From Kismet, here’s “Stranger in Paradise” (which is based, in turn, on a melody by Borodin).
Something for Thursday
Something for Thursday
Hey, who’s up for some light orchestral music, melodic and exciting, from the Romantic era? Here’s Franz von Suppe’s overture to Poet and Peasant.
Von Suppe’s overtures were staples in concert band repertoire when I was in school; they tend to transcribe wonderfully and are musically meaty enough for young students to enjoy while also tending to be technical enough to give them a nice challenge. I don’t know if this is still the case in band programs in this country, but I hope that schools are still playing this stuff.
Share This Post
Something for Thursday
(Ugh — would you believe I wrote this post but forgot to schedule it to publish at the right time? For those two of you who have all day been thinking, “Geesh, I wonder what happened to Something for Thursday, well, here it is.)
Some opinions change over time, as I reappraise things I previously underappreciated, or as I come to see things I’ve long loved as more and more flawed. It happens. But there are other opinions that are pretty much calcified in place in my mind for all time. One of these is my belief that Live and Let Die is the worst James Bond movie ever. I hate this movie. It’s got some good scenes, and it has generally good acting, but overall, the script is awful junk that offers up the most odiously sexist James Bond ever, a nauseating collection of stereotypes from urban blacks to southern whites, and…well, let’s just leave it at that. Live and Let Die stinks.
But then there’s the theme song. It’s an odd song by Bond film standards. Performed by Paul McCartney and Wings, it has a structure that’s unlike just about every other Bond song. It starts off as a ballad, until McCartney gets to the song (and film) title itself, where a series of loud, pounding chords lead into an orchestral segment, no lyrics, seemingly depicting Bondian mayhem. This is all very well, as is the reprise that comes after a middle section.
It’s the middle section that’s bugged me for years about this song. It sticks out like a sore thumb, being stylistically completely different from the rest of the song. I never, never understood why this bit is in the song. It has never made one lick of sense to me.
But here’s the thing: all this Beatles listening I’ve been doing over the last couple of years has allowed me to put “Live and Let Die” in a context other than that of a Bond song — now I am also hearing it as a Paul McCartney song, wherein one can often find things like long orchestral segments, songs that start as ballads but become something else, and middle sections that stylistically bear little resemblance to the rest of the song. “Live and Let Die” makes sense to me now. Huzzah! I love it when I get to have an Ohhhhh! moment.
And now, here’s “Live and Let Die”.
Share This Post
Something for Thursday
Something for Thursday
I’ve written before about my kinda-sorta-hate-love relationship with Phantom of the Opera, but I really do like the 2004 film version, which I think is very well made and which actually improves the story of the original stage version somewhat by moving the chandelier collapse to the film’s climax and by fleshing out the ‘flashback’ nature of the story a bit. I just discovered this the other day: it’s a song that was deleted from the film, called “No One Would Listen”, sung by the Phantom. I believe this would have come in the second half of the film, probably shortly after “Masquerade”. I assume it was cut for running time, but that’s a shame because it’s only a couple of minutes and it illustrates the Phantom’s crushing loneliness, which really needs to be leaned upon if we’re to sorry for a guy who is, let’s be honest, a murderous stalker!
Anyway, here’s the song. I really do like how they cast a guy who doesn’t have the most perfect of singing voices; Gerard Butler makes up for that by dialing up the passion of his singing to the proverbial 11. I like that the Phantom here isn’t a golden voice trapped in a beast’s body, but that he is really and truly doomed to fall short for everything in his life. And that he knows it.
Share This Post
Something for Thursday
I have never owned an Apple product. Not one. Our desktop PCs have all been, well, PCs; ditto the laptop on which I’m writing this. I listen to music on an MP3 player or on my LG phone, which doubles as an MP3 player. I don’t have any particular problem with Apple products; I simply opt to use other things that work just fine for me.
But that doesn’t mean that I don’t owe Steve Jobs a personal debt for having shaped the world in which we live. Jobs was one of those figures who straddles the world in so many ways that his influence reaches into our lives in many ways we never even realize. He was an Edison, a Tesla, a Lennon, a Lucas.
In his memory, just because it seems appropriate to me, here is the End Credits music from TRON.
Share This Post
Something for Thursday
You know what, folks? It’s sunny and cool in Buffalo (for now, anyway — rain and chillier temps are in the forecast), I’m taking today through Monday off from work, The Wife and I are escaping town tomorrow evening (without The Kid!) for my Belated Birthday Bacchanalia (The Wife almost always works on my birthday, so we usually postpone a few days) which includes our yearly trip to Ithaca for the Apple Harvest Festival, and some other stuff’s going on that has me happy as a clam, so…here’s a bit of infectious 80s bubblegum!