[Music] Knowledge you've acquired through songs or band names.

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

@Harry Wilson's tackle judging by your emoji reaction you didn't understand my reference, which was to the obvious benefits you reap from your fondness for ignore function

Yeah. You're right.

And I'm still in the dark.

I may have to do some research.

Edit: research done, OK up to speed now

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Frankie Teardrop by suicide is based on a true story…a song you only listen to once it was once said.

It’s a hard listen and if you are a bit depressed don’t listen to it.

I didn't know it was about a specific event, although assumed it was.

I somewhat altered the mood at a party round an acquaintance's house in the late 70s when I put that record on.

The acquaintance was James Forlong......

Sky reporter took his life after row over fake footage

The Sky News reporter James Forlong committed suicide when he lost his job after making false claims in a television report, an inquest was told yesterday.

www.independent.co.uk

All I can say is I hope John Giorno's stuff is fiction.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

When I found out what to do when the sirens go off.



Edit: fun fact. The 'Reagan' voice is Chris Barrie. Arnold Judas Rimmer.

 

[Algernon]

A house should be built from concrete, and not cans and sticks, or straw.

 

[Bodian]

I opened this thread assuming it would be full of things like finding out what Gordon was, and other throwaway lines. But it's actually one of the more serious threads on the board! Congratulations all.

I'll add American Pie - as I knew nothing about Buddy Holly.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I listened to Desire by Bob Dylan a few times yesterday, for the first time in a few years, the track 'Joey' has been mentioned in this thread. I paid this track a lot more attention than I have in the past...it's quite a song isnt it?

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Frankie Teardrop by suicide is based on a true story…a song you only listen to once it was once said.

It’s a hard listen and if you are a bit depressed don’t listen to it.

Great album. I recently bought this on repressed vinyl, lovely stuff. Alan Vega's estate has been releasing some stuff from his vault recently, some is really good...almost rockabilly like.

 

[GJN1]

As a man, I'm grateful to have learned that the best thing - literally the best thing – about being a woman is the prerogative to have a little fun.

Gives me a real insight into how women work.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Top thread @marlowe

 

[aberllefenni]

Introduced to the works of adopted son of Lewes, Thomas Paine, by The Men They Couldn't Hang on their track The Colours

In the mid-80's I heard Listoonvarna by Christy Moore. A few of us planned to go to the festival, only to discover it had reverted to a matchmaking fair following a riot in 1983.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

How Trotsky died.

How Rasputin died

 

[Lady Whistledown]

I learned, conversely, that if you don't pay the ferryman until he gets you to the other side, you'll be sitting at Dover for a very long time.

 

[Pinkie Brown]

Being a fan of New Model Army and The Levellers gave me more insight into the English Civil War than those two wasted school years of not being interested, thus obtaining a naff CSE grade in history.

 

[marlowe]

I listened to Desire by Bob Dylan a few times yesterday, for the first time in a few years, the track 'Joey' has been mentioned in this thread. I paid this track a lot more attention than I have in the past...it's quite a song isnt it?

What's interesting about that song is the way Dylan used the tradition of romanticising old American outlaws in a ballad and applied it to a contemporary mobster.

Dylan had previously romanticised Billy the Kid on his "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" soundtrack and he also identifies with Jesse James in his song "Outlaw Blues" and he covered Woody Guthrie's romanticised portrait of Pretty Boy Floyd.

Usually our perceptions of such outlaw characters are softenened and coloured by the mists of time but when Dylan wrote that song in around 1975 (album was released Jan 76) Gallo's life and death in 1972 was still relatively recent, so there was not that same detachment to the reality of what a nasty piece of work Gallo was.

He wasn't called "Crazy" Joe for nothing... mentally unstable/schizophrenic hit man, enforcer, extortionist, kidnapper.... although he did have a side to his character that may have endeared him to Dylan. According to someone who served time with him Gallo was "articulate and had excellent verbal skills being able to describe gouging a man's guts out with the same eloquent ease that he used when discussing classical literature."

I've often wondered whether it was a conscious artistic decision on Dylan's part to employ that romanticised outlaw narrative tradition and applying it to a contemporary character as a means of questioning it, or whether he simply knew what was good for him, as many of Gallo's family and associates were still around, so any portrayal of him had better not be less than flattering.

Joe Gallo - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

How Rasputin died

Of course. Boney M were very educational, they had a song about Belfast as well

 

[Is it PotG?]

Of course. Boney M were very educational, they had a song about Belfast as well

Don't forget Ma Barker

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Don't forget Ma Barker

Thanks. I didn’t know this. Every day is a school day with music!

 

[Gwylan]

I had assumed that Bluebeard was a pirate like Blackbeard, yet through the Mountain Goats song Scotch Grove, and some follow-up digging around the tale, I learnt that Bluebeard was a very specific character in a very specific tale.

Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle is one hell of an opera - goes into a lot of gory detail about the very specific character.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

What's interesting about that song is the way Dylan used the tradition of romanticising old American outlaws in a ballad and applied it to a contemporary mobster.

Dylan had previously romanticised Billy the Kid on his "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" soundtrack and he also identifies with Jesse James in his song "Outlaw Blues" and he covered Woody Guthrie's romanticised portrait of Pretty Boy Floyd.

Usually our perceptions of such outlaw characters are softenened and coloured by the mists of time but when Dylan wrote that song in around 1975 (album was released Jan 76) Gallo's life and death in 1972 was still relatively recent, so there was not that same detachment to the reality of what a nasty piece of work Gallo was.

He wasn't called "Crazy" Joe for nothing... mentally unstable/schizophrenic hit man, enforcer, extortionist, kidnapper.... although he did have a side to his character that may have endeared him to Dylan. According to someone who served time with him Gallo was "articulate and had excellent verbal skills being able to describe gouging a man's guts out with the same eloquent ease that he used when discussing classical literature."

I've often wondered whether it was a conscious artistic decision on Dylan's part to employ that romanticised outlaw narrative tradition and applying it to a contemporary character as a means of questioning it, or whether he simply knew what was good for him, as many of Gallo's family and associates were still around, so any portrayal of him had better not be less than flattering.

Joe Gallo - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Interesting. Thanks for posting. It did cross my mind that at the time of writing “Joey” his family and associates would have been “active”

I’m going to get a bit gushy now, so please excuse me, but this is what I love about art and music especially. You think you know a song, yet reading/hearing something about it, or even a live performance, can give that same piece a whole new listening experience.

 

[Stato]

A lot of songs have led me to other art, particularly books, though films and other muscians too.

This 1992 Number one in Peel's Festive Fifty:


led me to this fantastic 1989 novel by Katherine Dunne: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geek_Love

This Commotions classic:


led me to Joan Didion's 1970 novel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play_It_as_It_Lays, and along with other songs on that album, also to

*

Although not to:

Listening to Lloyd as a teenager obviously made me unbearably pretentious, but films with subtitles? It's a step too far for someone who went to Tideway. I read 'The Outsider' before I knew about the link to 'Killing an Arab'. 'Charlotte Sometimes' is one of my wife's favourite children's books, though she's not a Cure fan so didn't know there was a song. She also loves and recommended 'Cold Comfort Farm' to me. We used to reference 'Something nasty in the woodshed' long before Neil Hanlon's song. I did start Herman Hesse's 'Steppenwolf' because of the title, but like with any songs the band did that weren't in 'Easy Rider' I never got very far. I loved all of Carson McCullers' books, but can't claim to have been led to them by 'Every Day Hurts'. I liked Douglas Coupland's 'Girlfriend in a Coma' and, as a Costello obsessive, do own a copy of Brett Easton Ellis's 'Less Than Zero' which I'll get around to reading one day when I've got over 'American Psycho' (read it just after 'Last Exit to Brooklyn' and was a bit worn down by the unpleasantness of it all. It also definitely didn't lead me to a love of Genesis.)

*I did read 'The Fight' and most of 'The Executioner's Song'** but I never got a new tailor.

**Coincidentally about Gary Gilmore as previously referenced in this thread. I didn't finish Mailer's book as he mostly writes about himself and not as entertainingly as Truman Capote does in 'In Cold Blood'. Capote's novella 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' is also excellent, but don't listen to Deep Blue Something, the film, like their song is fairly flimsy and would have been an entire waste of time, but for Audrey Hepburn's performance, Johnny Mercer's lyrics and providing the knowledge needed to understand one of the best gags in 'Seinfeld'.