A while back in his wonderful blog, the much too multi-talented Ken Levine wrote about the worst songs ever recorded. It was an impressive list (or unimpressive, depending on your perspective), in large part because of its excessive length, culled as it was from his years as a DJ on AM pop radio. These were songs that he had not only had had to play, but repeat endlessly. As he later told me, "It was musical waterboarding." Even among that painful list, one song stood out for me. "Seasons in the Sun," recorded by Terry Jacks. In fact, not only did that the ghastly recording easily deserve to be on the list, it may be my #1 least-favorite song - but not for the reason one would expect, not that it was mindnumbingly insipid and soul crushing in its pap look at death. No, as I explained to Ken, its value in being included transcended even that. As pure songs go, there arguably are worse, but "Seasons in the Sun" has its own special, little-known reason for pure and utter disdain. This is the tale of that reason, which I told at the time on the Huffington Post. It deserves repeating, to the point of being etched in stone. You see, "Seasons in the Sun" is not an original song at all. It's the translation of a brilliant French song by one of the great writers of popular music and lyrics - not just for French songs, but all popular music - and it infuriates me what a horrifically wimpy, pathetic translation they did to it, cementing in the American public's ear what this gem of a song supposedly is. "They" in this case is Rod McKuen, so the syrupy and pap-laden lyrics shouldn't surprise anyone. The original song, you see, is "Le Moribond," and the writer - for those of you who know the history of popular music, are you ready? - is the brilliant legend, Jacques Brel. Jacques Brel is lionized in France and much of Europe, and even has a healthy presence in America, largely through the long-running off-Broadway revue of his songs, Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, and many recordings of his song, "Ne Me Quitte Pas," which was translated here as "If You Go Away." (He himself performs it in the movie version of ...Alive and Well. He also acted, and most notably starred in, directed and did the French adaptation of the musical, Man of La Mancha. To Rod McKuen's credit, it was he who did the reasonable job translating "If You Go Away." But the hideous job he did with "Le Moribond" erases any bonus points he gets. The translation of Brel's title, "Le Moribond," is "The Dying Man," and given that the song is Brel, it doesn't have a single ounce of sentiment or treacly whining in it that "Seasons in the Sun" did. It's cynical, wistful, sad, loving, angry, and hilarious, with surprising twists. And hearing Brel sing it in French, even not understanding a single word, you can get most of that from hearing his voice, at times dripping with withering sarcasm, and the pounding rhythm throughout, mostly at the end. If you didn't block it out too much, or have never heard "Seasons in the Sun," the adaptation is a sing-songy, over-sugary sweet froth about a young kid breathlessly telling us he's going to die, but, "We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun...." And McKuen even adds yet another cloying verse at the end not in the original song. In "Le Moribond," however, a middle-aged man, with a pounding rhythm and forceful voice is saying goodbye to those he knew in his life. Goodbye to his best friend, goodbye to the priest - to each of them, "I liked you very much. Take care of my wife when I'm gone." And almost in defiance of death, spitting in its face, "I want everyone to sing, dance and act like fools when they put me in the grave." And then in the third verse, the song takes its twist: he says goodbye to Antoine...and suddenly the tone of his voice changes. You can hear the sneer in his voice as he says, "I didn't like you very much." And then, rather than ask Antoine to take care of his wife, he sings, "Since you were her lover, when I was alive, I figure you're going to keep taking care of her when I'm gone anyway." And then the song closes with him saying goodbye to his wife, how much he loved her, even though he kept his eyes closed, like he will be doing now. And the final chorus is more aggressively pounding than ever, more defiant of death than ever, a heavy drum-beat in the background, "I want everyone to sing, dance and act like fools when they put me in the grave!!!!!!!!!" And then suddenly, BAM, the song cuts off. (Now, add to this that it's possible Brel's original is about a man about to commit suicide. In fact, from several articles on the song, and knowing the sardonic quality of Brel's work, there are many for whom there's no "possible" about it, but that he is very much writing about a man who is so despondent over the loss of his wife to a lover that he is killing himself. I'm not completely convinced of that though -- it answers the question how he knows specifically when he's going to die, but not that he sings to his wife so affectionately -- but I like that Brel seems to leave it open to question.) Compare that to Terry Jacks and Rod McKuen. It makes my blood curdle, since it's through them how most people know this brilliant song of Brel's. As bad as "Seasons in the Sun" is if you don't know the original, it is infinitely gut-wrenchingly worse (and that's saying a lot) if you do. And now comes the treat you get for sticking around. After all that explanation, here's the proof. While I don't have it in me to post "Season in the Sun" for comparison's sake -- you can find it on YouTube -- here's a video of Jacques Brel himself singing the original version of his song, "Le Moribond," and happily with English translation subtitles. May it wipe out any memory of "Seasons in the Sun" that might exist in even a corner of a cobweb of you mind. You're welcome.
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I saw a little item that today was the birthday of Tennessee Williams. Whenever I hear his name mentioned, I always flash to one of my favorite comments about him that my college roommate said when Williams died. Actually, it's one of my favorite quips, period.
"I was sorry to see that Tennessee Williams died. As long as he was alive, I always knew that there was one person who was more miserable than me." A few weeks back, I wrote about my pal, professional ranter extraordinaire Bart Baker. I have developed a new theory that his ranting probably serves him well as a professional writer. Unlike most writers who stare at the blank page, Bart dives in with a passion. And that passion comes out in his works that keep pouring out of him. And they do pour. Only about three weeks ago, in fact, Bart was back in Los Angeles on one of his periodic “stay-in-touch with producers” visits. We were having lunch when his cell phone rang, and he excused himself. (He normally wouldn’t take the call, but he recognized the number as being important.) A few minutes later, he came back to the table with a beaming smile. “I just sold a script!” The final details of the deal haven’t been signed yet, but let’s just say it’s for a cable TV movie tied to an extremely popular song. So popular you’d know it, even if you don’t follow music today. But the best news about all this were the words that followed. “Lunch is on me!” In fact, lots more words have followed. The guy’s on a roll. Bart just published his second novel, What Remains. It’s pretty remarkable, as well. Again, I’m biased, having served as editor on an early draft, but he subsequently did his own thorough rewrite that it has its own life. But just like his first novel was so widely praised, I’m right about this one, too. (Side note: my editing the early draft brought forth one of my favorite “Hollywood negotiations” when we argued about money. But it’s not what you think. As a friend, I refused to take any. And Bart wouldn’t give me the manuscript until I agreed to accept his check. The debate continued all the way through lunch. In the end -- hey, I’m a nice guy, but not an idiot.) I’m sort of in awe of Bart’s writing style. It’s powerfully aggressive, but wild with humor and heart-breaking romantic tenderness. I don’t have a clue how he does it. I know of few other writers who can do it. But he does all the time. What Remains falls right into that. A disgraced ladies man whose life crashes and burns has to move in with his gay brother. When the brother’s life hits its own crisis and falls apart, the slacker is aghast to have responsibilities dumped onto him – forcing him to take a journey to the jungles of Colombia and complicated further when he falls in love with their mixed-race nanny with her own, unsuspected and dangerous problems. As they say, complications, hilarity, and serious angst ensue. How Bart gets hilarity out of this deeply emotional drama, and he does, that’s his magic trick I keep looking forward to the next thing Bart writes. I don’t mean just novels or movies, I include rants. They’re as good as his other works. And the great thing about the rants is that I don’t have to wait six months for them to come to fruition. If I’m feeling devoid of good Baker reading material, I can just send him an email and ask, “So, what do you think about…?”, and sit back to wait for the rant to arrive.
In honor of Passover, I thought I'd embed a song from the original Israeli Yiddish cast recording of My Fair Lady. I have a bunch of cast recordings of the show, but of all the foreign version, this is the best. Mind you, I have to go on sound and tone, rather than what they're actually singing. But having heard My Fair Lady enough times and therefore knowing exactly what's being sung (and how I think it should be sung), I think that it's possible to have a general idea if they got it right, or at least know what kind of a job they do. As I've mentioned in an earlier post about the Mexican cast recording, my observation is that all countries seem to have an actor who's a crotechy, old-time, vaudeville-style performer. So, every recording gets that right. None of the Eliza's are great -- they tend to overlook the Cockney accent part, though I'd think every country would have a guttural dialect -- and just tend to sing the role "pretty." (In fairness, I might be totally wrong about this, and someone with a better ear for the language in question might pick it up better.) But as far as I can tell, they're all perfectly fine, but no one stands out. That leaves it up to Higgins.
The short-hand version is that the Henry Higgins in the Italian version is much too romantic. The German version gets the misogyny of Higgins right, but not the humor. Same with the Mexican cast recording. But on the Israeli cast, the actor for Higgins nails the misogyny and uses a legacy of Jewish humor to get the comedy and all the inflections. This is Shai Ophir singing, well, you can see below -- "I'm an Ordinary Man." Happily, he performs it forward, from beginning to end. Yesterday, I mentioned about having seen Mandy Patinkin in concert. It was at the Ravnina Music Festival, and I was reminded of a story about it. I suspect the tale leading up to the story will be longer, since it's about one of my favorite places, but hey, life is a journey... First things first, I love Ravinia. It's the summer home of the Chicago Symphony, sort of like Tanglewood more than the Hollywood Bowl. There's a huge open-air (but covered) Pavilion that seats 3,000, but then people can also buy inexpensive tickets and picnic on the grounds, where the park can accommodate another 15-18,000. It's not all classical, opera or ballet, though, they also have pop, rock, jazz, folk, and musical theater. I grew up on Ravinia, living about a mile from the park in Glencoe and would often take a shortcut and walk through the Turnbull Woods to get there. (It was just across the "border" from Cook County into Lake County, where Ravinia is an area of Highland Park.) Ravinia is where I saw one of my most memorable concerts ever, Louis Armstrong performing the summer his recording of "Hello, Dolly!" exploded, and he had to sing (I'm not exaggerating) at least six encores. It might have been eight. I also worked at Ravinia for a couple summers when in college. Mainly in downtown Chicago before they moved their offices to Highland. But also backstage on pop-rock-folk nights as a PR department liaison. Thatt's where I got to make a joke at Arthur Fielder's expense that mortified my boss, the general manager of the festival. The three of us were backstage before a rehearsal, and Fieldler mentioned that a piece he was conducting, Charles Ives's "Variations on 'America,' was very controversial with audiences. Being a devil-may-care college kid, I said, "Well, then, it's just as well that you wore a red jacket [which was his trademark], because if people throw tomatoes they'll blend right in." My boss, the GM, wanted to die on the spot. I'm surprised I wasn't fired on the spot. (He said, in a sardonic voice, "Oh, Mr. Elisberg...you can goooooo...") Arthur Fielder just looked at me like, "Who is this idiot?" But I digress. This is about Mandy Patinkin. Ravinia also has a smaller theater, now called the Martin Theater, I think. (It keeps changing.) That's where Mandy Patinkin performed. It's all indoors, for chamber concerts and more intimate performances, charming and elegant, seating about 500 people. Usually that's all they get -- unlike the Pavilion, people don't generally buy lawn seats for the Martin. But sometimes they do. And they did on the night when Mandy Patinkin was there. It got a pretty good lawn crowd, in fact, and they piped the sound out there. But nothing to see. Today, they might have a video screen (they do for the Pavilion shows), but not then. You just sat on the lawn, picnicked, and listened to the music over speakers, while the lucky people indoors paid for the full show. Mandy Patinkin in concert is wonderful. Whatever you think of his high voice and theatrics, he's a great performer. A multi-Tony winner, he knows how to command a stage, and has great presence interacting with the audience. Not just "and for my next number," but telling stories and involving the crowd. He's also from Chicago, and at one point, during a break between numbers, (he may have even asked for requests), someone in the audience yelled that he'd brought a sweatshirt from Patinkin's high school and wanted to know if he could give it to him. Sure, bring it up. I believe he even put it on and wore the sweatshirt for a while. During the show, since he has such an awareness of the audience, he'd periodically reference the lawn crowd outside, saying that he'd hoped they were enjoying the evening and occasionally he'd thoughtfully describe what they couldn't see. And then came my favorite moment. At this particular particular time in the concert, he paused and said something like, "Wait, I've just been talking to the people outside, but they should get to at least see something." He called backstage and asked the stage crew if the microphone cord was long enough to reach the side door. It was, so he jumped offstage, ran through the theater and went outside. Before he even got there, you could hear the cheering start from the lawn. When the door finally opened, and he went through, it became a roar. And he didn't just make a perfunctory appearance, but performed two full songs outdoors. He returned inside, and finished the show. Which was a joy. As I said, he has quite a way with the audience, and whatever you think of his singing (I'm a fan), if you get a chance to see him live -- he's puts on one heck of an ingratiating show. Here's him at his most frenetic and engagingly theatrical, performing with the Boston Pops, it looks like. In fairness, the song, "Coffee in a Cardboard Cup," is supposed to be frenetic. It's by Kander & Ebb, from the musical, 70, Girls, 70, about how the world today has gotten too...well, frenetic. In the news today, it seems that California is investigating $11 million in "dark money" funneled into the state against two propositions in the recent election. At the center of the charge are the infamous Koch brothers who own much of the Tea Party corporation ground. It's reminiscent of the recent Proposition 8 campaign on gay marriage when the Mormon Church was later discovered to be funneling in huge money to defeat the ballot measure.
It's a great thing to hear about the investigation, and the attempt to crack down abuse of the California Proposition System. The problem is that the Proposition System itself is an inherent abuse. I've even gotten to the point where I rarely vote on a proposition measure unless it meets strict Elisbergian Standards. There are many reasons for my now doing this, but the short version is -- I think propositions are no way to make laws. I never have. But I finally got fed up. And such efforts to subvert the system by the Koch brothers and Mormon Church only point to that with huge klieg lights. As I said, I've long felt this way, and even wrote a Huffery about it for the Huffington Post a few years back. What I noted at the time was that my dislike of the California Proposition System dated back years earlier still Many years earlier, I wrote, I had had a debate with a friend. I disliked California's Proposition system, he thought it was great. Democracy In Action. The Common Man over the politician. I proclaimed victory in the debate. It had taken a decade or so, but he finally acknowledged that the California Proposition System was a complete failure. The Proposition System in California, I said, while noble in theory, is an ill-thought out disaster. Somewhat like New Coke, the Edsel and Viet Nam. Miserable failure was the only likely outcome. It was based on the premise of full-participation democracy of an informed citizenry, but even the Founding Fathers understood that that had its limits. America is not a democracy, it's a representative democracy. This is the concept that most people just want to know where the On switch is for their computer, not how electronics works. When it comes to laws, just pass the things, and if we don't like them, we'll vote you out. However poorly one thinks of politicians, the Proposition System is worse. It starts with the faulty premise that the voting public is going to willingly study a thick guidebook. The voting public didn't willingly study even thin guidebooks when they were in high school and required to. Instead, with propositions, they turn to watching 30-second TV ads to learn what the laws are about. Watching 30-second TV ads to learn what a law is about is like reading a fortune cookie and believing that you now understand Eastern Philosophy. Initially, the Proposition System had its successes mixed among warning signs. That's when the legal equivalent of the San Andreas Fault hit in 1978. Proposition 13 - the most appropriately-numbered law ever. This wasn't just bad luck, this was The Big One. For years, a crotchety coot named Howard Jarvis would annually try to get some loony proposition passed against having taxes. It was wildly entertaining, though a bit annoying, like watching a rapid dog yowl nightly at the moon. But in 1978, the moon yowled back, and his co-sponsored Proposition 13 actually passed. And the joke was on California. On the surface, Proposition 13 appeared to be about limits on property taxes. What it actually did was send California crashing to ruin. It wasn't just that revenues plummeted, but that Proposition 13 required a "supermajority" of two-thirds vote in the state legislature for any tax increase. The resulting problem is that the public keeps voting proposition initiatives to improve the state - yet they vote against bills to pay for it. And the state itself is unable to raise revenues to make up the difference. (Side note: in the comedy, "Airplane!", a passenger gets in Robert Hayes' cab, just as the cabbie leaps out. That's actually Howard Jarvis. He sits in the taxi the entire movie, the butt of the joke, as the meter keeps running. Alas, talk about a prescient metaphor. California's meter has been running ever since.) The additional problem with the Proposition System is that, unlike when a legislator puts himself on the line when passing laws, there is no one to vote out of office if a proposition screws things up. No one is responsible. So, the death spiral continues. The result is that the California debt is now $28 billion. Governor Jerry Brown (D-CA) recently announced a $850 million budget surplus, an impressive turnaround from the nearly $25 billion budget deficit left him by previous governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA). But that only helps slightly in decreasing the debt, that grew massively when Mr. Schwarzenegger did some bookkeeping flimflam when he raided money from government programs to make the budget deficit seem better than it was. Sorry, I mean, "seem less horrible" than it was. (How horrible was the Schwarzenegger budget? At one point a few years back, the state even had to send out IOUs.) Certainly, there are many causes for the problems California faces today. But the root of the problem is that the California Proposition System is a system that allows reckless action without accountability. And worse, it's a system that increasingly does the very opposite of its original intent of full democratic participation of the public: the more propositions, the less the public wants to study them all - and the fewer people who vote. In a special election in 2009, specifically to deal with the state's budget crisis (!), voter turnout was a paltry 28.4 percent. The past presidential election drew only a voter turnout of 52.4 -- down massively from four years early, when voter turnout had been 79.4, a number perhaps artificially high since it was when Barack Obama ran for the first time. Worse still, because of another proposition - term limits - representatives know they have no political future, regardless of what they do in office, so there's no need to work out issues in the state legislature with your opponents, but just vote in self interest. The result is gridlock. Worser than even that, now politicians not only run together in an open primary, but don't even have to identify their party, meaning you can have candidates from the same party running in the general election, all thanks to the Proposition System. When you let politicians do what you elected them to do - for all the good and ill - at least you are getting 100% of the electorate represented in the results. And if you don't like those results, you can vote your officials out. But with the Proposition System, a mere quarter of the public is at times deciding how the state should be run. Based on watching 30-second TV ads. With no accountability. How can anyone be shocked to discover that people vote for things they like, vote against paying taxes - and a $26.3 billion deficit is created because a near-impossible two-thirds supermajority is needed to fix things?! And you throw out your leader to bring in an movie actor with no political experience to get you out of the mess. This is no way to run a democracy. Make no mistake, it crosses all parties. In California, majority doesn't rule. It's the tyranny of the minority, but worse it's too often the tyranny of the irrational. The California Proposition System may have begun with a noble intent, but it was ill-conceived, and has become selfish, greedy, mindless, unworkable and a disaster. There is only one proposition worthy of having on the ballot and voting for. A proposition that would get rid of the California Proposition System. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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