What have I learnt today? Blogging about books, media, words, Singapore and the world today. The blog that was Blowin' in the Wind.
Watching this video of the Rolling Stones’ 50th anniversary concert in London, who would say that Mick Jagger is 69 years old? Or that Keith Richards is 68 and Charlie Watts 71? Ronnie Wood is 65. The Rolling Stones still rock.
This song, Honky Tonk Women, topped the charts in Britain and maybe America, too, in 1969. That was the year Brian Jones was asked to leave the band and drowned in his swimming pool. I remember listening to the song on the BBC World Service. Continue Reading
I just read a wonderful New Yorker article on the Grateful Dead, which made me immediately rustle up some of their clips on YouTube. This clip is from the Grateful Dead movie directed by Jerry Garcia which shows them performing in San Francisco in 1974.
The vast Internet Archive has recordings of the band too, but I wanted to see Jerry Garcia live. He was almost as iconic as Bob Dylan, John Lennon and all the other greats of his time.
Some may consider that an overstatement. After all, the Dead had only one top hit – Touch of Grey – which peaked at number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1987, according to Wikipedia.
That was long after they started out in 1965. But until they broke up in 1995 when Garcia died, they never ceased to be talked and written about – so powerful was their hold on public imagination and the devotion and loyalty of their fans.
The Dead were not just any other band; they were like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones minus the hits.
They grew on you like Bob Dylan. Not everybody liked, or likes, Dylan. He did not record a string of hit singles like the Beatles and the Stones. He is an acquired taste, but once you get to like him, there’s no breaking away. The same with the Dead. You become a lifelong fan. The Deadheads, as the fans are called, still carry the torch for Garcia and his band.Continue Reading
Beatles fans celebrated the 50th anniversary of the release of the first Beatles record, Love Me Do, on October 5. It was released as a single. Love Me Do was the A-side, and P.S. I Love You, the B-side. Both are Lennon-McCartney compositions, though owing more to Paul McCartney than to John Lennon. I love all the Beatles songs, especially the early ones, so I love Love Me Do, which peaked at number 17 when originally released in the UK in October 1962. In the US, it was a number 1 hit. But I love P.S. I Love You even more. It’s so sweet, tender and romantic.
Wikipedia says about the Beatles’ recording of P.S. I Love You:
George Martin was not present at the session, which was run by Ron Richards in his absence. Richards told the group that the song could not be the A-side of their single because of an earlier song of the same title.
Yes, there was an earlier song with the same title, but it came out long ago, in 1934. That earlier P.S. I Love You had music by Gordon Jenkins and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Here it is sung by Billie Holiday.Continue Reading
The singer Andy Williams died on September 25, the day before the 124th birth anniversary of T.S. Eliot (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965). Eliot’s poems are a world removed from Williams’ sweet, sentimental songs. But it’s possible to like them both. Maybe it shows a lack of discrimination, but we are what we are. I loved Love Story, both the movie and the book. And the theme song.
Maybe, it’s sappy, sentimental. But it touches a chord. Which is what writers and musicians try to do.
On Eliot’s birth anniversary I looked up Four Quartets, where he writes: “Words move, music moves”. Yes. More about that later.
But first look at the lyrics of Love Story. What’s not to like?Continue Reading
Andy Williams has died of cancer at the age of 84. Who can forget songs like Moon River, Love Story, Days of Wine and Roses, Speak Softly Love, and Can’t Take My Eyes Off You? I wish I could find a video of him singing Love Story. But Moon River was his favourite.
It’s only fitting that Bill Clinton took the stage at the Democratic national convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, to the lilting strains of his 1992 campaign theme song, Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow. Sunny, upbeat, exuberant, infectious, this hit single from Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album Rumours puts a spring in your step and captures the spirit of the man from Hope. On winning the election, Clinton persuaded the then-disbanded Fleetwood Mac to reunite for a special performance at his inaugural band. It was played again for Clinton at the Democratic national conventions in 2000, 2004, 2008 and now in 2012. Go, Clinton, go! Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.
Here are the lyrics of the song written by Fleetwood Mac vocalist and keyboard player Christine McVie who sang it with guitarist Lindsey Buckingham:
If you wake up and don’t want to smile,
If it takes just a little while,
Open your eyes and look at the day,
You’ll see things in a different way.
Don’t stop, thinking about tomorrow,
Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here,
It’ll be, better than before,
Yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone.
Why not think about times to come,
And not about the things that you’ve done,
If your life was bad to you,
Just think what tomorrow will do.
Don’t stop, thinking about tomorrow,
Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here,
It’ll be, better than before,
Yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone.
All I want is to see you smile,
If it takes just a little while,
I know you don’t believe that it’s true,
I never meant any harm to you.
Don’t stop, thinking about tomorrow,
Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here,
It’ll be, better than before,
Yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone.
Don’t you look back,
Don’t you look back.
Reading about the death of Hal David, I marvelled at his extraordinary career. He met Burt Bacharach in the legendary Brill Building in New York in 1957 and one of the famous songwriting partnerships was born. They scored their first hit with The Story of My Life, which US country singer Marty Robbins took to the top of the country chart for four weeks in 1957, and this was followed by Magic Moments sung by Perry Como,which topped the UK chart for eight weeks in 1958.
David and Bacharach met Dionne Warwick in 1961, started writing songs for her in 1962, and the hits came one after another. Don’t Make Me Over , a Bacharach-David composition, became Warwick’s first hit in early 1963. From then until mid-1971, the three spent almost every month on the Billboard charts.
David and Bacharach scored hits with other singers, too: Wishin’ and Hopin’ was a Dusty Springfield hit, Close to You became a Carpenters classic, What the World Needs Now Is Love a hit for Jackie DeShannon, Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head a memorable chartbuster by BJ Thomas, What’s New Pussycat a Tom Jones hit.
What’s New Pussycat as sung (?) by a screaming Tom Jones is the only Bacharach-David big hit that I don’t like. Their music sounds good even as instrumentals. I have never heard the lyrics of Baby Elephant Walk but remember what a catchy instrumental it was on the soundtrack of the movie, Hatari.
The obituaries say the duo also wrote for the Beatles. But Baby, It’s You – which was recorded by the Beatles and was a big hit for Smith – was not a Burt Bacharach-Hal David composition. Bacharach wrote that song with Mack David, Hal David’s elder brother.Continue Reading
I feel sorry for the reporter sacked by Singapore Press Holdings for lying about a picture she posted on STOMP.
True, she had no business claiming the MRT train was running with an open door when she took the picture. And SPH, I guess, had no choice but to fire her to protect its reputation for integrity in journalism.
But the reporter is only 23 years old. Wouldn’t she have mended her ways if disciplined in some other way but allowed to keep her job?Continue Reading
I have been listening to music from the Swinging Sixties. Here’s a collection I watched on YouTube. There’s everybody from the Beatles to the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan to Simon and Garfunkel, Joan Baez to Janis Joplin, Elvis Presley to Roy Orbison, Chuck Berry to Bo Diddley, the Beach Boys to the Monkees. Yes, we also have Fats Domino, Cliff Richard, Cream, The Who, the Doors, Steppenwolf, the Mamas and the Papas, Peter, Paul and Mary, Sonny and Cher, the Ronettes, the Supremes, the Temptations, the Drifters, Ben E King, Martha and the Vandellas, Wilson Pickett, Ricky Nelson, the Everly Brothers and the Seekers.
I was listening to some folk and country music classics. Here are the videos. We have Joan Baez, Bob Dylan with George Harrison, Johnny Cash with June Carter, Simon and Garfunkel, John Denver, Neil Young, Carole King with James Taylor, and Peter, Paul and Mary. Click on the playlist at the bottom of this video to choose a different song.
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