{"id":2795,"date":"2011-12-30T22:38:54","date_gmt":"2011-12-31T03:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/?p=2795"},"modified":"2015-09-26T14:03:20","modified_gmt":"2015-09-26T18:03:20","slug":"the-age-of-dross-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/?p=2795","title":{"rendered":"The Age of Dross Begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Theme Songs Page<\/a> | Previous Theme Song<\/a> | Next Theme Song<\/a><\/p>\n

The Age of Dross Begins<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The King Must Die! By Bernie Taupin and Elton John, performed by Elton John (1970), encountered 1970?<\/h3>\n

\u00a0Buy it here<\/a> | See it here<\/a> | Lyrics here<\/a><\/p>\n

Icarus, by Ralph Towner, performed by the Paul Winter Consort (1970), encountered 1971<\/h3>\n

\u00a0Buy it here<\/a> | See it here<\/a> | Sheet music here<\/a><\/p>\n

The albums piled up in the room of my housemate Otts, the music editor of the arts supplement to the campus paper.\u00a0 In fragmentary but decided fashion they told the tale: The three-minute song was growing obsolete.\u00a0 Singer-songwriters were now artistes, with all the pretensions that went with the role.\u00a0 Monaural AM was no longer a reliable place to hear the good new stuff.<\/p>\n

The musical Age of Gold in which I had grown up was just about over.\u00a0 Whatever the merits of whatever was coming next, it wouldn’t be the gold I still wanted.\u00a0 Wanted so badly, in fact, that I was willing to squint extra hard to see it in all the new vinyl that came sluicing into our house.<\/p>\n

But of course when you squint, you are apt to see things that aren\u2019t, strictly speaking, uh, there.<\/p>\n

But Then Again No<\/h3>\n

One artist who turned up on Otts\u2019 floor at this juncture in whom I ended up trying hard to see the gold was Elton John.\u00a0 And he was some kind of gold isotope: he had the voice and the mannerisms to deliver a song, as well as the ear to compose catchy melodies.\u00a0 The trouble was, his lyricist was Bernie Taupin.\u00a0 That is sort of like Beethoven trying to be a great composer while limited to writing for the kazoo.<\/p>\n

When John\u2019s first significant album came out, I really tried to look past the lyrics.\u00a0 That first number, Your Song<\/em>, as a melody, was everything a pop love song could be.\u00a0 But the awful lyrics were right there:<\/p>\n

If I were a sculptor, but then again no.<\/em><\/address>\n
Or a man who makes potions in the traveling show<\/em><\/address>\n

No<\/em>, what?\u00a0 Or is the no<\/em> there just to rhyme with show<\/em>, which itself caps off a verse referencing a skill completely irrelevant to the singer\u2019s aspiration to show the beloved how much he loves her?[1]\u00a0 If not, name the task for which sculpture is inadequate but for which potion-making could be considered an improvement?\u00a0 If Taupin were a lyricist, but then again no \u2026<\/p>\n

I could go on.\u00a0 The thing was, I was still listening to the album a lot because of John\u2019s magnetism as a singer.\u00a0 But it kept not being utterly wonderful.<\/p>\n

Ostlers, Mercenaries and Other Pointless Imagery<\/h3>\n

The song that ended the album was the one I played the most: The King Must Die!<\/em>\u00a0 To a student reading Chaucer and Shakespeare as I was at the moment, the medievalism and renaissancery of the lyrics, not to mention the dramatic central situation suggested by the title, was enough to hook me.\u00a0 Yet I kept not loving it as much as I wanted.\u00a0 Coming back to it 40 years later (and I include the beginning lyrics in an endnote so the reader can come back to it too),[2] it smacks me in the face: Who\u2019s talking and who\u2019s listening?\u00a0 Stanzas 1-4 seem to be addressing a \u201cking,\u201d although there\u2019s a strong hint he may simply be an everyman.\u00a0 Stanza 5 sounds more like a response by the king.\u00a0 But there are no clues in the music or the delivery.\u00a0 In any case, the king seems to be in an ominous (in the literal sense of the word) situation.\u00a0 But the omens seem wide of the mark: \u201cTell the ostler that his name was \/ The very first they chose.\u201d\u00a0 Well, so what?\u00a0 Ostlers aren\u2019t kings, and usually aren\u2019t even addressed by kings. \u00a0What\u2019s so bad for the king that someone chose the ostler?\u00a0 Chosen for what?\u00a0 And why are mercenaries singing in cloisters?\u00a0 Shouldn\u2019t it be monks?[3]\u00a0 And if you must worry about mercenaries, isn’t it actually more reassuring to have them singing in cloisters than besieging your towns? In any case, the dramatic gravity of the music, underlined by Paul Buckmaster\u2019s masterful arrangements, is utterly unearned.<\/p>\n

At this point it would be a reasonable objection that Dylan did lots of the same thing.\u00a0 I admit it, it\u2019s true.\u00a0 I\u2019ve even written about that strain of Dylan right in this blog.<\/a>\u00a0 It\u2019s just that Dylan was a genius who could get away with that sort of thing.[4]\u00a0 And for that matter, Chaucerian touches worked well for Procol Harum in A Whiter Shade of Pale<\/em>, even though there, as here, they didn\u2019t add up to much.\u00a0 But then that song was deliberately mysterious and impenetrable; that diverting talk about millers and hosts was meant to be disorienting, along with psychedelicisms about the ceiling flying away.<\/p>\n

As I say, I listened to the album a lot, but interestingly, when I look back, I see I wrote at the time that: \u201cwith big new stars, like, say, Elton John, it\u2019s impossible to determine, from their albums alone, whether they deserve their status or not, after you take into account the hype and arranging in back of them.\u201d\u00a0 So I guess I never quite convinced myself, even though now the source of my discomfort has little to do with the hype.<\/p>\n

Reviewing Against the Grain<\/h3>\n

The comment I just quoted came from a review I wrote (at Otts\u2019 suggestion) of the Paul Winter Consort\u2019s Road<\/em> album.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

Today, Paul Winter and his saxophone and his ensembles are shelved with the New Age musicians.\u00a0 I tried to write about them as if they were to be considered along with rockers, likening the album to Sgt. Pepper<\/em>.\u00a0 My license to draw the comparison was the strong use of classical music elements in both, and the willingness of both albums to draw inspiration from anywhere.\u00a0 But I tried to sell Paul Winter to my audience as if he and his consort were some kind of act to compare with, for instance, other acts mentioned in that issue of the paper: Laura Nyro, Richie Havens, the Youngbloods, Seatrain.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t smart enough to take in that there were things out there besides classical, jazz, and rock \u2013 and that eclecticism didn\u2019t necessarily lump an act with rockers.\u00a0 This was my introduction to a new flavor, but my musical taxonomy wasn\u2019t up to it.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t wrong, though, about finding it fascinating, powerful music.\u00a0 My Theme Song from the album \u2013 which has become Paul Winter\u2019s own theme song, even though it was written by the guitarist in the Consort, Ralph Towner \u2013 was Icarus<\/em>. The mythical Icarus, the fabricator of wings, flew too near the sun and paid with his life for his presumption.\u00a0 Towner\u2019s Icarus, so far as I can make out from the song, just discovers how intoxicating it is to fly.\u00a0 The music is all about soaring, not falling.\u00a0 There are wistful minor chords, to be sure, but just to make your breath catch as he upshifts into the major.<\/p>\n

Not Bad for Not Rock<\/h3>\n

It is one of the great melodies, and covered in subsequent years by artists of all stripes.\u00a0 I am particularly fond of a cover by Towner himself with a couple of other guitarists, of which there is a fine YouTube video here<\/a> and of a cover by jazz pianist Stef Scaggiari<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A wonderful thing, but not rock gold, because not rock.\u00a0 Maybe the reason, apart from my naivete, that I tried so hard to sell it to my contemporary 1971 readers as some kind of rock substitute was that if I had acknowledged it was something different and sui generis<\/em> (at that time, anyhow), I\u2019d have to acknowledge I was getting somewhat to one side of the popular tastes of the day, going back to being a bit of a wonk, as I\u2019d started out.\u00a0 Maybe, except for this: there is nothing wonkish about that sublime melody.\u00a0 Listen to it, and you\u2019ll want to soar too.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n

[1]\u00a0\u00a0 Well, if it is a her.\u00a0 We all know now about John\u2019s sexual orientation, but at that time he was in the closet to his American fans.\u00a0 (He apparently came out as bisexual in 1976<\/a>, but it was only much later that he self-identified as gay.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[2]\u00a0\u00a0 No man’s a jester playing Shakespeare<\/em><\/p>\n

Round your throne room floor<\/em><\/address>\n
While the juggler’s act is danced upon<\/em><\/address>\n
The crown that you once wore<\/em><\/address>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/address>\n
And sooner or later<\/em><\/address>\n
Everybody’s kingdom must end<\/em><\/address>\n
And I’m so afraid your courtiers<\/em><\/address>\n
Cannot be called best friends<\/em><\/address>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/address>\n
Caesar’s had your troubles<\/em><\/address>\n
Widows had to cry<\/em><\/address>\n
While mercenaries in cloisters sing<\/em><\/address>\n
And the king must die<\/em><\/address>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/address>\n
Some men are better staying sailors<\/em><\/address>\n
Take my word and go<\/em><\/address>\n
But tell the ostler that his name was<\/em><\/address>\n
The very first they chose<\/em><\/address>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/address>\n
And if my hands are stained forever<\/em><\/address>\n
And the altar should refuse me<\/em><\/address>\n
Would you let me in, would you let me in, would you let me in<\/em><\/address>\n
Should I cry sanctuary<\/em><\/address>\n

[3]\u00a0 And I’ll confess I’m charmed by the “Roman cavalry choirs were singing” in Coldplay’s Viva la Vida<\/em> (2008) — but Coldplay also know what they’re doing with the lyrics.\u00a0 In their hands this is clearly an extravagant metaphor for the exalted feelings one experiences while successful in love.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[4]\u00a0\u00a0 Similarly, compare two couplets, one from Taupin, one from Dylan, that describe things that cannot possibly happen to a piece of headwear:<\/p>\n

Taupin: While the juggler’s act is danced upon<\/em><\/address>\n
The crown that you once wore<\/em><\/address>\n
\u00a0<\/address>\n
Dylan: You know it balances on your head<\/em><\/address>\n
Just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine<\/em><\/address>\n

(From Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat<\/em> (1966).)\u00a0 Dylan knows he\u2019s spewing nonsense, with the aim of making you laugh.\u00a0 Dylan knows mattresses don\u2019t \u00a0balance on bottles of wine, leading to a busted simile; that\u2019s what makes it funny. Taupin is trying to be portentous but fails to notice that he\u2019s describing the literally impossible.\u00a0 That what makes it unimpressive.\u00a0 Advantage Dylan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[5]\u00a0\u00a0 34th<\/sup> Street, February 25, 1971 at 8.<\/p>\n

Copyright (c) Jack L. B. Gohn, except for album art<\/p>\n

Theme Songs Page<\/a> | Previous Theme Song<\/a> | Next Theme Song<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The musical Age of Gold in which I had grown up was just about over. Whatever the merits of whatever was coming next, it wouldn’t be the gold I still wanted. Wanted so badly, in fact, that I was willing to squint extra hard to see it in all the new vinyl that came sluicing into our house. But of course when you squint, you are apt to see things that aren\u2019t, strictly speaking, uh, there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,968],"tags":[3152,3145,3146,3160,2688,3142,3161,3137,3139,3159,2956,3138,3149,3154,3163,1200,3153,3150,3140,3151,3141,3155,3148,3156,2305,3143,3158,1972,3147,3157,3144,3162,979],"class_list":["post-2795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-closeup","category-theme-songs","tag-a-whiter-shade-of-pale","tag-am-monaural","tag-bernie-taupin","tag-bisexual","tag-bob-dylan","tag-campus-newspaper","tag-coldplay","tag-dross","tag-elton-john","tag-gay","tag-geoffrey-chaucer","tag-gold","tag-icarus","tag-laura-nyro","tag-leopard-skin-pill-box-hat","tag-ludwig-van-beethoven","tag-new-age","tag-paul-buckmaster","tag-paul-winter","tag-procol-harum","tag-ralph-towner","tag-richie-havens","tag-road","tag-seatrain","tag-sgt-pepper","tag-singer-songwriters","tag-stef-scaggiari","tag-the-beatles","tag-the-king-must-die","tag-the-youngbloods","tag-three-minute-songs","tag-viva-la-vida","tag-william-shakespeare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2795"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5522,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2795\/revisions\/5522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}