Originally Posted Thursday, January 2, 2014
I set my mother's iPad up with an Apple radio station this past weekend. I made a '50s station for her so she could jump around the house when she wanted. As we listened to it, I remembered the lyrics to most of the songs. This was music my mother listened to when I was a little boy, and I guess it stuck. We had a lot of fun listening together remembering things we or I might not have, memories triggered by the music. There are certain things I can't remember without hearing the songs and vice-versa. Pretty powerful stuff.
When I got home, I decided to set the same station up on my iPad. It made me happy. The music was simple and predictable, I thought, but the more I listened, the more subtleties I heard. Jesus, much of it was good. Not the stuff like Bill Haley and the Comets, of course, which was mid-cult pap, but other things, trememdous things.
Listen to Buddy Holly's "Fade Away," for instance. I've known the song, of course, but probably by others. Or perhaps I'd just never paid attention. There is such a simple elegance in those syncopated rhythms and subtle presentation-- it makes me silly. Carl Perkins can be that way sometimes, too.
Then listen to this crazy cajun jazzy doo-wop of "Hey Senorita." They should have made an entire episode of "Treme" around this song. Maybe they did. I haven't watched the entire series yet. Like so much of the music of the time, it is thematically contrapuntal to the emotional teenage longing of songs like "Not Fade Away," so darkly physical and suggestive.
"The Fool" has a dark rockabilly sound that Elvis wanted to steal, but if you listen to his version, you can feel how sanitized it becomes. Sanford Clark sounds like the musical version of a David Lynch movie, especially in "Don't Cry." It threatens to fall apart or down a deep well at midnight. There is a strangeness to the middle of "The Fool" that I haven't put my finger on yet.
I'd been told that the fifties were not like they were portrayed on television and in movies, and buddy, you can believe it if you listen to some of these songs. There is a beautiful weirdness there that trumps most things that come after.
* * * * *
I wrote that last night before going to an early bed. I go back to the factory today having done nothing at all over my holiday vacation that I had planned to do. Nothing. I do not fret, however. There is no point to fretting. I always remember the advice of a photographer who lived in Belarus. I was whining that I suddenly I felt I couldn't take a decent picture. He told me, "When you can't take photographs, try not to take photographs." I don't know if he meant the subtle irony of that, but I think he did and was probably wise. Regardless, you can tell from last night's post what my vacation consisted of.
No comments:
Post a Comment