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Here is a vintage magic performance, nine-tenths theatre. Vaudeville noir. Bonus: he has the look of a crazed Elvis. What a gaze. And the music. Kitsch with a catch.

The mythology of magic.


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Bit of an earworm...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMxdr78y-E4

Ann, that was the first version of "Stardust" that I heard, whereupon I played it eight thousand times in a row. Not a bad worm if you have to have one in your ear. If asked to name the best song ever written, I would rebel against the foolish question but might name this one. Louis Armstrong does a pretty good job with it, though quite different.

Abby Roach (the Spoon Lady) and Chris Rodrigues, "Angels in Heaven"

Abby's thoughts on some of the YouTube comments the video received

A bit more about Abby's life (past and present)

A thoroughly interesting and kind person.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT5m...RlYXJzIA%3D%3D
Raw, Blakean energy.

Abby Roach is a walking talking spoon-playing embodiment of a great performance. I’ve been following her for a few years.

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Eva Cassidy made an indelible mark on me with her rendition of “Over the Rainbow “.

Her life story is tragic.

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Perhaps the most beautiful song ever written, performed by a beautiful array of angelic voices.

https://youtu.be/HDeT8IDsNkU?si=yDS3EJDCr8lSNocU

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Sorry, Jim. Stardust is the most beautiful song ever written, musically and lyrically. There are so many great covers, my favorite being Willie Nelson's, but I'll let Hoagy Carmichael, who wrote the music (but not the lyrics), represent himself through this link.

(Tons of other covers on YouTube. Many of them spend the first minute on the introductory verses that really don't add much at all. Hoagy himself omitted them in the recording I linked to).

My favorite version of “Somewhere” is this one by Tom Waits.

https://youtu.be/0XfOLQVuwaE?si=eBBOF9ODtttSIP8T

This performance by Burt Lancaster in The Rainmaker is magical to me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mzz5jxfPn4

His opening monologue in that film is also a sight to behold.

Linda Ronstadt does a great job with this song, but Bonnie Raitt does even better.

And though I'm not an opera buff, this by Placido Domingo is pretty amazing.

It's the overdone aria but this version is special.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9PQ7qPkluM

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Damian, I liked the scene. It's quintessential technicolor over-acting, which I find theatrically pleasing. Burt Lancaster was a very good man.

It's nice to see this thread take a tangent into operatic theatre. Here's one that is a real jewel in the crown that opera wears. Great stage set, great costuming, exquisite singing. It appears to be the opera Turandot set within a movie with a love story that comes to a head in this performance of Nessun Dorma by Pavarotti.

https://youtu.be/Q_hLh4qCqpg?si=0V4biLwz1cQGIP2F


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Well, I did say "perhaps"... But I still think the musical genius of Leonard Berstein and the lyric genius of Stephen Sondheim are a hard to beat. (Berstein said that he had carried around the tune for "Somewhere" for years before he finally found a place to use it.)

Anyway, here is another song that belongs in the discussion, for it's existential, haunting lyrics and dreamy melody.

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Julie's link to Adele appears not to work in UK.

But while we're searching for an alternative address, here is Sheila Atim singing Dylan's "Tight connection to my heart" in the stage musical built on a bunch of Dylan things "Girl from the North Country".

Well it brings a lump to my throat

I'll kick off with a Nobel Peace Prize concert performance by a Brit.

https://youtu.be/o2JJoP91WfY?si=tfFm9_reAzhBloft

And for my US entry, I was somewhat affected by this back in the day:

https://youtu.be/fregObNcHC8?si=hFmPTz0ukKFz1Tp0

Sorry. Better luck with this one, from the BBC instead of BBC America this time?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHXj...ab_channel=BBC
(The subtitles are absolute crap. Not that anyone can really tell what Adele is saying sometimes (hilarious misheard lyrics video here), but come on....)

Emma Kok


https://youtu.be/KdIhq1tb8Co?si=wnud7j-TPeANIbiY

Adele is very easy to follow for most Brits. The only accent in the English language that sometimes stumps me is thick Glaswegian. It's a problem because I work closely with someone in the UK civil service who talks like this and on overseas trips I'm expected to translate:

https://youtu.be/Lw5YwuK7bik?si=FuK3FQ11HBM5qjAG

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I'm reading Cameron's poem Liebestod on Metrical and it spurred a memory of an experience I had of an erotic encounter in St. Petersburg Russia at the Hermitage Theatre watching Swan Lake. I was seated in a folding chair right at the railing looking down into the orchestra pit. I began to watch the timpani drummer and began alternating my attention between the dancers and the orchestra, specifically the timpani drummer. The timpani drummer's performance and movement was so visceral and so visually sensual that I was enraptured by it. I was able to take that sensuality I was watching emanate from the timpani drummer and transfer it to the Swan Princess Odette. Very strange!

I wasn't trusting my memory so I did some research on the music of Swan Lake to be sure it actually had timpani drums in it. I came across this remarkable drumming performance of Swan Lake

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The only reason I can think of to be president of the United States is that you get to summon musicians to the White House to perform for you. Here is Keb' Mo' singing "America the Beautiful" for Barack Obama, once again proving my contention that the song should be the national anthem.

Pop is effective with simple chord progressions. For example, this Adele song piano accompaniment in A major is quite easy to learn and very compelling to listen to. Debussy would be Grade 8 stuff and hard to learn but just as compelling if not more. Within music there are varying degrees of complexity and sophistication that appeal to different layers of emotion, mood and consciousness. Language can be the same but generally it's harder for most people to feel that from poetry.

https://youtu.be/qemWRToNYJY?si=beg2Pvk9t9oYSbqS

https://youtu.be/fZrm9h3JRGs?si=-UOrx8GkjNwIYkIa

Emma Kok

https://youtu.be/J0HT_nIvjE8?si=hpuijHPe7f5fHfCq

Next up, an animated performance from the first film I took my eldest daughter to see at the cinema on her third birthday. It has some stunning visuals and interesting translations.

https://youtu.be/kZqr7ymr81Q?feature=shared


An Innocent Warrior
(Written by Opetaia Foa'i)

POLYNESIAN
(Tuvaluan, Tokelauan, Samoan mix)

Ou mata e matagi
Ou loto mamaina toa
Manatu atu
Taku pelepele

Pa mai to mafanafanaga
Saolotoga tenei
Manatunatu
Ki tamafine

Pa mai to malamalama
Taimi totoe ko he lava
Maua ai te lumanai
O te atunuku

ENGLISH

Your eyes so full of wonder
Your heart an innocent warrior
There’s a task for you
Our dearest one

Let it flow over you
This freedom you feel
And your deep thoughts
Our young girl

You'll come to understand
There's not much time left
To save the future
Of all our islands

This gives me joy. And do note, at the end, the wholly consensual kiss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLnLYfCJbik

What do we think about Billie Eilish?

I think this video is impressive. I haven't checked if she wrote them, but the simple lyrics are quite adeptly put together.

She couldn't resist. He looks just like Bradley Cooper.

Big fans here, my under 10s somehow got into her music before I did and I was taken aback by the maturity of their tastes. We have a couple of her albums playing on loop by demand in the car.

An interesting fact from my perspective is that Billie Eilish has auditory processing disorder and needed to be home schooled to overcome her learning difficulties. My eldest, Lucy, has that condition too so Billie Eilish is an interesting exemplar to study. Our consultant audiologist advised that Lucy learns a musical instrument because it helps the brain rewire faulty connections apparently.

I taught my daughter to play this song earlier in the year on piano but I suspect she's forgotten so we need to get back into the routine of practice again and I've lined up a music therapist for additional support this month

https://youtu.be/BboMpayJomw?si=Ba1MJ1Jfr08eo5qi

Your daughters may also enjoy the way Sarah Jarosz covers Billie Eilish. I may have posted this on the thread long ago, but I'm too lazy to check.

My Future

Bad Guy

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She's intriguing.The few times she's bubbled up in my world she's captured it with her artistic depth and the causes she takes up and integrates into her public image. I think her best work is yet to come.

Thanks for bringing her into this.

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I haven't been keeping up with this thread, but, yeah, Roger, pretty good. It's the breathing as she sings more than the lyrics, in my opinion. It really makes an impact. With all the overdone singing these days, the breaths in the song are unusually intimate, striking.

I've had several students use her videos in my comp classes (I use a music and image theme), and the videos and songs lend themselves to good analysis. Incidentally, there's another version of the video for that song that is quite interesting -- minimalist in all the best ways.

A couple of students have used "Happier than Ever," and while the soft-to-loud progression is nothing new (nor is the general break-up theme), I do love how the video reflects the change... Even more impressive is that she herself directed it.

She reminds me a bit of Kate Bush -- not musically, but just in that she got a very young start, but was able to blossom creatively, even under the immense pressure of a major label etc.

Roger, we enjoyed the covers thanks. Sarah Jarosz has a beautiful voice.

My next video is not Billie Eilish but, speaking of young female talented musicians, this popped up on my YouTube feed yesterday. Presumably because of the search I did for the MTV Nirvana Unplugged earlier in the week.

The song has simple chord progressions but I thought it was an interesting solo arrangement and playing melodies on guitar takes a lot of skill I imagine (not being a guitar player myself).

https://youtu.be/eIvlCRtQbIw?si=2lojXM5onxjnDXrr

Anybody heard of Roberto Vecchioni? Not a lot of music moves me anymore, but his “Le lettere d’amore,” about Fernando Pessoa, brings a lump to my throat every time. It did even before I knew the lyrics, which you’ll find translated below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf-IBqrMJHY

Love Letters

Translated by: Francesco Ciabattoni

Fernando Pessoa asked for his glasses and fell asleep
and those who wrote for him left him alone, finally alone.
Thus the oblique rain of Lisbon abandoned him
and he finally ceased to fake papers, to hurt papers.

He ceased to hide behind so many names,
forgetful of Ophelia, seeking a meaning that does not exist
and eventually asking her, “I’m sorry I left your hands
but I had to just write, write, write about me.

Love letters are just ridiculous
Love letters would not be love letters if they were not ridiculous
I too used to write love letters,
I too was ridiculous:
love letters, when there is love, are necessarily ridiculous.”

And he built a delusional universe without love,
where all things are tired of living and a wide open pain
but it escaped his mind that the meaning of the stars is not the same as a man’s
and he saw himself in the pain of that useless shine, that faraway shine.

And too late did he realize that in that tobacco shop
there was more life than in all of his poetry;
and that instead of tormenting himself with an absurd world
it would be enough to touch a woman’s body, reciprocate a look.

And write about love, write about love, even if it’s ridiculous;
even as you look at her, even as you’re losing her, what matters is writing.
And not be afraid, never be afraid of being ridiculous:
only those who never wrote love letters are truly ridiculous.

Love letters, love letters of an invisible love;
love letters I had begun, perhaps without realizing;
love letters I had imagined made me laugh
I wish I was still in time to write you some.

The translator, a professor of medieval Italian literature at Georgetown, writes:

“With a shade of bitterness and self-effacement, Vecchioni rewrites Fernando Pessoa’s poem with the same title. “All love letters are ridiculous, but only those who never wrote love letters are truly ridiculous.” … By building a narrative frame around Pessoa’s original text, he describes the Portuguese poet as he falls asleep surrounded by his literary personalities (“those who wrote for him”, the heteronyms that Pessoa created to respond to the many intrusions of society) and re-proposes alienating points of view. Ofelia Queiroz was, however, the true unrequited love of Fernando Pessoa.

“Vecchioni portrays the poet in his latest hour, when he is about to die yet still wants to write and, therefore, needs his glasses. The Italian writer Antonio Tabucchi, on the wake of João Gaspar Simões, wrote that Pessoa’s last words were “give me my glasses.” The poet thus abandons the heteronymous masks (Alberto Caeiro, Alvaro de Campos, Ricardo Reis and Bernardo Soares) that had accompanied him in his life and literary activity. Unlike the historical Pessoa, Vecchioni’s Pessoa lets go of Ofelia by relinquishing his love for her in order to write about it, thus making a radical choice between living life and writing about it.”

If that did something for you, here’s the full video with three additional, no less beautiful songs, including “La Bellezza (Gustav e Tadzio),” based on A Death in Venice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZSmpNp6Z0k

Roberto Vecchioni turned eighty in June.

Well, maybe not "great," but great spirit. La Sandunga

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Greatness cannot exist without spirit, imo.

What makes it so great is its (apparent) off-the-cuff-ness.

This is my favorite post thus far on this thread. It is truly what I was hoping for. The whole thing: the after-hours restaurant setting, the amazing acoustics of the room, the unbridled passion of the woman, the indifference of the employees as they move room to room in the background, how she is positively bursting with creative talent, her look — spectacular performance!


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That's what I call great, Roger! Joy!

Reminded me of one of my favourite performances, with the same spirit of JOY.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3cXgge69_Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2Ip-uUhaoI
Gente da Minha Terra (People of My Land)