Thursday, July 7, 2011

Just sayn'

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11 comments:

deborah said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFl0nlHaWa4

July 7, 2011 at 7:46 PM
Titus said...

He's gross.

I have no idea who he is but definitely gross.

July 7, 2011 at 10:28 PM
TTBurnett said...

Here's the real Fanfare for the Common Man by Aaron Copeland, played to perfection by the Marine Corps Band. No video or pix. Just the music. Where this has been used as sound on YouTube, the visuals have been mostly bad. Stare at a grey screen and listen to the music. It'll do you good.

Then there's this Eurotrash version.

And finally, Michael Tilson Thomas 'splains it all to you. Don't blame me. I find what I can for this music appreciation class.

July 7, 2011 at 11:12 PM
ricpic said...

As long as the writer/painter/musician/filmmaker or general issue intellectual understands that the actual common man has no interest, not the slightest, in the lauding of him I'm alright with it. The problem arises when all of the above begin believing their guff about the common man. And the problem squares itself in a period like ours when they believe exactly the opposite of the guff they keep putting out about the common man. Rant over.

July 8, 2011 at 11:58 AM
deborah said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o04WowWkuG4&feature=related

July 8, 2011 at 1:28 PM
TTBurnett said...

I swear, ricpic and I are in some kind of mind-meld lately, between Mad Magazine and this.

I'm sure Aaron Copeland, whose dad, like Trooper, was a shop owner in Brooklyn, felt a real affinity for the Common Man. All the more so, as he was a well-known fellow traveller, whose lefty principles were only shaken by the treatment of Shostakovich and other Soviet composers and artists. But even that never got in the way of his romantic view of the Masses and what Socialism could do for them, if only there wasn't the embarrassment of Stalin enforcing his taste for Mickey Mouse and light operettas with the NKVD.

Anyway, Copeland fit nicely into the New Deal and WWII eras, and Fanfare for the Common Man was composed in 1943, at a time I'm sure he and all the other artists and intellectuals were happy the Common Man was out there, saving, along with our Glorious Soviet Ally, their respective butts.

After the War, the Common Man proved his usefulness by making all the Chryslers and TV sets and frozen dinners needed to keep everyone fat and happy and middle class, thereby continuing to preserve the intellectual posterior from anything so unpleasant as a repeat of, say, 1933.

But things change. With everything more efficient these days, the Common Man is just not that useful. Clinging as he does to so many obsolete ideas and practices, he also smells bad and doesn't talk like us.

What's a modern artist or intellectual to do? Follow your grandparents' ways and pretend to laud the Common Man, or your own inclinations to make sure he never gets close to either your precious person or any actual power?

I don't know. I just teach Music Appreciation.

July 8, 2011 at 2:26 PM
chickelit said...

What's a modern artist or intellectual to do? Follow your grandparents' ways and pretend to laud the Common Man, or your own inclinations to make sure he never gets close to either your precious person or any actual power?

Tim- you prompted me look up the parentage of Stewart Copeland who I thought was related to Aaron. Apparently not. Stewart referred to him as an adopted uncle who spelled his name wrong.

July 8, 2011 at 7:31 PM
Penny said...

Happily, we are ALL of us, common men and women among mankind, and wise enough not to argue amongst ourselves about just WHOoooo might be more common or even "THE Most Common".

Competition is SO yesterday.

It's time to mellow out and accept our common Allah. Tea, anyone?

July 8, 2011 at 8:09 PM
Trooper York said...

Hey I thought that Copeland dude played in the "Police" until Sting fired him and took up the lute?

July 8, 2011 at 8:10 PM
Titus said...

I love Copeland. App Spring is my fucking favorite.

Bernstein is my number 2.

Very Americana.

July 8, 2011 at 10:52 PM
Titus said...

Martha Graham and App Spring cum worthy.

July 8, 2011 at 10:53 PM

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