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Utopian Turtletop. Monsieur Croche's Bête Noire. Contact: turtletop [at] hotmail [dot] com

Thursday, November 29, 2007



Do you know what’s groovy?
Have you seen the latest movie?
-- Johnny Mercer, “Conversation While Dancing,” 1944

The durability of slang: Neil Young used the exact same rhyme 30 years later. 30 years since Neil sang it, I find myself using other slang from Mercer’s song (music by bandleader Paul Weston): “May I hip you?”

* * *

The kid and I did some singing and playing at the piano after dinner from a chord-and-word songbook (you have to know the melodies). I’d never sung “Octopus’s Garden” -- and it’s soo sweet -- the touch of melancholy -- I’d like to be . . . elsewhere. I’m tempted to work up an arrangement.

“Red River Valley” made me cry. The sorrow of parting -- I thought of mortality. My friend Jim T. loves this song, and we sang it at his house a few months ago. The kid noted how the song sounded sad and he almost cried.

* * *

Dept. of coincidences: On the day that I praised Wanda Landowska’s playing of Bach at the expense of Glenn Gould’s, Bernard Holland did the same thing
in a New York Times piece on Gould: “Wanda Landowska is still my favorite Bach player.”

Via Ron Silliman.

* * *

I haven’t seen the film of Red River Valley. Am curious.




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