All Good Gifts

Today is Thanksgiving; a day for giving thanks for what we have, and not kvetching about what we might not have. 

I am thankful for my family: twins, Nicole and Luke; and their significant others, Jay and Beka; my youngest, Christopher. My wonderful husband, Bill. I am thankful that I am able to contribute to the roof over our heads with my music. I am thankful for friends and extended family. 

I want to share one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite Broadway musicals. This is All Good Gifts from Godspell. (This was Stephen Schwartz' first musical - he later gave us Pippen and Wicked, among others) This is from the 10th anniversary reunion show with the original cast. You get the parable leading up to the song, so don't turn away because the music hasn't started at the beginning.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Songs?

So, last week I ranted a bit about background music. I don't like background music, for the simple reason that I don't find it to be in the background. I hum along with the muzak at the grocery, in elevators, at the fabric store, wherever. Music is never in the background for me. (Do you think that being a musician has anything to do with that?)

Anyway, I complained about the presence of Christmas music in the stores just after Halloween. I still contend that this is a cynical ploy on the part of the management to make us feel in the Christmas spirit and spend more money. And I'm sure that for some people it works. Me, it just annoys and makes me want to shop on-line. No background music at home.

But, I got to thinking: why can't they play Thanksgiving Music? Grocery stores could start piping in all the lovely Thanksgiving carols and make us buy bigger turkeys and more stuffing mix (for those out there who don't make their own cornbread!) Hmm. . . Thanksgiving Music. Is there any?

Over the River and Through the Woods  This is the first song that occurs to me. I'd hoped to find a better version of it than this one, but sadly, many of them turn it into a Christmas song.  In giving this song to one of my students, she argued that even though it mentions Thanksgiving Day, it has to be a Christmas song because of the snow. Here in Albuquerque, we don't see that much snow on Thanksgiving. We don't see that much snow on Christmas, either, but in her mind snow equates Christmas, not Thanksgiving. But, in other parts of the country, there is snow for Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and New Years, and Valentine's Day, and even Easter. Oh, yeah, and it's usually snowing in those places before Halloween. (Trick or treating in the snow - what memories!)

Of course, there are many hymns that qualify as Thanksgiving songs: Come, Ye Thankful People Come, We Gather Together, and Give Thanks;  lovely songs all, but not what I'm looking for. I want to deal with secular music right now. 

I found an interesting number performed by Johnny Cash, Thanksgiving/I Thank You. Johnny's not wearing his usual black, but wearing overalls.  But, still, the song is overwhelmingly sacred. He may do some of his best singing on the chorus. I've always had a sneaking fondness for the "man in black" but, I've never thought he was a good singer.

I found Mary Chapin Carpenter's Thanksgiving Song. Wow. Where to start with this one? I'm sure that this song means a great deal to someone out there, but not me. The lyrics seem to consist of a list of things to be thankful for:  no real point, just a list. But the lyrics are brilliant compared to the stultifyingly boring melody. There seem to be only 4 notes in the whole song! (OK, I know there are several more, but that's how it seems to me.)  And the tempo . . . it's definitely not what we would call up-beat.

There's Natalie Merchant's Kind and Generous. Once more, I'm at a loss. I'm not familiar with Ms Merchant's other works. And this (follow the link) is at the end of a concert, and live, so perhaps she was tired and her voice was shot. I'll be generous and hope that was the issue, because there are a LOT of notes that she almost hit. (And if I'm feeling generous, perhaps she should be thankful.) Most of them were just enough under the tone that you could tell what note she meant to sing. Painful. And then there are her lyrics. She's not just rambling off a list of things to be thankful for;  she's apparently thanking a specific person for services rendered. But she runs out of lyrics before the song is even half over; she just keeps repeating herself. I got kind of bored. At least the song is upbeat, unlike Ms Carpenter's opus.

(You may notice, I'm not giving you a whole lot of videos, just links. That's because there haven't been any songs that I've liked yet. The only reason I gave you the video to Over the River is because it gave you the lyrics as proof that it's a Thanksgiving song.)

Natalie Cole did a song called, Be Thankful. Once again, I'm not a big Natalie Cole fan. I've always thought that she was riding on her father's coat-tails. (Nat King Cole, if you're too young to remember. If you don't, look him up on YouTube. Voice like velvet, so warm and smooth.) I will say that this song is upbeat, but it struck me a being somewhat shrill. (That could also be the headache that our weather has brought on.) But, I didn't like it. 

And, still in the realm of songs I don't like, I give you the link to Adam Sandler's Thanksgiving Song. I REALLY don't like this one. I only mention it because the title does lead one to think it's a song about Thanksgiving.  And it is.  I just really don't like it. The content is often rude, but my biggest dislike is reserved for his singing. Or screeching. I only like him on occasion: the Wedding Singer and Happy Gilmore. That's about all that come to mind. And in the Wedding Singer he proved that he CAN sing. To an extent. So, I get even more angry with what he does the rest of the time. . . 

But enough of that rant.

Hmm, are there any good Thanksgiving Songs? There have to be some. But, we may have to get a little tricky here. Let's start with Louis Armstrong. How can I complain about Adam Sandler's singing and yet enjoy Satchmo's? That's a good question. For one thing, Satchmo is a part of my childhood. He died in 1971, when I was 10. And I remember seeing him in movies like Hello, Dolly, and on TV, and the whole family liked to listen to his trumpet. I think it has to do also with his enthusiasm and his heart being in the music. It's there for all the world to see, with nothing held back. Compare that to Mr. Sandler just trying to be funny. What a wonderful world.

No mention is given of being thankful for these things, and like Ms Carpenter's song, a lot of it is just a list. But the emotion here (and the fact that I think it's a better song) make all the difference. I just wish he'd played that trumpet in his hand.

If we expand giving thanks to thanking someone, not a big leap, then we can have Bette Midler and The Wind Beneath my Wings. The Nameless Cynic does not understand why I like the Divine Miss M, but a lot of it, once again, has to do with the emotion poured into her singing, with nothing held back. This song was horribly overplayed when it first came out, but it's been awhile, and so I can like it again.

These are a few Pop songs. What about Broadway? Does no one there have anything to be thankful for? 

The first Broadway song that comes to mind actually breaks my own ban on sacred music. It's from Godspell, but that's another blog. (Stay tuned!)

The next song, though, doesn't break my own ban. Irving Berlin, an icon of American music, wrote the score of "Annie, Get Your Gun."  I sang some of the music from this with the Cheyenne Symphony when we lived there. And while I had fun, it's not my usual style. And I may annoy some Bernadette Peters fans, I actually prefer Reba McEntire. I think the country sound fits this part. And this song is about being thankful for what we have. (Although, the evening gowns and tuxes imply that they still have quite a bit!)

I'm saving my favorite Thanksgiving song for Turkey Day, itself. In the meantime, what are your favorite Thanksgiving songs?

Will you just listen?

"Listen my children and you shall hear. . . " 

"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!" 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and William Shakespeare were both talking about listening. In the Harry Dresden books, Jim Butcher introduces the concept of Listening (capital L) which he's not sure is a magical gift, or just a form of intense concentration. 

We went to a fabric store last weekend, and they were already piping in Christmas music. It started with a Celine Dion Christmas song. About three songs later was Paul McCartney's Wonderful Christmas Time. Now, as you may (or may not) have noticed, I am a huge McCartney fan. But I don't want to listen to Christmas music in the first week of November; I get annoyed by things like that. I wanted to leave. My husband (the Nameless Cynic) actually complained. The worker had no idea, having tuned the music out ages ago.

This was an example of the crime that background music has become:  it's used as a subliminal marketing ploy to tempt us to spend more money. It's used as white noise to block out the world, or sometimes to block out our own thoughts. It blasts through us, leaving very little memory of what we've heard. It's become ubiquitous: nowhere can you escape its nefarious sound.

Do you get the feeling that I dislike background music? For me, there is no background music.  I almost always notice it, and almost always find it distracting. I prefer silence.  

The Merriam-Webster dictionary gives three definitions for this intransitive verb "listen." 1) to pay attention to sound, 2) to hear something with thoughtful attention, and 3) to be alert to catch an unexpected sound. Various websites give anywhere from four to twenty-five different forms of "listening." Depending on whom you listen to, this type of listening is either "casual" or "inactive." In any case, no communication is accomplished, and the mind is not involved. That's what background music receives: the "in one ear and out the other" type of listening. 

Then there are amplified, ensemble-based concerts. You can call them rock concerts, jazz concerts, things along those lines. There might be thousands of people in the audience, and the music, though it might have a lead performer, will be ensemble based. 

I'm thinking of the Bob Seger concert I went to. Or Styx, Frampton, Cher. A different type of listening goes on here. I tend to wear earplugs when I go to these, wanting to protect my hearing, but I still listen. The mind is more engaged. The music is the purpose for the gathering, instead of just drifting through the air, ignored. Of course, we've also paid a lot of money to be there, so we WILL enjoy ourselves! But there's also a lot more going on. There's the spectacle (and let me tell you, Cher puts on quite an impressive spectacle).  There is also the emotional intensity of the crowd around you, that catches you up and brings on an adrenaline high.  

But, while your mind is actively engaged and you are enjoying yourself, at no moment does time stop to appreciate one perfect note. (Or at least it hasn't yet for me. But I'm also not a rock musician.) Time flies, certainly, because I'm having fun. But time doesn't stop, even if Cher can turn it back. I guess this would be a form of appreciative listening. Listening to be entertained, but with little critical intent.

At smaller concerts featuring acoustic, un-amplified performers, that's when time can stop. I'm thinking classical guitarists, and of course singers. Moments when you're listening so intently, and that one perfect note happens. 

Time stops. Nothing else in the world matters but that note. It is ineffably beautiful. 

I get goosebumbs just thinking about the times I've experienced that.  Frederica von Stade achieved that, singing Send in the Clowns. And to be honest, I think Send in the Clowns is a stupid song: it has the verses in the wrong order, and so it doesn't really make much sense. But when she sang it, it moved me.

This type of listening has a bit more discernment. Not only are you listening to enjoy (and once more, you probably forked over a lot of money to be there). But you are also expecting a very high level of artistry. And although I love Cher, I don't expect that level from her. This is not at all about the spectacle, and is all about the music. You expect each note to be flawless, and you look forward to those rare, perfect notes. (Yes, there is a difference between flawless and perfect. Somehow, perfect goes beyond flawless. I really can't explain it. Sorry.)

And then we have critical listening. In this type of listening, you can still experience those perfect notes, but the intent is not just to appreciate the beauty of the music, but to try and discern the technique that lies underneath the art. While I'm sure that this can apply to all instruments, I'm going to focus on the voice. That is the instrument I know best, after all! 

This is the type of listening that I want my students to acquire. And, I find this works best with recordings. It's easier to back up a recording and listen again. Singers get upset when you interrupt their song, and they get really cranky when you ask them to sing that note over and over so that you can figure out how they are doing it. 

Don't know why. Seems unreasonable of  them, but there you have it. Recordings are probably best for this. Sometimes it's best to close your eyes and really focus. Although, with YouTube, you can see them and try to analyse what they are doing physically. I even imagine my muscles going through the motions with them. (This harkens back to my blog on Proper Focus and visualization.)

As with so much of singing, it's hard to explain how to do this. I would start with a song or aria that you have printed music for. Listen to the song several times, paying attention to where they breathe. Do you like their choices in this? Do you think that a breath in a different part of the phrase would make more sense? Make notes on your music. (USE PENCIL! You may end up changing your mind, and if you've written in pen, you are doomed. Doomed, I tell you!)  

Practice the song at this point, trying to incorporate these ideas. This is where you may find that some of the places where they took a breath just don't work for you. 

Then start to notice their dynamics: where they get louder or softer, where they sped up or slowed down, where they got more or less intense. Do you agree with their choices? Once again, mark these in your music! If you don't write them down, you will forget them. Then go back to the keyboard, and practice again. 

Do you like how they are sounding on a particular note? Play that note over and over again. Try to hear how they are reaching it. Is the note placed forward? What vowel sound are they really singing? (As opposed to how you would think the word should be pronounced.) Are they raising the soft palate? (Yes, once you've learned how to listen, you really can hear that.) Write these notes in your music! (It may be getting hard to actually read the music notation, but that's OK, because you should have the song memorized by now, having heard and sung it so many times!)

Are you getting the idea that this process will take a while? Good! Because it will. Does every song need this kind of care? NO! 

Are operatic arias the only songs that are deserving of this amount of care and effort? NO! There is a lot of lovely music out there that deserves this kind of treatment. Yes, a lot of them are operatic, but not all. And not everything operatic really deserves all this work, either. 

Isn't this cheating, stealing artistry from other people? Ooo, good question! Yes, if all that you did was to take their ideas and not add anything to them. But that's not the idea. You take their ideas, their artistry, and learn from them. Then you add your own soul into the mix, and make it yours. Students learning how to paint will often copy the masters to learn about brush strokes, or the use of light and dark. This is the same idea. 

You also have to be careful of whom you listen to. for example, Pink might not be the best singing model. This is also a part of developing a discerning ear: learning whom you can learn from. 

Sometimes you might learn how not to do something. That can be important, too. Sarah Brightman can teach us a lot on how not to breathe. Cecilia Bartoli can teach a lot on how not to move your face. 

(Really. That's her over to the right. Just try and watch the woman without wanting to laugh at some point: I dare you. Sometimes, a bad example is the best example.)

You might have noticed that I haven't supplied you with any background music for this blog, as I sometimes to. A deliberate choice on my part. I will give you a closing video. Montserrat Caballe singing O mio babbino caro from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, from 1990. 

Some critical comments first: Wow, but that woman's big! I'm sure that her health and voice were suffering because of all the excess weight. Her breath control certainly is suffering, some of the phrases in the early part of the aria are a little odd. BUT - her high notes are things of pure beauty. How does she do them? I'm still working on that one. Listen to how she hits them and then backs off the volume, making the notes just hang in the air. From the context, I gather that this is an encore. She tells the audience what the aria is, and assures them that it's not long but brief. 

Tommy, can you hear me?

Naked people have little or no influence in society. (Mark Twain)

This week I started rehearsing for an Opera Unlimited production, Mozart & Company. If you don't know, Opera Unlimited is a non-profit organization that brings operas into the elementary schools all over New Mexico. Our operas are always in English, and never last longer than 40 minutes. (They have to fit in a class period.) Often, we are the only opera these children have ever seen, and frequently the only live performance they've been exposed to.

Anyway, Mozart & Co is being relaunched. We ran it several years ago, and are hoping to perform it again this school year. Unlike our other productions: Hansel & Gretel,  Little Red Riding Hood, and Cinderella, Mozart doesn't tell a story. It's a series of operatic vignettes, bit and pieces from various operas. Mostly Mozart, but not all. 

One of my numbers is the Marcellina/Susanna duet from Le Nozze di Figaro ("The Marriage of Figaro"). I play Marcellina, the older lady, who is arguing with Susanna over who will go through a door first. Insults fly. We play it up a bit more, but this will give you an idea of what we do. (Don't try to understand it, unless you speak Italian; this one is not sung in English.)

Mozart & Co is a trunk show. This means that we don't have a set; costumes and props are minimal and are pulled out of bins that we have on stage. Our base costume is a pair of black pants, with a black t-shirt that has Mozart & Co in big white letters on the front, and we occasionally put additional costumes on top of that. 

I pulled the bins out of my garage, where they've been stored (the company has a storage unit, I've just been too lazy to drive there!) and looked over the costumes. They had been thrown together sort of at the last minute. Nothing was planned out, and they looked like it. So this week I've been sewing costumes. Again.

Costumes are a vital part of any production. They can set the mood of a scene, tell us about the characters, give us relationships, and make a company look good or look cheap. For the two women in the cast, I'm sewing a lot of skirts. How many is "a lot?" Two for the Marcellina/Susanna duet, one for Muzetta, and two more for The Merry Wives of Windsor scene. So, five. 

Each costume has several requirements: they must set the historic era, be colorful (we are performing for the K-5 crowd, after all), be durable, fit a wide variety of sizes (we have several people in our pool of players), and be easy to get on and off (costume changes are made while we're talking in front of the kids). Oh yeah, and since we're a non-profit, they need to be cheap.

That's quite a list of requirements, but not impossible. Actually, I think it's kind of fun. You see, I really do love to sew. It wasn't something that my mother taught me growing up: Dad bought me my first sewing machine and taught me how to use it. But he didn't know how to read a pattern, so my skills didn't really take off until college. 

I was a theater major at first: I tried to have a double major (theater and music), but it was a small school, and the music department consisted of only one person. He didn't like my dad. (Yes, this matters to the story. Dad was the head of the education department there, and so I had free tuition.) To make things even worse, he didn't like the theater department (which consisted of about 3 people). He told me that I had no talent and should get out of music. (You can see how well I listened to that jerk!) 

So, anyway, I was a theater major. And the faculty had the idea that we should learn how to do everything ourselves: acting, makeup, lights, set design and construction, and costumes. I even learned how to wire a light switch there. 

The first costume I ever made was a tunic made out of a beautiful red silk velvet. Velvet is supposed to be difficult to work with. It's possible that this was an example of the bumblebee principle (which says that aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly; the bumblebee, not knowing this, flies anyway*).  Because I didn't know that velvet was hard to work with, I didn't have any problems. 

Since that time, I've sewn with just about every fabric I can think of, and have tackled many an advanced project. Yes, I've also ripped out many, many seams and started over, but the finished product is usually pretty good. 

Today has been dedicated to working on a doublet for Sir John Falstaff for a scene from The Merry Wives of Windsor. (I tried to find a video of the scene that we do, and failed. Sorry.)

But I'm working with two lovely satin brocades: one is blue with gold, and the other is gold on gold. How can I work with such gorgeous fabrics on little to no budget? The answer is that I went to thrift stores, and bought draperies. We could never had afforded these luxurious textiles at a fabric store. But since I bought used window dressings, they are suddenly really cheap. Yes, I have to get a little creative with cutting out the pieces, but I love that kind of figuring and piecing. It's a challenge. (You'd think I'd be better at Tetris.)

As I said, this hasn't been about music this week.  But costumes add so much to any production, that I thought they deserved their own week. I keep hearing the music we're working on while I'm cutting, pinning, and sewing. I'll leave you with Susanna's dressing aria from Le Nozze di Figaro. When I sing this in Mozart and Company, I'm putting a clown costume on a little kid. (Like I said, we are playing to the K-5 crowd!)

__________________________

* If you are curious about how bumblebees fly, here you are - straight from the bees themselves. 

Final Halloween post (this year)

It's finally feeling a little bit like fall, here. We just turned the heater on, so the house smells a little burnt-dusty. Candies are ready for the trick-or-treaters. I wonder if we'll get any?

And, now for our final look this year at Halloween music. Last week was spent looking at some of my favorite animated music, today I'm going to look at some of my favorite live-action film music. And, like I did with the cartoons, I'm going to go all chronological on you. 

As I've looked at Halloween music this month, both here and on my FaceBook page, Puttin' on the Ritz was one of the songs I posted. This was the pop version, sung by Taco, an Indonesian-born Dutch singer who had a career in Germany. But, now I want to look at another version of the 1929 Irving Berlin masterpiece. Introduced in the 1930 film titled, Puttin' on the Ritz and has been recorded as a swing song, (duh!) Jazz, synthpop, heavy metal, and was even covered by Alvin & the Chipmunks. (Now, that's scary!) But the version that I love the most is the version that the Nameless Cynic will consent to sing with me. That's right, we rock it Young Franken-style! Young Frankenstein has been turned into a Broadway musical, and this scene now has parts for Igor and just about everybody, but I still love this one!

This brings us to either 1955 or 1988, depending on how you want to look at it, and Harry Belafonte singing Day-O (The Banana boat Song), which was reprised for Beetlejuice. Reading up on the movie, it went through a lot of changes before becoming the heart-warming classic that we all know and love. Tim Burton, the director, had originally wanted Sammy Davis, Jr, to be the title character. (That would have been a much different movie!) Harry Belefonte's music is a recurring theme in the movie, and this is my favorite.


If you were counting 1955 for the last song, then we are continuing to movie forward. If you were counting from the movie's release date, then we are experiencing some retrograde motion, as we find ourselves in 1984, for a song that the lead singer didn't even like. He is supposed to have refused to sing the title of the movie in the course of the theme song. Poor man. He did have his 15 minutes, but he is best remembered for this song. 

Which brings us to 1986 and Labyrinth, directed by Jim Hensen. This is my favorite song from the movie, and it was written and performed by David Bowie. 



I read that there were over 40 puppets in that scene, plus livestock and actors: it must have been incredibly complex to film, and remains my favorite scene. Well, except for the Escher-esque stairs scene, and the scene with Ludo, and the scene where. . . you get the idea: I love that movie!

(I used the scene from the movie here, but, since this was the mid-80s and MTV was incredibly popular, there were two official videos released, to capitalize on the fact that David Bowie was performing in large portions of the soundtrack: As the World Falls Down, from the ballroom scene, and Underground, which played over the closing credits.)

I thought I was done, and then I remembered one more song, this one from 1988's Practical Magic. Midnight Margaritas! I was surprised to find that this song actually entitled Coconut, was written and recorded by Harry Nilsson. While many of us comment or joke about the 3 or 4 chord rock song, this one has only 1 chord. (A C7th, if you care.) Now that's scary!

So, there you have it. None of it particularly frightening, not all of it particularly well-sung. But, I hope, fun.

Happy Halloween!

Animated Halloween

Looking over my list of Halloween music, I realized that a lot of it is complete and unadulterated poop. I will admit that I enjoy some of the poop, but that doesn't mean that there is any vocal excellence in it. I love singing along with the "one eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater", but I'm not going to try and pretend that there is anything particularly memorable about the music. Lyrics, yes, but not the music or the singing.

I was happy to note that some of the better music was from children's animations. Animation done for children - not animation done by children, if you get what I'm saying. Some of it is predates me. (Yes, Chris, there is animation that is older than I am. *sigh* )

The Silly Symphony cartoon series was begun by Walt Disney as a means to experiment with animation techniques. This was 1929, and TV hadn't even been thought of. "Talkies" (movies with synchronized sounds) had only been around (to the public) for two years. The first talkie, The Jazz Singer, remember, came out in October of 1927. The first Silly Symphony came out in August of 1929, and was made to be seen on the big screen, as a short before the main movie. The Skeleton Dance has since been used in all sorts of other films, including a brief cameo in the Ghost Rider movie (Johnny Blaze watches it on TV, not knowing that soon he, too. . .  Really, it's there. I remember being one of the very few people laughing in the theater at the reference). 

It really is fun. When you think that each frame had to be completely hand drawn. The level of artistry and creativity is amazing. And at the end of Star Wars, episode 6, when the ewoks are using stormtrooper helmets as musical instruments, it always makes me think of this cartoon. I wonder if the reference was intentional?

While the music always reminds me of Saint-Saens Danse Macabre, the composer, Carl Stalling, said that it was actually a fox trot set in a minor key. He did admit to borrowing a little bit from Edvard Greig's The March of the Trolls. 

Bringing us a little closer to our own time, we now travel to 1949 and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, which I was surprised to discover was the original title of the Disney version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. This was originally intended to be a feature length film, but they found that there just wasn't enough story, and decided that it needed to be linked up with another animated film. So, it was released in connection with a story from The Wind and the Willows about Mr. Toad. Narrated by Bing Crosby, this was always one of my favorites for gearing up for Halloween. 


(I did notice that, in Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, along with a nod to the headless horseman chase scene - complete with pumpkin - Johnny Depp repeats Ichabod's problems with a tea cup as he's hearing about the horseman for the first time.) 

While I was born too late to remember Bing Crosby at his best, I've got to admit that his warm, smooth tones are soothing and comforting. What an instrument he had. 

Now we jump forward to 1993, and one of my daughter's favorite movies: "This is Halloween" from Nightmare Before Christmas. In reading about this, I found out that movie critics have WAY too much time on their hands. While I'll go along with the thought that this movie is really about a CEO wanting to diversify, I draw the line at the Freudian conflicts between Sally and her creator. 

It's just a hop, skip and a jump to 1996 and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I thought so at the time (and I still think) that this was a horrible idea on the part of Disney. Yeah, let's take a classic story, in which all of the main characters die, and turn it into an upbeat kids' movie. And when we took our young children to see it (two ten year olds, and a six year old) I was a bit surprised at this song. Fortunately, they were too young to really understand what Frollo is singing about. Now that they're older, I think that this is one of the best villain songs that Disney has done. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Hellfire.

This song is such a departure from the usual Disney fare, that it has its own article in Wikipedia. Nowhere have I found anyone mention that the flame woman reminded them of several James Bond movie openings. Except me, right now. Because that was what I first thought of. I did find out that someone at Disney painstakingly went through this sequence to make sure that the woman was covered in every frame. (So, you don't need to go through your DVD on slo-mo. It won't do you any good.) 

Disney had to go to great lengths to keep this movie rated G. It deals with such issues as lust, infanticide, religious hypocrisy, hell, and social injustice, but all with bright cheerful music, just like this one. I did discover that Stephen Schwartz in collaboration with Alan Menken was responsible for the music. Stephen Schwartz has also given us Godspell and Wicked, among a long list of other Broadway and movie hits.

And this brings us to our most recent entry: from 2009 - Friends on the Other Side from The Princess and the Frog. All the kids are now grown, but the Nameless Cynic and I rented this when it came out on DVD, and really enjoyed it. The music was written by Randy Newman, who wrote the music for Toy Story (among many, many other notable hits: he's possibly most famous for the song "Short People"). 

The role of Dr. Facilier was voiced by Keith David, a man with two first names. Both of those names are well-known to anyone who has watched just about any animated anything lately, expecially video games. My younger son is a huge fan of the man. This video was somewhat controversial, I understand, but not having young kids, I loved it.

Though it was not my intention, I've noticed that all of the music in this blog is from Disney studios. Hmm. . . I'm sure that says something. Probably what it mostly refers to is the amount of money that they have to pour into productions. (And people think my husband is the only cynic in the house!)

All Hallows Eve will soon be upon us. My Queen Victoria costume is almost done. I've got the Koh-i-noor sitting on the windowsill waiting to go into the queen's reticule. (Dr. Who reference. If you're not a fan, don't worry:  I'm just going to be dressing as an historical figure.) We've got candy in the spider dish. Are you ready for the ghosties and ghoulies?

Ghost Riders in the Stormy Skies

Following an exhaustive search through Google and YouTube (in my book, 4 hours constitutes "exhaustive"), I've come up with hours of Halloween-themed music. Some of it will be posted on FaceBook over the rest of the month; some of it will get special treatment here; and most will be dropped at the wayside because I didn't like them, or was just getting tired of ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night. And then, some of it really confused me. I would Google "Halloween songs" and find a list somebody posted, and wonder about their sanity. 

Why would anyone think Duran Duran's Hungry Like the Wolf belonged in a Halloween list?!?!? Really? I mean, it does talk about a wolf, and they do wear some cool costumes, but come on! Halloween it ain't.

As I was weeding through the list, though, I found a connection between two songs that I thought deserved a closer look. Ghost Riders in the Sky and Riders on the Storm. I think I've always been aware of thematic and melodic similarities, but I didn't know they were deliberate; or just how interesting the songs were.

So, here goes. Let's start with the older song: (Ghost) Riders in the Sky: A Cowboy Legend. There are probably hundreds of versions out there: this one is Johnny Cash live at the Montreux festival in 1994. (His only appearance there.) 



Alternately known as Riders in the Sky, Ghost Riders, Ghost Riders in the Sky, or A Cowboy Legend, this song was written in 1948 by Stan Jones. It has been recorded by such widely disparate artists as Lawrence Welk and The Tubes. (I'm amazed the computer doesn't start spewing smoke just having those two side-by-side like that!) There have been versions in German, Spanish, Portuguese, metal, merengue, surf-style, and (Get this!) Finnish melodic death metal or surf-punk-electro. 

There have been alternate versions, like The Dirtiest Town in the West from "Sesame Street." Peter, Paul and Mary did a take-off called Yuppies in the Sky, which is a personal favorite; it was written by Tom Paxton, and that was his rendition:  I couldn't find PP&M. Sigh.

And there is even a version "sung" (?!?!) by Christopher Lee, which may be the first professional recording I've heard that made me long for Autotune. 

The original song tells the story of a cowboy who sees a vision in the sky of a herd of steel-hooved cattle. They are chased by the spirits of damned cowboys. One warns the viewer that if he doesn't change his ways, he too, will be doomed to join them, "Tryin' to catch the Devil's herd across these endless skies." (Sounds a little like the Celtic Wild Hunt to me, just from a cowpoke point of view.) 

This song was also possibly the inspiration for the Marvel Comics character, Ghost Rider. But don't go jumping to the Nicolas Cage movie (at least, not yet). Before we think about that, we have to start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. (Ooops. Very much the wrong genre. Sorry) 

Before we had Johnny Blaze, there was the cowboy version of Ghost Rider. His name was Carter Slade and through an unlikely series of incidents, he became the Ghost Rider, later called the Phantom Rider (but not until after Slade's death, so as not to be confused with Johnny Blaze, the biker with the flaming skull).  

This character should not be confused with Carter Slade as portrayed by Sam Elliott in the Ghost Rider movie. They simply aren't the same. In the comics, Carter Slade wore a glowing white costume, full-face mask, cape and a white hat. Nothing like the skeleton wearing dusty cowboy clothes. (If you really want to know more, ask the Nameless Cynic, or even worse, my son, Chris. But don't plan on going anywhere for the next several days. The explanation will be very convoluted, and you'll never recover.)

The movie did give us an interesting character point for Johnny Blaze. He likes the Carpenters. And while this may seem like an odd thing to mention in a blog about Halloween music, you should hear my husband scream as I hit "play". Now, that's scary (the Nameless Cynic screaming, not Karen Carpenter. I always liked her voice).

Anyway, another voice that I always liked was Jim Morrison. (Cool segue, huh?) Deep, resonant, what a beautiful voice he had. Shame he, like Karen Carpenter, died so young. Morrison wrote the second of my two focus songs: "Riders on the Storm." 

"Riders on the Storm" was inspired by "Ghost Riders in the Sky."  It was also based on the story of Billy Cook, a man who hitchhiked across the country, killing people as he went. This was the last song that The Doors ever recorded: after completing it, Jim Morrison left for France and died a few weeks later. 

Apparently, as a young man, Morrison had hitchhiked across Florida on a regular basis to visit his girl-friend. He'd even having written a screenplay about a man who hitched around, killing people as he went.

And now for another awesome segue.

Morrison's plot sounds a lot like William Edward "Billy" Cook. (Why do killers always have several names? At least three names, and now four.) Cook was born in 1928. His mother died when he was five. Not long after, the father took Billy and his siblings to an abandoned mine, leaving them to fend for themselves.

Eventually, all were placed in foster homes, except Billy. His deformed eye and belligerent attitude kept him out of foster care. He became a ward of the state, and spent years in and out of trouble. He bought a gun and began hitching around. He'd force his victims to drive him around for hours, and then shoot them. At one point, he killed a family of five, and their dog. The cops found out who he was when he accidentally (?) left the receipt for his gun in one of the bloody cars. 

(Nobody knows why he kept the receipt: maybe he was hoping for a tax deduction since he used it for his work.)  It's no real surprise that he ended up on death row. 

Cook's killing spree was turned into a movie, The Hitch-Hiker (1953), directed my Ida Lupino, and is generally considered to be the first film noir directed by a woman (if you ignore Norwegian director Edith Carlmar, who was making dark-themed movies as far back as 1949). 

Anyway, back to The Doors. Riders on the Storm grew out of a jam session where they were playing Ghost Riders in the Sky. Morrison spoke his lyrics over his singing voice for an eerie effect to the finished recording. As Ray Manzarek put it, "That's the last thing he ever did. An ephemeral, whispered overdub."

So, now you know more than you ever wanted to about these two songs. Both definitely belong in a Halloween list. Oddly, I had to go to a German band, Dezperadoz, to find someone who'd done both songs:  they began with a concept album to bring Wyatt Earp to life musically. (See? Another Halloween link! More costumes!)  They're not really my cup of tea: Riders on the Storm is pretty much a cover with some interesting instrumentation, but Ghost Riders made my throat hurt even more than it already does. Ouch. Let me know if you find anyone else who's recorded both.