Malcolm is frequently convinced that his iTunes feed is hexed: its degree of appropriate prescience is inspired.
He was about to post on the iniquitous 55% rule (see previous posts below) when John Cash started to belt out Remember the Alamo:
Tangentially relevant: Noto55 is a small Alamo. We may not win; but it is a strike for a significant freedom. Anyway, Cash is worthwhile at all times, any pretext to drag him into the discussion should be snaffled. And he is a one heck of a lot more impressive than the dismal prospect of Marty Robbins chirruping up on the same topic, with Paul Francis Webster's doggerel (he did much better elsewhere) to Dmitri Tiomkin's tune:
In the sand he drew a line with his army saber Out of a hundred eighty five not a soldier crossed the line. With his banners a dancin' in the dawn's golden light, Santa Ana came prancin' on a horse that was black as the night ...
Well, we're not that far gone yet. But there is a line-in-the-sand. And, according to the Daily Mail, we have our Colonel Travis:
... a number of MPs want to retain the right to kick out a government by a simple majority of one, in a no confidence vote.
David Davis - once Mr Cameron's leadership rival - is understood to be among a growing number of politicians of the Left and Right opposed to the 'stitch-up'.
Davis is a Tory, and a rank one (so that's two strikes against him in Malcolm's elephantine memory). He is, however, an honourable man. Malcolm had to respect him when he went on his Quixotic by-election campaign against ID-cards and the rest of the surveillance society.
Notice that the iTunes playlist has now segued to equally-magnificent Jacques Brel:
If Davis is mustering, in the backwoods of Tory opinion something stirs. Over on Malcolm Redfellow's Home Service, our guide, philosopher and friend is noting two Tory grandees girding for a punch-up on the same issue.
Why ask that of someone, as Malcolm was, born in the War years? Who remembers raiding his moneybox that day in February 1953 when sweets came off-the-rations?
In its own small way, the younger generation experience the rationing problem with their iPods.
No matter which model one has, all the way up the the 160GB Classic, there is a finite limit to storage. Which means making choices. The problem achieves cataclysmic crisis time with the Lady in Malcolm's life and her natty, minuscule Shuffle.
So, of Malcolm's several iPods (Weeuw ... there's posh!), the 32GB iPod touch, though not the biggest capacity, is the current favourite, not because of size, but simply through its general utility.
Currently it is carrying just over 5000 tracks and about 500 photographs. Since it, and the 80GB Classic are the back-ups for iPhoto when the Lady in his Life and Malcolm are on the move, that means it's pruning time. Another prompt comes when he found that, somehow when he uploaded 765MB and nine hours of Miles Davis's Complete Prestige Recordings, ripped @ 192 kbps, he must have over-written Sketches of Spain. That is, of course, unacceptable; and must be remedied instantly. There's only about 4GB spare, but Malcolm has this thing about excess: it's Brazilian time, ladies!
At first it's easy; how many variants of those Willie Nelson standards does a man need? Did Malcolm really upload all that ABBA pap? And that's not the worst (about which, least said the better).
Around this point the process of elimination slows down. Hey! here's Jackie Brenston and Rocket 88! We haven't cranked that one for a while ... and then we pause to stack it up against, say, Bernard Allison's and Nappy Brown's or the Alexis Korner versions.
YouTube offer a version, which (despite the "original" claim) seems later than, and different from the 1951 original:
The Bettie Page clips are a gratuitous addition. Moreover, to claim that this is "the first rock'n'roll song" invites a deluge of disagreement. A "fuzzy" tenor-sax does not a genre make.
At this point Malcolm realises he has a whole playlist of road-songs and car-songs. Malcolm scanned a score or more Cadillac titles, not including the Austin Lounge Lizards' The Car Hank Died In:
That would count as the nadir of bad taste — nothing wrong with that, says Malcolm — had Dave Allan Coe, complete with girlie chorus, not also been represented (a recommendation from our American Cousin, Colorado Zach):
Well, I was drunk the day my Mom got outta prison. And I went to pick her up in the rain. But, before I could get to the station in my pickup truck She got runned over by a damned old train.
But to stick with the Caddy motif:
Then there are nearly as many GTOs and Chevys as there were Caddy songs: they include one worthwhile gem — Junior Brown putting a little overdue life into the Beach Boys' 409 (the B-side of the dismal Surfin' Safari of 1962):
That's before he hit on another favourite: Kathy Mattea's striding attack on Gillian Welch's 455 Rocket, "biggest block alive", which in a way brings him full circle:
Malcolm apologises for that version; the original is blocked in his region.
It goes without saying that anything by or from Gillian Welch is sacrosanct, and not for removing.
However, a stack of '70s and '80s stuff goes straight to the bin, no problem: Phil Collins, large swathes of other pretentious stuff.
With Sketches of Spain (is it jazz? who cares?) and a few other goodies onto the iPod Touch, and so to bed ...
a pretty nifty summation of what commercial country is, circa 2009.
It includes a song, Arkansas Dave (a folksy old-fashioned C&W morality credited to Strait's son):
He rode up on a winter day, Steam rising off the street, they say. Said, "You probably know my name: If you don't it's Arkansas Dave.
He talked of fifteen years ago, And how he got to play hero. Said he killed a man in Ohio: First man he killed, first horse he stole.
Marty Robbins did this kind of thing with more style, a half century gone. Even so, when boastful Dave ends up miscalculating the odds, and dead in that same street, one suspects even more type-casting.
Totally forgettable stuff, but it provoked a thought, which threatens to venture into the territory usually occupied by one of Normblog's mini-enterprises. In honour of Diddy Dave Cameron, what other lyrics celebrate the forename of the moment?
His Name is Alive, on the King of Sweet album (if you have one, don't shout about it, but it's worth the odd bob) did two in a row: Ode on a Dave Asman and A Dave in the Life. Boomtown Rats achieved something eponymous and a bit better known (Pete Townsend rated it), as the opener for The Long Grass album
But please, Believe, The view from on your knees Deceives Keep going,Dave.
In the same mould we have Caffeine (UK punk-rockers, on the road less-taken -- unfairly so) doing Dave's Song (In Slow Motion):
I looked up to the sky,and I saw a figure It was small with shiny lights; And out of this, this little blue figure, With the small shining lights Stepped a little blue man, With a little blue figure And he said to me"Do you believe?"
Some kind of psychological profile is emerging here; and it's not flattering to Daves.
On the great Silver Screen (but more at home on off-off-peak sitting-room teevee), there was Kevin Kline's 1993 outing as Dave.
Now, in Malcolm's view, that was a more than decent movie: light, frothy, with a heart in the proper place. It included two characters with whom Malcolm could recognise:
the scheming, creepy, on-the-make Bob Alexander (played by Frank Langella), a model on which subsequent melodramatic villains Karl Rove and Veep Cheney were undoubtedly based,
and
the decent, honourable Vice-President Nance (a cameo for Ben Kingsley) which took a name from "Cactus Jack", FDR's first Vice-President, John Nance Garner, and an unacceptably-progressive ideology from his second, Henry Agard Wallace.
The slogan on which Dave was advertised went:
In a country where anybody can become President, anybody just did.
The US of A allows even a self-confessed "mutt, like me" to reach the highest office in the land. In the UK, of course, it helps to see a Dave through if he has royal cousinage, is descended from the mistress of a royal princeling, has a wife with connections to the Astors, and some £20 million of inheritance money.
Nor should we overlook Freeview channel 19, Dave, (a BBC/Virgin hybrid based on nth run repeats) never knowingly oversold as:
full of complete and utter wits
Read that very, very carefully. Any miscue is deliberate.
Spot the difference Malcolm occupies Redfellow Hovel in the company of two females with strong aversions. Spiders and pigeons have featured into recent weeks.
So, why will the Lady in his Life scream at a spider, but allow a ladybird to crawl all over her? Why persecute the moth but marvel at a butterfly? Malcolm keeps very quiet about the friendly mouse under his patio, knowing the repercussions likely to ensue. Meanwhile the thieving, ungrateful robin is fed on nuts and titbits all winter long. The squirrels are only tree rats with a good PR agent. And those urban foxes make a heck of a mess and are noisy at it.
For some reason, all the whitefly, greenfly and blackfly that have been the bane of Malcolm's life these many years have gone AWOL this year: as, of course, have the ladybirds.
Now he knows where they have all gone: to Somerset --
And for the next mystery, why did John Lennon reckon there were 4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire? Any way, how many holes can fit in a hole, even one as big as Blackburn?
At which the voice of Malcolm's Dear Old Dad resonates spookily from another dimension:
If a man and a half can dig a hole and a half in a day and a half ...
Malcolm notes that Dewi chose one of the later, mature, versions: Davies and unplugged 12-string at Glastonbury. None of the YouTube clips seem to have the full-on impact of the original 1967 release (see the Last fm link or look in the attic for your -- or your Dad's -- Something Else album). As the song (like all of us) mellows into the autumn of its years, it has become less driving, more reflective, more elegiac.
A view from the Bridge
Certainly it's one of the great London songs, though Time Out also gave it second billing, behind that Tube-busker standard, Ralph McTell's Streets of London (which definitely works better without the celestial choir):
Davies celebrates one of those sights that few Londoners, though most tourists who come fresh to the Smoke, see and treasure. There are nearly 2,000 piccies on Flickr which are tagged "Waterloo Sunset": many are actually relevant. "Waterloo Sunset" was the title for Eurostar's switch to St Pancras in November 2007 (Lily Allen got the song, and, reportedly and wisely, stuck tenaciously to the Davies delivery).
One of the early employments of Number One Daughter involved incarceration in the "Juke Box", that preposterous office-block erection atop Charing Cross Station. That lent enchantment to the the view.
Later, the leisures of retirement meant that Malcolm had the liberty (and the Freedom Pass) to go tripping. He has to admit it is only in recent months that he has discovered the Overground routes to and from Kentish Town, and so crossing Blackfriars Bridge. In the evening, with the sun setting behind the gothic spikiness of Westminster, it's quite a sight. Equally, twice in the last couple of years, he revisited the forgotten experience, last done on a paddle steamer around 1948: a river-boat down the Thames. Ray Davies's Terry and Julie wouldn't be seeing, nor smelling, the "Dirty Old River" so much these days, as they wisely return to the northern shore and civilisation:
Where they feel safe and sound.
Ah, Ray Davies knows which side of the River he belongs.
Nostalgia (they don't make songs the way they used to)
There is a huge emotional boost for Malcolm in these songs. They were current at a time when his life revolved around a wee Bannside babe who was then living in Hampstead, NW3.
To Malcolm's continuing bestaggerment, she stayed around to be the progenetrix, well-spring, guide, philosopher and friend of Daughter Number One, the Earth Mother and the Pert Young Piece. And to continue directing the affairs of Redfellow Hovel.
Which raises the Great Norf Lunnun Problem [GNLP].
This is best summed up by the Alan Klein/Geoff Stephens lyric for the New Vaudeville Band, back in 1966 (and, astoundingly not one of the Time Out Top Fifty London songs):
Finchley Central is two and sixpence From Golders Green on the Northern Line.
Now, the Northern Line has improved, but that's a matter of degree. In those days the rolling stock was pre-war, signalling was Edwardian, and punctuality and reliability were ... not taken seriously. The lifts at Hampstead tube station were venerable antiques: since Hampstead is the deepest tube station on the network, that involved too-frequent resource to the 320+ stairs up to street level.
Even today getting anywhere on the two forks of the Northern Line involves the dubious joys of a change at Camden Town, where you are truly at one with your neighbour (who is invariably an odiferous alky nutter). And time. For example, Redfellow Hovel to the Flask (the remaining Young's pub in Hampstead, just behind the tube station, convenient for Waterstone's genteel book emporium) involves a 134 bus to Archway Tower, four stops to Camden Town, change platform, three stops back up the other fork to Hampstead. Not less than 45 minutes.
Yes, there is a direct bus route: the infamous 603, Twice in the morning, before 8 a.m.. Twice back in the afternoon. Weekdays only. Yeah: another of the loud-trumpeted achievements of Lynne Featherstone. It's the school run, for heaven's sake. Useless otherwise for man or beast.
Logically, the 102 to the rose red city half as Golders Green, double back on the tube might work. Except the 210 and Golders Green tube are variable feasts at weekends. Or the 134/43 to Archway, then the 210 to Jack Straw's Castle (another pub lost and gone) and a long hike down Heath Street. Or, and this seems to be the best, the 134 to Kentish Town and the 46 back up to the Village. As for all of that: sane it ain't.
The pity of it ...
... is the distance it puts between Malcolm and a decent pint.
Hampstead has lost many decent watering-holes. Jack Straw's (well, never a favourite, to be honest) is now over-priced yuppie apartments. The Nag's Head (once upon a time The Cruel Sea, the final evening resting place of many a resting thespian, then the first CAMRA-owned pub) declined into a curry house, and so goes lost and unlamented into memory. The Horse and Groom (a.k.a. the "Remorse and Gloom", where Malcolm was once sandwiched at the bar by Kingsley Amis and Victoria Wood, both silent, remorseful and begloomed) was once a good Young's house, now some species of ethnic diner.
That still leaves the Flask for Young's Special (and seasonal Winter Warmer), still Malcolm's resort of choice, though recently given an unnecessary (except for the jakes) make over. Then there's the Holly Bush (an Ind Coope house that still sports a Benskins sign) for a range of guest ales, well worth the Alpine climb, which hasn't been made-over for two centuries. Or the worthy Old White Bear in Well Road for a decent choice and a reasonably civilised environment, though not as "Old" as it affects. And, to be avoided unless desperate, the barn of the Freemasons, and the William IV (unless, dear boy, you're that way inclined).
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Monday, May 25, 2009
Monday with Billy
Yawn ...
Was it last night's overdose of Cabernet? Or just the idleness of a Bank Holiday morning?
So, what can we find to fight the ennui? Strong coffee helps ...
This ought to do it!
As Malcolm has admitted here and elsewhere, he is a fan of Billy Joel.
This double CD is a juicy relict of Joel's record tenancy at Madison Square Garden in 2006. That's one of the gigs Malcolm, equipped with his time-machine, would want to attend (another is Georges Brassens' final concert at Sète -- Malcolm left the town only that morning; and has regretted ever since).
What is remarkable is that Joel (or whoever guided his selection) largely ignored most of the output after 1986. Yes, there's The Night Is Still Young, The Great Wall of China, a full-blown The Downeaster 'Alexa' (which Malcolm relishes), The River of Dreams, A Matter of Trust, We Didn't Start the Fire, and, as the penultimate, an excellent And So It Goes. That leaves a full two dozen of the earlier classics.
A quick comparison suggests that Joel has dropped the pitch a notch or two: the matured voice is richer and rock-solid as a result.
Ah!, here comes Allentown. Sony have induced YouTube to block access to this from the UK, but it may show:
Well, we're waiting here in Allentown For the Pennsylvania we never found, For the promises our teachers gave If we worked hard, If we behaved. So the graduations hang on the wall, But they never really helped us at all. No; they never taught us what was real -- Iron and coke And chromium steel. And we're waiting here in Allentown. But they've taken all the coal from the ground, And the union people crawled away. Every child had a pretty good shot To get at least as far as their old man got; But something happened on the way to that place ...
It was that passing mention of Brassens, above, which supplied Malcolm with a satisfying explanation for his liking of Joel. At his best, Joel goes beyond song-writing, beyond being a modern balladeer, to providing narratives in song, as in his celebration of his return to New York:
As the hair and the higher pitch suggests, that's from 1978 (14th March: a Live at the BBC concert).
Or, in true chansonnière mode, Scenes from an Italian Restaurant and Piano Man, which both come towards the end of double CD (the lyrics mainly carried by active audience involvement).
Malcolm, doing a routine task, with inevitable iPod accompaniment, was about to conclude that no lyricist came close to Cole Porter:
Let's reprise that:
You're the top, you're Mahatma Gandhi! You're the top, you're Napoleon brandy! You're the purple light, of a summer night, in Spain. You're the National Gallery! you're Garbo's salary! You're cellophane!
Followed by [cue Miss Holiday!] Porter's harsh observation of:
When the only sound in the empty street Is the heavy tread of the heavy feet That belong to a lonesome cop, I open shop. When the moon so long has been gazing down On the wayward ways of this wayward town That her smile becomes a smirk, I go to work....
Love for sale, Appetising young love for sale. Love that's fresh and still unspoiled, Love that's only slightly soiled, Love for sale.
Or, again, for sheer joy:
Malcolm has a very soft spot for that one: it was one of the great moments in the 2001 Broadway revival. That closed soon after 9/11, and transferred to London; so Malcolm saw it twice.
There is, as it happens, a complete video of the earlier, 1999, London production of Kiss Me, Kate (in 6' 40" episodes, and all for free on YouTube):
That all goes to show why Malcolm reckons Cole's Kate is better theatre than Will's rather dreary Shrew. Malcolm reckons, when the 2001 Broadway production transferred to the West End, it simply redeployed the set in that video.
This is all subjective and personal. Therefore, as always, complications crept in.
So, who's in Malcolm's second place?
One contender might be Ewan MacColl:
Who else but Roberta Flack? She was probably responsible for that song being voted, surprisingly, the BBC's soul song of the century in 1999. Purists may prefer the original:
No, let's not rule out MacColl: he did so much more.
Or what about Billy Joel?
We ought to have Piano Man at this juncture, but YouTube have disabled the link. He achieves something of that natural realism as Love for Sale.
Malcolm could half-doze the seven hours of LHR-EWR of VS001 to a playlist of Joel's oeuvre. He might even keep Miami 2017 on repeat, recollecting this:
But we went right on with the show: indeed. That has personal resonance with Malcolm, because of reasons he has mentioned before (as far back as the 14th September 2007) . For once the YouTube audio is clearer than the original CD.
Joel also gave us Scenes from an Italian Restaurant:
and, another Malcolm favourite:
What's this?
At the last moment, Malcolm's order of choice is thrown into confusion. The iPod throws up something different, straight from 52nd (now on 44th) Street:
Down them stairs, lose them cares -- where? Down in Birdland. Total swing, bop was king - there! Down in Birdland Bird would cook, Max would look - where? Down in Birdland, Miles came through, 'Trane came too - there! Down in Birdland Basie blew, Blakey too - where? Down in Birdland, Cannonball played that hall - there! Down in Birdland Yeah !
Wow!
Does it ever get better?
Well, possibly (You might as well admit it,/ we're the best who ever did it) on Four Brothers:
Hear me now, oh, the bleak and unbearable world: Thou art base and debauched as can be And a knight with his banner all bravely unfurled Now hurls down his gauntlet to thee!
His nearest-and-dearest mock him for it. Even the most "successful" (that is: brash, pushy, meretricious and mercenary) of the local blog-artists have taken the time vulgarly to abuse him for it.
He ploughs his solitary furrow regardless.
He has never, even to himself, fully described what he aims to do.
To dream the impossible dream To fight the unbeatable foe To bear with unbearable sorrow To run where the brave dare not go.
To dream, in hope of doing: that is the point. Entirely and only to his own satisfaction, for he is his own most demanding critic.
Then he sees an example and expostulates, as his sixth-form history-teacher would to a correct answer, like an Archimedes brought to Dublin: "That's it! That's it!".
And all is, for the moment, made clear.
Thus Malcolm, through a the end of a bottle of burgundy, darkly.
Item: Stanley Fish Stanley has been at, with, and through half the American Universities of worth (sometimes, it seems, simultaneously): UPenn, Yale, Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Duke, Chicago, to arrive at FIU. He is one of those scholars that other wannabes now write their theses about.
He has pulpits in half the liberal trendy publications of North America; but, for Malcolm, chiefly via the New York Times.
... two of the most erotic moments one can find on film feature no nudity and bodies just touching.
They are:
the 1951 A Place in the Sun, [which] pairs a ravishing 18-year-old Elizabeth Taylor with Montgomery Clift
and
1955’s Picnic, [where] the sparks fly between Kim Novak, then 22, and William Holden.
Steady, Stanley!
Let's clear up any ... err ... ambiguities here:
A 30-odd year old bisexual (to be generous), hitting on teenage Liz?
A 37-year old Holden, who had been Ronnie Reagan's best man, appreciating Kim's impressive cleavage?
Yeah: well.
The rest of this worthy essay is a defence of Novak as an actress and zeitgeist. Fish's conclusion is:
“that kind of image” — of the inwardly fragile beauty dependent on the men who wish only to possess her — was no longer what the movie-going public was looking for after the early ‘60s, and that model of female behavior has not come into favor again (although Scarlett Johansson comes close to reviving it in some of her movies, especially Woody Allen’s “Match Point”). But however retrograde it may be, that role was performed to perfection by Kim Novak, who, after all these years, can still break your heart.
Ahem ... say no more. Malcolm found this piece a fair example of what he, himself, would like regularly to achieve: a piece of candy-floss spun into something of substance. Here we have a good holiday frisk for a mid-August frolic, but with a hard edge to it.
Allowing for Stanley's more advanced age, Malcolm's own prejudice might tend to embrace those great Thespians, Tuesday Weld and the lateSandra Dee (which adjective makes Malcolm feel antique).
Oh dear, a preference for blondes.
Still, let's not tell Malcolm's dark lady of all these years.
There is a serious point lurking somewhere here. A large number of our prejudices are formed very early in our lives, and that's not merely the (attributed) Jesuit dogma.
Our sporting allegiance is certainly likely to be cemented in our early teens (hence Malcolm's regular Sunday morning rendezvous with the doings of Norwich City). The fantasy female (or whatever way one wags) follows soon after.
So, where do we acquire our social idealism?
And the world will be better for this That one man scorned and covered with scars Still strove with his last ounce of courage To reach the unreachable star.
Over on his Normblog, Norman Geras has been doing a fine job on Songs of the States (he’s getting through his first draft at a rate of knots, but Malcolm confidently expects updates).
One of the great themes, perhaps the main thread of American popular music is movement.
So what about American highways as a theme to match Norm’s effort?
Since the Eisenhower Interstate system uses even numbers from South to North, and odds from West to East, it’s really only a case of counting. This is complicated, of course, by the numbering of the earlier US Highways from 1926, and by the identifications of State highways. That means it’s all the way from the Waifs on Highway One:
I'm not that hard to find: I live onHighway One, 12 hour drive.
to Emmylou on 95:
I have come to listen for the sound Of the trucks as they move down Out on ninety five And pretend that it's the ocean Coming down to wash me clean.
For those who don't get the implications, that's an elegy for Gram Parsons.
Michael Nesmith goes even further on Highway 99, with help from lyrics by Michael B. Cohen:
Anyway, it takes a certain amount of blind faith To make ninety-nine in an old car ...
Emerson Drive (a Canadian country band out of Alberta) exceed even that with:
There's three in the front and four in the back: Slid'er into gear boys were headed for fun, Cruisin' down Redneck Highway 101.
In fact, as far as Malcolm can establish, the enumeration of US highways goes all the way up to US 830 (which 209 miles used to run through Washington State, until it was replaced by I-5, WA-4 and WA-14).
The trouble with using roads as as a long-term project for identifying with songs is that the US Federal Highway Administration have already been there, done that and probably trademarked the tee-shirt.
Beyond that, there are numerous sites on the Net which have made their own road-song lists. Even Rolling Stone was reduced to this expedient, with a Top 25 last year (the reader contributions are better than the original list). Better still is The Great American Roadtrip listing (for all sorts of reasons, that's a Malcolm favourite site). Then there's the CMT 40 Greatest Road Songs (the Numero Uno of which, inevitably, is Willie Nelson On the Road Again though not the version with Sheryl Crow in the inserted YouTube vid).
We're nearly there, except for the Big Daddy of all road-song listings. That's an on-going labour of love by Frank X. Brusca and his merry band of contributors. And it's great gas.
So, Malcolm, what's your best road song?
Well, any biker knows the Byrds did good with Ballad of Easy Rider. That's the coincidence of Bob Dylan and Roger McGuinn.
Then there's the closely-related Born to be Wild, which invented heavy metal (though the metal came out of Milwaukee on two wheels).
But the best bike song (and probably the best bike) of all-time is 1952 Vincent Black Lightning:
As for a road, that's nearly easy. It's either Ventura Highway
or Bobby Troup's Route 66:
Enjoy that one: it's not the most dramatic rendering, or even the most memorable, but it is the original. And it brings us, full circle to Norm's blog.
Except, of course, that left out the very best of the best, that road through Freehold Borough, New Jersey:
In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway American dream: At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines. Sprung from cages out on Highway 9, Chrome wheeled, fuel injected and steppin' out over the line -- Baby this town rips the bones from your back, It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap. We gotta get out while were young, 'Cause tramps like us, baby, we were born to run.
Service was slow at the bar. This gave Malcolm the opportunity to observe the female shoulder edging him aside. Being a warm June day, that shoulder was bared, so the tattoo was in full view.
Later, Malcolm found his mind reverting to something like "Ta-ra-ra-bom-de-ay!", with a link to that shoulder. It took him a while to make the connection to the Kingston Trio:
Oh, we came to town to see That old tattooed lady. She was a sight to see, Tattooed from head to knee My uncle Ned was there, He came to gape and stare: "I've never," he declared, "Seen such a freak so fair!"
And on her jaw was the Royal Flying Corps, And on her back was the Union Jack, Now could you ask for more? All up and down her spine, Were the Queen's own guard in line, And all around her hips Sailed a fleet of battle ships, And over her left kidney Was a birds-eye view of Sydney; But what we liked best, Was upon her chest Our little home in Waikiki.
A Royal Navy version of The Tattooed Lady c.1960 [which] goes I went to gay Par-ee, And paid five francs to see A bloody great French cherie Tattooed from head to knee.
This is, as the musicologists might say, a variant on the other.
Nor should we lightly discard Mudcat's passing hint of an Australian connection: This, it would seem, is an example of the "loosely defined Adelaide art movement of the early 1970s dubbed Skangaroovian Funk, which was characterised by an anti-art, anti-establishment attitude":
This is a painted clay sculpture made in 1974 by Bert Flugelman (1923-). Measuring 116 cm x 84 cm x 46 cm, the work is in the shape a figure of a nude woman standing with her hands on her hips and staring straight ahead. The figure is truncated just above the knees and at the upper part of the head. The proportions of the figure, particularly the waist and hips, are highly exaggerated. In contrast to her three-dimensional arms, her hands have been drawn onto the figure. Her entire body is covered with tattoo-like illustrations in rich colour which depict Japanese couples engaged in sexual activity. Some of these figures are completely naked, while others wear traditional Japanese clothing.
That said, the Ozark singer, Skeets McDonald ( author of Don't Let the Stars Get in your Eyes) has yet another version of the same song:
Once I married a tattooed lady, It was on a cold cold grey winter day, And tattooed all around her body Was a map of the good ol' USA; And every night before I'd go to sleep I'd lift the covers and take myself a peek ... (spoken) Well good God almighty ...
Down on her leg was Arizona, On her knee was Tennessee, Tattooed on her back Was good ole Hackysack That's the place where I long to be.
Down on her (whistle) was West Virginny And in them hills I love to roam. When I saw the moonlight on her Mississippi I recognized my home sweet home.
Which instantly gives us four entries to Norman Geras's ongoing United States of Song.
But, wait! Where else might this lead us? Well, for a start there's Kermit doing it:
Then, diverging from the main topic, by coincidence Malcolm found himself listening to Josh White's Free and Equal Blues, which starts explicitly from and takes the tune of St James Infirmary:
I went down to that St. James Infirmary, and I saw some plasma there, I ups and asks the doctor man, "Now was the donor dark or fair?" The doctor laughed a great big laugh, and he puffed it right in my face, He said, "A molecule is a molecule, son, and the damn thing has no race."
The full lyrics (by the same Yip Harburg) and some useful background are on Elijah Wald's site.
One further place to visit is the astoundingly-deep Pseudo-intellectualism site. There Sol Bellel knows more about New York's Lower East Side and its many graduates (including Yip Harburg) than is credible from any one intellect, pseudo or not.
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the bl...
Malcolm featured in the columns of "Trinity News", the student weekly of Trinity College, Dublin, in the early 1960s.
He worked in public education. He was a borough councillor and parliamentary candidate. He retired. He was bored. He blogged.
