The oral tradition has long been an important part of preserving human culture, and it is perhaps especially at this time of year that we’re conscious of works of music and literature that have been handed down through the ages.
While I was showering this morning, for example, I found myself singing a cheerful seasonal song which my brain had kindly preserved for me, almost intact, for more than half a century, but I just couldn’t remember the first line. It was only as I was towelling myself down, that it came back to me.
I hadn’t come across the singer ‘Madelline’ before, but I’ve been somewhat entranced by her track ‘Dopamine’, not just because it’s a pleasant song, but because of this particular version.
To the same backing track, you hear her singing it in both French and English at the same time.
If you listen through a single phone speaker, it just sounds like a bit of a jumble, but if you have headphones or anything else with decent stereo separation, then the effect of hearing the same person, singing the same song, at the same time, to the same backing, but in your left ear in French and your right ear in English, is quite bizarre, especially if you have reasonable fluency in both.
It does slightly weird things to my brain, but it’s also interesting to see the flexibility in translation needed to get roughly the same concepts into the same lines.
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YouTube, at its best, can be a wonderful way to discover real talent. A little while ago, I came across some songs by the Cotton Pickin Kids – a very talented family from Alabama – and I shared one or two favourites, like this one, with friends and family.
Well, after that, the YouTube algorithm decided I must like groups of talented siblings, and offered me so many of them that I expected I would suddenly be presented with the Von Trapp family’s previously undiscovered channel…
Just as I was thinking that all of this might be a bit too much of a good thing, today I spotted a girl and her two brothers who call themselves ‘Life in 3D‘… for the simple reason that their names are Devon, Daylon and Daura.
Oh well, I thought, let’s give them a try.. and I’ve since been browsing through their songs, and been seriously impressed. To inject a little positivity into your day, I offer, somewhat at random, the one I discovered first:
The story they tell on their website is that they used to sing while doing the dishes and other household chores, and when they finished, their parents said, “Hey, don’t stop!”. So a couple of years ago, they bought a proper microphone, recorded themselves, and posted their first video to YouTube.
Not only can they sing, but there are some pretty impressive production values here. It was listening to them with the volume turned up that made my realise how good the speakers are on my MacBook Pro. Treat yourself, and don’t just listen to this on a tinny little phone speaker.
I know some of my readers will have seen this on John’s blog, but for others…
A wonderful thing has happened. There is a new and marvellous recording of one of my all-time favourite tracks, Mark Knopfler’s Going Home, the theme music from the also-wonderful movie Local Hero.
As if that weren’t enough, it includes contributions by, well, basically everybody famous who ever picked up a guitar… from Sting to Joe Satriani, from Sheryl Crow to Eric Clapton, from Peter Frampton to Joan Armatrading… the list goes on… with Ringo Starr on the drums. I wish there were a video or some sort of annotation so you could see who was playing when.
And then it gets even better… this is a production in aid of cancer charities. You can listen to it, buy it, download it, and the proceeds go to a good cause.
Tilly and I are currently touring the Netherlands in our campervan, and this makes for fabulous road-trip music. I wonder how big a donation I’d need to make in order to be allowed to use it in my upcoming YouTube videos…
Our parking spot last night on the north Netherlands coast. This is very close to ‘Riddle of the Sands’ country: a rather different coastline from the beaches near Arisaig used for “Local Hero” (but we did visit those on a previous campervan trip).
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I know that many popular lyrics have been inspired by the use of drugs, so I thought I’d try my hand at it. This was written recently while packing for a journey. Or, perhaps, a trip. My brother, a highly-qualified medic, was on hand to help. With the lyrics, at least.
John and Yoko are busy composing the melody, but in the meantime you can sing it to the tune of It’s a long way to Tipperary.
I need one more Atorvastatin I’ve got one more to go. I need one more Atorvastatin It’s the neatest pill I know. Goodbye to cholesterol Farewell, LDL! I need just one more Atorvastatin And all will be well!
I expect it to become a hit amongst other middle-aged music afficionados.
Friends this side of the Atlantic may not be familar with the story of John Henry, but you can read about him on Wikipedia. John Henry, the story goes, was a ‘steel-driving man’ whose prowess with the hammer was formidable.
At one point, he took on a steam hammer, side-by-side, and won… but the effort also killed him.
It’s not quite clear whether John Henry was ever anything more than a legend, but he has inspired statues, books, animations, compositions by Aaron Copland… and almost everybody seems to have recorded musical versions of the story, including Jerry Lee Lewis, Bruce Springsteen, Lonnie Denegan, Harry Belafonte, Woodie Guthrie… to name but a few. For a brief version, here’s Tennessee Ernie Ford, or I rather like the slightly longer story as recorded by Johnny Cash.
I always liked the song-and-dance routines in the great old movies, and have mourned their almost total disappearance (while acknowledging that having people break spontaneously into orchestra-accompanied melodies doesn’t, in most cases, tend to improve the realism of your plot!)
Well, it turns out that there’s a fun genre of YouTube creations, taking footage from the old masters and remixing it with more modern music, with some clever editing and retiming. For me, somehow, divorcing the dance from its original music and showing it in a new context only emphasises how good the performers were.
Here’s a very nicely-done favourite; did you know that Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth liked Led Zeppelin?
This has been going on for quite a while — here’s another example from 2015 – but I think the one above is very nicely done. And what better way to start the week than with Rita Hayworth’s smile?
On John’s blog, for some weeks now, he’s been running a series of recommendations: Things to listen to instead of the morning radio news. This is a jolly good scheme.
I used to be a big fan of the BBC’s ‘Today’ programme, but have become ever more frustrated with the presenters, who are so much more interested in asking questions than in getting answers. Mishal Husain, in particular, seldom lets anyone finish a single sentence. And that’s even before you get to the contents of the news itself, which isn’t the most positive accompaniment to breakfast. No, if you want to read or listen to the news, do it a bit later on; don’t start or end your day with it — that’s my recommendation! The only thing worse would be starting and ending your day reading social networks.
Anyway, my variant on John’s scheme is that the most common command I used to give my Amazon Echo — “Alexa, play Radio 4” — is now increasingly replaced with “Alexa, play music by X”, where X is a classical composer. This does require you to have Spotify, Amazon Music or a similar music source linked to your Alexa account. (You’ll have quite a lot of Amazon Music available automatically if you have Amazon Prime.)
Why not try a few of the following over the next couple of weeks, to start your day on a different tempo?
Alexa, play music by Handel
Alexa, play music by Franz Liszt
Alexa, play music by Thomas Tallis
Alexa, play music by Johann Strauss Two (it seemed to prefer that to ‘the second’!)
Alexa, play music by Chopin
Now, this post would have more impact if I finished it here, but I think it’s worth offering a few practical tips.
I couldn’t get it to play a favourite of mine, Bernhard Crusell, though he’s definitely on Spotify. I’m guessing this is because Alexa needs to recognise the name before passing it to Spotify, and it had trouble with this one, helpfully offering ‘Crouseau’ or ‘Soft Cell’ as alternatives!
Sometimes you’ll get variations on the theme. You may get a playlist based on the composer, or music from the Johann Strauss Orchestra. But it’s likely to be in line with your mood anyway! If you think “Surely this wasn’t written by Chopin?”, then a useful query is “Alexa, what’s playing?”. And occasionally you may want “Alexa, skip!”
If you do have more than one source of music available, you can compare them for variety. As I type this, for example, I’m greatly enjoying the playlist I get with “Alexa, play music by Corelli from Amazon Music”. Recommended.
Finally, you will, of course, be limited by the audio capabilities of your particular Amazon device. If you have Sonos speakers or similar linked into your system, then you can use that instead. In my case there’s a big Sonos speaker hidden away on top of the fridge, and if I say “Alexa, play music by Chopin in the kitchen” to send the audio stream there, it’s a completely different experience.
And I think we can agree that Frederic deserves it.
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