"the crown always finds its way to the right head"

 

Two things on You Tube to listen to:

a video titled

US Election 2020:  Is American democracy in crisis? - BBC News

3 minutes and 41 seconds

and

The Wheeler Sisters rendition of

"Heaven's Just A Sin Away"

It's good, I like it.

The acoustic guitar playing at the beginning, before the vocals start, sounds like the guitar part at the start of "Hey Mr. Tambourine Man" by Bob Dylan.

     In the BBC video, the announcer's British accent makes one want to stand up straighter and maybe audition for a small role in The Crown....

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magnetting recipes to the refrigerator

 

Back in the '80s, I played records at a Country Club event one time--when I put "Heaven's Just A Sin Away" on the turntable and put needle to vinyl, people got up to dance immediately when they heard the first couple bars of the song.  I noticed that.

The recording I was using then was of course the one by The Kendalls--a few years after, in the early '90s, a country artist named Kelly Willis covered the song:  her version had more of a bluegrass basis, referencing older country styles which were being brought back front and center at the time by Dwight Yoakam, among others.

I loved that version of the song, too.  It played from a cassette in my blue Ford Tempo on drives to and from our state capital.  With a fiddle playing a tricky sort of shimmy between some of the lines of the song, its raw, edgy instrumentals I am guessing may be the "five-string" or "open tuning" guitar style Keith Richards described in his book, Life.

(Ike Turner grabs Keith and drags him into a room:

"Show me that five-string shit!")

On You Tube, you can hear the Kelly Willis version of "Heaven's Just A Sin Away."  The video uploaded by Carina Svedberg has very good sound.

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devil's got meow

 

"Heaven's Just a Sin Away" is a great song.  Now that there's You Tube, I listen to it whenever I want.

Some people who are more straitlaced might say, "it's a cheating song!" and label it as immoral.

But I just like the way it sounds.  And it's an accurate expression of thoughts and emotions that some people might have, some-times.  Temptation.  ("Lead us not into temptation"...) Art expresses situations, emotions, and stories.

     As Tina Turner has remarked, The main point is not necessarily what the lyrics tell us, but rather "the feeling that a song gives."

The Kendalls' recording begins with such a powerful downbeat:  so inviting.  The lead singer's vocal style is pure Nashville, her expression precise and strong.  Her oh-whoas have about five syllables, instead of two.  The song is like a little bouncy, saily boat, up in the clouds.

Devil's got me now,

Oh-whoa, gone and got me now

I can't fight him anyhow

I think he's gonna win

Heaven's just a sin away...

I have this recollection from back in the past:  late afternoon in a bar, sitting at a table with a man and a woman.  She got up, went over to the jukebox, and played this song.  I remember thinking what a great song it was, at the time.

Now--I'm kind of like, "OK, wait a minute..."  Both of these people were married--to other people.

Me, four hundred decades later:

"Was that some kind of subliminal suggestion, from her to him?!"

     And..."Why the hell was I there??"  LOL.

...To make it look like the two of them were not meeting each other?  For it to appear like casual socializing?

I was a college student at the time.  Casual socializing--"hanging out"--was a natural state-of-being in that era.

     Yes, I was in school.  But did I forget to take a course in Common Sense 101??  LOL.

     ...I was a kid, and they were grown-ups, and I just didn't have a very suspicious mind.

We're caught in a trap

I can't walk out...

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Heaven's just a sin away

 

Heaven's just a sin away,

Oh-whoa, just a sin away

I can't wait another day,

I think I'm giving in

Though I'd love to hold you tight,

Oh-whoa, be with you tonight

But that still won't make it right

'Cause I belong to him

Oh-oh-whoa-way down deep inside

I know that it's all wrong

Your eyes keep tempting me,

And I never was that strong --

Oh devil's got me now,

Oh whoa, gone and got me now

I can't fight him anyhow,

I think he's gonna win

Heaven's just a sin away,

Oh oh-whoa, just a sin away

Heaven help me when I say

I think I'm givin' in...

[instrumental interlude]

Oh - whoa-oa way down deep inside

I know that it's all wrong

Your eyes keep tempting me

And I never was that strong

Devil's got me now,

Oh-whoa, gone and got me now

I can't fight him anyhow,

I think he's gonna win

Heaven's just a sin away,

Oh-whoa just a sin away

Heaven help me when I say --

I think I'm givin' in

Heaven's just a sin away,

Oh-whoa just a sin away

I can't wait another day,

I think I'm givin' in

Though I'd love to hold you tight,

Oh-oh-whoa, be with you tonight

But that still won't make it right

'Cause I belong to him

[repeat, fade out]

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

{"Heaven's Just a Sin Away" written by Jerry Gillespie, recorded by The Kendalls}

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my attorney had taken his shirt off

 

-------------- [excerpt] -------------- We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.  I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...."  

And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about 100 miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas.  And a voice was screaming:  "Holy Jesus!  What are these goddamn animals?"

     Then it was quiet again.  My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process.  "What the hell are you yelling about?" he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses.  "Never mind," I said.  "It's your turn to drive."

--------------------- [Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.  A savage journey to the heart of the American dream.  By Hunter S. Thompson.  Excerpt in Rolling Stone magazine, November 11, 1971.]

_____________________________

...But -- you aren't going to be able to know if the movie was well-executed or not until it's finished, and you watch it.  Yet they tell us the purpose of the "pitch" in the "pitch meeting" (where you say what the movie is about in one sentence, or something) is to communicate the idea, so that they can decide to give you the money to make your movie.  

     So if the idea isn't important, then how are you ever going to get your movie financed so they can see if it's "well-executed" or not?

     Movie business has kind of become like politics:  everyone is an expert, which means no one is an expert.  As William Goldman said, "Nobody knows anything."

     Another aspect to the Theory of the Pitch Meeting is the "High Concept" concept.  In the '90s, screenwriting books, articles, and speakers often emphasized "high concept" as being a category of movie that would sell well to the people who can finance it.  High concept meant the circumstances and challenges in the plotline were in some way extreme.  Like -- the characters are in outer space, or on the Titanic, or they rob banks....

     Since characters in The Crown are members of the British Royal Family, does that make it a "high-concept" series?

     They are not on the planet Mars.  But--the vast majority of humans are not in the British Royal Family, so their situations are unique and unusual.  (Extreme?)

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three of 'em in that marriage

 

When I watch The Crown on Netflix, I always learn something.  Lots of insights, and beautiful scenery and set design:  in this one scene, there were framed pictures on a wall, just all lined up--left to right, left to right--almost as if the wall was a printed page.

Very interesting-looking.

The show's pace, at times, is languid.  And it still holds your attention with the sheer power of the story and how well it is done.

     Was recently reading the Quora-thread of an L.A. film guy's answers to people's questions:  several times he invoked the phrase "well-executed" -- it isn't really the idea for a movie that's most important, he says, it's how well executed it is.

     (In which case, the "idea" would not mean anything--it would be the finished product that you would want to look at, to judge.

     The reason people ask film guys about "pitching ideas" is because there are many (many) books about screenwriting and filmmaking that tell us we are supposed to get good at "pitching ideas" in "pitch meetings."  And then if the studio likes your "pitch," they might "green-light" your movie....)

     Anyway--what makes The Crown great is, it's Very Well Executed.

     We already know the story.  British Royal Family--

the abdication

World War II

King George dies, so Elizabeth becomes Queen

Princess Margaret yadda yadda

Diana, yadda yadda...

You don't really watch it to learn the main story line, which you already know.  You watch it to see it unfold.  (And we learn some history along the way, of course.)

Robert Redford has said he encountered some resistance to making All the President's Men because "people already know what happened with Watergate."

     There's an episode of "The Bob Newhart Show" where Bob's watching a war movie late at night and his wife Emily wants him to turn it off and come to bed.  He says he has to see it to the end, and she informs him helpfully and firmly, "The Allies win."

     But see, we don't watch to find out who won; we watch to see it dramatized.  To see the impact of what happened.  To see those pictures all lined up on the Buckingham Palace wall.  To hear Claire Foy, horse-trading with Winston Churchill (played by John Lithgow) and pronouncing the word power, as "paah."

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eccentricities

 

Aahhh!  We're into a new month -- November!  And in this month we are going to see a sweeping, dramatic change in our lives, and that change will be due to --

Season 4 of The Crown coming on Netflix, November 15th!

With the actress Emma Corrin portraying Lady Diana Spencer!

It is just what we need.

     I checked on The Guardian site, to see their articles and reviews about this Netflix show...  Anything about the British royal family attracts a whole bunch of Reader Comments saying "we don't need a monarchy" and "they don't do anything, they are just the most effective benefits scroungers of all time" etc.

Here is a Comment from December 2017:

     Mick James ---------------- Facts don't have sell-by dates.  Britain is a constitutional monarchy, and this mode of government, although eccentric, has proved to be extremely stable--not just here but in Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and post-Franco Spain.

     Setting up a successful republic is quite difficult and requires a level of constitutional genius not normally found outside late 18th-century America.  And certainly not in 20-21st century Russia.

     It's a testimony to the Founding Fathers that they at least saw Trump coming but it's proving a very stern test of the Constitution.  And the American system is, I think we would all agree, far from perfect with eccentricities of its own.

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