Soundtrack Sunday: "Cut, you buggers, cut!"

I've been meaning for some time to start a series of posts on a theme; other people have done poems, music, books and films, so I thought I'd combine two of those and do film music.

Every now and then, a film achieves that perfect combination of soundtrack and story that enhances both. There are plenty to choose from, so I make no apology for selecting according to my own idiosyncratic criteria.

Obviously some of this will make no sense if you haven't seen the film but, at the least, it should provide some interesting listening for a Sunday evening.

I'm starting with one of my all-time favourite films. With a dramatic story by Kipling, a cast headed by Sean Connery and Michael Caine (with an unforgettable supporting performance by Saeed Jaffrey) and imposing scenery shot in grand style under John Huston's direction, 'The Man Who Would Be King' would have been excellent even without Maurice Jarre's accompanying score; add in the music, with its fitting blend of militarism, Victorian bombast and poignancy, and it becomes something great.

(Link to video here)

Earworm redux

When you hear the news:

Blocks of flats which have been part of Glasgow's skyline for almost 50 years will be blown up as part of the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony.

there is only one possible soundtrack...

The musical fun continues

Some things are just too good to keep to oneself...

(Dedicated, of course, to JuliaM;
one earworm definitely deserves another!)

A little bovine music

A quiet few days in the Tavern over Easter but I'll leave you with this from the inimitable Max Raabe. It's in German, so I've included a translation below.

'Rinderwahn' is German for mad cow disease; I have had to bend my translation slightly to accommodate scansion and rhyme but if you want a literal one, it can be found here.

This post is, naturally, dedicated to Mark Wadsworth.

That mad cow
Was penned up who knows where or how
Before it ended up as chow
On a plate.

You should try looking overseas
To India, where cows like these
Can wander, sacred, where they please;
It's great!

When Man discovered meat tastes fine
It turned out cows were first in line;
They plan to get their own back now
With mad cow.
And when an angry cow gets mad
Then things for us are looking bad;
First of all the cow feels queer
Then you, my dear.

The chicken now don't feel so swell
And pigs are really quite unwell;
Maybe we'll soon see pestilence
In you, the audience.

Gangnam Style - the beginning of the end?

At the risk of being accused of fiddling while Rome floods, today seemed a good time to share this:

The satirical tricoteuse of Delit Maille* has turned her attention to the ubiquitous Gangnam Style video in her own unique fashion.

Actually, I have to admit I've never knowingly heard the song - when I watched the video for research purposes I had to do so without sound - so I apologise if I have inadvertently inflicted an earworm on anyone.

What interests me is the way this phenomenon has swept the media world, with amateur tribute performances in settings as diverse as international sports matches, Google HQ, Eton College and Chequers. Covers and parodies abound, while Ai WeiWei, Amnesty International and Free Tibet have all enlisted the dance for political purposes.

That being so, it's hardly surprising that the Righteous have jumped on board:

The American Council on Exercise estimated that dancing "Gangnam Style" will burn 150–200 calories per half hour and the song was used by Northampton General Hospital to promote hand washing as part of the 2012 Global Handwashing Day on October 15.

And now it's become the most watched YouTube video ever. While eschatology isn't my specialist area, something about this ubiquity is uncannily reminiscent of the kind of inexplicable global phenomena that are supposed by major religions to herald the end of the world.

Maybe the Mayans were onto something after all....

*roughly translates as Outlaw Knitting as well as sounding like Daily Mail - un vrai coup de génie linquistique. For those who prefer a rather more cultured subject, I recommend her recent post, Tricote ton Manet.

Whistle while you work...

A busy day, so a bit of recycling: part of this first appeared a few days ago as a comment on a post by Captain Ranty*.

The Captain's subject, suitably acerbically treated, was the list of words and phrases the US Department of Homeland Security uses to monitor social networking sites and online media for signs of terrorist or other threats.

It must be terribly boring for their analysts to have to wade through hours of facebook inanity and endless blog posts, so, since the effort below might well bring them to the Tavern door, I thought I'd liven up their day with a little ditty; a dozen or so more verses and perhaps they could adopt it as an aide-memoire...


(tune: Windmill in Old Amsterdam [again])

There’s a US department patrolling the net;
They're looking for a mention
Of hostile intention.
From morning to evening their analysts vet
Social networks for signs of a terrorist threat:

Assassination, anthrax, cocaine
Avalanche, plume and plane
Swine flu, evacuation,
Gas, hurricane
And all kinds of weather but rain.

They’ve drawn up a list of such words as Iran,
The Mexican Army,
Typhoon and tsunami;
So woe betide bloggers who name Pakistan
Or ricin or sarin or a full body scan.

Contamination, pork, quarantine
Hostages, docks, AQIM,
Crash, standoff, mitigation,
Cops and vaccine;
It’s all part of their daily routine.

*H/t for inspiration to Angry Exile who set me thinking with the first comment:

'I think it could be a project to use all of them in a single blog post in the most ridiculous way possible.'

A worm in your ear

What makes a coincidence?

For most of Sunday, I had a tune stuck in my mind for no reason I could identify; in fact, I considered putting it in a post on Sunday evening - I reckon, with earworms, that you might as well get some mileage out of them while they're with you.

We're all prone to the odd repeating tune so I thought no more of it, until yesterday's Six O'Clock News announced the death of Philip Madoc; the tune that had been running through my head since the day before was the theme music for the BBC Wales series 'The life and Times of David Lloyd George,' in which Madoc played the title role.

And then, to cap it all, the BBC news website this morning has a feature on - guess what - earworms. A widespread phenomenon (the term is, like so many vividly descriptive terms, a literal translation from the German), earworms have been linked to a bewildering variety of stimuli and associations, often triggered by seemingly unconnected factors.

Sometimes it's an emotion that sets it off; the BBC article mentions the case of an unfortunate woman who got a Bananarama song stuck in her head when she was taking an exam at 16;

"She now gets that song at every single moment of stress in her life," says Williamson. "Wedding, childbirth, everything."

The article concludes by asking an expert how to get rid of earworms; his advice - "Just think of another song and hope that'll push out the first one." - may ring a melodious bell with regular visitors to the Tavern, who may well remember the same advice being given here eighteen months ago.

Youtube has since withdrawn the only clip of my suggested replacement, so I haven't bothered to link to the piece, but remember, folks, you really did hear it here first!

Since I've mentioned it, here's Enrico Morricone's Chi Mai - the Loyd George theme; pure 1980s nostalgia!

Interlude

The refurbishments continue apace, so posting will have to wait - though I have given in to the temptation to comment elsewhere.

Thus I have no time or leisure to do justice to the delightfully symbolic news story that the Houses of Parliament are sliding inexorably into the mud of Father Thames.

Fortunately, wiser bloggers than I have done the story justice, so without further ado I refer you to Demetrius and Anna Raccoon.

And to accompany the mental image of the Palace of Westminster gently subsiding into its historic swamp, here's my current earworm - self-indulgent, lush and far too much fun to keep to myself....

'ear, 'ear!

The wonderful Gloria Smudd has been sharing her earworm frustrations with us this week.

Update: the link seems to have vanished - Anna/Gloria, any ideas?

Earworms are something we at the Tavern are all too familiar with* - one hazard of writing song parodies is that the necessary repetition fixes them in your mind for ever.

Concensus is that the only way to combat them is to introduce others of your choice; personally I favour the bitter and satirical, or at the very least thought-provoking.

So here's one of my favourites - a cheesy tune with mordant lyrics from Leonard Cohen, whose birthday it is today.




*See also item 7 in this post (and the attached comments - thank you, Demetrius! Sixteen months so far...)

Farewell, Letters

Crowded as it has become, the blogosphere will seem an emptier place next week with the demise of Letters from a Tory.

Witty, intelligent, occasionally provoking but always a worthwhile read, the Letters have been regular reading for the Tavern inmates and will be sorely missed.

Coincidentally (with apologies to readers of a sensitive disposition), since the phrase appeared in a comment at LFAT on Friday, the Tavern has resounded to the cheerful tune of 'If I knew you were coming I'd have baked a cake' with revised words:

"How can we miss you if you won't f**k off....?
Gordon Brown, Gordon Brown, Gordon Brown!"

Happy earworm, everybody!