Running After My Hat

Ridiculous pursuits, matters solemn and less so

What’s in a Song: Body and Soul (2)

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[Image: “Body and Soul’s” opening measures, highlighting the dotted eighth rest]

From the wonderful Jazz Standards site’s musicological writeup:

Because of its complex chord progressions, “Body and Soul” remains a favorite of jazz musicians. The unusual changes in key and tempo are also highly attractive and provide a large degree of improvisational freedom.

“Unusual changes in key and tempo” might be what I think of (in my musical ignorance) as a weird near-tunelessness. At practically every turn, the song slides around what I’d expect to hear. I can’t imagine anyone whistling it while they walk along, y’know? And the weirdness all starts with that first note.

Well, technically it’s not a note at all. You can see it circled in red at the top of the post: it’s a rest.

Even more technically, it’s a “dotted eighth rest,” i.e., it’s supposed to be held for a duration of one-and-a-half “eighth notes,” or five-sixteenths of a whole one. That musicians can make anything at all from arithmetic like this is why they’re musicians and I’m not.

Which itself is weird, if you think about it. I mean, that’s the actual melody there — what a singer is expected to sing, and how. But that opening rest says to the singer: Wait! Don’t start singing right off the bat. Pause for a split-second. Then start.

And then there’s the so-called bridge…

As I mentioned in Part 1, the lyrics are hard to pin down because they’ve been so elaborated upon by so many performers. In its most common form, singers do two verses in the same “melody,” followed by a verse in a second melody, and wrap it all up with a repeat of the first one. This song structure is often depicted like this: AABA. The second melody — the B — makes up the bridge: a bit of music to carry a listener from the opening of a song through to the end.

“Body and Soul’s” bridge (“I can’t believe it/It’s hard to conceive it…”), unlike those A sections, does seem to have a real melody. And it, well, lilts.* Lyrically, the singer seems to be having second thoughts, trying to convince him- or herself that the sense of abandonment can’t be real. There must be some other explanation — “Are you pretending?” — only to conclude, with a desperate, almost audible thud in the final A verse, You do know I’m still yours, right? Please please please…?

Whatever the musical technicalities, for whatever reason, history makes one clear point: “Body and Soul” is much-loved not only by vocalists (who can appreciate not just the musical nuances, but the emotional ones in the lyrics), but by instrumentalists.

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Make Your World

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[Above: an image designed to induce binocular rivalry: an attempt by one’s senses to forge a single thing from two conflicting images. See here for instructions on how to use.]

From whiskey river:

When you have lived as long as I, you will see that every human being has his shell, and that you must take the shell into account. By the shell I mean the whole envelope of circumstances. There is no such thing as an isolated man or woman; we are each of us made up of a cluster of appurtenances. What do you call one’s self? Where does it begin? where does it end? It overflows into everything that belongs to us — and then it flows back again. I know that a large part of myself is in the dresses I choose to wear. I have a great respect for things! One’s self — for other people — is one’s expression of one’s self; and one’s house, one’s clothes, the books one reads, the company one keeps — these things are all expressive.

(Henry James [source])

…and:

We have to recognize that the world is not something sculptured and finished, which we as perceivers walk through like patrons in a museum; the world is something we make through the act of perception.

(Terence McKenna [source])

…and:

Kneeling

Moments of great calm,
Kneeling before an altar
Of wood in a stone church
In summer, waiting for the God
To speak; the air a staircase
For silence; the sun’s light
Ringing me, as though I acted
A great rôle. And the audiences
Still; all that close throng
Of spirits waiting, as I,
For the message.
Prompt me, God;
But not yet. When I speak,
Though it be you who speak
Through me, something is lost.
The meaning is in the waiting.

(R. S. Thomas [source])

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Looking for a Writing Prompt?

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Long-time RAMH friend Marta has started a new blog. It’s based on something other writers may have thought, from time to time: I bet in another world I’d be appreciated more than I am in this one…!

Marta’s taken it a step further: writing the blog as if her famous-mirror-counterpart — called simply “M.” — were writing it.

[In the following paragraph, both “M.” and “Marta” are fictional characters. “Marta” may be based on the real Marta, but there are probably points of difference, too.]

The entries so far have described how she, Marta, first learned of the existence of M.: the arrival — obviously through some rupture in the space-time continuum — of a fan letter, to M., in response to the latter’s most recently published title. An interesting twist: M.’s book is not a book which Marta never heard of. It’s from one of Marta’s own manuscripts, which she hasn’t yet shown to anyone. M. has also done usual blog-type posts, given that she’s a blindingly successful novelist of course. In the most recent, she recounts how her editor has helped her shop for a place to live on what appear to be the streets of Greenwich Village. And she’s acquired a stalker.

Marta — the real one — is enlisting interested readers and writers in creating the new blog. She’s called for them to write fan (or other) letters to M., as if they were people who know (of) her in this alternate universe… real letters, preferably handwritten (real-world Marta seems to love all paper artifacts).

To participate, just drop her a line via the comments at that new blog — called Famous in Another Universe, btw — or at her regular place, writing in the water, and she’ll work out the details with you.

And of course, taking part in this project or not, you may enjoy just reading along as it grows. Start here (the post called “The Wormhole and the Envelope”) and just click the “next post” links below each entry.

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P.S. I haven’t cleared any of the above with Marta, so for any number of reasons this post may not hang around for long. :)

 

Midweek Music Break: Fearing & White, “Under the Silver Sky”

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It’s worth remembering that outstanding music is made by professionals other than big-name bands and frontmen — successful or not. There are of course the headliners, the acts which other performers open for. Then there are smaller-scale artists who consistently get great reviews and have loyal fan bases; think Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, say, or Mary Gauthier (a recent find — thanks, Greg!).

And then there are all the others: studio musicians, accompanists, songwriters for other people…

From the Fearing & White Web site, their bios:

Fearing is well known within the international folk and roots music community as one of its most accomplished songsmiths, storytellers and guitarists. A double Juno award winner in his native Canada, he has experienced commercial and critical success, both in his solo career and with roots/rock supergroup Blackie and The Rodeo Kings. Along the way, Stephen has toured and recorded with everybody from Merle Haggard to Shawn Colvin.

Northern Ireland born and raised White has earned a global following for blending folk and pop stylings with a poet’s sensibility. Working with the great names of Irish music — Sinead O’Connor, Van Morrison — and writing with the likes of Peter Gabriel and Neil and Tim Finn, Andy has won Ireland’s top songwriting awards and toured the world many times. A published author, his recent on the road journal/novel 21st Century Troubadour has scored rave reviews.

These two guys have been around. (And my guess is: they’re just fine with that.) Friends for years, they have sometimes toured or otherwise played together, and recently released their first duo album, Fearing & White. (They’ve also got multiple solo releases between them.) Here’s one of the songs from the middle of the playlist, “Under the Silver Sky”:

I’ve found no lyrics for this anywhere, and — for now — I’m not willing to trust any transcription I might make myself. (Not while wearing a loaned and clearly less expensive hearing aid. :)) So for now maybe you can just be satisfied, as am I, with the upbeat, ramshackle-road-trip but tightly played feel of it.

(Good interview with them at the Maple Mixtape site, dedicated to “exposing great Canadian music one track at a time.”)

Update: Thanks to Beat Surrender, again, for introducing me to performers who so neatly fit my frame of mind.

Victims of Fashion (Men’s Department)

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Someone, no doubt, has taken a census of active bloggers and other social-media types, focusing on gender. I don’t know what the breakdown might be; maybe I’m stereotyping at least one sex, if not both, but I would not be surprised to learn that more women than men contribute to the ebb and flow of online conversation.

And I’m not complaining, not at all. Totally fine with it—

Well, one little corner of human existence goes sadly unremarked upon because of the gender imbalance. And because (at least in the West) gender-based cultural constraints forbid discussion of it.

I speak, of course, of men’s underwear. I speak in particular of… The Slot.

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What’s in a Song: Body and Soul (1)

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It starts in silence. By the end, the singer has thrown him- or herself melodramatically, almost operatically on the mercy of a lost love. It’s drenched in self-pity, but was written for and first performed by a woman once dubbed “Hollywood’s first maneater.” One of its most famous covers includes no vocal at all, and barely follows the tune. And it’s gone on to become, arguably, the single most-recorded pop standard in history.

Finding something to say about “Body and Soul” isn’t hard. What’s hard is shutting off the tap.

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John W. “Johnny” Green was a Harvard economics graduate working on Wall Street at the cusp of the Great Depression — not a great place to be building a career at that supremely wrong moment of history. Luckily, he didn’t care much about economics; his real interest was in writing music. Indeed, in 1928, at age 19, he’d already co-written (with Gus Kahn and Carmen Lombardo) a hit Broadway song, “Coquette.” With his father-in-law’s encouragement, Green started to establish working relationships with other musicians in New York.

And right about then, in 1929, British actress Gertrude Lawrence sashayed into his life.

Alas, I couldn’t think of a way to crowbar the story into this post. But while researching it, I came across a fascinating 2009 article at the Mail (UK) Online site, looking back at Lawrence’s life and career. The image presented in the first few paragraphs alone may be burned into my brain for years.

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Transparent, or Just Unseen? Silent, or Just Unheard?

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[About the image: one of several models of “bubble buildings” available from French firm BubbleTree. I originally found this written up at the DesignSwan site.]

From whiskey river:

A Suite of Appearances / iv

In another time, we will want to know how the earth looked
Then, and were people the way we are now. In another time,
The records they left will convince us that we are unchanged
And could be at ease in the past, and not alone in the present.
And we shall be pleased. But beyond all that, what cannot
Be seen or explained will always be elsewhere, always supposed,
Invisible even beneath the signs — the beautiful surface,
The uncommon knowledge — that point its way. In another time,
What cannot be seen will define us, and we shall be prompted
To say that language is error, and all things are wronged
By representation. The self, we shall say, can never be
Seen with a disguise, and never be seen without one.

(Mark Strand)

…and:

I am pleased enough with the surfaces — in fact they alone seem to me to be of much importance. Such things for example as the grasp of a child’s hand in your own, the flavor of an apple, the embrace of a friend or lover, the silk of a girl’s thigh, the sunlight on the rock and leaves, the feel of music, the bark of a tree, the abrasion of granite and sand, the plunge of clear water into a pool, the face of the wind — what else is there? What else do we need?

(Edward Abbey)

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Midweek Music Break: Clannad, “The Fairy Queen”

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If you’ve followed Irish-Gaelic-Celtic-folk-New Age (whew!) music for a while, you almost certainly know one thing about the group of brothers and sisters performing as Clannad: best-selling, award-winning solo singer-songwriter Enya began her career with them. Indeed, most of their albums sound (to my untrained ear) like Enya albums, with numerous more layers of complexity: vocal, electronic, and instrumental. Like her albums, Clannad’s have gained notice not just for their sound but for their lyrics, almost entirely in Gaelic.

Magical Ring (1982), their first album after Enya’s departure, became a huge international hit. (U2 played “Theme from Harry’s Game,” the album’s first track, at the end of every concert between 1983 and 1987.) But one song in particular stands out as a straight-ahead instrumental, performed by a gentle (all but invisible) flute and a single stringed instrument: a harp.

The song in question, “The Fairy Queen,” was composed by the “blind harper” of Irish music, Turlough Carolan (sometimes “O’Carolan”) who lived in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. There seems some confusion as to whether he ever wrote lyrics for the song; one source I looked at while putting this together said that he was a much better harpist than lyricist, so the words have long been forgotten while the melody has lived on. Another source says:

“The Fairy Queen” celebrated an imaginary battle fought between the Sidhe Deag and Sidhe Mor.

(“Deag” seems to be a typo for “Beag.” The Sidhe Beag and Sidhe Mor — variously spelled, translated literally as Big Fairy Mound or Hill and Little Fairy Mound/Hill — apparently were, in Irish folklore, two neighboring fairy communities. One person’s attempt to track down the lyrics for a precursor to “The Fairy Queen” appears here.)

All of which certainly seems to imply that it once had lyrics.

Still: lyrics about a battle — even to celebrate or commemorate one? This little winged creature of a tune?

[Below, click Play button to begin The Fairy Queen. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 2:40 long.

[audio:thefairyqueen_clannad.mp3|titles=’The Fairy Queen’|artists=Clannad]

(By the way, “The Fairy Queen” also appears on Rogha: The Best of Clannad (1996), which is where I first heard it.)

Emerging, Blinking, into the Sunlight

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If you’ve been visiting RAMH for more than a few months, you probably know I’ve been a bit… distracted recently. And it’s probably going to happen again in a few weeks, when I again take up my rock hammer, rope, and lanterned helmet, wandering back into Seems to Fit for the Nth and final time.*

In the meantime, I’ve got some sprucing up to do — in the real world, for sure:

Heaps of printouts, notes (sticky and otherwise), fruit-and-grain-breakfast-bar wrappers, reference books, recorded but unlabeled CD-ROMs — all of that will vanish from within a dozen feet of my elbows. [Hmm. “Feet of my elbows” — now there’s a phrase I don’t think I’ve even seen before. And probably with good reason.] I’ll add things back into the daily home routine that I’d put aside; maybe I can again watch an occasional movie on a weeknight, and sleep in a little in the morning before getting ready for work. Maybe The Missus and I can play some cards. And maybe I can once again read for more than five minutes before dropping off to sleep.

I’ve also got some dusting and renewal to take care of around Running After My Hat. This won’t necessarily involve changing the look itself — replacing the “theme” — but I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve got a bunch of draft posts in the hopper on favorite but time-sucking topics, posts in the What’s in a Song and Perfect Moments categories especially.

(My erstwhile but long absent co-blogger has even knocked plaintively on my window a couple of times, signing to me through the glass, waggling granite fingers as though manipulating an invisible keyboard. He seems to long for personal expression.)

And finally, I’ll be trying to spend more time and care in visiting other people online. Yes, I know why I’ve been too preoccupied to do more than look through so many windows in passing. It couldn’t have been otherwise, and I won’t say I regret it, exactly. But I’ve missed the back-and-forth at some favorite blogs. It’s past time to go rapping on their windows, too.

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* Er, well, the Nth and final time of my own choosing. After which, others will start to chime in. They may have no suggestions at all, but I don’t count on it.

Getting Through the Day (and Knowing It)

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[Image: xkcd.com #324. The image’s title attribute there says, “Sometimes the best fun looks like boredom.” (Click image to enlarge.)]

From whiskey river:

Questions Before Dark

Day ends, and before sleep
when the sky dies down, consider
your altered state: has this day
changed you? Are the corners
sharper or rounded off? Did you
live with death? Make decisions
that quieted? Find one clear word
that fit? At the sun’s midpoint
did you notice a pitch of absence,
bewilderment that invites
the possible? What did you learn
from things you dropped and picked up
and dropped again? Did you set a straw
parallel to the river, let the flow
carry you downstream?

(Jeanne Lohmann, from The Light of Invisible Bodies)

…and:

There is nothing more alone than being in a car at night in the rain. I was in the car. And I was glad of it. Between one point on the map and another point on the map, there was the being alone in the car in the rain. They say you are not you except in terms of relation to other people. If there weren’t any other people there wouldn’t be any you because what you do, which is what you are, only has meaning in relation to other people. That is a very comforting thought when you are in the car in the rain at night alone, for then you aren’t you, and not being you or anything, you can really lie back and get some rest. It is a vacation from being you. There is only the flow of the motor under your foot spinning that frail thread of sound out of its metal gut like a spider, that filament, that nexus, which isn’t really there, between the you which you have just left in one place and the you which you will be when you get to the other place.

(Robert Penn Warren, from All the King’s Men [source])

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