United Breaks Guitars

It probably won't come as a surprise to most people that baggage handlers for United Airlines throw luggage. Nor would most people be surprised if flight attendants were to ignore passengers' complaints when they saw their belongings being tossed about. And of course, we can easily imagine the professionally friendly unhelpfulness of customer service representatives refusing to take responsibility to pay for fixing one's damaged goods. But imagine the surprise of United Airlines executives when muscian Dave Carroll made a song about his flying experience, "United Breaks Guitars." This cute country-western song is wonderful revenge. It became an internet hit, with over 5 million views. After it made cable news headlines United Airlines suddenly became a bit more accomodating. But Carroll has chosen to forgo compensation, and enjoy his alternative means of satisfaction. You can enjoy it too, listen to his song below at YouTube.

Simone sings Gershwin's "My Man's Gone Now"

While George Gershwin, 1898-1937, is noted as perhaps the most prestigious American classical composer of the Twentieth Century, his influence on modern popular music can be compared only with such greats as Duke Ellington and the Beatles. His folk Opera, Porgy And Bess, fuses the blues, jazz and classical forms. Summertime is perhaps the best known of the songs of Porgy and Bess, but My Man's Gone now is the most challenging and rewarding of its compositions.

Nina Simone, 1933-2003, was perhaps one of the most accomplished jazz performers of the Twentieth Century, a composer and pianist in her own right, her perfomances benefited from her composer's ability to adapt a work and her virtuoso skill as a singer. Her incredible power and emotion were showcased in a voice with exceptional range. In the West this High Priestess of Soul held a place comparable to that of Umm Kulthum on the Levant. Pegged in later life as a protest singer, and suffering from personal difficulties, she became an exile to Barbados, Liberia and France. This should not overshadow her musical accomplishment.

Here you can enjoy the fusion of these two great artists of the last century, with Nina Simone's signature recording of what I consider Gershwimn's greatest work, My Man's Gone Now, from Porgy and Bess:

Beethoven's Ode to Freedom

On December 25, 1989, Leonard Bernstein gave a concert in Berlin celebrating the end of the the Berlin Wall. The centerpiece was the performance of Beethoven's 9th symphony (Ode to Joy) with the word Freude "Joy" changed to Freiheit or "Freedom" in the choral fourth movement. When Schiller wrote the original poem, to dedicate it to Freedom had been his intent. But out of fear that his use of Freiheit would be seen as support for the Napoleon, he changed his subject to the less controversial Freude.

According to Wikipedia, the orchestra and chorus for the 1989 Christmas concert were drawn from both East and West Germany, as well as the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Enjoy this special Christmas treat available at YouTube. Here is part I of the fourth movement, with the chorus beginning in part II:

"Tango del Pecado" Calle 13

I first became aware of reggaetón almost a decade ago when my ceiling came close to caving in. My upstair neighbors were having a party. The salsa was rather loud, but it was a Friday, and I didn't mind. Not until they started jummping up and down in unison, and I watched the paint and plaster pop off the walls as the celing lurched with each leap. "No, yo no soy policía," I had to explain, with my large frame and Irish ancestry, as I knocked on the door and asked them to lower the music. It was the immanent collapse, not the volume, that was bothering me. Reggaetón is a loud Jamaican-influenced Latin dance style that might not be very familiar or accessible to Americans who live outside urban areas or who don't watch MTV or Univision. Yet it has its charms.

Calle 13 is a self-described "urban" duo out of Puerto Rico. Two half brothers, René "Residente" Pérez Joglar and Eduardo José "Vistante" Cabra Martínez sing and perform hit songs in the broader hip hop genre that show the influence of salsa, jazz, electronica and other traditional styles. Their 2007 hit Tango del Pecado ("Tango of Sin") merges a tango rythm and the base reggaetón beat with ingenious comic lyrics to create a smart catchy pop song that could most easily be described as Eminem en Español. As with that domestically controversial norteamericano, their socially provocative lyrics (mocking the FBI in one song and singing "to the North" (Pa'l Norte) in another will not please certain American listeners. But one need not approve of their lyrics to appreciate their musical innovation.

Here is a description of the video at Wikipedia.

Celia Cruz "Guantanamera"

There are some drugs so strong that daily usage is contraindicated. I don't know what side-effects, other than tears of joy, Celia Cruz's voice may cause, but if the issue were potency, I'm sure the FDA would want to have her banned. Celia Cruz, 1925-2003, was, according to Wikipedia, (and here one cannot doubt them) "the most influential female figure in the history of Cuban music." Her clear and powerful voice had few rivals, and her sense of joy was incomparable.

Cruz's career had just begun to take off when the communists rose to power in Cuba. In 1960 she left the country, moving to New Jersey and becoming a US citizen. She recorded some 60 albums. She had a famous long term collaboration with Latin drummer Tito Puente. She performed constantly until shortly before her death from cancer. She was buried in Woodlawn Cemetary in the Bronx with soil she had saved from a visit to Guantánamo.

My favorite song by "La Celia" and her most well known among Americans is Guantanamera which means "The Girl from Guantánamo." The song is the unofficial anthem of the island. One of the most beautiful ballads of the 20th Century, it was composed in 1929 by Joselíto Fernández. It was inspired when Fernandez was spurned by a pretty girlk at whom he had made a pass. Over the years the lyrics have evolved to have a more topical meaning. The music is plaintive yet joyful and defiant.

The first verse is:

Yo soy un hombre sincero
De donde crece la palma
Y antes de morirme quiero
Echar mis versos del alma
Guantanamera, guajira, Guantanamera

which translates as:

I am a sincere man
From where the palm tree grows
And before dying I want
To share the verses of my soul.


You can see the full lyrics here. The simple melody performed with steel drums and flute is one of the purest and transporting of sounds. While the song may make you cry, it should be with tears of joy. Here is one of the better performances by Cruz available on YouTube:

Beethoven's Sixth Symphony "The Pastoral"

Little compares to Ludwig van Beethoven. One of the strangest opinions I've ever heard of Beethoven is that his music is malevolent. He certainly can convey darker themes with his compositions. The Fifth Symphony, with its "Fate knocking at the door" is far from lighthearted. Indeed, Beethoven can be seen as the first Heavy Metal artist, with the booming epic style of his symphonies. Considered a member of the Classical school along with Mozart and Haydn we can hear echoes of Shubert and a foretaste of the Romantics that is absent mostly, say, in Mozart. To make a grossly inadequate analogy for the student of pop music, Beethoven's dramatic range is like Led Zepellin to Mozart's saccharine early Beatles.

Beethoven's place in Western culture is unparalleled. Consider Stanley Kubrick's dystopian masterpiece, A Clockwork Orange. The anti-hero Alexander De Large could hardly have been portrayed as a Tschaikovsky fanatic. When the Berlin Wall fell, they did not hold a Mahler or a Wagner concert to celebrate. One of the greatest of all human accomplishments is Beethoven's nine symphonies. Especially the last seven, from the "Eroica" (3rd) from which he ripped the dedication to Napoleon when Bonaparte betrayed the Republic and crowned himself Emperor, to the Ninth, the wildly popular "Choral Symphony" based on Schiller's romantic poem, the Ode to Joy.

One of my favorite of all classical pieces is Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, "The Pastoral." Composed, rehearsed and debuted along with the more ominous Fifth, The Sixth, with its buoyant mood, provides a perfect complement. The Pastoral Symphony, which is intentionally meant to evoke "recollections of country life" has been famously adapted to two iconic movies of the Twentieth Century. The first is Walt Disney's animated masterpiece Fantasia. The full five movements, performed by Leopold Stokowski directing the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, are illustrated with scenes of Greek and European mythology that comprise one of my earliest and most joyful childhood memories.

The second iconic film usage is in 1973's sci-fi noir, Soylent Green. The fatherly police archivist Sol Roth, (Edward G. Robinson in his last role,) has watched America decay from greatness to mindless rioting and self-delusion. Choosing to die, he patronizes a state-run euthansia clinic. With all the world's wildlife dead, Roth watches images of the countryside and listens to Beethoven's Pastoral as the fatal cocktail takes effect. Of course its use in Soylent Green is darkly ironic. The piece itself conjures no malevolent images, at least nothing worse than a soon-passed summer thunderstorm.

Click here to see part one of the Pastoral in Disney's Fantasia. Click here for Sol's departure in Soylent Green. And here is Herbert von Karajan, renowned for his beethoven Interpretations, directing the Berlin Philharmonic in a performance of the complete symphony:

Carl Orff "Carmina Burana"

Discovered in 1803 in the Benediktbeuern abbey by the German scholar Johann Andreas Schmeller, the Codex Burana is a collection of 228 poems written in Latin, Middle German and Old Provençal. They were recorded by students and clergy about the year 1230 in southern Bavaria. Meant to be set to music they include love songs, drinking songs and scandalous chucrh parodies. The songs provide a fascinating uncensored view into the cultural life of the high middle ages.

Schmeller published the codex and named it the Carmina Burana (Songs of Beuern) in 1847. In 1935 and '36 the German composer Carl Orff set 24 of the songs to new music, producing a work meant for orchestra, soloists and choir. Subtitled cantiones profanae, the styles range from plaintive and pastoral to comical to demonic to ecstatic. The composition was highly successful, long outliving the Nazi regime which at first found the work too controversial for public performance.

It premiered at the Alte Oper, Frankfurt, in 1937. The opening movement, O Fortuna, is one of the most well known pieces of classical music, familiar to many as the theme to the film The Omen. Covered by performers from the Doors' Ray Manzarek to Enya and by every classical venue on the planet, performances of this work are a guaranteed to sell out.

The Carmina Burana is meant to be performed operatically, and in 1975, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle produced a West German film version which faithfully produces scenes from mediaeval festivals and morality plays with an effect that seems to cross Easter with Halloween.

The text of Orff's Carmina Burana is available at Teach Yourself Latin. It includes the Latin, French and German lyrics with a loose English translation. The 1975 film by Ponnelle, with a fine musical recording is available in full, starting here with O Fortuna, at YouTube:

Paganini "Caprice 24" by Li Jie

Researching the guitarist Francisco Tárrega, [considered the father of modern classical guitar] I ran across the amazing Chinese guitar vituosa Li Jie (here at Wikipedia) playing Niccolò Paganini's Caprice #24. I'm was so amazed I had to post it on Radicals for Happiness. There are lots of very, very good classical guitar performances by various people on YouTube. Who knew?

Works of Joy: The Music of YES

The music of the band Yes stands out among other rock bands, even fellow progressive rock bands, for one quality that most others lack. Though they may share all of the technical virtuosity, grand vision, and the triple-gatefold sleeves of King Crimson, Genesis, ELP, and Pink Floyd – Yes cornered the market on one commodity – joy.

The work of Yes presents a sense of life that can only be described through Ayn Rand's favored term, "sunlit universe." Indeed, many of the lyrics of Jon Anderson, not only in his Yes work, but his solo work as well, mention the glory of the sun. (See his contribution to the film Legend, "Loved By The Sun." As a motivating factor, they use religion in the best sense that one can, one that Rand, an atheist, would approve of. The music of Yes is an anthem to life, and the very name of the group is a reflection of that.


The band is given a lot of flack from more cynical rock fans who dismiss them as little more than "sunshine and rainbows." But that is a superficial reading. Yes is not ignorant to pain and suffering. The music of Yes, which is, admittedly, something of a "utopian" project, addresses the suffering in the world in relation to their songs of elation...theirs is not a Pollyanna solution. And they offer no sanction of the victim. "If the summer changed to winter, yours is no disgrace!" They do not celebrate the dark, they fight through it to make their way towards the sun.

With that said, let's take a look at some of their key "works of joy":

"Sweetness" from YES (1969) From the first album, the lyrics to this song may seem a bit treacly to us today, but it was a perfect sentiment for the summer of love. A nice love song from a strong first album:

She brings the sunshine to a rainy afternoon;
She puts the sweetness in, stirs it with a spoon.

"Time and A Word" (1970) The title song provides the group's first anthem, with the sing-along lines:

There's a time and the time is now and it's right for me,
It's right for me, and the time is now.
There's a word and the word is love and it's right for me,
It's right for me, and the word is love.

"I've Seen All Good People" (1971) The Yes Album song that showed a new dimension through the exuberant guitar work of Steve Howe, and the immortal line:

I've seen all good people turn their heads each day
So satisfied I'm on my way

The song starts off in a pastoral mood and kicks into a rockabilly rock-out that shows the lie that rock music can't be anything but "anger, hurt, and rage."

"And You & I" (1972) When Yes went Close to the Edge, you knew they wouldn't abandon you, as demonstrated by this magnificent musical piece, at once childlike and mature, simple yet orchestral...

Tales from Topographic Oceans (1974) This whole album, a tribute to what religion can represent at its best, is a tour de force, with several highlights of soaring vocal chorals, spiraling guitars, and orchestral keyboards, all culminating in the finale "Nous Sommes Du Soleil." It's a challenging work, not only musically, but spiritually, which is probably why it is so hated among many "rock" fans, but for those who seek something more, nothing less than a journey of joy.

Going for the One (1977) Another album of continuous joy and clarity. From the exhaustingly joyous "Going For the One" to the gracefulness of "Wondrous Stories..." "Turn of the Century" tells the love story of Pygmalion in a hymn to creation itself, while the album culminates in the last great epic of the Jon Anderson-led yes, "Awaken."


"Future Times/Rejoice" (1979) may be considered the poorest of the Yes albums, but Yes at their worst offers much more than most rock bands at their height. The opening track here is a very creative one, encompassing many moods and textures, and a childlike sense of possibility in an era of increasing despair. That a band could still find a way to rejoice in the age of punk was no mean feat...

"It Can Happen" (1983) The band had changed by the time Jon Anderson rejoined the band for 90125, but the spirit lived on, most notably in this track, a song of optimism that was perfect for the "morning in America" ushered in during the Reagan administration.

These songs are the key highlights to the joys of YES, but are by no means exhaustive. If you've never taken them seriously, you may want to give them another try. You have nothing to lose, but a world of joy to gain...

The distinctive album-cover art of Yes is designed by Roger Dean. Here is a live performance of the band's signature cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "America."

Delibes "Lakmé" The Flower Duet

While I do enjoy classical music, I mostly prefer instrumental pieces, for example Beethoven's Symphonies or tone poems such as Liszt's Preludes. I am not much of an opera fan. Having greatly enjoyed the musical Amadeus I was disappointed to find that just about everything of Mozart's that I liked was already in the film, and I found such works of his as Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute unappealing.

In college, a friend rented a favorite movie of his, The Hunger, with Susan Sarandon, David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve. A stylish vampire movie, it is just a bit too bloody for my taste, but it is quite worth seeing for those who like the genre. The greatest reward from watching it was learning of the "Flower Duet" from Léo Delibes' opera Lakmé. I immediately piurchased the opera. The bulk of it did not interest me. But the price was well paid to have a recording of that song. The story is simple. The daughter of a Hindu priest and her servant girl sing of a garden filled with flowers, jasmine and birds. I have placed some of the French lyrics and the English translation below, under the YouTube clip. The lyrics are for the part about 1:09 into the song.

In the movie The Hunger Catherine Deneuve says the "Flower Duet" is a love song, and Susan Sarandon asks Deneuve if Deneuve is seducing her. (Deneuve is.) But whether we imagine the duet as a love song or a vision of some oriental paradise, or even recall it as a theme that we have heard in commercials for Godiva Chocolate or British Airways, the melody is incomparable, the music transcendant. If you do not recognize this piece by the title, you will recognize it, and enjoy it immensely, upon hearing it.

I have chosen a performance by Carolyn Withers & Melissa Batalles accompanied only by Piano. There are other versions, with full orchestra. I think this simple arrangement shows the power of the music, without any need for strong back-up orchestration. It is divine without need for special devices. Enjoy.



Sous le dôme épais, où le blanc jasmin
À la rose s’assemble
Sur la rive en fleurs, riant au matin
Viens, descendons ensemble.

Doucement glissons de son flot charmant
Suivons le courant fuyant
Dans l’onde frémissante
D’une main nonchalante
Viens, gagnons le bord,
Où la source dort
Et l’oiseau, l’oiseau chante.

"Under the thick dome, where the white jasmine
Gathers with the rose,
On the riverbank in bloom, laughing in the morning,
Come, let us go down together.

"Gently let us slip from the pleasant rising flow,
Let us follow the fleeting current
In the shimmering stream,
Without any care,
Come, let us reach the bank,
Where the spring waters slumber
And the bird, the bird, she sings."

Sesame Street and Vivaldi "Concerto in D"

If you remember this from your childhood, it should bring a tear to your eye. In response to my post on Billy Idol, an appreciative commenter (Mike Erickson) said he had spent the early 80's playing and listening to classical guitar, and had missed Billy Idol. Well, for those of you who were listening to Billy Idol and missed Vivaldi, here is a wonderful short film from Sesame Street that unites a visual and melodic theme in a brilliant way. I spent two decades trying to identify this piece after hearing it as a child. If this post pleases anyone then all the effort of this entire web site is doubly justified. This is the Concerto for Guitar (or Lute) in D. John Williams has an excellent recording.

Billy Idol "Hot in the City"

Billy Idol's first single to reach the top 100, "Hot in the City" reached 23 in the US and 58 in the UK charts. Basically a simple standard pop song, it features a nice strong rock progression and a solid Phil-Spector-like sound. Climaxing in the last verse, when he yells "New York," the song was a 1980's anthem for his adopted home town. There were two released versions of the video. The first features stock footage of NYC intercut with footage of nuclear bomb tests and Idol appears a bit drunk. The second version is a somewhat kinky combination of leather and voyeurism that brings to mind a male version of Madonna. It was banned on various outlets, but doesn't seem all that outrageous nowadays.

I was 14 when this song was released, and didn't have cable to watch it on MTV. I mostly heard the song on car trips to the beach, and simply liked the positive energy of the song, a pop anthem to youth and a city that I have come to love with a passion. The song is great for a workout or a walk down broadway with your headphones blasting. You can see the Twin Towers glowing at night. We are all New Yorkers now.

Here is the original video release:

Natalie Merchant "Kind and Generous"

This song makes me think of purple and gold Christmas decorations, a long day at the beach, the slightly drunk feeling of being pleasantly tired from a full day of well-earned fun, a cool car-window breeze, fresh-from-the-oven pecan pie, a walk in the pine barrens, and a sunset of sky-blue pink. This song is glowing benevolence riding the rich vehicle of the voice of Natalie Merchant

"Yaadein" a Bollywood Treat

Back in 2001 an Indian friend (who had to leave the country after 9-11 when his work visa was not renewed) lent me the movie Yaadein ("Memories"). I had told him I was interested in hearing some classical Indian music. He suggested I watch this Bollywood movie with its pop music. The movie was nothing high-brow; a soap opera plot, 1970's disco attire, boy-band performances, Busby Berekely for the Twenty-First Century. But the sense of life was positive, the music catchy, and the spice exotic from a Western viewpoint. The story was forgettable, just a vehicle for the music. I am sure there must be better movies than Yaadein, but you'd have to ask a Hindi speaker.

Here you can listen to "Jub Dil Miley, Tub Gul Khiley." (I am pretty sure it means "When the heart is sweet the rose blooms.")

Umm Kulthum "The Ruins"

I first heard Umm Kulthum sing in 2000. The "Arab world's most famous and distinguished singer of the 20th century" is an exotic and acquired taste for most Westerners. Her voice wails like a desert wind and booms like a landslide, conveying passion, longing, and betrayal like a Middle-Eastern war. Her weekly concerts, broadcast from Cairo, brought a moment of peace each Friday night until shortly before her death in 1975. Her funeral was attended by 4 million people. According to Wikipedia she had one of the strongest and most incomparable voices of all time, requiring her to stand up to 10 feet from a microphone in order not to overpower it. Existing recordings suffer due to the limitations of the devices available to her at the time.

Mention her name to any Arab of age and he will look at you in surprise and then smile as he reminisces. I reside in NYC. In 2000 I asked a Yemeni who ran a local newsstand where I might find Umm Kulthum's work. She was not available in any domestic music outlet in any respectable form. He sent me on a treasure hunt to the Arab neighborhood of Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue. When I walked into the shops they clerks behind the counter looked at me as if I were a police inspector (I'm only one-quarter Irish) but smiled when I told them I was looking for a CD of Umm Kulthum. They asked if I spoke Arabic. I sang a snatch of one of her songs "Illi shuftu, illi shuftu. Eblimet shuufet..." and said no.

Then, of course, September 11th. I remember cursing at the TV announcers who suggested that the first plane striking the WTc was some sort of horrible "accident." And the next day I couldn't bring myself to enter the Yemeni's shop. You-know-who is Yemeni.

One of Umm Kulthum's best songs is El Atlal, "The Ruins," the story of a love affair that has ended unhappily. For a long time after 9/11I could not listen to her. On the night of the attempted surgical strike to remove Saddam I played "The Ruins" as I watched his palace reduced to rubble. Here is Umm Kulthum singing the love song Inta Omri "Thou art my soul."

"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" & Klezmer

Feeling broke, maybe need to borrow seven billion dollars? (That's 7,000,000,000 dimes.)

One of the biggest and now signature hits of the Depression Era was Yip Harburg's "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" A Russian Jew, Harburg's roots were the traditional secular Klezmer music of East European Jewry. (See Wikipedia.) With its plaintive melodies it will remind those unfamiliar with it of such Broadway classsics as "If I Were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof. Here is the 30's anthem:

Allison Moorer, Brother Can You Spare a Dime:



And click here for Budapest Klezmer Band I (Untitled)

"Solea" from Almodóvar's "Flower of my Secret"

Unrequited love, a style of dance that combines the grace of ballet and the energy of tap...is it Rand's lost novel To Lorne Dieterling? No, it's The Flower of My Secret, the story of a passionate writer looking for just a little bit more out of life. One night, at a dance recital where Miles Davis and Pedro Almodovar intersect, she finds it.

As with many of his films, distinctive for their melodramatic plots and vibrant color, Pedro Almodóvar's 1995 Flower of My Secret (La flor de mi secreto) also features a dramatic musical performance however loosely tied to the plot structure. This movie tells the story of Leocadia, (Marisa Paredes) picured here with her elderly mother and her "crab-faced" sister, a writer of popular romance novels, who looses one love, and, in trying to switch to a more profound style of writing, finds a better. This is one of Almodóvar's best films, if one of his least outlandish. One of the highlights is Joaquín Cortés and Manuela Vargas's interprative/flamenco dance performance to Miles Davis' "Solea" (Sketches of Spain) which can be seen here:



Here is the trailer:

Patsy Cline on the 2008 Election

In an earlier post, I uploaded some video that ends with Homer Simpson saying "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos." My thoughts on the current election are similarly grim. I am reminded of the last time I enjoyed voting for someone, which was for Ross Perot, who at least had a wonderful campaign theme song, Patsy Cline's "Crazy." I find myself singing that to myself more and more often as the election approaches. Here are some videos of America's Sweetheart singing three of her best hits:

Crazy



I Fall to Pieces



Walkin' After Midnight

She Dove Off! "Leeloo" The Fifth Element

Having just escaped from a government laboratory in Manhattan of the distant future, our heroine Leeloo (Mila Jovovich) literally drops into the life of Corben Dallas (Bruce Willis) our hero sky-taxi driver. This is shot is rivaled only by Sharon Stone's leg-crossing performance in Basic Instinct and the final chase of Thelma and Louise as the iconic movie moment of the 1990's. The car-chase music (not on the released soundtrack) is "N'ssi N'ssi" by Cheb Khaled.

Otters Holding Hands

Captain and Tennille had a hit in the 1970's with Musk Rat Love. But how about this video of otters dating?



Here's the 1976 hit:



Married in 1975 and still a couple, The Captain and Tennille have proved the truth of their 1975 #1 single: