Lone Gunmen

Tonight I am listening to a sequence of songs that somehow, for no obvious reason, reminds me of the phrase 'Lone Gunmen'.

From Eleanor Rigby, The Beatles:

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

From Let It Be, The Beatles:

And when the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be.

From State of Grace, Billy Joel:

There you go, slipping away into a state of grace
I know the look that comes across your face
It's so familiar to me
Here I am, trying to keep you in my line of sight
I'm never certain that you read me right
Sometimes you don't want to see me...

From America, Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel:

"Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat"
"We smoked the last one an hour ago"
So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field

"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all gone to look for America...

This was followed by ABBA's Eagle and St Etienne's Milk Bottle Symphony. There is a certain colour of loneliness, somewhere in the long wavelengths beyond the microwaves, where the sea edges towards flatness and the frequency approaches never. Somewhere out there is the null, the opposite of singularity. And maybe, there is a lone gunman.

The Music Lives On

I used to wake up every morning to my grandfather's odd habit of playing Chopin nocturnes after his early breakfast and before his morning house calls. Sometimes it would be Mozart, rarely Beethoven; on one memorable occasion, I heard Moonlight at sunrise.

Tonight I am listening to some of those pieces performed by my brother-in-law on an old and warped piano. But the music still sounds lovely, and my grandfather's memory lives on in that music.

I am sure that the music has kept the memories and lives of many of its players fresh. Not that long ago, I heard the music played by hands long dead but preserved in the plastic medium of vinyl grooves.

The music lives on, and those who play live on as well with it.

Midnight 18

It's the midnight hour between the 18th of July and the 19th, and I'm sitting here letting iTunes channel my consciousness, from Classical Gas to Scheherazade, from America to U2, from London to New York City and into the plains of Mongolia. For tonight is one of those nights.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like when your nostril hair turns white? Yes, today's great and empowering meditation is on the indescribable feeling one gets as one hits the early forties only to find that some things that you used to rely on are no longer there. One of my former students once wrote:

However, he's still some sort of puzzle outside the class. It's like you have all the various pieces of information about him, and yet you don't really know what to think about him. But that's what's so fascinating about him, he doesn't tell you about himself or chemistry in the conventional way. He lets you find out for yourself.

It's bizarre when you feel that way about yourself. And so, it's the midnight hour between the 18th of July and the 19th, and I'm listening to old Mannheim Steamroller performances of Christmas carols. And a lot of John Williams cinematic soundtracks.

Of Human Bondage (and other stuff)

Ah, today is a milestone day. Herr Hierophant finally got his dative covalent bond (although highly polarised and almost ironic) within the amorphous State. Meanwhile, the rest of us got to endure (if we were so minded) a whole news cycle on the life and times of the late Michael Jackson.

I've ignored MJ apart from the peculiar and singular highlight of his 1982 album, Thriller. I suppose you had to be there. But MJ never really had any impact on me. It's not that MJ wasn't part of my musical upbringing; he was everywhere during the years of my youth. Rather, it's more a reflection on the fact that in the early 1980s, when I was attending secondary school, even Marvel Comics' Power Man, Iron Fist had more impact on me.

By the time I was really musically aware, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, Billy Joel, and even the retroactively-discovered Beatles had more influence on what I thought good popular music was about. With characters like Madonna and bands like America around, I think I completely ignored MJ during that period.

And now he's gone, aged 50 and a bit. So also is Farrah Fawcett, aged 62, and I think she had more influence on my growing-up years than he did.

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In other news, about two hours ago I became an uncle for the third time. Heh.

The 'Midnight' Scam

This is a little piece that's been on my mind (and on my notebook) for a while. I've called it the 'Midnight' scam when perhaps it should actually be called the 'Memory' scam.

I'm sure that a lot of people have heard or seen the musical CATS before; it's one of Andrew Lloyd Webber's greatest hits. The songs in that musical are taken from T S Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. All of them have their genesis in that most peculiar book, except for one. The odd one out is the song 'Memory', which is actually a terribly cut-and-pasted revamp of one of Eliot's other poems, 'Rhapsody on a Windy Night', from Prufrock and Other Observations, a terribly angsty collection about unrequited love and entropy.

The original poems take you through a kaleidoscope of sad lives, through the hours of the day, to midnight and beyond. It is a very depressing collection, but it contains some of Eliot's best images and lines.

I wonder why they purloined this particular poem for the musical. The two are completely different: the poem is mystical, takes us from midnight to four in the morning, and leaves us hanging at knifepoint (to mix a metaphor somewhat); the song is fairly catchy and designed for someone like Elaine Paige to yowl through. I can only conclude that the song was grafted in to give her something to do while she was standing in for Judi Dench.

Private Lives

Sometimes I wonder how some authors can so convincingly get us into the heads and private internal lives of their characters. John Lanchester does it somewhat scatologically in his Mr Phillips, that old hack and wonderful enchanter James Joyce does it surpassingly and mystifyingly well in Ulysses; other examples abound (mostly in metropolitan life, and often in Irish literature — or literature written by the Irish).

One of the most acute examples, which at first sight or hearing doesn't seem to do much (and yet does enormously much, on a second or third hearing) is this one from that great London indie Brit-pop band, St Etienne:

The Milk Bottle Symphony by St Etienne

Tony leaves the Depot late.
Seventeen years with the Unigate,
Drives his float down Goswell Road at twenty-five to eight.

Number Nine, Mrs Doris Brown.
Pulls on her quilted dressing gown,
Shuts the fridge and boils the kettle,
Wipes the table down.

La la la la la la
Just as she pours the tea,
She's whistling randomly,
The Milk Bottle Symphony.

Milk Bottle Symphony

Number Twelve, there's Amy Chan.
Writing down a line for the CandyMan,
About the time she saw Tom Baker,
Drinking down the Hat and Fan.

The man next door is Gary Stead.
Shuffles downstairs with heavy head,
Scans the paper, takes a pill,
And stumbles back to bed.

La la la la la la
Didn't get home till Three
Singing appallingly
A Milk Bottle Symphony

Milk Bottle Symphony

Emily Roe's at Thirty-One,
Twenty minutes left to get her homework done.
Leaves her cornflakes on the sofa,
Says good-bye to Mum.

La la la la la la
Jumps on the Forty-Three,
Humming unconsciously,
A Milk Bottle Symphony

Milk Bottle Symphony...

A Milk Bottle Symphony is of course that great and subtle random orchestration of early morning noises one is treated to in a the early morning, if you live in a country (as I used to) which still has morning milk deliveries in glass bottles that clink as the milkman puts them outside your door. Delicious milk, fond memories. Being a student in England was one of the best times of my life.

Sunday Morning Coffee

I've always looked forward to perfect Sunday mornings, cool and quiet with excellent coffee and something on the side. On Sundays, some of us take communion in churches; some of us drink coffee and commune with God in a different way; some of us do both or neither.

But as I sit listening to Chip Davis's excellent work once again, his Sunday Morning Coffee strikes that delicate chord of the soul. The resonance of the music summons forth an image of the perfect Sunday morning that seldom comes.

If you dream of such things, go ahead and purchase the work of Chip Davis and American Gramaphone. The Day Parts series, beginning with Sunday Morning Coffee and Sunday Morning Coffee II is pretty good. The other good stuff is even older; I was listening to Fresh Aire when I was a young teenager. Ah, the days of Mannheim Steamroller... may they never be forgotten!

Reducing Complexity

Those of you who watched the Obama inauguration might have been listening to the elegant classical piece (Simple Gifts, by John Williams) played by that very talented quartet of Perlman, Ma, Montero and McGill. What struck me, besides the cinematic orchestration that is Williams's trademark, was the 19th-century 'Simple Gifts' theme, first used by the Quakers and popularised by Copland in his Appalachian Spring.

What's important about that piece is the beginning: the lyrics to that tune begin with, "'Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free..."

The Quakers, unlike the usual stereotype of a stiff and humourless people, were a reactionary and revolutionary Christian sect who believed that a lot of Christians could do with a lot less 'stuff and baggage'. They had a lively sense of humour and a solid sense of being; this combination led them to the key philosophy (as opposed to doctrine) of simplicity. Simply put, they believed that life could be reduced to simple elements and everybody would be happier for it.

In a world that seems to be spiralling out of control in terms of its complexity and diversity, perhaps the antidote is to take a couple of steps back and realise that there are indeed certain fundamental truths, and a position taken based on fundamentals — consistency, decency, thrift, industry, the right to life and the maintenance of life — is very hard to diminish or destroy.

Things I Don't Have To Do

What a wonderful thought, that there are onerous things that one had to do before which one no longer has to do! Things like giving the time of day to false gods and stuff like that...

Tonight I am listening to the Peter Malick/Norah Jones song, 'Things You Don't Have To Do', from the excellent album New York City. The words go like this:

I walk down the diamond studded concrete canyon
Nobody looked me in the eye
Tried to fly to the moon
Only made it to the sky
I was looking, looking for
I couldn't find a friend
Searching for a clear connection
Without a digital send

Ain't it just a little scary sometimes
To find the lies that you know to be true
I'll find you smiling about
Things you don't have to do

Bill doesn't call me anymore
I hear he's found religion
Big haired blonde apprentice beautician
And all the words and gesticulations that came before
Don't seem to mean a thing
You can feel fine to drop a dime
If you're ever hanging by a string

Ain't it just a little scary sometimes
To find the lies that you know to be true
I'll find you smiling about
Things you don't have to do

I hear voices crying out
Echoes on the boulevard
Contentious rambling incantations
Of some senile bard
There's too much going on around here
To keep my head from spinning
And this constant acceleration
Blurs any ties to the beginning

Ain't it just a little scary sometimes
To find the lies that you know to be true
I'll find you smiling about
Things you don't have to do

It's a very amusing song, and I found myself laughing at certain points. Do try to find the album; excellent mood music for hard times, uneven times, or times when you just want to hear good music.

Retrograde

Last night, I put my books back on the shelf and cleared my desk. Hold the congratulations though; it's not that I've suddenly reached apotheosis and need no longer work at my doctoral thesis.

Rather, it was a sudden attack of the rare and debilitating malady known as Alfie-itis, also known as What's-it-all-about syndrome. Sometimes it hits you, this creeping malaise which leaves you wondering whether it is worth doing anything at all. Because the same old things continue to happen, no matter what you do.

[Yes, the same old things. For those of you who are wondering why it's called Alfie-itis, I will just chuck a few more old things at you. Burt Bacharach. Cilla Black. Cher. Michael Caine. Dionne Warwick. Trivia. History. Haha.]

So for a couple of days, I am making retrograde progress. Why should I care about education, improving things, or finding out what can be improved and how? I am making money. I am earning my keep. I am thinking like Homo economicus, the very model of a modern major materially-minded man.

Or so I would like to think. Even in my retrograde progress, I am retrograde. I can't help thinking of words, books, literature, philosophy, music, all the things that some people find valueless and effete. In fact, I have this overwhelming urge to spend money in a totally useless way far removed from the cleverness of Homo economicus. I feel like splurging on Folio Society editions, fine chocolate, good wine, and comfortingly vague graphic prints.

Madness, again.

Erdgeist

English, altogether Germanic in its bones and sinews, took on infusions of its father-tongue in further installments. With the psychopomps and psychogogues of the Viennese age, for example, the Anglo-Saxon bastard child adopted (co-opted?) words like schadenfreude and angst, along with secondhand Latin imports like anima and superego. Words like zeitgeist and the rarer zeitnot and zugzwang (and zusammen, for the organische chemists) duly joined the throng. But the not-so-surprising fact is that much of the German remains understandable, and some of it is pretty universal.

Take for example the erdgeist of Paracelsus (he who once said, "All substances are poisons.") Like all the other geists, the erdgeist is a spirit (cf. poltergeist). Whereas the zeitgeist is the prevalent spirit of the time in which it manifests, the erdgeist is the dominant spirit of the place which it represents.

All that went through my mind as I was listening to this song. It's an old song by Jefferson Starship, and it's about Los Angeles in the early 1970s. The lyrics are inspired, the music pounds a hole in your head, and you are left wondering (unless you do a bit of research) why Marconi plays the mamba.

And there are many other examples of the kind of music which summons more of the erdgeist than the zeitgeist. One of my particular favourites is Billy Joel's New York State of Mind, a moving tribute to a man's hometown (and what a hometown it is!) And there was this very old song, which unaccountably brought a tear to my eyes. Liverpool fans will recognize the group – after all, they came up with You'll Never Walk Alone.

That's when I realised: here where I am, there is no real erdgeist. We are culturally adrift, in an empty space. And the moment we sense an evolving erdgeist, we make it silly and commercial, trendy, nifty, flashy – all the things that kill the ephemeral realities of the hidden world.

Elvish Metrics

What enters your mind when someone asks you about elvish music? On different days, this produces different responses from me. Some days, I think of Enya and other Celtic music; specifically of Clannad and Enya's sister, Moire ni Bhraonain (Moya Brennan). Some days I think of Shakespeare's proud Titania, ill-met by moonlight, and her brooding spouse, Oberon – A Midsummer Night's Dream is surely one of the classics detailing the odd relationship between humans and faerie.

I think it is Julian May's fault when I think of the Londonderry Air, that infamous and terrifyingly sad beauty of a tune, whose most famous lyrics are found in the song Danny Boy. Tolkien, of course, is an inevitable comparison; but his music of the elves is hardly detailed, and composing in Quenya and Sindarin (let alone translating such compositions) is beyond most people.

Once in a while, you dig up the darndest things though. Here is an unusual poem. It seems to be written in some sort of 10.9.10.9 metric, much different from the Londonderry Air's lyrical 12.10.12.10. More interesting is the way the stanzas are chained; while there is a rhyme scheme of the abab sort, on closer inspection, it is actually abab bcbc cdcd dada, with the last line of stanza being echoed as the first line of the next. The last line is identical with the first, thus completing the chain.

Elves, it would seem to the anonymous author of this verse, are logical aesthetes; they craft beauty into objects with an internal logic, a recognisable structure with a fixed pattern. In like vein, it is interesting to look at the other works I've mentioned and try to figure out what kind of elves would have crafted such music or poetry.

Then again, you might end up with some sort of faerie vegetable. I speak, of course, of the awfully old chestnut: elvish parsley, king of rock-and-roll.

Meme P3

Once in a while, you come across an old meme which has mutated into something quite different. And so, on Ratri's blog (name pseudonymised for her protection), I came across this and succumbed.

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IF YOUR LIFE WERE A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?

So, here's how it works:

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, iPaq etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you’re cool.

Heh. And here is the story of my life...

01 - OPENING CREDITS: Dan Nicholson – Shipyard: Rough Repairs
02 - WAKING UP: Traditional/The King's Singers – Watching The White Wheat
03 - FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL: Checkfield – Carribean Cooler
04 - FALLING IN LOVE: St Etienne – Lose That Girl
05 - FIGHT SONG: Mozart – Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
06 - BREAKING UP: David Newman – Serenity: Into The River
07 - PROM: Howard Blake/Aled Jones – Snowman: Walking In The Air
08 - LIFE: Jared Ellsworth – Ultima V Lazarus: Love (Empath Abbey Theme)
09 - MENTAL BREAKDOWN: Britten: Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge: (4) Romance
10 - DRIVING: The Idea Of North – Shed a Little Light/The Gulf War Song
11 - FLASHBACK: ABBA/RPO – SOS (Instrumental)
12 - WEDDING: Orff/LSO – Carmina Burana: Fortunae Plango Vulnera
13 - BIRTH OF CHILD: Ravel – Bolero
14 - FINAL BATTLE: Prokofiev – Romeo & Juliet: Romeo Resolves to Avenge Mercutio's Death
15 - DEATH SCENE: Enya – Amarantine: Someone Said Goodbye
16 - FUNERAL SONG: Puccini/Amici Forever – Nessun Dorma
17 - END CREDITS: Wynton Marsalis – The Midnight Blues: Glad To Be Unhappy

That was fun, and in some places, quite unnerving! Thanks be to Ratri, who took away a few hours of my night...

Soundtrack

One of those days. You feel old, maybe grey. You've heard the compliments, you've heard the jazz. Fact remains, your joints creak, and if that's what 'articulate' means, you'd rather be quiet. Your muscles hurt when you wake up and it takes an hour or two to prepare to exercise, which means that warm-up seems to be followed too quickly by cool-down.

I used to have a soundtrack in my head. Music played in there, and it made me feel young and vigorous. I'm going to talk about it for a while, because that's what old people do. And then I'll go to sleep for a while.

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I was curious to see what music had made the strongest impressions on me in the last three decades or so. And like many people in such a situation, I looked at my music collection, especially at the music I'd rated 5-star. Of course, that music collection is now on iTunes, so it's easier to examine and sort. And it's terrible mish-mash there, I must say.

I had a classical phase, and I still do. Peter Warlock's Capriol Suite is there, with a lot of Vaughan Williams, a smattering of Beethoven, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez; it's actually quite amazing what I rated 5-star (which most people wouldn't). There's a lot more classical, but it's mostly 4-star and below.

There's a whole lot of modern British. This ranges from urban to neo-Celtic. A bit of Enya, a lot of Beatles, some folk melodies (Star of the County Down, anyone?) and a lot of St Etienne (especially the amazing tracks from Tales from Turnpike House, like The Milk-Bottle Symphony and Side Streets). Always, there's the Queen Symphony, by Tolga Kashif. Not easy to find, but a great, absorbing tribute to the mercurial.

Speaking of urban, there's also Annie Lennox's Don't Let It Bring You Down, from Medusa, a bunch of Simon and Garfunkel and... the main theme from Firefly? (Hmm. How did that get here?) And Convoy, which I shall always remember as the song which reminds us not to pay the toll. I'm not sure where Alan Parsons Project comes in, with Eye in the Sky but it's techno. Is techno urban? No. But what was Firefly?

There's some of the emotional glasshouse stuff too. Aimee Mann (especially One), Mannheim Steamroller (and of course, Chip Davis's compositions – things like Sunday Morning Coffee), The Piano, and Secret Garden.

And there's the man in a category by himself: Billy Joel.

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I'm surprised. Nothing else made it to the 5-star list. I wonder what that says about my personality.