#076
Fama, a sombra do eu e a importância de se chamar Ernesto
I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Emily Dickinson
Escrever canções é uma coisa que os anjos compreendem. Compor, arranjar, meticulosamente ir crescendo numa melodia, que depois (ou durante, conforme o método que cada compositor usa) se vai entrelaçando de palavras e significados.
Eu, que já estive envolvido na criação de algumas canções que foram ficando embebidas na lembrança de quem as ouviu, vivo no entanto eternamente fascinado por composições de outros, escutando-as fascinado com as musas (e musos) fontes primárias dessas lembranças, memórias, representações e fantasias musicais.
O mais engraçado é que por vezes essa inspiração provêm não de estro intangível mas desponta de seres existentes ou que já estiveram entre nós, chegando mesmo alguns meramente ficcionais a funcionar para efeito de repertório. É por isso que esta semana decidi mergulhar no caudal da fama, doce e amarga mas efêmera vaga que varre a vida de quem por ela é bafejada e que, como vamos perceber, tem sido fonte de alento criativo na pop mundial. Sejam outros artistas que vão aparecendo como figuras de estilo, personagens fictícios, heróis e egérias que vão soprando ventos inspiradores nas velas da criatividade musical. Poetas e piratas, donzelas e diplomatas, gentes que do seu “lugar ao sol” ainda inspiram e infundem vontades e ideias divinas na consciência dos humanos em busca de compasso.
If I didn’t care for fun and such,
I’d probably amount to much.
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.
Dorothy Parker – Enough Rope
Tudo como mandam as regras já aqui sobejamente definidas: piscadelas como a de ter o Ambrósio dos Radar Kadafi a cantar sobre a Brigitte Bardot e ter a própria logo de seguida no clássico gainsbourgiano Bonnie & Clyde. Andei, como sempre, em demanda de umas mais conhecidas polvilhando o total com uma soma de coisas menos evidentes.
Assim algumas canções são óbvias, Andy Warhol de Bowie, Janis Joplin de Spencer Stephenson que assina como Botany ou mesmo quando Danny Kaye afirma que I’m Hans Christian Andersen, numa escolha retirada da banda sonora do filme produzido pela MGM em 1952. A scrolling intro diz tudo sobre o assunto: “Once upon a time there lived in Denmark a great storyteller named Hans Christian Andersen. This is not the story of his life, but a fairy tale about the great spinner of fairy tales.”
Outras escolhas talvez sejam assim um pouco mais obscuras na percepção da fonte de iluminação poética: Patti Smith com Constantine’s Dream, uma meditação que parte do sonho tido pelo Imperador Constantino, instrumental na conversão dos Romanos ao Cristianismo, mas que referencia também Piero della Francesca, artista renascentista que morreu no mesmo dia em que supostamente Cristovão Colombo chegou ao Novo Mundo. Com tudo isto Smith elabora uma intricada filigrana sobre o apocalipse ambiental do século 21. Uf, só mesmo uma antiga Testemunha de Jeová para ter estas ideias…
Ou Charles Coborn a contar-nos sobre The Man Who Broke The Bank At Monte Carlo, escrita em 1891 por Fred Gilbert e publicada por Francis, Day & Hunter, tornou-se o grande sucesso da carreira do Coborn, estrela do music hall que a gravou várias vezes. Versa a canção as façanhas do trickster britânico Charles Wells (1841-1926) que falcatruava “investidores” no Reino Unido para financiar os seus ataques à mesa de roleta no Casino de Monte Carlo. Após as suas duas primeiras visitas, em que havia “rebentado com a mesa”, a sua notoriedade foi crescendo, possivelmente ajudado pela publicidade do próprio casino que assim lançava chamariz a outros que pensassem conseguir fazer o mesmo. Claro que não há fartura que não dê para o torto e Wells acabaria por ser depenado e preso por fraude na sua terceira visita, acabando por morrer na penúria em 1926.
I will not be “famous,” “great.” I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind and my eyes, refusing to be stamped and stereotyped. The thing is to free one’s self: to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded.
Virginia Woolf – A Writer’s Diary
Mudando completamente de paradigma volto-me para os belgas dEUS, provenientes de Antuérpia e que editaram este The Architect em 2008, no LP Vantage Point. “Ah, never mind that outer space stuff, let’s get down to earth” e “I feel it’s touch and go” são frases proferidas em palestras pelo próprio Buckminster Fuller, o visionário americano versado nesta composição de Tom Barman.
E continuo na senda de glorificação de americanos passando por um de dúbia reputação com os 11 minutos de Joey de Bob Dylan. Uma das canções de Desire e uma das muitas escritas em parceria com Jacques Levy, encenador de teatro e que aqui pinta um retrato altamente sensasionalista da figura de Joey Gallo, um gangster nova-iorquino morto a tiro em 1972 na Umbertos Clam House no bairro de Little Italy.
E acabo este troço com Debbie Reynolds a cantar I Ain’t Down Yet no filme Unsinkable Molly Brown de 1964. A senhora Brown do titulo era uma filantropa socialite americana nascida em 1867 e que faleceu em 1932 depois de conseguir escapar inclusive ao naufrágio do RMS Titanic onde ajudou muitos dos sobreviventes, até a convencerem a entrar no salva vidas nº 6.
No meio desta “chuva de estrelas” ainda arranjei uns quantos tributos literários. Logo quase ao principio escolhi Christie Laume a cantar Agathe Ou Christie mas o que dizer da verdadeira sequencia dedicadas às Letras um pouco mais à frente? Vanessa Daou a cantar a poesia de Erica Jong em Dear Anne Sexton; o bookworm Morrissey em Neal Cassady Drops Dead ou a Cristina Branco com Alice No País Dos Matraquilhos.
Habituados, ou pelo menos deformados, pelo pouco que se percebe sobre a fama se dependermos da Casa dos Segredos ou do Instagram como barómetro de tal coisa, olhamos à volta desta esfera vivencial em que a sombra dos 15 minutos de fama guilhotina a sensação que temos sobre o que é afinal a notoriedade e acabam por ser os actores de cinema e do pequeno écran que mais autografam esta playlist: San Cisco com Fred Astaire; a banda de Mick, Keith e Co com Pass The Wine (Sophia Loren); Mary Lou Fallis em Mary Pickford The Darling Of Them All; os russos Messer Chups e Vincent Price Is Coming to Russia, enquanto os black midi cantam sobre Marlene Dietrich.
Um triatlo de inglorious bastards com Primus a invocar Lee Van Cleef, John Grant a apelar por Ernest Borgnine e a defunta banda irlandesa Little Green Cars nomeando The John Wayne antes de fazerem uma nova banda chamada de Soda Blonde que o ano passado gravou o LP Small Talk. Os Bauhaus de Peter Murphy podem ter feito o brilhante Bela Lugosi Is Dead, no entanto é a Angelena Erin Anne que leva para casa o prémio com Eve Polastri’s Last Two Brain Cells Have A Debate, hino pós-punk em que a cantora transforma a protagonista da série de TV Killing Eve e revira a coisa toda numa metáfora sobre o desejo de romance e o complexo acto de encontrar o amor onde menos se espera.
Na semana em que começo com Fred Lowery a assobiar a William Tell Overture acabo com a SZA a cantar sobre a Drew Barrymore. Mesmo que imortalidade seja algo diferente de nunca morrer, vejam lá se não acham que esta coisa da fama está mesmo por um fio?
Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.
Oscar Wilde – The Importance of Being Earnest
#staysafe #musicfortheweekend
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I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there ’s a pair of us—don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Emily Dickinson
Writing songs is something that angels understand. Composing, arranging, meticulously growing it into a melody, which later (or during, depending on the method that each composer uses) is intertwined with words, knitted with meanings.
I, having already been involved in the creation of songs that came to rest embedded in the memory of those who heard them, live however eternally enthralled by the compositions of others, listening to them fascinated with the muses, primary sources of these felicity relics, memories that bring us recollections, musical representations, souvenirs of fantasies.
The funniest thing is that sometimes this inspiration comes not from intangible conceits but from existing living beings, some that have already been among us, or even some merely fictional ones functioning for the purpose of repertoire. That’s why this week I decided to dive into the stream of fame, sweet and bitter but ephemeral sea water foam that sweeps through the lives of those who are blessed by it and which, as we will see, has been a source of creative inspiration in the pop world. Be other artists who appear as figures of style, fictional characters, heroes and Egerias who are blowing inspiring winds into the sails of sonic creativity. Poets and pirates, maidens and diplomats, people who from their “place in the sun” still inspire and infuse divine wills into the consciousness of any human being in search of compass.
If I didn’t care for fun and such,
I’d probably amount to much.
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.
Dorothy Parker – Enough Rope
Everything as dictated by the rules already well defined here: a wink like having Ambrósio from Radar Kadafi singing about Brigitte Bardot and having straight away herself in the gainsbourgian classic Bonnie & Clyde. I went, as usual, in search of some more well-known ones, sprinkling the total with a sum of less conspicuous choices.
Some songs are obvious, Bowie’s Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin by Spencer Stephenson, who signs as Botany or even when Danny Kaye says I’m Hans Christian Andersen, in a choice taken from the soundtrack of the film produced by MGM in 1952. The scrolling intro says it all: “Once upon a time there lived in Denmark a great storyteller named Hans Christian Andersen. This is not the story of his life, but a fairy tale about the great spinner of fairy tales.”
Other options are perhaps a little more obscure in the perception of the source of poetic illumination: Patti Smith with Constantine’s Dream, a meditation that starts with the dream held by Emperor Constantine, instrumental in the conversion of the Romans to Christianity, but which also references Piero della Francesca, the Renaissance artist who died on the same day that Christopher Columbus supposedly shored the New World. With all this Smith crafts an intricate filigree about the environmental apocalypse of the 21st century. Phew, only an old Jehovah’s Witness to have these sort of ideas…
Or Charles Coborn telling us about The Man Who Broke The Bank At Monte Carlo, written in 1891 by Fred Gilbert and published by Francis, Day & Hunter, becoming the great success of Coborn’s career, a music hall star that recorded it several times. The song is about the exploits of British trickster Charles Wells (1841-1926) who swindled “investors” in the United Kingdom to finance his “attacks” on the roulette table at the Monte Carlo Casino. After his first two playing visits, in which he “blew up the table”, his notoriety grew, possibly helped by some advertising of the casino itself, thus launching a decoy to others who thought they could do the same. Of course, there’s no abundance that doesn’t go awry and Wells would eventually be “plucked” by bad luck and imprisoned for fraud on his third visit to the gambling den, eventually dying penniless in 1926.
I will not be “famous,” “great.” I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind and my eyes, refusing to be stamped and stereotyped. The thing is to free one’s self: to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded.
Virginia Woolf – A Writer’s Diary
Changing the paradigm completely, I turn to Belgian band dEUS, coming from Antwerp and who published The Architect in 2008, on the Vantage Point LP. “Ah, never mind that outer space stuff, let’s get down to earth” and “I feel it’s touch and go” are both phrases given in lectures by Buckminster Fuller himself, the American visionary versed in this idolatry by Tom Barman.
And I continue on the path of glorification of Americans going through one with dubious reputation in Bob Dylan’s 11 minutes or so of Joey. One of Desire’s songs and one of many written in partnership with Jacques Levy, a theater director who here paints a highly sensationalist portrait of the figure of Joey Gallo, a New York gangster shot dead in 1972 at Umbertos Clam House in the neighbourhood of Little Italy.
And I end this section with Debbie Reynolds singing I Ain’t Down Yet in the 1964 movie Unsinkable Molly Brown. The title’s lady Brown was an American socialite philanthropist born in 1867 and who died in 1932 after managing to escape even the sinking of the RMS Titanic where she helped many of the survivors, until they convinced her to enter lifeboat #6.
In the midst of this “star shower” I still got time for a few literary tributes. Right at the beginning I chose Christie Laume to sing Agathe Ou Christie but what about the real sequence dedicated to library lovers a little further on? Vanessa Daou singing Erica Jong’s poetry in Dear Anne Sexton; bookworm Morrissey with Neal Cassady Drops Dead or Cristina Branco hitting the rabbit hole in Alice No País Dos Matraquilhos.
Accustomed, or at least deformed, by so little that is understood about fame if we depend on the Big Brother show or Instagram as a barometer of such a thing, we look around this experiential sphere in which the shadow of 15 minutes of fame guillotines the feeling we have of what notoriety might be after all, so it turns out to be the movie and small screen actors who most autograph this playlist: San Cisco with Fred Astaire;Mick, Keith and Co’s band with Pass The Wine (Sophia Loren); Mary Lou Fallis in Mary Pickford The Darling Of Them All; Russians Messer Chups and Vincent Price Is Coming to Russia, while black midi sing about Marlene Dietrich.
A triathlon of “inglorious bastards” with Primus invoking Lee Van Cleef, John Grant calling out for Ernest Borgnine and the defunct Irish band Little Green Cars naming The John Wayne before forming a new band called Soda Blonde who last year recorded the LP Small Talk. Peter Murphy’s Bauhaus may have made the brilliant Bela Lugosi Is Dead, however it is Angelena Erin Anne who takes home the award with Eve Polastri’s Last Two Brain Cells Have A Debate, a post-punk anthem in which the singer transforms the protagonist from the Killing Eve TV series and turns the whole thing into a metaphor about the desire for romance and the complex act of finding love where you least expect it.
The week I start with Fred Lowery whistling the William Tell Overture I end up with SZA singing about Drew Barrymore. Even if immortality is something other than never dying, I ask everyone that made up to here if you don’t think this fame thingymajiggy isn’t really hanging by some sort of loose thread?
Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.
Oscar Wilde – The Importance of Being Earnest
#staysafe #musicfortheweekend
Fred Lowery – William Tell Overture
Frank Zappa – Bobby Brown Goes Down
Christie Laume – Agathe Ou Christie
San Cisco – Fred Astaire
The Rolling Stones – Pass The Wine (Sophia Loren)
OMD – Tesla Girls
Mary Lou Fallis – Mary Pickford The Darling Of Them All
Radar Kadafi – Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Bardot Et Serge Gainsbourg – Bonnie & Clyde
Foster The People – Houdini
Sparks – Edith Piaf (Said It Better Than Me)
The Divine Comedy – Catherine the Great
Kim Carnes – Bette Davis Eyes
The Modern Lovers – Pablo Picasso
Messer Chups – Vincent Price Is Coming to Russia
Patti Smith – Constantine’s Dream
Woody Guthrie – Jesus Christ
black midi – Marlene Dietrich
Charles Coborn – The Man Who Broke The Bank At Monte Carlo
Larry Verne – Mr. Custer
David Bowie – Andy Warhol (Leroy Schlimm Edit)
Janelle Monáe – Dorothy Dandridge Eyes ft. Esperanza Spalding
Shawn Lee’s Ping Pong Orchestra – Clint Eastwood
Danny Kaye – I’m Hans Christian Andersen
Robin Trower, Maxi Priest, Livingstone Brown – On Fire Like Zsa Zsa
Vanessa Daou – Dear Anne Sexton
Erin Anne – Eve Polastri’s Last Two Brain Cells Have A Debate
Morrissey – Neal Cassady Drops Dead
Cristina Branco – Alice No País Dos Matraquilhos
dEUS – The Architect
Primus – Lee Van Cleef
Al Stewart – Nostradamus
Simon & Garfunkel – So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright
Bob Dylan – Joey
Debbie Reynolds – I Ain’t Down Yet
John Grant – Ernest Borgnine
Botany – Janis Joplin
Little Green Cars – The John Wayne
Bauhaus – Bela Lugosi Is Dead
SZA – Drew Barrymore