A short while back, I posted an interview with composer/lyricist Lionel Bart, creator of Oliver!, in which there's a brief discussion about a TV commercial he wrote late in his career that became hugely popular, and brought him back to the public eye. It was in done in 1989 for a financial institution known as the Abbey National building society. The little jingle, called "Abbey Endings," is about all the happy little things you do do with a loan from Abbey National. Bart is surrounded by little kids who sing along with him, the charm of which is what clearly caught on with the public. Especially since the words are a bit to make out, but the warmth comes through. The ad, which is fairly won a Silver award at the British Television Advertising Awards. Indeed, it became so popular, that an extended version of the song was released as a single, with Bart and the kids, and became a hit on its own. Here's the ad that started it all.
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When the day began yesterday, it was a messy day for Democrats as their convention began. Even Bernie Sanders got booed by his own most-passionate supporters when he told them that he was supporting Hillary Clinton. And then there was the continued controversy of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz resigning as chair of the DNC.
All I could think about was Will Rogers' quote, "I am not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat." It's worth noting that he said this in 1935. Eighty-one years ago. At the time, though, I told a friend that I thought it was a very good thing that Sanders got booed -- because it allowed him to face the reaction, and adjust what he'd say later. And also allowed the DNC to address the reaction in advance. And they did change things -- brilliantly. Michelle Obama had originally been scheduled to be the last speaker of the evening, with Bernie Sanders speaking before her. Instead, Mrs. Obama was moved to speak second and have Sen. Sanders speak last. This allowed three speakers to build up the enthusiasm of the room, and build up the reasons to support Hillary Clinton from three Progressives -- and off-setting at least some of the passions of the "Bernie or Bust" delegates, before finally getting to Bernie Sanders to make his case. And it worked, magnificently. What started out as a messy day for Democrats ended up one of optimism, strength, charm and enthusiasm. And the story that came out of that first day is Michelle Obama's eloquent, rousing speech, as well as Bernie Sanders' long, aggressive and strong speech ending with repeated support of Hillary Clinton. He probably didn't convince all the "Bernie or Bust" supporters, but he likely convinced most of those who could be convinced. And given that polls show that 85-90% of his supporters have said they'll vote for him, that's accomplishing a lot. Contrast all that with the story that came out of the first day of the Republican National Convention, where the story that came out of the first day was the plagiarism of Donald Trump's wife. To be clear, the first day wasn't about full unity. There's still disappointment among Sanders supporters, and the far end of them will likely never be convinced to vote for Hillary Clinton, in part because Bernie Sanders spent so much of the primaries telling them not to. But it was a night of soaring speeches. Not just those of Michelle Obama, but also Sen. Cory Booker who lead off the evening with a rousing, patriotic, hope-filled speech that had echoes of Barack Obama's famous, "We're not a Red America or White America, We're the United States of America" speech, which had the crowd roaring and would have been the story to come out of the night, if not for what came after him. And none of that even takes into consideration Sen. Elizabeth Warren's speech, which wasn't as eloquent or powerful as the others around her, but was blunt, smart, aggressive and very strong. It was a first night of four impressive speeches. And yet, one of the more important moments of the evening may have come before all that, when Sarah Silverman spoke with Sen. Al Franken. It wasn't so much her speech, which was good, but one sentence. She has been a very vocal supporter of Bernie Sanders throughout the campaign, and addressed all that in her appearance, explaining why she was happy to support Hillary Clinton. And then -- and I don't know if this was written, or an ad-lib in response to some things being yelled -- she turned to the crowd and his her smiling and snarky way said pointedly, "You 'Bernie-or-Bust' people are being ridiculous." It brought the house down. And shifted at least some of the mood of the room. It was only the first night. And it's one thing to play to the house and to the base, and another to address all the undecideds out in the world watching. And it didn't completely unify everyone. But -- You pretty much don't ever unify the entire Democratic Party. And they have three nights of powerful speakers upcoming, including President Barrack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Former President Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine and a lot of others. And while there clearly is a lot of anger and fear in the country, there also is a greater need for hope and optimism, something to be for. And most of all, given how the day started -- it ended really well. I posted some videos in the past of Dick Van Dyke and his a capella singing group, The Vantastiks, but not for a while. I thought with the start of the Democratic National Convention, this was as good a day as any to kick it off with the National Anthem. This performance comes before the start of a Los Angeles Lakers basketball game. What I like about this is that although he's been announced with the group, the crowd probably doesn’t seem think that Dick Van Dyke is actually singing much, but then when they realize he is, they react -- You know your political party had a bad week when you held your national convention, and the candidate's wife plagiarizing the wife of the "hated" president isn't the worst story to come out of it. And you know it's been a really awful week when, even worse, one of the more conservative pundits supporting your campaign gives a Nazi salute to your nominee in what was likely a "quip" attempt to tweak the other side, and that isn't the worst story either to come out of it either, and in fact barely got eye rolls. Because, even worse than that, you know it's a truly horrific week when beyond everything else one of your candidate's adviser's suggests that the opposing candidate should be "put in a firing line and shot." and that not only isn't the worst story to come out of the week either, but it hardly even caused a ripple.
That's because all of that gets pushed aside when there's a story in the Washington Post, TPM, New York Times, CNN and other major news outlets about how your candidate carries heavy debts and most of his funding is coming from high Russian state banking interests, and you just know that's going to be the oh-so far worse news. As reported, the Donald Trump empire has around $500 million in debt load, and he has been "blackballed" by all American banks to get loans in order to pay it off. The only bank that's stepped in at all is the German Deutschebank. That's left Trump to get his loans bankrolled by Russian oligarchs who have close ties to President Vladmir Putin. And given the close ties of Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort's as consultant to several Russian politicians -- not to mention other dictators, going back to the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos -- it's all made some of the Republican nominee's odd statements most understandable. Like Donald Trump's continual praise of what a great leader Vladimir Putin is, and how if Trump was president he wouldn't necessarily support all of the United States' NATO allies if they were attacked, which would in essence cause the breakup of the western defense alliance which has long been Putin's known goal. (So much for making America great again, when it's not even safe with its backdoor left wide open...) Not all of this is supposition -- some issues of the Trump debt and financing are on the public record -- but it's certainly not "proven" fact yet. But it's also not random guessing pulled out of the wind, since it's numerous high level security experts who have pointed to most-troubling concerns. This includes suspected evidence that the recent WikiLeaks emails about the Democratic National Committee came from Russia, which is known to have hacked the organization. (For instance, metadata embedded in the emails shows a Russian connection.) Again, it's not definitive and could just all be mere coincidence and circumstantial. Or it could be absolutely true. To be clear, even if it's all true, that doesn't inherently mean that Donald Trump is a "puppet" of Vladimir Putin. He may truly believe in his wizened heart everything he says. He may actually have his reasons why Vladimir Putin is a great leader by American standards. He may actually think it's in the best interests of American security to break about our major defense alliance, despite what most experts, world leaders and even the Senate Majority of his own party say. But even if he isn't guided by the Russian president, which I hardly think he is, when he personally is on the line for hundreds and hundreds of dollars to keep his financial interests propped up, it certainly makes Donald Trump much more amenable to Russian views at best, and leaves him in an incredibly vulnerable position at worst. One thing we can be pretty sure about though -- if this was the other way around, if this news stories had been all about the Democratic candidate's ties to Russia and Vladimir Putin and Russian oligarchs, it's a very safe bet that right now Donald Trump would be referring to her as "Comrade Hillary." Except...the stories aren't about her. They're about Donald Trump. This week's contestant is Wiley Newbold from Morgantown, West Virginia. And I wave the white flag. I could hear the hidden song -- and hear it easily. But I just didn't have a clue what it was. Nor did contestant...though he did an admirable job on his own working his way through the possibilities to guess it. And it's a well-known enough song. As for the composer style, I'm sure some will guess it. But it's a style that overlaps with a few people, and I just didn't get it.
The other day, I posted what I said was one of the longest videos I'd found of the great British songwriting and performing team of Michael Flanders & Donald Swann, about 10-minutes. And I mentioned to some people who said how much they loved it that I had a major treat in store. And here it is -- This is a 40-minute documentary on Flanders & Swann, from the BBC, hosted by one of their longtime personalities, John Amis!! This, in two words, is an utter joy. And to add a few more words, a treasure trove. On the one hand, it's not all that much a typical documentary with information and interviews about the pair. It's more a montage of clips of them performing their songs on stage. On the other hand...it's almost FORTY MINUTES of them performing their songs on stage. Given how little video material there is of Flanders & Swann (Amis notes that Flanders simply didn't like recorded TV performances), this much material is stunning. Hearing Flanders & Swann on their several albums is glorious. But being able to see them on stage, and watch the nuance and inflections that would otherwise be missing adds a level that wouldn't seem likely, making something that classic even far better. The clips seem to come from two sources. The first in black-and-white appears to be a live, recorded-performance of probably At the Drop of a Hat, their first show, done in England in the late-1950s. And the second is that CBS TV special I've mentioned that was performed around 1967, at the end of the Broadway run of their follow-up show, At the Drop of Another Hat. I'd written about how it's a shame that only a couple of clips of that broadcast have shown up online, so it's so wonderful that the entire production was found and so much of it was at least made available for this documentary. While I still hold out hopes for more to be released, or even the entire broadcast on DVD. This suffices just fine... There are a lot of major treats in this. Just a few -- "Misaillance" is one of their most clever and wonderful songs for its oddity – a love song about plants. And it also shows Michael Flanders' impressive skill as a lyricist with a wide range of challenging rhymes, for words like "honeysuckle" and "bindweed". I've mentioned how pianist and composer Donald Swann comes across like a meek and erudite scholar at the keyboard, just has a few moments of release when he comes across as gloriously insane. He actually was a scholar, not just of music, but also Russian and Greek, and in "Kokoraki," he gets to have one of his occasional solo numbers and show his utterly mad side. (And, too, as I wrote earlier, with all of this video material, you get an even better look at his incredibly impressive skill of looking innocent and joyful as if he is hearing Flanders' words for the very first time and laughing in surprised pleasure, despite the reality that he's likely heard them at least two thousand times.) "Madeira, M’Dear" is probably one of their few songs that other people have performed, most notably Tony Randall. What's worth noting, as well, is that this is the song from the first show, At the Drop of a Hat, around which Flanders tells his "hat" story, so that's why you see him with a fedora. And happily, you get to see both versions of their signature "Hippopotamus Song" with which they traditionally ended their shows. The original comes early, and they hold the sequel "about our old friend, the hippopotamus" under the very end of the documentary, going out with it. (Alas, the original song has a few versions, my favorite of which has Donald Swann singing a verse in Russian, and that's not the one used here, perhaps because they already had footage of him singing in Greek.) What's also noteworthy here is once again reveling in the cleverness of Michael Flanders who repeatedly through the two songs comes up with remarkable rhymes -- none of which are forced, but flow naturally from the lyrics -- for "hippopotamus." (My favorite of which comes in the sequel, "He murmurs God rot-em as / he watches them grow".) In fact, when he pluralizes them for the pack, we get a smooth and funny rhyme for "hippopotami." But enough of all this. On to 40 minutes of Flanders & Swann. O, just freaking joy. |
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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