You may already be bombarded with too much information regarding COVID-19, but I thought I would relay the presentation below from Rebel Wisdom because ironically its focus is to assist us on reflecting just that – too much information and speculation.
Its approach about our psychology and coping mechanisms in this period of great uncertainty is especially engaging and instructive. The major theme in the various short interviews is one of ‘Conspiracy’, but what I found most compelling were the following aspects:
1. The various ways we are psychologically susceptible to finding patterns in making sense and meaning of whats going on.
2. The various strategies we can adopt to be able to find an equilibrium in not only our reasoning during the Quarantine but with respect to how we respond to conflicting sources and people who hold extreme views.
I would be enlightened to find out what you thought of the video and how you are coping and dealing with the pandemic to find a sense of calmness and purposefulness.
SAT NAM!
This delightful little piece will put a spring in your step, speaking of which I just read that from 27 Abril we will be allowed outdoors to exercise in Bogotá. Symphony No. 101 in D major is the ninth of twelve London symphonies written by Austrian composer Joseph Haydn. It is popularly known as The Clock because of the “ticking” rhythm throughout the second movement. He wrote it for the second of his two visits to London. On 3 March 1794, the work was premiered with an orchestra of 60 personally gathered by Haydn’s colleague and friend Johann Peter Salomon. The response of the audience was very enthusiastic. The Oracle even reported it to be his best work and the Morning Chronicle wrote: ‘the inexhaustible, the wonderful, the sublime HAYDN! The first two movements were encored; and the character that pervaded the whole composition was heartfelt joy’.
For much of his career Joseph Haydn was the most celebrated composer in Europe. He was a friend and mentor of Mozart, a tutor of Beethoven. Who wouldn’t kill to have that on their CV? Since there was little or no formal music training where he grew up Haydn’s parents sent him off to a relative who was a choirmaster where he would train as a singer and musician. Haydn later recalled that he remembered being frequently hungry as a small child and after he was taken in, he would never return to live with his parents. For nine years in his youth, he was a chorister at the St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna.
After he matured Haydn struggled working at many different jobs: as a music teacher, as a street serenader, and eventually, in 1752, as valet–accompanist for the Italian composer Nicola Porpora, from whom he later said he learned “the true fundamentals of composition”. As his skills increased, Haydn began to acquire a public reputation, first as the composer of an opera, Der krumme Teufel, “The Limping Devil”. Haydn also noticed, apparently without annoyance, that works he had simply given away were being published and sold in local music shops. 1779 was a watershed year for Haydn, as his contract was renegotiated: whereas previously all his compositions were the property of the Esterházy family, he now was permitted to write for others and sell his work to publishers.
Another friend in Vienna was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whom Haydn had met sometime around 1784. According to later testimony the two composers occasionally played in string quartets together. Haydn was hugely impressed with Mozart’s work and praised it unstintingly to others. Mozart evidently returned the esteem, as seen in his dedication of a set of six quartets, now called the “Haydn” quartets, to his friend. Haydn became a very popular composer In London where his music dominated the concert scene, and it is said “hardly a concert did not feature a work by him”. His journey to London in 1791 was the start of a very auspicious period for Haydn. Audiences flocked to Haydn’s concerts; he augmented his fame and made large profits. Musically, Haydn’s visits to England generated some of his best-known work, including the Surprise, Military, Drumroll and London symphonies; the Rider quartet; and the “Gypsy Rondo” piano trio.
As a rich man, Haydn now felt that he had the privilege of taking his time and writing for posterity. This is reflected in the subject matter of The Creation (1798) and The Seasons (1801), which address such weighty topics as the meaning of life and the purpose of humankind and represent an attempt to render the sublime in music. The change in Haydn’s approach was important in the history of classical music, as other composers were soon following his lead. Notably, Beethoven adopted the practice of taking his time and aiming high.
Dire Straits in Israel 1985 performing Brothers in Arms
Today’s featured song is the title track from Dire Straits 1985 album. It’s the first song to feature in this music library from Dire Straits and cofounder/lead singer/guitarist Mark Knopfler, although Mark’s musical influence and collaborative efforts with Bob Dylan have been mentioned here before. It seems to me that Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler don’t get their just deserts when aficionados reminisce on 80’s music and/or rock’n roll in it entirety. I just don’t see them paid the due attention in musical circles that other big rock groups get and that’s that. Brothers in Arms is one of the world’s best-selling albums, having sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.
Brothers in Arms is difficult to write about and it’s also hard not to get emotional about this song. I think it’s the ants pants as far as war songs go, yet like most of Dire Straits songs you don’t hear it paid mention. It was actually written during the Falkland’s War and is essentially a solidarity song for war troops. Mark Knopfler explains that the song is sung by a soldier dying on the battlefield; as a real singer he has to immerse himself, so to speak, in his view and feelings. In the first two verses it is the own comrades to whom the speaker turns, i.e. the “brothers in arms”. Only in the final line does it become clear that all enemy soldiers are included within “brothers in arms”.
These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Some day you’ll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you’ll no longer burn
To be brothers in arms
Of course Money For Nothing was a megahit from that album and may have done more harm than good retrospectively as it was criticized of reeking of mega bucks and sell out stadium concerts. Knophler himself concluded “the old rockschool restraints and the undeniably attractive smell of the winning formula seem to block out any such experimental work and what you end up with is something very like the same old story.” He said this just after exploring different creative directions with his work on Bob Dylan’s Infidels.
When we started to bunker down in our respective COVID-19 shelters I went through my DVD archives and chose some movies I wanted to revisit. One such movie The Ghost Writer which I just finished watching features today in Friday’s-finest. I guess I have seen The Ghost Writer about six times in total and each time I have found it as engrossing and suspenseful viewing as my previous encounter. Director Roman Polanski is no slouch when it comes to making such austere and suspenseful thrillers – Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown and Repulsion to name just a few. But The Ghost Writer features here because like most other films I like to write about, it seems an ‘underappreciated’ modern classic, perhaps not so much in critical circles, but in the general audience arena.
IMDB Storyline: An unremarkable ghost-writer has landed a lucrative contract to redact the memoirs of Adam Lang, the former UK Prime Minister. After dominating British politics for years, Lang is campaigning for his foundation with his wife in the USA. He lives on an island, in luxurious, isolated premises complete with a security detail and a secretarial staff. Soon, Adam Lang gets embroiled in a major scandal with international ramifications that reveals how far he was ready to go in order to nurture UK’s “special relationship” with the USA. But before this controversy has started, before even he has closed the deal with the publisher, the ghost-writer gets unmistakable signs that the turgid draft he is tasked to put into shape inexplicably constitutes highly sensitive material.
‘Political thriller’ is possibly my favorite movie genre and that might have something to do with my having graduated with a ‘Political science’ major and serving in the Australian military. So The Ghost Writer tickles all my fancies as far as subject matter and context. Pierce Brosnan who normally doesn’t rub off well to me as an actor is perfectly cast to play the character of Adam Lang, and has echoes of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Originally Nicolas Cage and Tilda Swinton were cast in the principal roles, but due to postponement of production Ewan McGregor and Olivia Williams replaced them respectively. Olivia Williams who plays Adam Lang’s wife is intoxicating in every scene she appears and her unforgettable reaction at the end of the film is about as good as it gets in terms of climax moment – acting. Kudos also to McGregor who plays the apathetic individual within a larger society to great effect.
The biggest takeway from the film is Polanksi being in so command of his craft. Every image carefully composed, and every moment of information tightly plotted. Polanski’s world view is so thoroughly and crisply represented through this visual style and the eerily atmospheric soundtrack. Interestingly Germany stood in for London and Martha’s Vineyard due to Polanski’s inability to legally travel to those places, as Polanski had fled the U.S. in 1978. A few brief exterior shots for driving scenes were shot by a second unit in Massachusetts, without Polanski or the actors. The film premiered at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival on 12 February 2010 where Polanski won best director.
Lang’s beach house set was built entirely in a studio. The Cape Cod views through the windows were the result of greenscreens.
Was originally filmed as an R-rated thriller, but upon its purchase for U.S. distribution, it needed to be cut down to PG-13, to ensure a wider audience. This was done by cutting out eighteen “f” words, three “c” words, and also some graphic sexual dialogue, as well as trimming some CGI blood spray during a death scene.
The Ghost (Ewan McGregor) is given a manuscript by Lang’s attorney. In the taxi, he checks the number of pages: six hundred twenty-four. Tony Blair’s memoirs “A Journey”, published in September 2010, also has six hundred twenty-four pages.
Ewan McGregor was considered to replace Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, but declined due to fears of typecasting.
The hotel receptionist is portrayed by Morgane Polanski, daughter of director Roman Polanski.
Thanks to my school friend Daniel Olsen at secondary school I had been following the Boss a year or so shy of the release of Brilliant Disguise. I distinctly remember seeing this remarkable music video appear on the Saturday morning top 40 ‘Rage’ music program which I obsessively tuned into. Brilliant Disguise became my favourite song in my ‘Bruuuuce’ collection up to that point. His staring down the camera for 4 minutes in real time as the camera looms in and telling it straight about the demise of a relationship catapulted Bruce into my short-list of favourite artists. I was besotted by his transparency and authenticity that he would even consider attempting to deliver this song the way that he did in that highly synthesised and manufactured pop-era. Not only that, but the lyrics and melody floored me:
I heard somebody call your name
from underneath our willow
I saw something tucked in shame
underneath your pillow
Well I’ve tried so hard baby
but I just can’t see
What a woman like you
is doing with me
So tell me who I see
when I look in your eyes
Is that you baby
or just a brilliant disguise
Brilliant Disguise was released as the first single from his album Tunnel of Love in 1987. It represented a serious departure from his anthemic rock output in his previous record – Born in the USA which remains one of the greatest selling albums of all time. Brilliant Disguise reached No. 5 position on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock chart in the United States. I was in awe at his versatility as a songwriter to be able to leap so far away from the tried and tested formula of his previous music to something so melancholy and country-esque pondering love gone wrong. In 1989, the album was ranked #25 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “100 Best Albums of the Eighties.
Like much of the Tunnel of Love album, “Brilliant Disguise” was recorded in Springsteen’s home studio, called Thrill Hill East, between January and May 1987. The analogies to Springsteen’s personal life at the time are evident: he had recently married then-model and actress Julianne Phillips, and the two would divorce in 1988. The references to marital problems are quite direct, as in the lyrics:
“Oh, we stood at the altar
The gypsy swore our future was right
But come the wee wee hours
Well maybe, baby, the gypsy lied.”
The video of the song below was shot in black and white, and it effectively reflects his emotions as he sits uncomfortably on the edge of a chair. This very personal performance can make it difficult to watch, but it reflects the themes of the song.
I normally find John Oliver a bit smarmy and his humour hit and miss, but this episode was a gem. At the start he looks at the perils of working at home and a local news reporter’s cat pulls focus during a live shot. A must-see even if you see nothing else in this report.
John Oliver discusses how Coronavirus is impacting the US workforce, from mass unemployment to the problems faced by essential workers…… (Watch entire video report).
Bright Horses is the first song from Nick Cave to feature here in the Music Library Project.
Nick Cave is one of Australia’s most successful musical exports in Alternative – Indie music. When people cite great influential songwriters and poets of the last few decades Nick Cave’s name is often in the mix. Today’s song Bright Horses is from his most recent record Ghosteen (2019) which was written in the aftermath of the death of Cave’s son Arthur in 2015. This record is recognised as one of his most powerful, a meditation on mortality and our collective grief.
Nick’s trying to process and wrestle this grief is all there to see on Bright Horses. He at his most rudimentary here in terms of just letting his heart do the writing. I find my eyes welling up with tears as he clambers on to find faith and hope in this time of extraordinary suffering. It’s as though this grief has opened a new transcendent portal in his consciousness.
And everyone has a heart and it’s calling for something And we’re all so sick and tired of seeing things as they are….
Oh, oh, oh, well, this world is plain to see It don’t mean we can’t believe in something, and anyway My baby’s coming back now on the next train I can hear the whistle blowing, I can hear the mighty roar
The horses become the metaphor for his son’s memory, or his spirit. His wild care-free spirit with its mane full of fire. And Nick imagines himself sitting by his side, holding his hand. He knows the memories aren’t a replacement for his real son, and it won’t bring him back, but he’s sick and tired of using logic to explain to himself what has happened – horses are just horses, fields are just fields, the world is full of tyrants, and that his son really isn’t the little shape dancing at the end of the hall. But that ‘doesn’t mean we can’t believe in something’.
Upon its release, Ghosteen was met with widespread critical acclaim. It received several perfect scores and is the highest-rated album of 2019—as well as the second highest-rated album of the 2010s—on Metacritic. Ghosteen marks the 40th anniversary of Nick Cave’s recording career and more songs from this record will feature in this music library project.
The music from Australian singer-songwriter David Bridie features prominently in my music library. Today’s song Breath is from his debut solo album Act of Free Choice (cover above) released in 2000. Unlike the high-art pop music he composed with his band My Friend The Chocolate Cake his solo music is much more experiential and introspective in nature. He seemed to have been exploring a new world of sound by creating a sonic visual to allow the listener to immerse themselves. It took me considerable time to succumb to these haunting songs from Act of Free Choice including today’s track Breath, but I’m well and truly on board now.
slowly shut your eyelids feel all overcome something’s working beautifully something’s this much fun but can you taste it sort through it bite into it spread it round you didn’t see it coming now you just hold your breath
I couldn’t help but think of Australian writer Tim Winton’s words in his book by the same ‘Breath’ which I reviewed here – “It’s funny, but you never really think much about breathing. Until it’s all you ever think about.”
PopMatters described Act of Free Choice ‘as one of the most quintessential Australian albums ever recorded. The album, a blue fog of shuddering drum loops, haunting piano scales and sky-sweeping atmospheres, evokes the lonely stretches of Australia’s outback, while narrating a generation’s worth of political strife’.
David Bridie remarked about his solo music and Act of Free Choice: ‘I love working with sound and I love working with story and Australia has an abundance of both. Some wonderful stories and characters….. And the landscape here is this wide brown land is awe inspiring…It is a large, big sky country. It can kill you at a moment’s notice if you aren’t prepared.. There is an intense beauty as well. The sound is quiet, there are harmonic frequencies in the wind, on the salt lakes… the land over powers you, and it is great respite from the mundane city life.’
Today’s music piece is the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Camille Saint-Saëns. Saint-Saëns was born in Paris and was one of the most remarkable child prodigies in music-history, which included Mozart. Before he was three years old he displayed perfect pitch and enjoyed picking out tunes on the piano and by the age of ten he made his official public debut, at the Salle Pleyel, in a programme that included Mozart’s Piano Concerto in B♭.
Early in his career he was a church organist which earned him a handsome living. The Parisian parish where he performed had 24,000 parishioners and if you consider the organist fees from the hundreds of wedding and funerals Saint-Saëns lived very comfortably. He was enthusiastic for the most modern music of the day, particularly that of Schumann, Liszt and Wagner, although his own compositions were generally within a conventional classical tradition.
When he became a teacher he scandalised some of his more austere colleagues by introducing his students to the aforementioned composers. Saint-Saëns further enlivened the academic regime by writing, and composing incidental music for, a one-act farce performed by the students. He conceived his best-known piece, The Carnival of the Animals, with his students in mind, but did not finish composing it until 1886, more than twenty years after he left the Niedermeyer school.
Saint-Saëns wrote the Piano Concerto No. 2 in just 3 weeks and reportedly had very little time to prepare for the premiere. But it remains probably his most popular piano concerto. Fellow French composer Georges Bizet who has featured here before wrote a transcription of the concerto for solo piano. The performance below of the Piano Concerto No.2 is by the London Symphony Orchestra with Arthur Rubinstein on piano. Arthur Rubinstein has been described as one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century. He played in public for eight decades! Coincidentally a composer by the name of Anton Rubinstein conducted the orchestra at the premiere.
Boys of Summer is one of the most indelible rock songs of the 1980’s and was number one on the Billboard Top Rock Tracks chart for five weeks. In a 1987 interview with Rolling Stone, Henley explained that the song is about aging and questioning the past—a recurring theme in Henley’s lyrics including his classic The End of the Innocence. Like The End of the Innocence, Boys of Summer was one of my favourite songs growing up and when I hear it now I reminisce fondly of my youth.
The music was composed by Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. He showed it to Tom Petty, but they didn’t feel it fit on their record. So he played it for Don Henley who changed the key, wrote the lyrics, recorded the vocal and the rest is history. The music video also won many awards. It was a French New Wave-influenced piece directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino. Shot in black-and-white, it shows the main character of the song at three different stages of life (as a young boy, a young adult and middle-aged).
Interesting Trivia:
Henley explained the ‘”Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac” lyric as an example of his generation selling out. ‘I was driving down the San Diego Freeway and got passed by a $21,000 Cadillac Seville, the status symbol of the right-wing upper-middle-class American bourgeoisie – all the guys with the blue blazers with the crests and the grey pants – and there was this Grateful Dead “Deadhead” bumper sticker on it!‘
In 2010, Henley won a lawsuit against Chuck Devore, who was running for a US Senate seat in California. Devore – a Republican – used “The Boys of Summer” and “All She Wants to do is Dance” in his campaign advertising, which didn’t go over well with Henley.
MTV exposure from this song’s video raised Henley’s profile but cost him a degree of anonymity. With the Eagles, he was tucked away behind a drum kit, and rarely on TV.
Tom Petty introduced Mike Campbell onstage as “the co captain of this ship and my right hand man.” In Petty’s book he tells the story about that song; Campbell brought the demo to the studio where Petty was recording with the Heartbreakers and yes by his own account, he passed on it. Being in a creative funk due to several factors (read the book) he and Iovine were struggling with the album. When Petty heard “Boys Of Summer” on the radio he recognized the song as being almost note for note the demo Campbell had brought to the session and confronted Campbell, incensed that Henley had gotten the song from him. When Campbell reminded Petty that he had rejected the song, Petty’s notorious temper flared and he punched a studio wall and broke a bone in his hand requiring surgery to repair it. That resulted in more delay in finishing his album, and strained relations with the producer Iovine. Petty later admitted that he had dismissed Campbell’s demo out of hand, and had lost out on a great song.
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