[Dixielandjazz] Fw: send email

[Ron Fink]

I don't think this has been on the lists, and it came from a bass-playing 
friend of mine.  It is worth sharing.
Ron


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "William J Schlipf" <wjstuner at a5.com>
To: <r.fink6 at verizon.net>
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 6:57 AM
Subject: Re: send email


> Here it is!
>
>
> In My Day, Music Wasn't This Crappy
>
> by Wayne Eyre
> National Post, April 11, 2006
> SASKATOON -- One summer night 50 years ago, the great American songwriter
> Johnny Mercer (1909-1976) could be seen sitting on a curb near a musicians
> bar on West 48th street, New York, sobbing inconsolably and muttering,
> "Nobody gives a damn. Nobody cares."
>
> Mercer was given to dark moods, especially when drunk. But this particular
> lament was well-founded. He was experiencing a growing despair at the
> vanishing of craft and romance from the best popular songs, as the whole
> sorry train of high-volume, post-Beatles rockers were three-chording and
> drum-slamming their way into the brains of a new generation.
> Unfortunately, they've occupied that space ever since.
> How do you tell millions of rock fans that what they're hooked on is 90%
> noisome spectacle? That for all its recondite permutations into hard rock,
> grunge rock, glam rock, art rock, garage rock, raga rock, Afro rock, 
> glitter
> rock, post-rock, etc., its common denominator comprises a stupefying
> backbeat, dumbed-down lyrics and a wearisome sameness that addles the 
> mind?
>
> Your emperor has no clothes, dudes. What would those mass concerts of 
> yours
> be without the lasers, smoke pots, and dry ice to disguise their essential
> banality? Fifty-odd years of the same act spells monotony.
>
> Will tonight's group on Leno or Letterman wear goofy top hats or denim? 
> Will
> they scowl or be jocular? Will they strum guitar beneath the belt or above
> it? Who could possibly care?
>
> Because I'm an old white guy, I also get to bitch about the lamentable
> lyrics, which often are nihilistic or misogynistic, or both. From time to
> time, I give this music a chance to change my mind. But it never works.
>
> The rock group Nickelback, which this month won the 2006 Juno Award for 
> best
> rock album, was in town recently. In a letter to the editor of the local
> newspaper, a mom who took her young daughter to the concert wrote: "They 
> do
> have great music, but really disappointing morals."
>
> I'll dissent from the former, but heartily agree with the latter. The 
> "great
> music" included a song with the following poetry: "Your mom don't know 
> what
> you were missing / She'd be pissed if she could see the parts of you that
> I've been kissing."
>
> Elsewhere, the band sings these immortal words: "Got your hand between my
> knees / And you control how fast we go / By just how hard you wanna
> squeeze."
>
> It also contributes these to the American songbook: "No doubt that we were
> heading south / I guess nobody ever taught her not to speak with a full
> mouth."
> "Nickelback," the local reviewer noted, "is far from the most explicit 
> band
> out there." I'll take his word for it, even though in Figured You Out the
> lyrics run: "I like your pants around your feet / And I like the dirt 
> that's
> on your knees / And I like the way you still say please / While you're
> looking up at me / You're like my favourite damn disease."
>
> Makes you glad to be alive, doesn't it? It's just as well that Johnny 
> Mercer
> died before this horrendous material came along.
>
> Mercer, born in Savannah, Georgia, into Southern gentility, penned 
> hundreds
> of lyrics that millions of people love, including those in such 
> masterpieces
> as Midnight Sun, Early Autumn, Days of Wine and Roses, Moon River, Autumn
> Leaves, Laura, Satin Doll, Come Rain or Come Shine and Skylark, often in
> concert with other greats such as Harold Arlen, Hoagy Carmichael and Henry
> Mancini.
>
> Allow me to present just one of Mercer's songs -- I Remember You -- if 
> only
> for contrast. Even without the dreamy melody, it works:
>
> I remember you.
> You're the one
> who made my dreams
> come true,
> a few
> kisses ago.
> I remember you.
> You're the one
> who said "I love you, too,
> I do.
> Didn't you know?"
> I remember, too,
> a distant bell
> and stars that fell
> like rain,
> out of the blue.
> When my life is through
> And the angels
> ask me to recall
> the thrill of them all,
> I shall tell them
> I remember you.
>
> As Gene Lees, the Canadian-born biographer of Mercer says in Portrait of
> Johnny (2004), I Remember You is "deceptively simple... but stunning in 
> its
> technical virtuosity."
>
> A couple of years ago, National Post columnist Robert Cushman wrote, "The
> sad fact is that love songs in the classic American tradition can no 
> longer
> be written. The older writers still trying it end up sounding like hacks 
> and
> the younger ones like hicks."
>
> I realize that we now live in a Nickelback kind of world, but I 
> nevertheless
> hope that those hacks and hicks keep at it. Maybe they can help bring back
> some style, sensibility and romance to modern music.
>
>
> Bill Schlipf
> http://homepage.a5.com/~wjstuner
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "ron fink" <r.fink6 at verizon.net>
> To: <wjstuner at a5.com>
> Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2006 5:22 PM
> Subject: send email
>
>
>> Hi Bill:
>> That article you just sent me was really good and worth sharing with this
> list I read.  If you don't mind, send to:
>> dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
>>
>> I mistakenly delted my copy.  Would you send me another one?
>> I could forward it to them if you don't mind.
>> Best,
>> Ron
>> p.s.   I'll be up North in May-June, etc.
>>
>>
>
>
>
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