The Wizard’s Medal
At last night's gala ceremony, President Obama handed out the Presidential Medal of Freedom to what is inevitably described as a diverse group, though most of the winners run to a predictable type: Toni Morrison, an incompetent and dirty writer of anti-American fictions, Madeline Albright an incompetent and brutally savage statesgirl, John Glenn the showboating flyboy who held a press conference every time he shot down an enemy plane and spent his political career moving as far to the left as he could, John Paul Stevens the weak-minded justice who betrayed the people who put him on the Supreme Court, Pat Summit the queen of girls' basketball, Gordon Hirabayashi--the poster child for the sufferings of those poor interned Japanese who would not give up dual citizenship or renounce the Emperor, a co-founder of the United Farmworkers, and, best of all, Bob Dylan.
The President, in a comic vein, praised Dylan's singing voice. On NPR they played Dylan's funniest song, "Blowin' in the Wind," which contains this line that borders on parody: "How many deaths will it take till they know that too many people have died?" Gosh, I don't know. By now it must add up to trillions, and they're still dying even as I write. I guess if Americans had rolled over and played dead for the Soviets, the USSR would have outlawed death they way it outlawed capital punishment.
Well, who cares? The Presidential Medal of Freedom--always described as the "nation's highest civilian honor"--has nothing to do with the nation and often too little to do with honor. Jack Kennedy established it by a presidential order in 1963 as part of his project to convert the real United States into a Potemkin village Camelot.
The Medal represents nothing more serious than the whims of whatever incumbent is currently disgracing the White House. I have more respect for any soldier, sailor, or marine, who did his duty competently and faithfully, for any hardworking teacher of Latin or math or chemistry, for any mother who has done her best to raise her brood of unruly children. In the unlikely event of an honorable man ever being elected President, I wouldn't take such a medal from his hands in the still less likely event of an offer.
Sometimes there is a good apple in a barrel of rotten apples, and last night a medal was given posthumously to Jan Karski, a Polish officer and resistance agent who gathered information on the Nazi occupation and later testified. Inevitably, Barack Obama blew the moment by insulting the entire Polish nation with a reference to the "Polish death camp." Polish defense minister Radek Sikorski tweeted his friends, "The White House will apologize for this outrageous error.
In the film version of The Wizard of Oz, the bogus wizard presents the Cowardly Lion with a medal which cures him of his cowardice. (In the book, he is given a green liquid to drink, which I take to be 110 proof Green Chartreuse, a far more valuable and authentic stimulus to courage than a meaningless award!) In a country whose subjects long ago surrendered their freedoms, it is then altogether fitting that such a President honors such people such a medal.
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"I have more respect for any soldier, sailor, or marine, who did his duty competently and faithfully, for any hardworking teacher of Latin or math or chemistry, for any mother who has done her best to raise her brood of unruly children. In the unlikely event of an honorable man ever being elected President, I wouldn’t take such a medal from his hands in the still less likely event of an offer."
This is vintage Tom Fleming. Yet the one fact that seperates him from the very few who also might have noticed this truth, is he actually believes it, has acted upon this understanding and convicted by its truth. May God Bless him with many more years for "heaven and the future's sake."
I had no idea such an event took place but the fact that Dylan showed-up to receive the award says a lot about his putative authenticity (Mr Larry Auster, View From the Right, has adopted him as a representative of "traditionalism") and hearing about Dylan brought to my mind some of his dadist lyricism: "I looked at my watch, I looked at my wrist; I punched myself in the face with my fist. I took my potatoes down to be mashed and I made it on over to the million dollar bash."
It took Mr. Dylan a long time to make it to last night's Million Dollar Bash but he was right where he belonged.
I can't imagine what the repulsive blogger has in common with the repulsive pseudo-folkie.
It is a beautiful morning for me when someone gives Robert Zimmerman his due. Worshipped by the old left ever since his appearance at the Newport Folk Festival, yet for what? For the crassness of "Lay Lady Lay', the scorn of the rich girlfriend in "like a Rolling Stone", Bob is on the street and she is with a diplomat holding a siamese cat, the "Positively (horrendous) 4th Street", the onerous born-again period with "Saved", the butchering of great country classics in "Self Portrait". I shouldn't forget everyone's favorite lame metaphors in it's-too-dark-to-see "Knocking on Heaven's Door."
Try speaking poorly of Dylan in the faculty lounge and you will not be forgiven. I remember a colleague who spent a small fortune in auctions of his early records, on his photo books, box CD sets of Tens of Swords. Today's intellectuals regard him as the prophet for the ages but I have yet to figure out what it is he's predicting.
Yet I'd rather give him a medal that Mrs.Albright, whose existence is totally without merit. I am surprised Mr.Brezhinski was not invited to this, since he's managed to come out with some great inanities lately.
As Robert Reavis says, this is vintage Thomas Fleming, and I'd recommend a daily dose of it. As for the awards, I suppose Obama couldn't give the award to Jerry Sandusky so Pat Summitt popped into his head.
Although I hold no real grudge against Col Glenn, I had to note he did make sure to speak out of his retirement to speak in favor of unions to continue looting the state of Ohio back when Issue 2 was voted on last year.
The good doctor could as easily been writing about that other feel good award, the Nobel peace prize. None of the awards surprise me, but I was struck by the profound ignorance of Obama's reference to the Polish death camps. Now we know Obama has no knowledge base, his frame of reference was formed smoking pot during his privileged existence in Hawaii. We can also deduce that his college years did nothing to enhance his knowledge of basic history. Or much else. Why else hide his transcripts? And, his writing may even be worse than mine. (maybe?) But Obama's ignorance aside, the man has speech writers who are supposed to fill in those gaps. And, he has the words displayed on a screen in front of him. So, his comment was either spontaneous stupidity and/or his handlers intended to further damage America's relations with the people of Poland. I tend to think it was mostly intentional. I believe it was intentional because this slap at Poland is just the latest in a long, consistent sequence of diplomatic insults against Poland from the Obama White House. This also follows Obama's consistent policy direction since day one, to undermine and destroy America.
It is also amazing that Bob Dylan is revered by so many as some kind of prophet. I don't get it. But one thing is certain, they sure don't make prophets like they used to. I'll take general/prophet Deborah against that whole bunch of Wizard of Oz style prophets any day.
I' ve done the Nobel Prizes so often it sounds like a broken record. When I lived in Ohio, Glenn struck me as a perhaps promising politician. Then a met a fighter pilot who had known him and despised him as the sort of flier that is interested in racking up kills and getting his name in the news--with an eye to a political future, As the flier explained to me, a fighter pilot has two basic objectives: protecting the bombers or otherwise achieving the defined mission and getting his crew and plane back safely. Shooting down enemy planes was the means of accomplishing the mission, not the mission itself.
I wasn't aware, probably because my family didn't have a TV until after the Korean War, that John Glenn gave press conferences after shooting down planes. Sounds like him, though.
I wasn't aware that Toni Morrison was a dirty as well as an incompetent novelist, but then I've read only one of her novels, which one of my former colleagues thought worthy of being dubbed the best book of fiction of its year of publication (rest easy, it was not chosen), but which I found remarkably flavorless and thin.
I wasn't aware of Pat Summitt at all. I still am not, nor do I intend to be.
I wasn't aware of Jan Karski, and I am glad to have learned a little about him.
I was aware of Bob Dylan, of course. I think he brought the smart-aleck public personae of the Beatles (see the film Don't Look Back) to the business of being an American pop star; unlike John Lennon, he never thought he was serious about anything, as far as I could see. Most of his earliest and best-known songs put his (chronically ungrammatical, as has been noted) "lyrics" to others' melodies; in this, he followed his acknowledged master, Woody Guthrie. His most listenable albums are John Wesley Harding and New Morning. While some of his output before those records is pretty good (as long as it's not "folk" or "protest" music, nothing of his since is worthwhile. These days he often seems barely aware of himself and his surroundings, I'm told. I haven't seen him in any form in 40 years.
Why's this honor that all these people have been given called a medal of freedom? Seems to me that only Jan Karski actually did anything for freedom in any honorable sense of the word, and he wasn't an American. I take some consolation from the fact that Mr. Karski, at least, will garner none of the toils of celebrity from this honor.
I dont want to steer this too off topic, but what do you find repulsive about Auster?
I suppose you all know the story about how Bob Dylan met Ramblin' Jack Eliot. Gee, Jack, Bob exclaimed, you're my hero, the real thing, a rambling cowboy from out West, etc. etc.
Ramblin' Jack laughed and informed him that his real name was Elliot Adnopoz. Here is a version told not very well by Dave Van Ronk: "As far as Bobby knew, Jack Elliott was absolutely good coin goyisha cowboy. In the course of the conversation it came out somehow that he was Elliott Adnopoz, a Jewish cat from Ocean Parkway, and Bobby fell off his chair. He rolled under the table, laughing like a madman... We had all suspected Bobby was Jewish, and that proved it..."
That anyone doubted Dylan's background is hilarious. I bought the first half dozen Dylan albums and liked some of the earlier songs, though it was always claimed by some folkies in the Village that Mr. Zimmerman had ripped off "Don't Think Twice," a song good enough to have been covered by Waylon Jennings. I have a friend who was a banjo player with a briefly successful group with an RCA contract. One night he was begged to let a young Dylan, who was going out on the road for the first time the following morning, spend the night in his apartment. When he got up the next morning,he discovered all his sound equipment was gone. Must have been a burglar.
I should add, to avoid misleading anyone, that I liked Rambin' Jack who actually did reinvent himself by going on the road in his teens with a Wild West Show and picking up real material first from cowboy singers and then from his hero Woody Guthrie. Guthrie, the epitome of the common man, was also a bit of a fake, born into a middle class family--father owned a radio station before going bankrupt--which explains his attraction to Marxism. You can fake something so long it becomes as real as a restored colonial home in Williamsburg or a fishing village on Lago Maggiore.
PS If you are looking for the real thing--a blue collar class rambling man who worked odd jobs and picked up songs, then it is Cisco Houston. My father, an organizer for the red NMU, always held up Cisco as a true folk singer when I would irritate him by playing Baez and Dylan.
Dr. Fleming,
Also, don't forget that Mr. Zimmerman "borrowed" whole lines and phrases from Henry Timrod for his album "Modern Times." It amounted to a rip off that I'm sure Zimmerman never thought would be uncovered.
I'd be delighted to but I don't know the album or the plagiarism story. Please elaborate. I am astonished that Dylan had even heard of Timrod, one of the few fine American poets of the 19th century.
Dr. Fleming,
Here are some links to articles from the NYT about the minor controversy from a few years ago. From what I recall, Dylan claimed to have been influenced by various mid-19th century poets, but denied lifting lines or knowing much about Timrod. As the Marxist pied piper, he was absolved in editorials and letters to the editor. In typical dismissive fashion, the NYT laughed off the idea that the great Dylan would steal from the “poet laureate of the Confederacy.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/arts/music/14dyla.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/17/opinion/17vega.html
Another article:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dylan-borrowed-from-obscure-civil-war-poet-say-critics-416069.html
That Dylan borrowed from Timrod is crystal clear, but in all fairness to Bob he may have paid someone else to do the writing. In every case, Dylan cheapens the lines. I'll devote a Poem of the Week to Timrod. Thanks very much for his--the article in the Independent was pretty fair.
The supergroup Almanac Singers, Ramblers and of course the tedious Odetta are all the real thing. Lots of original Folkways releases. Unlike Dylan, Baez worked hard at it in the early days, but ended up being more pretentious.
Remember that the Presidential Medal of Freedom was inaugurated by none other than John F. Kennedy himself. That should tell us all we need to know about what this "honor" represents, what are the criteria for receiving it and what kind of person will receive it. None of this shocks or scandalized me in the least. Of course I'm furious. But the moment to be horrified has long past. This is and has been for some time the world in which we live.
Well, apparently the news of Dylan's PMoF was more than Doc Watson could take. RIP, sir.
Nicholas:"Remember that the Presidential Medal of Freedom was inaugurated by none other than John F. Kennedy himself."
Above: "Jack Kennedy established it by a presidential order in 1963 as part of his project to convert the real United States into a Potemkin village Camelot."
Friend Nicholas, I know that the youth have short memories, but....
I liked Joanie Phonie's (Who gets the pop culture reference here?) first albums a great deal, especially the English ballads. A man I am proud to describe as a one time friend, Guy Carawan, recorded some beautiful songs on Folkways. Guy was a man of the left but I admired him and his wife Candie a great deal then and still do. They were political agitators for Highlander Folk School, of course, and through them I also met Miles and Ziphalia Horton. I knew, therefore, all the original contributors to the political version of "We Shall Overcome."
Aaron anticipated by a minute or so my wish to pay tribute to Doc Watson on which subject I cannot speak without hyperbole. Did Watson, by the way, name his late son Merle after Merle Travis, another real folk singer? I remember an interview with Travis in which he talked about how he was asked to write a folk song. Travis naturally told the record label that you could not just sit down and write a folk song. Prodded, he came up with "16 Tons." Asked if he resented Tennessee Ernie Ford's success with the song, he answered that a glance at his bank account was enough to make him forever grateful to Tennessee Ernie who was in fact a big band jazz singer.
Friend Nicholas, I know that the youth have short memories, but....
Strictly speaking, short memory isn't the problem there. Lack of short term memory might well be.
Although, maybe not. Apart from Bob Dylan, John Glenn, Jan Karski and the Beatles, I confess to having never heard of almost any of the people mentioned on this thread. I can't say I'm sad.
I doubt that Doc would have cared. He would have congratulated Dylan if he'd been asked about it, I think. He always impressed me as a sweet man, like my dad, who only ventured an unkind remark when he'd been pretty enraged, and then he'd utter it sotto voce and diminuendo.
Sad that Doc's gone, though Lordy, didn't he give us a lot? It's even sadder coming on the heels of the death of Doug Dillard, who was his pickin' peer on the banjo, though he never attained Doc's renown. Then again, I understand that Doc had no bad habits. Doug, on the other hand, loved them psychodeelicks.
Yes, Merle Watson was named after Merle Travis, who was, in my opinion, every bit as great a guitarist as Doc, though, unfortunately, a booze-and-pills hound. I'm not sure you're classifying Tennessee Ernie quite correctly as a big band jazz singer. He made many, and many good, records in a style very close to Travis' on many of his records. Basically, he was backed by a relatively small combo made up of a string band with horns and perhaps an accordion. You might call the style Southeastern Swing, I suppose.
It's true that Ernie Ford did country music and played with combos but he also spent time with Western Swing and actually replaced Kay Kaiser (of Chapel Hill) on the radio. I like Ernie Ford and meant no disrespect to a multi-faceted singer with roots in country and a success in pop music. I did, however, dislike his TV show which I always lumped together with the fictional Lonesome Rhodes show in Face in the Crowd.
To young friend Nicholas. Try to avoid snobbery. Doc Watson and Merle Travis are as good as it gets in authentic pop culture-/next you'll be telling us you don't know Charles Trenet! As some here may remember, Nashville cats play clean as country water.
I'll confess, I've actually never heard of Charles Trenet or Doc Watson or Merle Travis or Ernie Ford or, until one of Dr. Fleming's recent posts, Townes Van Zandt. I think I've already given thanks previously for the many poets that Dr. Fleming has introduced over the last several months. I make no attempt to try to hide the fact that I'm a heathen and a philistine, but at least I'm a repentant one.
That's the nice but expensive thing about hanging out around here. I'm learning about all sorts of new things to explore. I've got some Van Zandt that I started listening to, and, for good measure, some Hank Williams, Sr. (I recently found out my Granddad, who is my namesake, was actually an old drinking buddy of his back in Montgomery before Hank hit the big time). Now I'll add Doc Watson & others to the list. I've purchased many books either written by folks who post here or recommended here or in the actual magazine (I just finished "The Time It Never Rained" which, to the relief of my wallet, was actually at my crummy library). So, when you sign up for a Chronicles subscription be prepared for it to cost you much more than just the annual fee!
But it's worth it. After years adrift in the sterile brine that is our current pop culture I've finally found the source of a fresh stream. On my own I've been able to figure out what to avoid, but until now I've never really known what to seek out.
I defer to your closer knowledge of Glen, Dr. Fleming. I will only add that Glen's accomplishments are, no matter what the motivations behind them, remarkable by any standard. OK, he took it too far with his shuttle flight. And, I suppose it's generally understood that fighter pilots carry enough ego around for any ten 'normal' guys. So, I guess I won't dump on John Glen, but I see your point.
Now for the good news. The other fellas in the institute and me decided and it's unanimous. All we gotta do to fix Obama and restore respectability to American leadership is this, pin his eyes back like they did to that boy in, A Clockwork Orange. Then, make him watch all the episodes of Leave it to Beaver and Dennis the Menace over and over. If that doesn't cure what ails Obama, nothing will. I can see it now, after several weeks of therapy Obama will echo Col. Kurtz, in form. Only Obama will express his epiphany thusly, 'the wisdom, the wisdom'...
Al Kapp? Oh yes, and there was the Jack Acid society but that may have been Pogo, I think. Baez's first two records are nice, the "In Concert" I am still a fan of and play on occasion for "Donna Donna", "All My Trials" and the ballads.
"John Paul Stevens the weak-minded justice who betrayed the people who put him on the Supreme Court,"
Which people are talking about, the Ford Administration? The backers of the ERA? Are you kidding me?
I thought that Fr. Abram Ryan was the poet laureate of the Confederacy.
It was less snobbery than it was a personal quirk. (And yes, I know who Charles Trenet is!) I suppose I am a bit of a snob, though, in that while I appreciate some of the old folkish or jazzy pop stuff à la Sinatra/Chevalier but in general I don't really choose to listen to it... it's just not something that does much for me for whatever reason. I used to be obsessed with folk music and by extension probably would have grown to like some of the better 20th-century stuff. (Back in 2007, I was experimenting with The Pogues.) As it happened, though, I learned how to sing classical music on a whim and subsequently developed a low tolerance threshold for raw or undeveloped singing - this does not cover Sinatra and a few others, of course, who have most excellent voices, but impressive vocals are hard to come by in the popular category and I don't spend much time searching.
In recent years, however, it has become rather fashionable to cover golden oldies or folk songs with baroque-quality vocals and instrumentals. The quartet Les Stentors (covering French regional/folk/pop, including the Corsican language; let's hope they do Breton at some point!) released their first disc this month and as of a week and a half ago it was #1 at FNAC (a French chain that's kind of like Barnes & Noble and Best Buy jammed together and almost a monopoly in this country). There's the French trio Les Prêtres and the similar Irish group The Priests, plus the Irish Tenors, the famous Three Tenors and the international Pop Idol-inspired Il Divo. I won't say I like all these or everything each one has put out, but they can be interesting spins.
The major downside to audio snobbery is that background music becomes difficult to justify when I'm working as most of what I like to listen to steals a great deal of my energy and concentration. (Overall I'm still more a movie guy than a music guy... always have been.)
Getting back on topic, though, it is notable that in times past the musicians who frequented the likes of royal courts were the likes of Mozart and company, i.e., people who actually had real talent for music. One of the fruits of the twentieth century, however, was to glorify the "message" of artistic works over and above the aesthetic quality. Accordingly, Madonna is a worthy recording artist because she broke through taboos about female sexuality in the industry; never mind that pesky question about whether she can sing. (All I will say on that point is that she is said to have required quite a bit of vocal training for Evita.)
(This cuts both ways, of course. Just look at how many American Protestants stand in awe of (mostly awful) Contemporary Christian artists or Catholics dig as deep as they can to find meaningless "pro-life" references in the lyrics of some self-inflated hipster.)
So naturally those invited to the President's court will be those who think a certain way, regardless of their actual contribution to humanity. I'm reminded of Clyde Wilson's sarcastic lament that he had resigned himself never to be invited to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom. It would be awesome if we could stop the journals from broadcasting images of that horrid palace to pollute the entire country and indeed the four corners of the globe. Alas!...
So yeah, I'm a snob, but if B.H. Obama likes something and I don't, I'm happy.
Occam's razor. The people assisting Mr. Obama are just as Ill-served by their expensive educations as he is.
I heard this story I don't know where (TV?) I hope I didn't make it up. I don't think I did. The Leftist communists in NYC you know the mainstream ones were so tickled at first by the phenomenon and success of dylan. They for a while felt that they couldn't have created such an agitprop themselves even if they tried. So they gave him an award too. But his having become hip to their intentions of using him, perhaps he smelled it, I guess loaded-he trashed the whole gathering in his acceptance speech from the podium. When asked by a reporter outside why he had bitten the hand that attempted to feed him (or feed off of him) he said 'man, they wanted me to be their finger pointer. And I've only got ten fingers.' Some of his love songs I found irascibly passionate, not sure that's a good thing: 'bird on the horizon sittin on a fence he's singing a song for you at his own expense, and I'm just like that bird singing just for you, I hope that you can hear, hear me singing through these tears......' An A+ though for commitment, once he started singing, well or not, he SANG. maybe it was the 'vibe'?
Lest there be any doubt, though, I know that not everyone whi's classically trained has the same hangups about popular airs that I do. My brother in fact was one of the most talented young oboists in the region growing up and greatly appreciates classical music but the stuff he chooses to listen to on a day-to-day basis I personally find appalling. I suppose I'm just narcissistic enough to want things my own way (for example, when I learn to cook a particular dish, I can hardly ever bear to order it at a restaurant again).
No idea whether the artists Dr. Fleming cited have good voices or no... as mentioned I don't search much, my own tastes being very specific.
This is an interesting diversion which deserves its own post, but let us try to help young Nicholas. I invite Ray Olson, in particular, to come to my assistance, rather like the younger heroes who rush in to help Idomeneus in the 13th book of the Iliad, when the gray-beard's arthritic knees begin to fail him.
First, there is the matter of the style of argument. Nicholas is much too young to have settled tastes or opinions about anything. At his age, one has inclinations and the prejudices that come from limited experiene. It is the duty of the young to sit up straight and listen to their elders. An exception is always made for talent or genius--a young Mozart did have a right to an opinion, though even he deferred to his father and his teacher.
Second, in matters of taste etc., we have to navigate between the Scylla of snobbery and the Charybdis of slobbery. Since the slob--a subspecies of jerk--dominates modern society, it is easy to fall into sobbery. Believe me, I know. In my early teens I repudiated all pop music and would walk out of the room if my mother played her recording of Guys and Dolls. I had been forced to take piano and violin lessons and would later take a class in composition. None of it, however, overcame my native ineptitude, though I do like to think it trained not so much my ear as my brain. My older sister was smitten with the teen idols of the day and in rejecting Pat Boone and Elvis, I also spurned Carl Perkins and the other rockabilly singers I had previously liked (though I could not help liking the immortal Jerry Lee Lewis). Summer afternoons, I would turn our high-fidelity phonograph up to let passers-by enjoy the big Germans I was fond of. What an odious prig!
If you're anxious for to shine/ In the high aesthetic line
As a man of culture rare
You must get up all the germs/ of the transcendental terms
And plant them everywhere
You must lie upon the daisies/ and discourse in novel phrases
Of your complicated state of mind
The meaning doesn’t matter if it’s only idle chatter of a transcendental kind.
And ev’ry one will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
“If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very singularly deep young man this deep young man must be!”
Be eloquent in praise of the very dull old days
which have long since passed away,
And convince ’em, if you can, that the reign of good Queen Anne
was Culture’s palmiest day.
Of course you will pooh-pooh whatever’s fresh and new,
and declare it’s crude and mean,
For Art stopped short in the cultivated court
of the Empress Josephine.
And ev’ryone will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
“If that’s not good enough for him which is good enough for me,
Why, what a very cultivated kind of youth this kind of youth must be!”
You all get the point.
Third, now to the actual matter. Although I would go so far as to subscribe to Mr. Ellington's dictum that there is only good music and bad music (thus repudiating distinctions between "classical"--a terrible misnomer by the way (if Mozart is classical, then what is Bruckner?)--and popular, the Duke had a point. George Shearing and Thelonius Monk--and Duke Ellington himself--wrote and performed fairly serious music some of the time. How do we distinguish between Joan Baez singing Villa Lobos and an operatic singer doing the same song? How do we distinguish between Alfred Deller singing Purcell and Alfred Deller singing "We be soldiers three?"
Mr. Moses seems to want to reduce the question to the quality of the singing. That is obviously quite off base. Does a student's mediocre rendition of Cherubino's song reduce the beauty of Mozart's composition? Would you prefer a recording of a great singer or a live performance of a good one?
Fourth, Nicholas sets up a false distinction between "classical" (there's that awful word again!) and background music that offends him. I can only cluck my tongue at the bad logic. I wonder if he would prefer to clink glasses and chatter away with a Bach violin sonata in the background? I once threatened mayhem against a student who played Mozart's 41st symphony over the loudspeaker system in my college cafeteria. Generally, I prefer silence with drinks and dinner, but often we celebrate a bit with French cafe songs, Greek folk tunes, Goran Bregovic, Mel Torme. It's serious enough to engage your interest but you do not have to shush people.
Fifth and finally, the only way one learns and matures is by refusing to harden attitudes at too early an age. This is the characteristic of apes compared with monkeys, humans compared with other apes, and civilized men and women compared with savages and barbarians. Civilized people retain some of their playfulness and openness down to the end. Besides, we cannot live entirely in the past and it is of considerable value to see how people with talent and intelligence confront the same world we inhabit. I am usually one or two decades behind these days, but I have bee reading through Philip K. Dick's novels--A Scanner Darkly is heartbreakingly humane--and there are poets in my liftetime who have written memorably. Serious music is, alas, mostly repellant partly because so many composers--like so many bad poets--are academics.
Even bad periods can produce stuff worth noting. I dislike romanticism on principle, but that does not much hinder my enjoyment of Mendelsohn and Schuman and even Rachmaninov. I now reject bee bop entirely but I still like Monk and Mulligan. One of the great things about making and having friends is that they share their likes with us and thus expand our taste. Aaron Wolf reminded me last year of Hank Snow and Hank Thompson and our church music director has expanded my toleration of Liszt. I've taken a great many good things (including tips on novelists, films, and whiskey) from Ray Olson and I think all I have given in return are the Shearing/Mel Torme collaborations. I don't think I am giving much away if I say that much of what I do on the internet is by way of sharing enthusiasms with friends, colleagues, and people I may some day know.
While I cannot stand hip hop and rap for many reasons, some of the parodies of the genre are quite funny. Anyone familiar with the great chap hop artists, Mr. B and Prof. Elemental. Over the weekend I ran across someone named Nikki 2K Muller, who did a very funny, if foul-mouthed hip hop video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDhf9qwiA34
complaining that here Ivy League degrees only got her $14 an hour jobs. The refrain is "I went to Princeton, b--tch!" I can't take much rock music any more. The lyrics are puerile, the tunes minimalist monotonous, the production values over the top. I did let my children, some years ago, talk me into liking Tom Petty, Mark Knopfler, and the Traveling Wilburys, though I would like some computer ap to filter out the voice of--bringing this back to the main page--Bob Dylan.
I'm too lazy to look up Fr. Steven's query but I have always believed that Father Ryan was, indeed, poet laureate, though how he received such a title I do not know. I have a volume of Fr. Ryan's verse, and it is not bad though none of it rises to the level of Timrod's best work, e.g. some of his sonnets, the Ode to the Confederate Dead, Ethnogenesis.
A diversion,yes,but a valuable one. This kind of discussion demonstrates why we keep coming back to *Chronicles*.
Dr.Fleming rightly ridicules this idiotic award-giving on the part of our Miscegenated Messiah, but what kind of music people listen to is actually extremely important, especially in early childhood, because it so strongly informs the development of the soul. A wise ruler in a just state would reward moral music and punish immoral music.
Perhaps I do not recall aright, but it seems that I read somewhere that in ancient Athens there were severe penalties against using the wrong musical *echos* - mode - at certain occasions. Dr. Fleming probably knows.
I have a response in mind, but there is one thing I need to clear up because it was a fault on my part. And that relates to the original bit of priggish-sounding mischief which spurred all this: "Although, maybe not. Apart from Bob Dylan, John Glenn, Jan Karski and the Beatles, I confess to having never heard of almost any of the people mentioned on this thread. I can't say I'm sad."
I spoke way too quickly and without considering that as the discussion had developed attention had been turned away from the type of shameful recipient of the Medal of Freedom and towards the sort of music the posters on this thread happened to enjoy (and much of which I have not listened to and am not in a position to critique).
Had I actually been thinking before I spoke, I would never, ever have disparaged your tastes in music, particularly as related to artists I didn't know. I'm not *that* disrespectful, just imprudent enough to move my lips (or my keyboard) while I think. So I need to apologize for a) my offensive remark that b) derailed the discussion. Please indulge me, all.
Fr. Steve raises a valuable and tricky question and I shall postpone answering it until I can do a brief post on the relationship between musical and poetic form and character. This becomes extremely important in liturgical music. The new music heard in too many churches is, quite apart from being really lousy tacky commercial junk, inappropriate in form, melody, and rhythm. My dissertation was on the evidence for the rhythm of Greek song and there was a time when I probably knew as much or more on the subject as anyone alive. Now there are clever Italian students who have all read my diss and have carried the work beyond my pioneering efforts. It is a subject, thus, where I am reluctant to shoot my mouth off with the usual reckless abandon displayed on the internet, particularly by me. Robert Reavis, additionally, has been asking me to explain ancient music, particularly the modes, and I may make a stab or at least a feint in that direction, though I can never remember the characteristics of the modes a half hour after I have studied them.
Okay, here is what I had planned to say...
First, there is the matter of the style of argument. Nicholas is much too young to have settled tastes or opinions about anything. At his age, one has inclinations and the prejudices that come from limited experiene. It is the duty of the young to sit up straight and listen to their elders. An exception is always made for talent or genius--a young Mozart did have a right to an opinion, though even he deferred to his father and his teacher.
I see your point. Still, I do not and could not claim to be an authority into what constitutes "great" music; I only know what I listen to out of habit, and what I do not listen to out of habit. I like to think I have some limited notion of what is considered "great"... not, naturally, based on standards I have invented. As a matter of fact as far as the classical genre is concerned my favorite composers are French Romantic, but I am aware that that is far from the richest or most grandiose style available and my friends who are actually musicologists (I am not) do not share my preference.
Second, in matters of taste etc., we have to navigate between the Scylla of snobbery and the Charybdis of slobbery.
Okay, I know this doesn't come through very well online, but... sometimes there's just a bit of flippant fun to be had indulging in snobbery. Yes, it's borderline narcissistic and uncharitable and it can sterilize the mind if it goes too far, but then again smoking tobacco is fun even though too much of it can burn right through your mouth and lung tissue. Maybe I'm missing the point.
Mr. Moses seems to want to reduce the question to the quality of the singing. That is obviously quite off base. Does a student's mediocre rendition of Cherubino's song reduce the beauty of Mozart's composition? Would you prefer a recording of a great singer or a live performance of a good one?
I can see where my quick response could give that impression but that's not at all what I wanted to come across. Actually, in the interest of not diverting too much farther than I already was, I chose not to mention that in my view one of the problems with much contemporary pop is the omnipresent "singer/songwriter." These are two very different talents: a good poet and composer may not have a good voice, and vice-versa. I have more respect for singers who search for music that best shows off their range and ability than I do for those who "write their own songs" just because.
As for Mozart, it's hard to appreciate the quality of the composition on the basis of a poorly executed rendition unless one already knows the sheet. But so far as day-to-day recreation (apart from choir practice) goes I'm usually listening to a CD and not reading sheet music (note I said usually!).
As for the recording versus live performance, no question. I love live performances and don't attend nearly enough of them. One of my favorite pastimes used to be kicking back at a pub in Ft. Lauderdale with my favorite Irish trad/folk band... nowhere near "classical" music and I don't seek out Irish trad music the way I used to, but you can bet that when I go back to Florida my first stop is at that pub to hear my band!
In general, however, when I compare the vocal quality in most pop music (or at least the stuff I've heard) to the vocal quality of a competently recorded Baroque piece, I can't help thinking the latter is far superior. I hope it's not pretentious if I posit that Shane McGowan simply cannot and never has been able to sing like Ronan Tynan; that, in terms of range, control, timber, intensity--there's just no comparison. But if you said that the former in person would be infinitely preferable to the latter on disc, I couldn't argue.
Fourth, Nicholas sets up a false distinction between "classical" (there's that awful word again!) and background music that offends him. I can only cluck my tongue at the bad logic.
Again, I seem to have come through not at all in the way I intended! No, I am not offended by background music that I ordinarily do not choose to listen to (unless it's something like Linkin Park). What I meant and what I seem not to have gotten out was this: it's just a fact that most of what I'm in the mood to listen to when I'm at home alone with nothing but discs happens to be classical and so I usually just don't listen to it... because I get so wrapped up I don't get any work done. Idem if I crank up that Irish folk stuff I was obsessed with from 2004-2007... I start thinking about all my old memories and get sidetracked. That's not a statement about the quality of music so much as a reflection of the degree (perhaps unhealthy) to which I take my CD purchases seriously.
I wonder if he would prefer to clink glasses and chatter away with a Bach violin sonata in the background?
I almost hesitate to say this, but as a matter of fact I very much enjoy doing just that and I do so whenever I get the chance. (I would, however, prefer a real violinist to a CD.) Let's just say I am far more distracted by people than I am by music.
Generally, I prefer silence with drinks and dinner, but often we celebrate a bit with French cafe songs, Greek folk tunes, Goran Bregovic, Mel Torme. It's serious enough to engage your interest but you do not have to shush people.
My problem is that when I hear folk or drinking songs (or any song I know the lyrics to), I have a very strong inclination to sing along. So unless I'm at a table with friends who enjoy the same, such situations are highly dangerous.
While I cannot stand hip hop and rap for many reasons, some of the parodies of the genre are quite funny.
I will confess I nurse a highly dangerous addiction to the popular music parody genre. Paral et Piped has some terrific (albeit rather obscene) sendups of Britney Spears and Céline Dion. 'MadTV' was one of my major guilty pleasures back in the day (unlike 'Saturday Night Live', it was actually funny), although most of their parodies were so tastelessly vile (albeit hilarious) that I won't mention them by name here.
ANYWAY... the point that I was trying to make with my first long screen, and it was not very well made at all, was that if I haven't heard of most of the artists mentioned here, it is because I haven't really sought out the "popular" genre (old or new) since I left the sterile confines of high school. And it IS true that I stopped actively seeking out folk/alternative music at exactly the time I began learning to appreciate classical music. Call it a shift in focus.
All the same, yes, I would prefer to hear Shane McGowan live than Ronan Tynan on CD. I'm not *quite* as insufferably inhuman as I probably come across on these pages.
All this discussion has got me to thinking about how I once forsook popular music for a couple years in favour of 'classical' (pardon the expression,) then returned to it with a more refined taste and an ear better able to appreciate the really good popular music.
It's also interesting (at least to me) that, in watching old Grand Ole Opry performances from the fifties, you can see some regular performers who are not that good, but still are enjoyable because they are genuine, whereas the lesser performers of today, who are part of a far lesser lot anyway, are simply annoying. Lack of genuineness makes a big difference.
Since ancient Greek music has come up, I have been wondering just how accurate some of the modern musical reconstructions actually are, such as those done by Atrium Musicae de Madrid, and a couple other groups I can't remember the names of. Also there is the question of how close Byzantine art music was to the ancient Greek. It would seem to me to be quite in the same tradition, but that's only a rude assumption based on very little, or rather, practically no, knowledge (if it is true, then the 'classical' composers of the 'classical period', who had the desire to resurrect ancient Greek music but no means to do so, and so instead created something entirely original based on Greek writings about music, should have taken a few dangerous trips to occupied Greece, all the way to Ankyra and back, and modern classical music would have been a completely different thing from what it became, and perhaps more truly 'classical').
Mr. Moses, I've deeply appreciated your two long posts and Dr. Fleming's response to the first--and not just because he said flattering things about my tastes in popular music!
If you want an introduction to classic American pop music of the folk persuasion, let me recommend listening by streaming to the program that is on in the background as I write this, the Dakota Dave Hull Show (http://kfai.org/thedakotadavehullshow). Although I find it nearly impossible to get anything accomplished while hearing vocal music of all kinds, I make it a point to tune in to this two-hour program every week (one benefit of being mostly retired is that I have a much more open schedule for getting things accomplished) . Fortunately, it's cached for streaming at your leisure. Today's program is, as I'd hoped, largely a tribute to Doc Watson, emphasizing his performances of traditional music of the Appalachians and including several pieces by one of his mentors, Clarence "Tom" Ashley, whom he accompanied on some of his (Watson's) own first recordings. Watson has a very warm, congenial baritone, rather nasal but with nearly none of the edge or "whine" (due, I think, to suppressing vibrato as well as to a fondness for momentary shifts in register via exploiting the natural break in the voice) that many find hard to take in traditional American country singing. In harmony, Watson characteristically sings low voice, for which he has sufficient resonance.
Dave Hull plays many other performers, of course, though only of the older (1910s-1950s) styles, even if the recordings are contemporary. Besides folk/country, he plays pre-bop jazz (no program goes without one Billie Holiday song), novelty songs, and blues. He even spins the occasional non-American record, including, as I recall, bal musette. His taste is impeccable (or just totally in-synch with mine), and when he's on the road (he's a superb guitarist in a style influenced by Django, Lonnie Johnson, ragtime, and bluegrass), his replacement is usually Pop Wagner, about whom there was a very nice piece in Chronicles a few years ago.
I could go on like this all day, I suppose, but I need to finish reading a massive and totally absorbing biography of Henry Cowell (1897-1965), one of the most distinctive composers in American history.
Allen Wilson,
I very much am interested in your questions about Greek music and the various modes. Tom could help us out here if he decided to,or thought it worth pursuing. I suspect the ancient music of China and India is similar to our plain chant in the West as it probably is to the ancient chants of the Pythagoreans. Math, music, mute, mystery, muses, memory, myth have always been interesting words for me and their etymology is as veiled and varied as the musical questions you raise in your excellent post. I wish I knew more about these relationships.
Thank you, Mr. Olson, for your suggestions (and thanks to Dr. Fleming for his). I think one of the reasons I have a hard time discovering new folk/popular tunes is that while I like many popular and folk tunes, I dislike most recordings of even pre-mass market popular and folk music.
Naturally there are also plenty of awful recordings of classical music. For whatever reason, though, I sometimes seek out the good ones, while I am less inclined to seek out good recordings of folk and pop. Perhaps it is because by and large I see classical music as something that can be felt and analyzed in a tranquil setting and folk and pop as communal fare to be shared and actively participated in.
This last weekend was Pentecost weekend and I went on a pilgrimage with a good dozen or so of my friends in a chapter unit of about twenty among several thousand pilgrims, marching about 85 km in 3 days. Sure, we sang hymns and cantiques but quite a few military/march/Scouts/drinking songs on the route. That's the sort of setting in which I like popular tunes, and it is far easier to overlook musical aptitude in such a setting than it is off a CD. George Brassens isn't an artist I'd care to listen to home alone in a living room or driving in my car, but singing "L'Auvergnat" with ten to fifteen like-minded folks is quite the experience.
You may be correct sir. It could be that Obama's closest advisors do no fact checking. They may not even circulate his remarks to the departments whose interests are implicated. And, he played golf the day most of the Polish government died in a plane wreck. Certainly, the stupidity of his entire staff can explain his ruinous gaffs. It may even be the simplest hypothesis possible. But, if I substitute constructions out of known entities (the pattern of insulting behavior) for inferences to unknown entities (the reason for those insults), I can still be comfortable with my conspiracy theory. Since even I know the significance of saying 'Polish death camps' and playing golf during a Polish tragedy, I will favor my theory for now instead of assuming that lots of people are so incredibly ignorant for such a long time. However, If I can confirm the dreadful ignorance of Obama's entire staff, I will have another set of known entities to work with.
Which would raise this interesting question; what's more dangerous, near total ignorance or malice? Well, there's lots of intelligent people on this site who I hope will supply some comments. Shameless, ain't I?
Mr Reavis,
I thought I detected some Persian influence on mediaeval Byzantine art music when I heard some of the recordings of it. If so, it doesn't seem to be very strong.
Also, in my view there is an obvious though vague connection between the Persian and Indian art music traditions. I could hear the similarity. This is probably due to cultural exchange over time, but it could also have something to do with common ancestry going back many generations (for the same reason that Rhodesian or Australian folk music might sound oddly like Southern or New England folk music).
I'm not familiar with Indian vocal music so I can't say anything about any similarity to plainchant, but I have wondered if plainchant might have similarities to Greek or Roman pagan religious music or that of the Middle East, especially Egypt and Palestine.
As for China, that's a whole other kettle of fish. I know nothing of it, though it seems to be a rich tradition.
Sorry, I have been a dunderhead. The correct answer is indifference. Oh, the shame! Obama has done far more damage to the fabric of American society than even I imagined. That guy corrupted the venerable institution of golf, where over 80% of America's business deals are done and turned it into a lazy pastime for people with no interests beyond their own recreation. He just doesn't care, so naturally, his staff doesn't either. Flying around on Air Force One, playing golf and having a good time. Those are Obama's priorities. Thank you, William of Occam and Mr. Djordje.
The question of ancient and Medieval music and the relationship between, say, Greek and Byzantine or Persian and Byzantine is very complicated, partly because we are talking about two variables not well known, partly because it is so difficult to learn even one musical tradition, and partly because these discussions are dominated by theory. Did Persian music influence the Byzantines or, which is just as likely, vice versa? Is early chant, as is so often claimed in textbooks, an outgrowth of Palestinian Jewish music or does it reflect common Greco-Roman traditions? But this question begs another: How different were Greek and Middle Eastern music? Does the Greek tradition that ascribes some of the harmoniai to the Middle East (Lydian, Phrygian) indicate that the music of these cultures was as mutually intelligible as, say, French and Spanish? I mean, we can hear the Spanish or French styles but they are part of the same tradition.
The brutal fact is that we have to start with what we know or think we know about Greek and Greco-Roman music and go on from there. I wish I had someone who was an historically literate musician to help in this, if we are going to do it. Over the years I have listened to some recordings and viewed some websites. As for the latter, they are mostly run by amateurs with bright ideas. Of the former, I'll have to listen again, but some rely much too heavily on percussion for which there is little evidence in most of the surviving texts. I used to be a member of a not very thriving ancient music society and perhaps I can find one of my Italian friends to help out.
common life in a nutshell from experience utilizing dylan lyric if his: get born, keep warm, short pants, romance, learn to dance, get dressed (up), get blessed, try to be a subset (good), please her, please him (yes), don't steal, don't lift, twenty years of schooling and they'll put you on the day shift (today if you're lucky), look out kid, it's something you did, god knows when but you'll be doing it again, better jump down a manhole (now you're on the run), light yourself a candle, don't wear sandals, who can afford a scandle, don't want to be a bum, hey chew this gum, the pump don't work (hey, I didn't do it), the vandals (germans, i kid) took the handles.
(must have been a burglar)
With all this talk about song parodies and Bob Dylan, I thought this might be appropriate. For those who haven't seen it, it's a Weird Al parody of Bob Dylan - no song in particular but the overall style. As a bonus, each line in the song is actually a palindrome. Not surprisingly, I find it just about as meaningful as the real mccoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nej4xJe4Tdg