{"id":13836,"date":"2021-01-26T08:44:01","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T08:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=154551"},"modified":"2021-01-26T08:44:01","modified_gmt":"2021-01-26T08:44:01","slug":"haunting-melodies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/26\/haunting-melodies\/","title":{"rendered":"Haunting Melodies"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Witchcraft<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a year of plague, election tension, and fascism fears, I re-discovered \u2013 along with Single-Malt Whisky — the American Songbook. These standards, written from the 1920s to early 1960s, were mostly composed for movies, musical theatre or sheet music sales, but achieved their best realization in concerts, clubs and recording studios. They were performed by Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Nelson Riddle, and many others, and still form the basis of many jazz and blues arrangements and improvisations.<\/p>\n

This music was for me an escape. Through it, I experienced a \u201cNight in Tunisia<\/a>\u201d \u201cAutumn in New York<\/a>\u201d \u201cApril in Paris<\/a>\u201d \u201cMoonlight in Vermont<\/a>\u201d and \u201cA Foggy Day in London Town<\/a>\u201d. In this hazy world of Standard Songs, love was always in bloom<\/a> and every moon<\/a> was blue. But the more I listened during the months leading up to the election and then inauguration, the less escape I actually found. Even the most anodyne of songs seemed to me haunted by the pandemic, neo-fascism, the climate crisis, economic inequality, systemic racism, and of course, the evils of Him-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.<\/p>\n

Was it witchcraft<\/a>? Or was it PTSD arising from four years of news as insistent and percussive as bombs heard in wartime? My psychologist told me I wasn\u2019t alone in my sickness, and that many of his patients (he specializes in treating professors and university students) were also having a hard time. \u201cEven life\u2019s basic pleasures\u201d, he told me, \u201cfor example good food, pleasure reading, and the bed [he\u2019s rather discrete about sexual matters], are experienced in a distracted or alienated manner.\u201d He prescribed for me a musical talking cure perfect for academics: listen to my favorite songs, read about them, and write down my thoughts. After that, he offered, I might once again be able to enjoy Sinatra.<\/p>\n

So, what follows are edited transcripts of four, self-administered music therapy sessions, conducted over about a week. I can right away attest that some of my worst symptoms have now abated: I can enjoy Sinatra and the others without immediately reflecting upon our still doleful political circumstances. But I don\u2019t know how much to attribute to the therapy, and how much to the image in my mind of Him-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named flying off in his helicopter to the Place-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named.<\/p>\n

Session One: January 15, 2020: \u201cAs Time Goes By<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAs Time Goes By\u201d is a well-known, romantic ballad. Sung by Dooley Wilson in Casablanca<\/em> in 1942, it\u2019s also an anti-fascist song.<\/p>\n

In 1937, Rudy\u00a0Vall\u00e9e\u00a0<\/a>recorded an excellent version, sung without the pleading sentimentality that was his unfortunate trademark. It also includes the verse — a short, introductory song — that sets the table for the subsequent refrains. In most recordings of \u201cAs Time Goes By,\u201d it\u2019s omitted, which is a shame because it includes several clever rhymes:<\/p>\n

\n

This day and age we’re living in
\nGives cause for apprehension
\nWith speed and new invention
\nAnd things like fourth dimension.<\/p>\n

Yet we get a trifle weary
\nWith Mr. Einstein’s theory.
\nSo, we must get down to earth at times
\nRelax relieve the tension<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But however good the verse, the song that follows, and Vall\u00e9e\u2019s rendition, it was the performance by Dooley Wilson in the Academy Award winning film Casablanca<\/em> (Best Picture, 1942) that made \u201cAs Time Goes By\u201d a hit and gave it political punch. (Unfortunately, and too typically, it wasn\u2019t the African American Wilson who got rich on the song, it was Rudy Vall\u00e9e. A musician\u2019s strike curtailed the number of recordings made between 1942 and \u201944, so RCA Victor simply re-released Vall\u00e9e\u2019s old version.)<\/p>\n

In the mid 1930s, Wilson, who was a drummer and actor as well as singer, worked in the Federal Theatre Project, Negro Theatre Unit in Harlem. There he had lead roles in The Conjur Man Dies<\/em><\/a>, by the African-American novelist Rudolph Fisher, as well as Androcles and the Lion<\/em> by G.B. Shaw, both directed by John Houseman. Additional theatre work for him however, was foreclosed in 1939 when the FTP was defunded by Congress over charges that it supported \u201cracial equality\u201d and \u201cCommunist dictatorship and practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was some truth to the charges. Among other works staged by the FTP in New York and across the country was \u201cIt Can\u2019t Happen Here,\u201d based upon Sinclair Lewis\u2019s 1935 novel of the same title. It concerned the rise in the U.S. of a Hitlerian \u2013 I\u2019d now say Trumpian — figure named Buzz Windrip. Elected president on a populist platform of economic reform, patriotism, and traditional values, he quickly organized a paramilitary force called the Minute Men, built concentration camps for dissenters, dissolved congress and invaded Mexico. We can be glad Trump settled for a wall.<\/p>\n

Dooley\u2019s version of \u201cAs Time Goes By\u201d, sung from the piano in “Rick’s Caf\u00e9 Am\u00e9ricain,” omits the witty opening verse and its theme of speed and modernity, focusing attention instead on the idea that love can be a force of political or even military solidarity: \u201cA fight for love and glory\/A case of do or die.\u201d Casablanca<\/em>, you will recall, concerned the broken-off love affair of Rick and Ilsa, (played by Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman), and their struggle over some \u201cletters of transit\u201d for a Czech resistance fighter named Victor Lazlo (acted by Paul Henreid), who was also Ilsa\u2019s lover. In the end of course, Rick surrenders the documents to Lazlo, and sacrifices his relationship with Ilsa for the greater good — a \u201ccase of do or die\u201d:<\/p>\n

Casablanca<\/em> was clearly anti-Nazi, or Antifa. Rick\u2019s staff and patrons held secret meetings, provided mutual aid, staged counter protests (loudly singing the Marseillaise<\/em> while a group of Nazis sang Watch on the Rhine<\/em>), deployed physical and verbal harassment, damaged property, doxed (all those real and phony letters of transit), and in only one case used deadly violence — the killing of Nazi Major Strasser in order to protect Ilsa and Lazlo. \u201cAs Time Goes By,\u201d sung by Dooley Wilson, is thus an Antifa anthem. And the fact that it\u2019s sung by a Black man in a caf\u00e9 frequently raided by the collaborationist Vichy government, reveals it to be critical of systemic American racism as well as Nazi racial violence.<\/p>\n

Session Two, January 19, 2020: \u201cWe\u2019ll Be Together Again<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The song was written in 1945 while World War II was still raging, but the war\u2019s end was clearly in sight. The first chorus is frank but generally reassuring:<\/p>\n

\n

No tear, no fear
\nRemember there\u2019s always tomorrow
\nSo what if we have to part
\nWe\u2019ll be together again<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

However, the slow tempo and low notes work against that message, as do the lines: \u201cYour kiss\/Your smile\/Are memories I’ll treasure forever,\u201d suggesting that the lover may never see the beloved again.<\/p>\n

The song was a hit in 1947 for Frankie Laine<\/a>, a crooner in the Sinatra mode, and for Frank<\/a> himself in 1956. That version, like many of Sinatra\u2019s covers in that period, is often considered definitive, but for me, the performance of the song by Tony Bennet and Bill Evans in 1975 is tops. Bennet\u2019s baritone, thick vibrato and sheer volume are a cry of defiance against loneliness and fear. And Bill Evans\u2019 rhythmic variety and complex harmonies work as counterpoint to the weight of Bennett\u2019s singing. The song and this performance recall to mind the isolation experienced by so many during the Covid pandemic, and the news today that 400,000 have died of the disease \u2013 many of them as the result of government inaction and incompetence. Most of us will get through the plague, but the unlucky will have to be remembered through a kiss and smile that survivors will \u201ctreasure forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Session Three, January 20, 2020: \u201cHappy Days are Here Again<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t think of many sadder songs than \u201cHappy Days are Here Again<\/a>\u201d (Ager and Yellen). First performed for the finale of the musical film Chasing Rainbows<\/em> (1930, Charles Resiner, dir.), \u201cHappy Days\u201d is a song about historical transition. Near the end of the movie, the character played by comic actress Marie Dressler introduces the song with the lines: \u201cThe armistice is signed! The war is over!\u201d<\/a> (18:35 sec.) But the joy feels entirely forced, the laughter as artificial as the nearly two minute-long, solo laughter scene performed with Dada exuberance by Bessie Love<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no surprise therefore that the song was deployed by Franklin Roosevelt for his presidential campaign of 1932. Only a song with the lyric: \u201cLet us sing a song of cheer again\u2026\u201d could have so effectively reminded listeners during the Great Depression about the extent of their own suffering and President Hebert Hoover\u2019s failures. (Hoover and his party, like Republicans during the Great Recession, preached budget austerity as a cure for the Depression.) Roosevelt won in a landslide.<\/p>\n

But Democrats made a mistake, I think, by adopting \u201cHappy Days\u201d as their semi-official song for decades thereafter. If Hubert Humphrey hadn\u2019t used it so often during his campaign in 1968 (including at the Democratic Nation Convention in Chicago while protesters outside were being clubbed), maybe he would have defeated Nixon. Every time it was played, people thought about dead American soldiers in Vietnam. It became the soundtrack of grief and tears.<\/p>\n

Today, \u201cHappy Days are Here Again\u201d is rarely performed. If President Biden\u2019s array of executive orders tonight, countermanding some of the most egregious of Trumps assaults on immigrants and the environment bring us joy, we won\u2019t sing \u201cHappy Days\u201d or the equally depressing \u201cPut on a Happy Face<\/a>\u201d (1962). Instead, we may listen to the tragi-comic \u201cSmile<\/a>\u201d (1936), sung with devastating pathos by Judy Garland in 1954, or of course At Last<\/a> recorded by Etta James in 1961.<\/p>\n

Session 4, January 22: \u201cI Can\u2019t Get Started with You<\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Regardless of the ceremony at the capital this week, the new regime, as far as I\u2019m concerned, was inaugurated on January 6. That\u2019s when Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff (the Black guy and the Jew!), were declared victors in the Georgia Senate races, tipping the balance of the U.S. Senate to the Democrats. The era of Mitch McConnell, the most brilliant and diabolical Majority Leader since Lyndon Johnson, was over, at least for now. 1\/6 was also, of course, the date of the failed coup at the Capital. On that day, the sickness that had overtaken the country, fascism and its buttresses \u2013 big lies, white supremacy and anti-Semitism \u2013 were on full display. But within hours, Congressional and public revulsion at the raid meant that the struggle against fascism could now be waged openly and with zeal. At least one para-military organization, I read yesterday, the Proud Boys<\/a>, is already in retreat, but these are admittedly early days.<\/p>\n

As I watched the Congressional confirmation of Biden\u2019s election on 1\/6 following the jacquerie<\/em><\/a> at the Capital, I was especially drawn to Billie Holiday\u2019s performance of Vernon Duke and Ira Gershwin\u2019s great, \u201cI Can\u2019t Get Started with You.\u201d The first chorus is striking for its 1930s topicality:<\/p>\n

\n

I’ve flown around the world in a plane
\nI’ve settled revolutions in Spain
\nThe North Pole I have charted, but I can’t get
\nStarted with you<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Gershwin\u2019s line about \u201crevolutions in Spain\u201d was unusual, not least for its reference to the anarcho-socialist revolution in Spain in February 1936. In fact, the Gershwins were enthusiastic, if perhaps unsophisticated anti-fascists. Their musical \u201cLet \u2018Em Eat Cake\u201d (1933) was concerned with the successful efforts of the fictional President Wintergreen and Vice President Throttlebottom to reverse their electoral defeat and establish a comically incompetent fascist dictatorship. Along the way, there is an electoral appeal to the Supreme Court, an impeachment, hostage taking and aborted executions of the president and vice president. Everything sounds very He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, except the aborted<\/em> executions \u2013 the disgraced ex-president managed 13 of them in his last six months.<\/p>\n

\u201cI Can\u2019t Get Started\u201d was recorded by trumpeter and vocalist Bunny Berrigan<\/a> in 1937 — and he scored a big hit with it. His treatment has an easy, New Orleans feel to it. It\u2019s sung behind the beat, with the trumpet licks clearly influenced by Louis Armstrong. In fact, Armstrong refused to record the song himself because \u201cit belongs to my boy Bunny Berrigan.\u201d But good as it is, Berrigan\u2019s version pales beside the one recorded by Billie Holiday two years later. That performance takes full advantage of the singer\u2019s melodic improvisation and legato. The warmth and feeling of her low notes in the minor key bridge, (\u201cYou’re so supreme, lyrics I write of you\/Scheme\u201d) — can\u2019t be topped, nor can the relaxed accompaniment by the great tenor sax player, Lester Young.<\/p>\n

The song is about somebody sitting on top of the world, victorious in every domain except the one that will bring real joy. That sense of hollow pleasure resonates today among the those of us lucky enough to be housed, employed (or financially solvent), while so many others are not. And it reminds me that the election by itself has settled very little, and that unless Biden can force through a progressive program of economic relief, vaccine support, green infrastructure investment and environmental regulation, and police and immigration reform, we may in two years be back to where we were, and a new and more competent Wintergreen running for president.<\/p>\n

This week, I told my shrink: \u201cI think I\u2019m doing a bit better, especially since the inauguration. I even bought myself a new set of headphones to better enjoy Frank and the rest.\u201d He was gratified that his treatment had exorcised my demons and that I was enjoying music again. But he cautioned: \u201cWe just don\u2019t know how long the relief will last.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The post Haunting Melodies<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Witchcraft In a year of plague, election tension, and fascism fears, I re-discovered \u2013 along with Single-Malt Whisky \u2014 the American Songbook. These standards, written from the 1920s\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13836"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13837,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13836\/revisions\/13837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}