upon it.

"No good can come of it!"

Famous last words.

_______________________________________

Conan The Brightonian commented:

Ha!  Next they'll be saying beer is bad for you ...

Another Reader Comment, from Artemisia27:

I try to do most of my viewing in languages other than English.  It helps keep up linguistic skills in French, Russian, Italian and German.  I also watch things in Spanish, not a language I ever spoke or studied, because I find I can understand some of it.  And I've tried Swedish, Icelandic, Bulgarian, Polish and Turkish, for the heck of it.

        I'm not sure this has made me stupider, but perhaps less ladylike, as I've picked up an international florilegium of swear words!

___________________________________

_________________________________

Charlie Watts, the Rolling Stones drummer, passed away last month.

        One would think it wouldn't be that surprising:  he was 80 years old; humans do not live forever.  And yet when I read the news I had that inner reaction of -- "No!  Oh no!  It can't be true!"

(in a tone of protest) -- Rolling Stones can't die!

That's not true, though -- Brian Jones in the 1960s, the founder of the Rolling Stones, died in 1969 at the age of 27.

After Jones, however, and after the '60s, the Stones have lasted and stayed active and kept putting out music and touring:  we got used to them being a constant, in the backdrop of our lives.  A melodic, joyous, raucous constant.

Charlie Watts can't die.

I     SAY       NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On You Tube there's a really nice, informative video titled

Charlie Watts Tribute  1941 - 2021

uploader:  Pocket Percussion

He is such a gentleman.  A very centered person.

His facial features are so strong, and I love his accent.

___________________________

On You Tube, play and rock out to the Rolling Stones recording of

"Can I Get a Witness"

(Witness, witness!)

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screaming about socialism

 

"OK, I happen to have Marshall McLuhan right here...!"

[the beginning of Annie Hall]

There's an old joke.  

Uh, two elderly women are at a Catskills Mountain resort, and one of them says:  "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible."  The other one says, "Yeah, I know, and such ... small portions."  

Well, that's essentially how I feel about life.  Full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly.  

The-the other important joke for me is one that's, uh, usually attributed to Groucho Marx, but I think it appears originally in Freud's Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious.  

And it goes like this-I'm paraphrasing:  Uh ... "I would never wanna belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member."  

That's the key joke of my adult life in terms of my relationships with women.  

You know--lately the strangest things have been going through my mind, 'cause I turned forty, and I guess I'm going through a life crisis or something, I don't know.  I, uh ... and I'm not worried about aging.  I'm not one of those characters, you know.  Although I'm balding slightly on top, that's about the worst you can say about me.  

I, uh, I think I'm gonna get better as I get older, you know?  I think I'm gonna be the-the balding virile type, you know, as opposed to, say, the--uh--distinguished gray, for instance, you know?  

Unless I'm neither of those two.  Unless I'm one of those guys with saliva dribbling out of his mouth who wanders into a cafeteria with a shopping bag screaming about socialism.

(He sighs.)

Annie and I broke up and I-I still can't get my mind around that.  You know, I-I keep sifting the pieces of the relationship through my mind and-and examining my life and tryin' to figure out where did the screw-up come, you know, and a year ago we were...um, in love.  

You know, and-and-and ... And it's funny, I'm not-I'm not a morose type.  I'm not a depressive character.  I-I-I, uh you know, I was a reasonably happy kid, I guess.  I was brought up in Brooklyn during World War II....

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we shall fight on the seas and oceans

Winston Churchill in The Crown has got to be one of John Lithgow's all-time greatest roles.

We stand mesmerized.

The way he portrays the English public servant is so gruff, grumbly, growly, and shouty, it's amazing I can stand him, but I can.  His aim is not malign.  He's a Good Guy.

...When he starts yelling about people who he believes to be

"socialistic"

or

"individualistic"

-- you get carried on a wave of Yeah-OK, and then it's like, "Wait a minute, hold it."  Because he's objecting to / criticizing the idea of anyone being a "so-oow-cialist" and yet he is also, and equally, grousing about terrible people who are "individualistic."

He almost has to pick one, because in socialism you're not supposed to stand out, you're supposed to stay in as one of the group and work for what's good for the group.  In other words, you're not supposed to be "individualistic."  (Such a weird word.)

So if Churchill decries individualism, then he is agreeing with socialists.

If he decries socialism, he's agreeing with individualistic people.

He has to pick one, but he doesn't, he uses both words (ideas) as verbal bats to imaginarily whomp people with.

It's pretty funny.  I think maybe it illustrates how, in politics, some people use words that they believe are unpopular with their audience to "whomp" their competition, and the words themselves are meaningless.

Churchill calls somebody a socialist.  The person is not a socialist; Churchill just wants to insult him.  Or -- manipulate others' image of the person.

If he called the person a socialist in front of an actual socialist, then that guy might say, "How lovely!  I'll look forward to meeting him!"

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get off of my cloud!

 

I live in an apartment

On the ninety-ninth floor of my block

And I sit at home looking out the window 

Imagining the world has stopped

Then in flies a guy

Who's all dressed up like a Union Jack

And says, I've won five pounds

If I have his kind of detergent pack

I say, hey (hey), you (you)

Get off of my cloud

Hey (hey), you (you)

Get off of my cloud

Hey (hey), you (you)

Get off of  my cloud

Don't hang around 'cause two's a crowd

On my cloud, baby

The telephone is ringing

I say, hi, it's me, who is there on the line?

A voice says, hi, hello, how are you?

Well, I guess I'm doin' fine

He says, it's three a.m., there's too much noise

Don't you people ever wanna go to bed?

Just 'cause you feel so good, do you have

To drive me out of my head

I say, hey (hey), you (you)

Get off of my cloud

Hey (hey), you (you)

Get off of my cloud

Hey (hey), you (you)

Get off of my cloud

Don't hang around 'cause two's a crowd

On my cloud, baby

I was sick and tired, fed up with this

And decided to take a drive downtown

It was so very quiet and peaceful

There was nobody, not a soul around

I laid myself out, I was so tired

And I started to dream

In the morning the parking tickets were just

Like a flag stuck on my window screen

I say, hey (hey), you (you)

Get off of my cloud

Hey (hey), you (you)

Get off of my cloud

Hey (hey), you (you)

Get off of my cloud

Don't hang around 'cause two's a crowd

On my cloud

Hey (hey), you (you)

Get off of my cloud

Hey (hey), you (you)

Get off of my cloud

Hey (hey), you (you)

Get off of my cloud

Don't hang around 'cause two's a crowd

So I say, hey (hey), you (you)... [fade]

___________________________

Jagger - Richards, 1965

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so respectable, so delectable

 

Charlie Watts

Rolling Stones drummer

Someone in a New York Times comment section said they wanted a poem about Charlie Watts.

I can't post it in the Comment Section of the NYT because I'm not a subscriber (too expensive)

but I wrote this haiku:

Charlie Watts with drums

And beats, hi-hat swing shuffle;

Sound brand of the Stones

----------------------------------

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Tampa bound and Memphis too

 

The Paris Review online has an interview with Mike Edison, a Charlie Watts biographer.

It seems like an energetic conversation.

Mr. Edison says, 

------------------------------- "Rip This Joint," which opens Exile on Main Street, is the fastest song in their whole catalog.  It's like a splatter painting.  He's gone from impressionism to extreme impressionism.  The band has gone from playing songs to playing music.  Charlie goes from just playing the drums to playing the band. ---------------------------------- [end quote]

__________________________

I love "Rip This Joint."

It is fast.

Gonna raise hell at the union hall --

Drive myself right over the wall...

Dick and Pat back in old D.C.

Well, they're gonna hold some shit for me...

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soundtracked

 

left to right,

Brian Jones, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger

(first album, 1964)

The New York Times published the obituary, headlined:

Charlie Watts, Bedrock Drummer for the Rolling Stones, Dies at 80

some reader comments:

U.S. -------------------- my isolated life in rural Mississippi during the 1960s and 70s was made tolerable by escaping into the music of the Rolling Stones.  Thank you, Charlie Watts, for being part of something that helped many of us deal with a despairing life.

Jersey Shore --------------- Wasn't Charlie just on stage with the band at Convention Hall in Asbury Park?  My bad that was 52 years ago.  R.I.P.

The Southwest ------------------- Who would have thought that Keith Richards would have outlived Charlie Watts.  Maybe it's time for drinking, drugs and chain smoking.  Rest well Mr. Watts.

Burbank, California ----------------- Thank you, Mr. Watts, for the sensational and timeless music and for being a classy man.

Reading, Pennsylvania ------------- I just saw the band at Desert Trip a few years ago; Mick said welcome to the "catch us before we croak" concert.

New York ------------------ RIP Mr Watts.  The Rolling Stones have been my favorite Rock and Roll band forever!  I saw them live at Cornell U when I was in 6th grade.  My friend and I snuck in - simply followed right behind the tallest guy we could find....

Midwest ------------- I can't imagine what it must feel like to bring that much happiness and enjoyment to so many people for so long.  Rest in peace, Charlie Watts.

Washington, DC ------------- In a dismal period this still manages to ruin my day.

New York, NY -------------- I will never, never, ever forget sleep-away camp in 1969 when the counselors in the next bunk constantly played a relatively new tune with the absolute coolest cowbell-studded opening drum riff I'd ever heard.  And so went my intro to "Honky Tonk Women."

Tacoma, Washington --------------- To paraphrase a Kinks song, I wish I could be like Charlie Watts.  Thank you, and peace.

St. Louis --------------------- Sad day.  For the Stones fans "don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened."  Mr. Watts had one hell of a good life!

San Francisco ----------------- Mr Watts personified the words of Chuck Berry, "it's got a backbeat, you can't lose it."

Oz ----------- Rest in peace, Charlie.  It WAS only Rock and Roll, and WE LIKED IT.

Washington ------------------ If ever in need of reminder of how to be your own person amidst utter chaos, look to Mr. Watts.

Great Midwest ------------------- 

"My dreams are fading down the railway line

I'm just about a moonlight mile down the road"

Rock on Charlie Watts your music will live forever.

Cleveland, Ohio --------------------- Mr. Watts was an innovator.  His dropping out the high-hat on the snare hit was fantastic and gave the band its swing.  RIP.

Washington, DC --------------------------------- He had me at the opening bars of Get Off of My Cloud.  What a life.  What a man.

Little Rock -------------------------- There's much to be said for doing magnificent work quietly.

Paris --------------- Dignity in the heart of excess.

SLC ------------------- The drumming on Moonlight Mile is monumental.  Call it rock, call it jazz, whatever -- it exists on another plane.

Newport Beach, California -------------- Heard Honky Tonk Women for the first time while on my first acid trip in the army barracks during basic training in 1969.  A major event that's always in my head....

San Diego ------------------- Charlie Watts was the greatest drummer in any musical genre!

NYC ------------------ Class, elegance and rock steady.  Thanks, Charlie.

Frankfort, Kentucky ---------------- the drum groove on Honky Tonk Women is one of the greatest of all time

Cleveland ---------------------- I am devastated.  I'm going to listen to his intro to "Rocks Off," the simplest, greatest start to a rock song ever.

Blue North Carolina ------------------------- The opening beats of Honky Tonk Women must be the most-recognized licks in the history of Rock and Roll.

Gig Harbor, Washington ----------------- I can still remember my mother telling me to turn down that racket on the record player.  I loved that racket.

Kr ----------------------- The Stones have soundtracked many of my most memorable life moments.  Thank you, Mr. Watts, for being a part of our lives

Nashville, Tennessee ------------------- The drum part on Get Off Of My Cloud, is perfect like everything about Charlie Watts.

________________________________

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