…here it is. Katharine Hepburn reading a letter she wrote to Spencer Tracy 18 years after his death.
Started thinking tonight about the sort of “stages” I went through in my life with regards to belief. Belief that mother and grandmother were good, belief that god existed, etc. And almost all of those stages have… music associated with them. And the stage when all those beliefs started to fall away is irrevocably associated with The Beatles.
I’m not going to embed all of these videos as the page will take forever to load. Just the most important ones.
The Beatles are very tied up with my childhood. From age 10-14 I was fairly obsessed with them – their music is… pretty much the encapsulation of my childhood. Especially Lennon’s early solo work.
I realized as I was writing this that all my favorite songs come from two albums: the Beatles’ Let It Be album, and Lennon’s first solo album, Plastic Ono Band. Well… yeah. Makes sense. An album full of turmoil for the band, and the album JL recorded while he was doing primal scream therapy. Though frankly, depending on my mood, I love almost everything they ever recorded.
I used to sing along with this one late at night when mother had gone to work and I was alone in the house. Screaming the last choruses with John Lennon – “Mama don’t go… daddy come home…” This song is pretty much what I felt from as far back as I can remember.
This was another one I always sang along with. Even more than “Mother” this one affected me. It used to be the only song that could make me cry. Other people I’ve talked to say that this song was a sort of anthem for them too – around the same ages, 12 and 13.
This song just makes me happy. I think it’s their best love song – from the Let It Be album, which is one of my very favorites. They were just about to break up when this video was recorded. It was probably one of the last times they were just happy like this together.
One of the best lines about Jesus – even better than in “God” – is “There ain’t no Jesus gonna come from the sky / now that I found out I know I can cry.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7hdXZTm4Qk
This is one of their more beautiful songs. It would always piss me off that mother would sing it at me whenever we had a quarrel and she wanted me to shut up – or to tell me that she wasn’t going to listen me. But fuck mother. It’s a great song. I tend to listen to it when I’m alone and upset.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67J_66hdN-I
Have a bonus one from Hard Day’s Night, just because.
Kate Rusby’s cover of the Kinks song Village Green Preservation Society. Have a listen. It’s muy excellente!
(I will post some actual content later.)
I found these two videos to be enormously helpful to me. The first one covers… good lord, just about my entire childhood history with doing things I really wanted to do. The second… amazing speech at the end. Both make me want to get out and freaking well DO SOMETHING!! :)
Procrastination and Crushed Dreams:
Fierce Joy vs. Depression
I’m not a huge fan of Handel… but the countertenor singing this song is… like… REALLY good.
And here he is again doing some Vivaldi.
I’m tied to this film for two reasons: first is that Howard Hughes was obsessed with this movie, and since I was slightly obsessed with Howard Hughes… well, you get it. The second is that I LOVE THE HELL OUT OF PATRICK MCGOOHAN, who is in my mind the best actor ever, and… just watch the following 58 second scene. This is both the character he plays – and the real man, oddly enough – in… less than a minute. Very funny scene.
Really interesting work on the shawms here. This is – of all things – a German metal band. Go figure. I’d show you a live version, but the one I like has been taken down.
The song is about a rich troll-woman trying to woo a knight. She’s very ugly, so must offer other inducements. Highlight of the song is the knight saying that he will not take her even for all her riches, because she’s both ugly and not a Christian. But it’s in Swedish, so you won’t be able to tell. :)
