R.E.M.: Requiem for a Heavyweight Band

I was listening to Lucinda Williams from her 1993 Live at the Filmore (West) yesterday morning early, watching the birds out my back door. I was on one of my reveries, this one about lyrics, Lucinda's Reason to Cry and Fruits of My Labor.

And then the news I'd caught by accident a few days earlier hit home: R.E.M. was gone.

The band announced via its website that as of September 21, 2011, the band would "calling it a day as a band". (Hilton, Robin (September 21, 2011). "R.E.M. Calls It A Day, Announces Breakup" NPR.org.)

A year ago. The end of carrying on since Bill left for his farm in 1997. And all this time I thought they might be hunkered down in a studio. The obits pile up too quickly these days

Think of it this way. We were shiny, happy people in our glory days.

R.E.M. & Kate Pierson rehearse Shiny Happy People - 1991 (for SNL)

And some of us are angry:

Orange Crush (live in Germany, 2003)

And often reflective, as I was sitting yesterday morning, having my coffee and watching the birds in the early morning light.

Nightswimming (Michel Stipe vocals, Mike Mills piano;
Undated, Live in Jool, Netherlands)

Yeah, reflective, like the mood I'm in now. Michael, Peter, Mike and Bill -- to your band R.E.M., Requiescat in Pace.

Alison Krauss and Yo Yo Ma: "Slumber My Darling" (Stephen Foster)

Here is a beautiful "old school" folk song reinterpreted by folk's best modern vocalist with a world class string ensemble.

Beautiful Dreamer, a 2005 compilation album of Stephen Foster's work, won the Grammy that year for Best Traditional Folk Album. Here are Alison Krauss and Yo Yo Ma performing Slumber My Darling -- their track appearing on this all-star collection.

The Passing of a Pioneer, Bettie Page

Bettie Page on the bow of a classic wooden Chris Craft.

Bettie Page was the ground-breaking pinup model of the 1950s -- the lone talent to shatter all the taboos and, eventually, open up America to mainstream artistic female nudity, erotica, and non-mainstream work such as bondage photos. Ever joyful in front of a camera, we owe her a lot. She helped free this country from it's now-pointless puritan roots.

With her December passing, she will be missed, and continue to be admired.

Bettie, you were the best. Requiescat in pace.

Music of the '80s That Matters: "Fortress Around Your Heart"

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Fortress Around Your Heart: Sting & Co.

Fortress Around Your Heart is from Sting's first solo effort after The Police disbanded -- the trio has never officially broken up. That album, Dream of the Blue Turtles (1985),
is Sting's attempt to form a serious jazz band fused with, well, Sting.

In the film Bring on the Night, director Michael Apted documents the promotional tour preparation process. The live album Bring on the Night covers the tour itself; the clip above is from this tour.

And when I say all-star jazz band, I mean all-star jazz band -- just check out the lineup here. The Branford Marsalis saxophone mojo is just the start.

With such a timeless allegorical love poem as this, you deserve nothing less than access to the lyrics. They are reprinted below. Be prepared to totally dig this tune.

"Fortress Around Your Heart"
(-- Sting, album version lyrics)

Under the ruins of a walled city
Crumbling towers and beams of yellow light
No flags of truce, no cries of pity
The siege guns had been pounding all through the night
It took a day to build the city
We walked through its streets in the afternoon
As I returned across the fields I'd known
I recognized the walls that I once made
I had to stop in my tracks for fear
Of walking on the mines I'd laid

And if I built this fortress
Around your heart
Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire
Then let me build a bridge
For I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire

Then I went off to fight some battle
That I'd invented inside my head
Away so long for years and years
You probably thought or even wished that I was dead
While the armies are all sleeping
Beneath the tattered flag we'd made
I had to stop in my tracks for fear
Of walking on the mines I'd laid

And if I built this fortress around your heart
Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire
Then let me build a bridge
For I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire
....

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".... You Got the Fight, You Got the Insight ..."

Joni Mitchell's Shine

Ms. Mitchell's first album of new music in a decade -- she's been devoting herself to her painting and visual arts work -- is, go figure, an element of a ballet score. Even if some critics find the Shine album uneven in quality, the heights she reaches with both the tract If and the ballet score adventure, are the blood and guts of what sets great art, and artists, a step above.

The track If contains the lyric-quote-title of this post -- one among the many insights here into the nature of our lives these days. Joni is, again, using her poetic and compositional talent to guide us on our furrowed path.

For those who want to learn more about Ms. Mitchell's career and musical legacy, see both Wikipedia's essay and also, humbly offered, my post on her album Blue.

Shine on, Joni, shine on!
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The Louis Armstrong of Opera

In my adult life, one man embodied the heart and soul of opera to those of us who gave a damn about great music. We lost that man last night. As the Washington Post put it this morning:

... Millions of listeners who never came close to setting foot in an opera house knew and loved Pavarotti through his countless appearances on television and in stadium concerts -- especially the spectacularly successful Three Tenors marathons with Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras. The Decca recording of their first collaboration became far and away the best-selling classical album in history, with upward of 15 million copies distributed to date. ....

Luciano Pavarotti, requiescat in pace.

Yo, Cobain, Hendrix, Van Zandt, and Patsy fans -- so you think you don't like classical music?

One of the reasons why Carnal Reason blog taking a sabbatical is a necessary but, for us, nasty medicine -- rest assured, the editor deserves the time off -- is the guiding vision it provides, agree or not.

Case in point:

Bachbusters

Are you a fan of any of the music in the categories on the right sidebar? If you think you don't care for, or indeed dislike, classical music -- think again, dude. The Editor-on-Sabbatical of Carnal Reason turned me on to J. S. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor on 3rd generation Moog synthesizers. Trust me, it rocks!

Rest in Peace, Robert Moog.

See you soon, Ciceronian blogger.

May the rain fall softy on your fields.
(-- an Irish toast)

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