h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There's a man going round taking names
There's a man going round taking names
He's taken my sister's name
And he's left my heart in pain/vain/shame*
There's a man going round taking names




[*interchangeable]

Is this an instance of identity theft? If so, who knew identity thieves could be transnomstites?

Or is this a poem by some famous poet that you hope one of us can identify?

It's from an old, old blues recorded late in life by Leadbelly, paul. No reason for posting other than I thought the image was a really strong one, similar to Larkin's ambulances that stop at every door in the end. And I guess it's my response to what's happened to some well-loved members lately.


Ambulances (Larkin)

Closed like confessionals, they thread
Loud noons of cities, giving back
None of the glances they absorb.
Light glossy grey, arms on a plaque,
They come to rest at any kerb:
All streets in time are visited.




Jab

and he is dressed in black

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9IfHDi-2EA

Sure gave me a rise!

Leadbelly is a great favorite of mine as well, a mis-spent youth and tragic life, but the very soul of 'soul'.

Back, after having to take time out to clean up the mess after a Java update related crash, including, had to uninstall and reinstall Firefox.

Excellent choice, Dr. Scott, the original Leadbelly version in the first link below, along with a couple of his more famous other songs.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGtWU3r-gdw&p=6641591455DEC8A8&playnext=1&index=33


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5tOpyipNJs


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXhBVjoPvh0


Leadbelly has been an inspiration to generations!

Somewhere I have a recording of Leadbelly singing "Good Night, Irene." I also have the same song as sung by The Weavers, which I loved a lot, and felt sorry that the McCarthy scare pretty much forced them to disband in the 1950s. Pete Seeger picked himself up and went right on with his singing, as did the amazing Ronny Gilbert. I don't know if Mr. Hayes stayed active, but he did appear on the wonderful documentry "Wasn't that a time," which portrayed a reunion of the group in the 1980s. Since that time, Hayes has died. Ronny Gilbert might be gone as well. The unsinkable Mr. Seeger is probably still alive, though I am not sure.

Returning to Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly's real name), the people who went around recording folk and traditional music around the U.S. in the 1930s and 1940s performed a wonderful service. I believe that these recordings reside at the Library of Congress. I loved the folk music revival of the 1960s. I am sorry that it was later overshadowed by Heavy Metal and Hip Hop and Disco and Rap and Punk and Steam Punk, none of which nestled in my heart as well as the great old folk songs do. I am estranged from the popular music of my own age. These days, the only thing that makes my heart beat faster is Beverly Sills singing Cleopatra in Handel's "Julius Caesar," or a fantastic young Russian tenor who has a major career ahead of him. In my opinion, Monteverdi knocked the operatic ball out of the park almost 400 years ago, and then was mostly forgotten for the succeeding 350 years. This is what we humans do to the best creations of our own eras. Somewhere, someone may be writing something for the ages, but we aren't likely to even to hear about it because it will be drowned out by what passes for music on the leading radio stations and in the bookstores and cyber MP3 vendors. Then a hundred or more years from now, someone perceptive will rediscover the masterpiece, and *our* era will be remembered for some masterwork that we didn't even know existed.

For 'easy listening' music, mostly I listen to classical. I like 16th century Tudorian era themes best, though one can make a case that Johan Sebastian Bach represents a continuation of that tradition.

http://rockradio1.mixstream.net/

mine is heavy rock - 1960/70/80's

sorry! that post was meant for elsewhere and I wasn't looking

Ah, the Tudors! Orlando Gibbons, William Byrd, John Dowland, Robert Morley. No longer household names, though the pioneers of the *next* sea change in musical styles have also become obscure - Cacchini, Peri, Froberger, Louis Couperin [Frank's uncle], Cavalli, Schutz, Schein, and Scheidt. Monteverdi and Frescobaldi are still somewhat familiar to us, though, along with Pachelbel and Buxtehude and Corelli and Purcell.

Bach is several generations later than the Tudor people and their German/French/Italian contemporaries. In order for Bach to have written concertos, somebody had to invent the concerto form. Bach also couldn't have written sonatas unless somebody invented those. Musicians of the Tudor period had polyphony to work with. The savants of late-16th century Florence were busily trying to create the modern world (as was Shakespeare in England), starting with a way of turning spoken plays into sung ones [they thought, probably erroneously, that the ancient Greeks sang their plays]. Now, songs already existed; John Dowland wrote some wonderful ones, as did Byrd and many others. Accompaniment consisted of some strummed chords on a lute. (the lute was soon to be on its way out as the harpsichord began to caught on) But if you're going to mount an opera, you need a fancier accompaniment than a lute. Thus, polyphony had to give way to something else. Eventually, the something else developed into alternating recitative and arias, supported by strings and selected wind instruments and percussion. This was a huge crack in the Renaissance style of music-making. Over on tne instrumental side, the use of a ground base began. By the time J S Bach was born, the trio sonata was well underway, as was the concerto (Torelli wrote some fine ones). Bach didn't have to do any heavy lifting to invent the forms that he wrote in.

Sorry, I think I got carried away..... I seem to do that a lot in this thread....

Keep going paul. Your posts on this thread are both interesting and informative and I look forward to each and every one.

Jabs

Thanks, Jabs! It has taken me many years to figure out how music changed over the centuries. I love having a chance to share what I love.

Very interesting indeed.

I feel no real disapiontment in the knowledge thier are inumerable classic tales in book form that i would enjoy; that i will never even set eyes upon: but for the jewels of music i feel a slight sorrow - i dearly wish i had listened to more classic music ( and jazz and electronic etc ) in my youth rather than just 80's pop music.

(my hearing is damaged now and i never listen to music hardly unless it is something i know well and i can pick out the tune/instruments etc (only a very few things sound anywhere near like they did - forget human voice and piano - only load sounds now " techno" sounds ok still lol well some of )

I have plenty of happy musical memories enough to last though

There were things you connected with, Loftskywalker. That is the best that can happen to any of us. The music you liked meant something to you. Intensity of pleasure is something that all of us seek, whether it's heavy metal or grand opera or the young woman with the beautiful voice who brought tears to your eyes when she sang in a Christmas pageant in high school. We never forget these things even when we are old or half-deaf (or both).

I've loved a lot of different genres, with a tilt toward the classical. Still, I can get misty when I hear one of the Beach Boys; hits that I use to hear on the school bus radio in the morning. This was *my* music.

What seems unfortunate, though, is the deliberately unremarkable music that you hear on the sound systems when you're walking through a shopping mall or supermarket. Everyone has heard this stuff, but who can remember what it was a half an hour afterwards? The sound quality is never as good as what you would have on your home stereo. Maybe that's deliberate, too.

Music can be one of the sublime pleasures of existence. For many of us, at some times in our lives, that is what it actually is. I just think it doesn't deserve to be mere filler... Just my opinion.

Very sorry your hearing's so damaged, Myk. When you're low try to remember Beethoven - musically an absolute genius who started to go completely deaf when he was just 24 - if it helps you, of course.

Jabs

Second what jabs says about hearing Lofty...

Don't know all that much about old Ludwig van B, but some people say he wrote his best stuff AFTER he had lost his hearing.....



GT

I honestly can't imagine how Beethoven manage to write *anything* after he was deaf. But what's really beyond my comprehension is how good his stuff was. Okay, so he sometimes wrote some really flaky things (the "Grosse Fugue, for instance, which anticipates ASrnold Schoenberg or Charles Ives), but I think he was entitled to do it. He *knew* it would disturb and rattle the old fuddy-duddies in Vienna. They deserved to be rattled.

Could possibly be paul that his sense of touch adjusted itself so finely to make up for his loss of hearing that he could 'feel' the music.................

Much as blind people find that hearing rises sharply after losing their sight.............



GT