A YEAR IN SONG

 Of course you remember that I said I would write a post on relevant songs for the months of the year.

Just in case your old memories need refreshing though, here's a link: THINGS WERE DESPERATE UP NORTH ...

... where I concluded:

I trust that you enjoyed this 'concept'. who knows it could be extended into months of the year, seasons of the year (Vivaldi and Stravinsky wrote some tunes about these), planets (Holst will be at the forefront there but The Moody Blues could give him a run for his money not to mention Alabama 5 with 'Woke Up This Morning').

So, let's get started.

JANUARY

Surprisingly there are a lot of songs about or named January but for me Van Morrison (with Steve Winwood)'s 'Fire In The Belly' is the best. Have a listen to this with its musicianship and phrasing.

"Gotta get through January

Gotta get through February

Gotta get through January

 Gotta get through February"

 This could also be the choice for FEBRUARY.

FEBRUARY

OK, you probably think that February songs should reference Valentines Day and for sure there are a lot of them but have you heard Lou Reed's 'Christmas In February'?

Like Bruce Springsteen's 'Born In The USA' this is a song about the pain and disillusionment of Vietnam war veterans who returned to the same old shit and worse. No Happy Valentines here.

MARCH

Yes, we could go the Souza way and there a hell of a lot of marching songs but let's stick with the calendar theme here.

Alice in Wonderland March Hare references are good and I do like Jefferson Airplane's 'White Rabbit' song. 

Many of the March-themed songs are dark and with Heavy Metal overtones.

Here's one that's reminiscent of early Pink Floyd and Emmerson Lake and Palmer albums.

Like that?

Oh well, never mind, let's go to April.

APRIL

There's lots of material to work with in April given it's Spring in the northern hemisphere so Spring, Paris, flowers, showers and towers (Eiffel) feature a lot.

There are a lot of 'stronger' songs as well by Patti Smith, Rufus Wainwright, Three Dog Night, Jesus and Mary Chain etc. that I like .... Richard, look away now .... I have never liked Dragon's 'April Sun In Cuba' song.

For the quintessentially best - I personally love this and believe you'd have to look far and wide to find better - Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong performing 'April In Paris'.

MAY

Old head bangers like Robert will probably think of Led Zeppelin and Robert Plant's 'The May Queen'.

Richard no doubt will recall Paderewski's 'Variations and Fugue on the Former nice month known as May now known as Mayhem.' 

As for me the first song about May I recall is The Bee Gees 'First Of May'.

When I was at school I bought a Bee Gees Greatest Hits album (prior to their disco days). This was in the time of Cat Stevens, Scott McKenzie, Simon and Garfunkel and all the gentle and lyrical pop songs but some of the Bee Gees stuff is still nice to listen to. I really like this one:

JUNE

Moon/June and lots of romantic nonsense populates a lot of June songs (northern summer) but the song I like most is The Kink's 'Rainy Day In June'. Ray Davis is the master of lyrics and would have been a poet if he hadn't been a musician.

Classy stuff,

JULY

The bloody Americans with their Fourth of July nonsense dominate in July songs but there are a few gems that slip through.

Who better to cut through all that shit than Nina Simone with 'July Tree'?

This delicate song bolstered by her powerful and sultry voice is a favourite.

AUGUST

All of the bloggers in this community share August as their birth month.

Richard no doubt will get out his 'Hot August Night' album by Neil Diamond - he likes Neil Diamond and gets lots of requests for his music at his gigs.

Robert will wait until he's alone and uncover his Taylor Swift single - 'August' and bop around in his bedroom.

As for me, my choice is Van Morrison's 'Cold Wind In August'.

SEPTEMBER

There aren't many September songs known to me although, looking on the 'net there are lots and lots of them, most just titled 'September' or 'September Song'.

Richard no doubt will cite Neil Diamond's 'September Morn' and Robert Tauren Wells's song 'September' but for me, I'll stick with James Taylor and his gentle 'September Grass'.

I'll end September though with Kurt Weill's lovely 'September Song'

OCTOBER

October is a funny month with many songs and compositions but not that many that stand out for me even from singers I like - Amy Winehouse and James Taylor so, instead, here's Dylan Thomas reading his poem 'Poem In October'.

I trust that you enjoyed that. If not I'm sure that Taylor Swift has an October song somewhere.

NOVEMBER

Northern hemisphere November obviously is in winter and cold so many of the songs are about this.

Why not then go to the master of doom and gloom and select Tom Waits's 'November'. After all it's about death and is about as bleak as it gets:

DECEMBER

Hey! Christmas songs. Yay! 

Well, maybe not since just about all of the worst songs ever written and performed are Christmas songs 99.9% of which I detest. The few that I do like are 'Little Drummer Boy,' 'Fairy Tale of New York', 'White Christmas', 'Baby It's Cold Outside' and very few others.

The stand out for me for December - and remember that I'm a curmudgeon - is Merle Haggard's 'If We Make It Through December'.

I like the juxtaposition of the jaunty tune and smily voice with the depressing story.

Enjoy!

I hope you liked my calendar choices. Mind you I could have saved you a lot of reading and listening by just providing this excellent Flanders and Swann song:

WOW! *

* Not The World of Wearable Arts but equally as striking.

I've always been a fan of performance art which is why I love opera I guess. When I was young there wasn't a lot of opportunity to see any great performances but I do remember going to Die Fledermaus, a Johann Strauss II operetta in Wellington in 1966. I was 13.

The music I liked at that time and over the next few years was accessible on records but occasionally some good show musicals appeared on television albeit in black and white. Truly engaging performance art was a rarity though.

In my early university years, apart from seeing Sky Hooks in Melbourne in about 1973, the best performance art group I saw that knocked my socks off was Split Enz. I first saw them perform in Victoria University's Union Hall at about the same time. Phil Judd's 'Under The Wheel' and 'Titus' brought drama and music together in a way I hadn't seen before.

Over the years pop and rock bands and stars who appealed to me had an extra edge to them that, thinking about it, was performance art. Peter Gabriel took Genesis to great heights with quirky and zany performances as did Arthur Brown, David Bowie and many others.

The master, to me has been David Byrne with his performance shows, dance collaborations and films. I was fortunate to see Talking Heads a couple of times in the 1970s and 80s and David Byrne in Auckland in 2018.

I particularly love The Catherine Wheel which is Byrne's collaboration with the Twyla Tharp Dance Group back in 1981. I wish that I'd gone then to NYC to see a performance.

OK ... are you still with me?

What led me to this post was watching again Laurie Anderson's video performance of O Superman.

This is performance art done really well and, at the time - early 1980s I was prepared to go to the Montreux Jazz Festival to see her perform it but did not go because of family issues. As it turned out I don't think that she did turn up but I might have seen Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis, John Lee Hooker and other greats in concert.

Stunning and memorable.

Anderson took the 'O Superman' title from Jules Massenet's 1885 opera 'Le Cid.' The first lines being: "O Superman / O Judge / O Mom and Dad".

I prefer Laurie Anderson's 'version'.

I found it interesting listening again to 'O Superman' and 'Under The Wheel' side by side and noticed that Anderson's piece has some musical references to the Split Enz song. Coincidence? Here's another in the lyrics:

"They said you were bright

Had stars in your eyes
They said you were bright
Had all the ideas in your head
Under the wheel
For all those years
Under the wheel
For all those tears
But now they all stand back and shout
Go on you creep, go on get out
Oh my god what are they on about
And I think I'll get on back home to my mother
Yes I think I'll get on back home to my mother x2
It doesn't seem real
The way things turned out
It doesn't seem real
Now your heads full of doubt
But now they all jump back in fear
As if I really care
They just stand and stare
It's not fair...
It's not fair.
It's not fair!!...
Cold and silent you lie in the dark waters of the stream
Shame and suffering have passed
But death, glorious death is just another bed to sleep
Yes death, glorious death
Is just another appointment to keep".

BOOGIE WITH STU

 It's a rainy day up north so I'm mucking around inside, pretending to be busy every time The Old Girl comes out of the study (her office). I doubt that I'll go to tennis today.

I've been watching some YouTube videos and this one is outstanding. I'm familiar with Led Zeppelin's song but hadn't seen this clip before.

I wish I could dance like Stu (although I get some of the bits right - like lying down on the floor).