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

Yea we should all take a load off

I did indeed leave out Tom Waits. A disturbing omission.

Are there any great female artists who can't sing?

Cohen vs Dylan. I love 'em both to bits - otherwise I wouldn't have paid quite so much for Leonard Cohen tickets on ebay. Cohen's certainly one of the great comedy singers of all time, up there with Morrissey (no - I *am* being serious, and if you think they're miserablists you don't get them)...but Dylan is simply the more significant cultural figure. Yes, he's had his off periods - but his last three albums have been storming!

Re: Cajun

It's a form of music I like live, but I don't think it comes across nearly as well in recordings. I've only been at two or three gigs & I was working lx & sq so I wasn't paying attention to the names. Bluegrass is certainly a direct link with Scots/Irish folk but I think Cajun captures the spirit better.

Dick Gaughan is indeed superb, as is Michael Marra, but neither could fill a stadium like Runrig and would maybe fail in the "popular" definition Although Runrig's best work was up to & including the Cutter & the Clan.

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Janis Joplin

>think they're miserablists you don't get them)<

Cohen is. Dylan ain't.

I loved Cohen when I was younger. But I literally can't bear him now. But I've got to like Dylan more and more as I've got older. There's no comparison. Dylan is a god to Cohen's dinky toy.

>>Sorry but Mr.Cohen is a Canuk, Ed you started this do we get to add Canadians to this mix?

Of course. I did say 'American'. When I lived in Canada I used to wear a t-shirt that said 'US out of North America!'

Just don't mention Rush. I was in Leningrad (as was) about two months after Gorbachev came to power. I was walking down Nevsky Prospekt and a young guy started to match my step and walk beside me. He murmered out of the side of his mouth,
'I laak you Eenglish pahnk rack verr mach. I laak Rash, Lid Zippilin'
And then he scurried off.

Alannis Morriset(sp?) but I loved her in Dogma

"Cohen's certainly one of the great comedy singers of all time, up there with Morrissey"

Yep, definitely! I haven't listened to enough Morrissey to say about him, but LC's humour is often overlooked.

Okaaayyy, what's wrong with Rush?

I love listening to stuff that brings you down, when it's finished I think 'Ok, I'm not that bad afterall'

Why do people *hate* The Wall?

>>It's a form of music I like live, but I don't think it comes across nearly as well in recordings.

You need the old, scratchy stuff. Alan Lomax field recordings etc. Clifton Chenier's another one well worth checking out.

And, yes, 'The Cutter and the Clan''s OK. I've not heard it in years, mind, and can't imagine having an urge to do so they way one does with some other artists. Is anyone else like that? Do you find yourself thinking (eg),
'I simply must listen to some Neu!'

(Or should that be,
'I simply must listen to some Neu!!'? As with Wah!, the exclamation mark is obligatory.)

Yeah I love the Smiths/Morrisey. It's that thing again. The songs are sort of uplifting, even though they are wrist thingies. For me Cohen just doesn't transform any of the literalness of the misery.

Yeah: the brits had to send the Acadians somewhere

>>Why do people *hate* The Wall?

Because it's by Pink Floyd?



A more considered answer:
Because it's shite. Oh, so you had some rotten teachers at school. Who didn't? Get over yourself!

(But as a teenager, I did translate some of it into Esperanto:
Ni ne bezonas ne kerzon.
Ni ne bezonas ni penson kontrollon...

*chucks a at Ed, buggarface*

Spending warm summer days indoors
Writing frightening verse
To a buck-toothed girl from Luxemburg.


For skillful use of meter and thematic assonance, that's up there with any poet.


His mam said it's grusome
That someone so handome should care.


One HELL of an internal rhyme!

More Smiths gushery:
http://bonoboworld.blogspot.com/2007/02/sons-and-heirs-of-nothing-in-particular.html

gtg. Same place tomorrow?

Ed that is almost as bad as translating "Alice's Restuant" into Latin. First husband's Latin teacher actually did that(again in the sixties) I'll check if he still has a copy or can reproduce it.

Oh, I simply *must* have a copy of that. I absolutely *need* to be able to say in Latin,
'But that's not what I came here to talk about. I came here to talk about the draft'.

Sorry Ed, fat fingered Resturant, Darn, heck, mother trucking son of a warthog. I should have taken typing in school

We are on reasonable terms I'll try my best, If all else fails I'll have the eldest(taking masters in English to ask)ask his Dad, might work