Music Mondays - Sing-Along Songs

I'm a creature of habit. One of my habits includes obsesively listening to songs and watching movies over and over again. Of course, my favorite combination of these two was always the sing-along-song videos we always had growing up.

Of these, my all-time favorite was one set entirely in Disneyland - Disneyland Fun!

Along with some old Disney favorites such as "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" and "Whistle While You Work", the collection also featured several songs based on the theme park itself, like "It's a Small World" and "I'm Walkin' Right Down the Middle of Main Street U.S.A."

Even watching them now, these songs put a grin on my face that only politics can wipe away. These videos were probably some of my first bits of exposure to musicals and musical theater, and I think that Disney was a huge part of lives of anyone who grew up in the nineties. I remember that my visits to Disney World were some of my most vivid memories, despite the fact that most of the rides terrified me. I liked being completely immersed in a world of fantasy. I expect that's true of most children), so naturally this video drew in more than the others, as it brought back a lot of what I felt on those visits.

Among the numbers in this video were two that especially marked me as a child: "Makin' Memories" and "Grim Grinnin' Ghosts".

Now, I know why "Grim Grinnin' Ghosts" has stuck with me all this time - because it thoroughly and completely terrified me as a child. I literally could not watch it. I remember constantly having to fast-forward through it because I knew that watching it would give me nightmares.

Like this, but with a much prettier nightgown.

I guess it follows that "Makin' Memories" would be the other number I'd remember, seeing as it directly preceded "Grim Ginnin' Ghosts". I remember that I could never fully enjoy the song as I kept anticipating the moment I'd have to quickly press fast-forward on the VCR remote and avert my eyes so as only to read the lyrics so I'd know when it was safe to look again...

It's funny because though I almost always skipped it, I've apparently watched "Grim Grinnin' Ghosts" enough times to remember most of the lyrics. The riff at the beginning though, the ooooh ooooh ooooh ooooooooh... That would haunt my dreams. If I remember correctly, it became my trademark creepy song whenever I made up stories or games as a kid. It was the scariest thing I'd ever watched until "Signs" in sixth grade.

"The Duck in the ghost costume... HE'S COMING!!!!!"

It's sort of an interesting contrast when you think of it - at least for the grown-ups watching - filling you up with nostalgia about happier times then WHAM a song that's basically a thinly-veiled reminder of your own mortality. Should this have been a Macabre Monday instead?

"Tonight, a commentary on our most ingrained fears." "Yaaaaaaaay!!!"

Did you watch Sing Along Songs as a kid? Did you watch them, perhaps, with kids of your own? Do you have any favorites?

Verse Vendredi - Pablo Neruda

In my attempts to diversify the topics discussed here on Nostalgically Yours, I'm looking for topics that I've never discussed before. One such topic is poetry.

I guess I'm just picky, or I haven't really explored the field enough, but I've never really been especially keen on poetry. It isn't that I don't enjoy it, I guess I just really don't expose myself to it enough. It's one of many things in my life I'm trying to work on. Of the few poets I do know, though, there is one to whom my mind wanders more than the rest, and that is a certain Pablo Neruda.

Neruda in his early Twenties

Neruda, born Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, in Chile at the turn of the 20th Century became famous for his poetry from a very young age, having his first work published when he was all of 13. "Pablo Neruda" was the name he used to avoid being found out by his father, who did not approve of his son's writing aspirations. This pen name is believed to have been a combination of Czech Poet Jan Neruda and French Poet Paul (or Pablo) Verlaine. Despite his father's disapproval, Neruda continued to write under his pen name, and eventually adopted it as his legal name. His illustrious and varied career not only included verse, journalism, and other writing, but also diplomatic office, political leadership, and international negotiator and peace-maker.

Neruda after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature in 1971.

His poetry, obviously, is what he is most remembered for, and rightly so. Gabriel García Márquez, author of "Love in the Time of Cholera" has called Neruda "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language." Of course, there's no language like his original Spanish. I've gushed about Spanish before, and in a previous attempt t translating Spanish verse I've said how so much of the beauty gets lost. If you have no other reason for learning Spanish, do it to hear Neruda's poetry in its original language.

"Si tú me Olvidas" (Original)

(English Translation)

Of course, the words still retain their meaning when translated, but the rhythm and the song of the words are lost in the English version. There's just something about Spanish that gets me. The most mundane phrases can be filled with music to me when they're spoken in Spanish... I really do believe it is the most beautiful of the Romance Languages, if not all languages.

"Poem 20" (Original)



(English Translation)

To me, the challenge of writing poetry is creating that subtle musicality that can't be achieved with any other medium. In most songs, the melody carried the words. In poetry, the words must speak entirely for themselves, making it a very vulnerable medium. It's naked music.

"I Like For You to be Still" (Original)


(English Translation)

I encourage you all to explore the works of Neruda both in print and video form, though I find that listening to spoken words is more my style. Who are your favorite poets?

Video Vendredi - Hindsight: Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights"

"Hindsight: Noun, Recognition of the realities, possibilities, or requirements of a situation, event, decision etc., after its occurrence."

This segment is all about looking back on the things in pop culture, beauty, or fashion that we kind of regret; the sorts of things that leave us wondering why we ever thought they were cool. One of the richest sources for these sorts of flashbacks is the music video. Some of the coolest videos from ten or twenty years ago seem ludicrous to us today. Sometimes, too, the videos are just plain bad - like this one:

The song is based on Emily Brontë's only novel, Wuthering Heights. Actually, you know what this video really needs? No, not a lower key or a choreographer, it just needs a costume change and to be set in the woods. Oh wait.

Yeah, I don't know what they were thinking, either. Have a great weekend, readers!

Witty Wednesdays - Lady Marmalade

Sometimes when I listen to songs - especially ones that tell specific stories, I'm left wondering exactly how certain things would go down:

Food For Thought - Beyoncé's "Countdown"

It seems that Mrs. Beyoncé Knowles-Z has decided that her entire career is going to be dedicated to providing fodder for my blog posts. I don't have a problem with that, I'm just sayin'... This time it's her new video for Countdown:

For me, the most obvious inspiration is right here:

Yes, everyone remembers that famous Gap commercial that features Audrey Hepburn dancing (but not wearing Gap clothing). Fewer people remember where that footage of Ms. Hepburn came from:

That dance comes from Funny Face, one of my all-time favorite movies, and clearly also one of Beyonce's, as she's drawn inspiration from it before. The outfits of the musicians match those of Hepburn's backup dancers, and even the layout of the bandstand shots mimics that of the nightclub set from the movie. The dancing, however, doesn't match. It clearly took me too long to write this article because just in the week or so since I began researching this article, there has been an explosion of press regarding similarities between "Countdown" and the choreography of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. To see a side-by-side comparison of De Keersmaeker and the music video, click here.

"Achterland", left, "Countdown", right.

Left and right, Beyoncé is being accused of stealing the choreography from De Keersmaeker. So much so that Knowles decided to release an alternate version of the video that excluded all of the controversial footage. Even De Keersmaeker herself had some things to say  about the music video, though she seems kinder than most. This is similar to the criticism rained down on Lady Gaga every time she does anything that even remotely resembles anything Madonna has done. Because Madonna has never, ever imitated anyone herself, right?

Right?

If you're like me, you were incessantly lectured about plagiarism in school (if you're really like me, you worries about being accused of plagiarizing even after taking every precaution to avoid it). What were the things we were told to do to ensure we weren't plagiarizing someone else's work?

• Re-write the information in your own words.
• Use multiple sources.
• Credit the author(s) of the work.

Knowles has done all but one of those things- she took the parts of the dances she liked and changed the context; she set it to different music and put different bits of the choreography together. De Keersmaeker has pointed out that even though they are performing the same dance, what Knowles and her dancers are doing is distinct from the films they mimic because of their context:

"In the 1980s, this was seen as a statement of girl power, based on assuming a feminine stance on sexual expression. I was often asked then if it was feminist. Now that I see Beyoncé dancing it, I find it pleasant but I don’t see any edge to it. It’s seductive in an entertaining consumerist way."

"Countdown", left. "Rosas danst Rosas", right.

Knowles also took inspiration from all kinds of other sources: Op art, Pop art, Mary Quant, Whtiney Houston... even Gap commercials! All of these things together created a unique work that is separate from all of its inspirations yet tied to them at the same time.

Now, I do believe Knowles and her team should have credited De Keersmaeker since they did borrow so heavily (and directly) from her, especially since they credited Boyz II Men after sampling from their song "Uhh, Ahh". However, according to a GQ interview with the video's director, Andria Petty, it was the team's intention to credit her but they overlooked this due to the tight deadline.

Can you say Andy Warhol?

This isn't the first time Knowles has borrowed heavily from others, nor will it be the last. This is also not the first time this sort of happened in the music video industry, nor in the music industry at large. Paula Abdul's "Rush Rush" is basically "Rebel Without a Cause", and Madonna's "Express Yourself" is basically "Metropolis". Music sampling has existed for decades. "Ice Ice Baby" sampled from "Under Pressure", "Rapper's Delight" sampled from "Good Times", "U Can't Touch This" sampled from "Super Freak"... The list goes on and on... If artists can't borrow from each other or imitate or build upon the work of others, then art cannot advance.

Knowles in Thierry Mugler

In addition, Beyoncé used the choreography to a different end than De Keersmaeker. The original footage was a work of choreography. It was a dance film. Knowles was presenting a video for her song. She was not presenting a dance, she was presenting a music video.

Finally, I think this whole climate of ideas as property contributes to rise of dangerous legislation such as CISPA. If we continue to consider artistic ideas as property in every context then we will be left with major corporations holding a monopoly on creativity because they're the only ones with the money to consistently defend "their" properties. We need to chill out about these kinds of things and start worrying about bigger problems.

Hope I haven't completely chewed off your ears!

Good Ol' Dear Ol' Dad - The Exception that Proves the Rule

It's been a while, but here's the second installment of "Good Ol' Dear Ol' Dad", with guest writer - My father!

"The passing of Dick Clark this week at age 82 may constitute final and conclusive proof for human mortality.  In Philosophy 101, many of us were taught the most basic of logical syllogisms:

1.     All men are mortal.

2.     Socrates is a man.

3.     Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

For several generations of TV viewers and music lovers, Dick Clark added a new twist to deductive logic by seeming never to age.  So the syllogism came to read something like this:

1.     All men are mortal.

2.     Dick Clark is immortal.

3.     Therefore, Dick Clark is not Socrates.

Clark with the A.B. audience.

Clark is probably best remembered as the host of the TV show “American Bandstand,” which earned him the sobriquet of “America’s oldest teenager.” The moniker proved to be prescient in terms of Clark’s eerie agelessness—a “fact” that it’s tempting to hypothesize subliminally convinced his mainly baby-boomer audience that they, too, were perhaps indestructible, but this is not something I’d presume to lay at the feet of the perpetually boyish Clark.  And, though I clearly remember seeing “Bandstand” in the early sixties as a child, I will leave its virtues and vices to other commentators.  (The program did give me an opportunity to play a puerile practical joke on some visiting teenage girl cousins one summer afternoon, circa 1962; I leaned out the back door to yell out to them in the yard where they were chatting with a neighborhood friend, “Quick!  Chubby Checker is on ‘American Bandstand!’” The three screamed and ran into the house so fast that one of them lost the tip of a high heel in the grass.  As penance for my prank, I was made to help in the fruitless search for the heel tip after they learned to their dismay that Checker was not in fact on Clark’s program that day.)

Collage of Clark from 1950s-1990s

Clark’s seeming changelessness became something of a national touchstone, and his name became synonymous with eternal youth.  I recall my brother at a family reunion some 20 years ago referring to a cousin and contemporary of ours, who had remained seemingly unchanged in the years since we had last seen him, as, “The Dick Clark of Bedford, Pennsylvania.”

Clark, on the Pyramid

In the course of his long career as a TV host and producer, Clark emceed one of my favorite game shows, “The $100,000 Pyramid.” That program had two teams, each consisting of a celebrity guest and contestant partner, vying to guess a category of things from a list of component parts.  In the lightning round, one team member had to get the other to correctly identify six progressively trickier categories in the space of a minute.  (Contestants often sat on their hands, as they were prohibited from gesturing to provide non-verbal clues.)  It was a good, lively, brain-teasing show.  Arguably the best part, though, was when, at the end of a lightning round where a team had failed to guess all the categories in the pyramid, the suave Clark would cross over to the bull pen where the losing team was seated, perch one leg on the step up, lean on the railing, and in a kindly manner lead the contestants through a few additional clues to help them come up with the answer they’d missed—often suggesting a couple of clues they hadn’t thought of—enabling them, if not to win the jackpot, at least to save face.  In that sense, Clark, ever diplomatic, taught millions of Americans the value of losing gracefully.

Clark aged only when he suffered a debilitating stroke, but then, once again, became the exception that proved the rule by fighting tenaciously back against stroke-related paralysis and speech impediments to continue as an on-air TV host, most notably as the anchor of the annual TV coverage of New Year’s Eve in Times Square, right up to the current year.  Though visibly older (but still not within binocular distance of his chronological age), measured of speech, and only a trifle frail looking, he still exuded a certain brio that made him “America’s youngest senior citizen.”

You could not help but root for such a trouper. - Good Ol', Dear Ol' Dad"

Our thoughts go out to the Clark family.

Music Mondays - Beyoncé and Bettie Page

Some of you may remember my previous article on Beyoncé's "Why Don't You Love Me?". Well, further discoveries have warranted a revisit to this mid-century wonderland.

Just to refresh your memory:








On another of my many YouTube train-of-thought binges, I stumbled onto footage from a 1950 Burlesque film called "Teaserama":








Now doesn't that seem oddly familiar? How about this?








Turns out Beyoncé was heavily inspired by Bettie Page and the Pin-up Girl in this video - not just in her dances but also in her clothes.

 

 

The maid costume may also have been partially inspired by this outfit:







But mostly that last one is just fun, isn't it?


Short but sweet.

 

Music Mondays - Freddie for a Day UNWRITTEN

Today marks what would have been Freddie Mercury's sixty-fifth birthday had his life not been tragically cut short by AIDS twenty years ago. His was a stellar career spanning two decades (both with Queen and on his own) and about four octaves. His death in 1991 sparked huge surge in publicity for the disease - second only to the death of Rock Hudson, I would say - as well as a huge storm of controversy regarding his private life.

Mercury with partner Jim Hutton, who died last year.

The surviving members of Queen founded the Mercury Phoenix Trust [MPT], which has raised over 15 million dollars to in the fight against HIV/AIDS since its inception in 1992. Among many other fundraising projects, they organize "Freddie for a Day" [FFAD]. The project was born last year when Liz Swanton - London banker and web editor to MPT - decided to dress as Freddie Mercury for 24 hours and asked friends, family, and co-workers to sponsor her. Read her entire story here.

Liz Swanton, the original Freddie for a Day in 2010

Well, MPT thought it was a brilliant idea and decided to pick up the event and advertise it world-wide. The FFAD website has costumes, accessories, and other merchandise for sale - proceeds going to the MPT, of course. This first official FFAD also comes just in time for the production of the Freddie Mercury biopic, which will star Sacha Baron Cohen as Queen's lead singer.

In honor of Mercury's birthday, here are some of his songs:



I'm only sad that I learned about this too late to participate, and so instead I decided to advertise their cause and maybe get some of you readers to do it with me next year! Perhaps, instead, we can chip in by buying some of their fabulous merchandise here - like this delightful mug:

Cheers,