PLEASE BE MY GIRLFRIEND, YOU BULGARIAN CAM-GIRL WHORE - Doo Wop

With some exceptions, STUPID categorizes much of "DOO WOP." 

With even fewer exceptions, STUPID categorizes the residents of "FLORIDA." 

The difference is that STUPID "Doo Wop" never killed anyone. Below, a cheerfully dumb example of doo wop called 'Be My Girlfriend" (aka "Please Be My Girlfriend") which was a hit for The Cadillacs, and also covered by The Spotlighters, and of course, endless assholes on urban street corners. Ah, but those were the good old days when delinquents (or chavs as they are known in England) simply "hung out." They were mostly harmless. There was no INTERNET back then. 

The jerk in the photo above? He's a 29 year-old loser named Grant Amato. Like so many Internet losers, he considered somebody halfway around the world to be his friend. In fact, his GIRLFRIEND. So he killed his REAL FAMILY because they thought he was nuts. He proved it, didn't he? 

Cue the ironic, cheerful Zappa-de-doo-dah doo-wop of "Please Be My Girlfriend," as done by the delightful "Voices Of Doo-Wop." Who are they?

They are, or were, surviving members of original Doo Wop groups (the doo-no-harm doo wop groups): Dean Barlow, Arthur Crier,Waldo Champen, Sammy Fain, Eugene Tompkins, Bobby Mansfield and Lillian Leach. Some were in The Mellows, or the Wrens, etc. etc. Some could've been in the Penguins, The Moonglows, The Five Satins or any of the other groups that Rene and Georgette Magritte and their dog listened to after the war. "Voices of Doo-Wop" recorded circa 1999. The photo below is from that year. The leader, Bobby Mansfield, died in 2013. 

My personal favorite Doo-Wop category group, as longtime strollers through Illville know, remains The Marcels. But, I digress. Let's get back to the murder, and to ponder Internet stupidity. 

Grant Amato somehow wasn't content with downloading 2GB of shit a day from some blog in Sweden or Croatia." He wasn't going to a shoutbox and asking "any wun have all fifty volumes of the Time Lilfe sunshine nuggets for my ass?" No, Grant wasn't content with music sharing strangers he could call FRIENDS. He wasn't content jerking off to Claudine Longet records. He went further than THAT brand of idiocy. He surfed into BULGARIA where he decided that some slut sitting in front of her camera, showing her cunt to the world, was...his...GIRLFRIEND. 

Unlike the Blog Queens who only want a Paypal donation or say "Sign up  to Rapidgator from one of my links so I can have a free account," the Internet whores want REAL MONEY.  If you  want a special pose, or to actually get some one-to-one attention, LOTS OF MONEY.

Grant Amato's monthly bill for an internet connection and clean underwear may have been $20 a month. But when his family finally paid attention to how he was wasting his life, they discovered that over several months he'd spent $200,000! Of THEIR MONEY.

Considering the average income of a family in Florida, this is an ASTONISHING amount. Just how much METH do you have to sell to raise that kind of money? How many tourists do you have to rob?

Once Mum and Dad found out, they slapped his wrist. No more stealing from us, Sonny Boy. They checked him into a "sex addiction program" which also kept him off the Internet. Temporarily. In rehab on December 22nd, he was CHECKED OUT on January 4th, and back onto th Internet with his GIRLFRIEND, the Cam Girl from BULGARIA. His parents tried tough love on their whore-crazed son. On January 24th they told him to get out and go spend his OWN money in an Internet cafe somewhere. Go find a cheaper slut at the Zinho' Shoutbox or at Twatzone/Ride Your Pussy.

What did Sonny Boy Amato do instead?  He killed his family. Mom, Pop and older Bro. On this happy note, let's conclude this lesson in how socially awkward and mentally deranged people waste their time with Internet strangers. While the Cam Girl is still laughing all the way to the bank, here's a chance to do some carpool karaoke to Grant Amato's favorite song (isn't it") called "PLEASE BE MY GIRLFRIEND," which he sings over an dover, harmonizing with the voices in his head.
 

Download or Listen on Line. Go somewhere else to beg for music you don't really need, uploaded by idiots who add their PASSWORDS and think they're in show biz or they've got friends.

Michel Legrand - The Windmills Won't Stop

Michel Legrand died a few days ago (February 24, 1932 – January 26, 2019). Thus ends the musical question, "What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?" But his other very famous song? "Windmills of Your Mind" keeps on going. 

He was active a rather long time, having worked on a new stage musical (an adaption of a Dumas novel) in 2008. It was called Marguerit. The average fan of musicals probably knows Legrand for "Yentl," which won him a bunch of awards in 1983. His prime years were the 60's through the 80's. 

Although his 3 Oscars and 5 Grammy awards were for soundtracks and songs, Legrand was well schooled in classical music at the Conservatoire de Paris, and an early love was jazz. In the photo above, well, if you don't know who is with Michel, that's your problem, and a big one. Legrand was a fine jazz pianist and worked with many of the greats of the early 60's (which was when the Grammy Award broadcasts STILL would have room for allowing jazz performers to do their stuff).

Legrand's film soundtracks did have some fine music, and this was recognized via nominations and/or awards for "The Thomas Crown Affair" (1968), Wuthering Heights (1970), Le Mans (1971) and "Lady Sings the Blues" (1972) among others. One of his better but more neglected scores was for "Ice Station Zebra" (1968). Still, his name remains mostly associated with fluff: his scores for "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" (1965), The Young Girls of Rochefort (1968, which featured Gene Kelly and the sisters Catherine Deneueve and her ill-fated sibling Francoise Dorleac), and "Summer of '42" (1971). 

No doubt, his three most famous songs are "I Will Wait For You," and the notorious "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life" and "Windmills of your Mind," both featuring the lyrics of Alan and Marilyn Bergman. The latter first became a hit via Noel Harrison, who got into a prickly squabble over the rhyme of "tunnel of its own" with "sun has never shone." Being a proud Brit, he refused to sing the American pronunciation. In fact, he shunned it.
  
When it came time for the Oscar telecast (the song was the winner), Noel was shunned. Well, actually, Jose Feliciano was substituted because Harrison was making a movie and the producer refused to release him for the few days necessary to fly in, rehearse and perform. Harrison admitted that this was largely because the producer hated him. The producer apparently wasn't the only one, but Noel would have a long way to go to be disliked as much as his notoriously misanthropic and egocentric father, Rex. 

Noel's "Windmills" was the big international hit, but soon Dusty Springfield's cover made the Top 40 in many markets. Jose Feliciano, with his Oscar triumph, actually got his single into the Top 20 in the actual land of the windmills, Holland. 

Ever have a tune keep playing over and over in your brain? 

That's 'cause...there are WINDMILLS in your mind. Really. And they respond especially well to catchy kitsch. 

Seemingly put together as a homework assignment for Similes 101, "Windmills of Your Mind" offered spooky psychedelia via the music of Michel Legrand, and the alcoholic mist created by middle-aged hacks Alan and Marilyn Bergman. They toss snowballs down a mountain and think the world is "like an apple whirling silently in space."

First line sets our theme:
"ROUND." Yep, things are round (like an apple) and just as ripe.

The lyrics get so numbing Jazz singer Carmen Lundy mistakenly sings of a "clock whose hands are SLEEPING" past the minutes of its face. But you get plenty of other versions where the singers do get the lyrics (and variatios thereof) right. And most rhyme
"own" and "SHOWN." But what's it all mean?

The song seems to be saying that as endless as the world is, life isn't and love isn't.



Did you know there's a lyric variation to the song? Do you care?

 Singers had a choice of "when you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware that the autumn leaves were turning to the color of her hair," OR, "when you knew that it was over in the autumn of goodbyes, for the moment you could not recall the color of his eyes." The latter is represented here by Ms Judith Lefeber.
 
Years ago, comedian Frank Fay made a living satirizing the lyrics of pop tunes like "Tea for Two." It's a cruel trick. A cheap trick. So we'll surrender any further impulse to insult a song that keeps saying "like" over and over, and mentioning "things that are round" like a bad game of $25,000 Pyramid.

Fact is, the song's circles and spirals and wheels are kind of mesmerizing. The Bergmans come up with "words that jangle in your head" (a nod to Bob's Tambourine Man perhaps). Like some Dylan tunes, notably "Lenny Bruce," there are some good lines jammed against bad ones. In Bob's case, in that song, it was "they stamped him and they labeled him, like they do with pants and shirts" followed by the good "he fought a war on a battlefield where every victory hurts." Here, a cliche about lovers leaving footprints in the sand is followed by: "Is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand?" Not too shabby. 

There are also some effective and eerie images: "Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own..." or "Like a door that keeps revolving in a half-forgotten dream." Like, you gotta like that. 

Like, listen for yourself. Over and over. Legrand's grandfather clock heart has stopped, but his songs live on. And "Windmills of Your Mind" lives on and on and on. 

The song has been covered by literally a hundred well known performers, ranging from Dinah Shore, Sandler and Young and The Sandpipers to Sharleen Spiteri, Barbra Streisand, Sting and Swing out Sister. From Mel Torme and Leslie Uggams to Edward Woodward, Johnny Mathis, Nana Mouskouri, Alison Moyet and Billy Paul. From Pepe & Paradise to the Parenthetical Girls. From Ray Coniff, Anne Clark and Petula Clark to John Davidson, John Gary, Jack Jones and Skeeter Davis. 
 
You get 25 different versions (some use the French title Les Moulins de mon Coeur) including Legrand, Frida Boccara, Dorothy Ashby, Mathilde Santing, Paul Muriat, and James Galway. Of special interest, the top 10:

1. Psychedelic and slow: Vanilla Fudge
2. Eerie border colic: Baja Marimba Band
3. Oliver Twists: Trinity Boys Choir
4. Disco Dizziness: Sally Anne Marsh
5. A gargle of goo: Jim Nabors
6. Swanky swinging: Judith Lefeber
7. Vintage French Fluff: Vicky Leandros
8. Scat with Scuffy Grapelli-style Violin: Carmen Lundy
9. Accapella Angst: The Lettermen
10. How Elton Might've Done It: Jose Feliciano

Go Dutch: Here's the WINDMILLS OF YOUR MIND - a ZIP FILE to download (can't listen on line) No dopey PASSWORD, no creepy Russian server loaded with malware, and no waiting around on a PAY site that takes the royalties for themselves

DONALD SWANN sings SYDNEY CARTER: “The Devil Wore a Crucifix”

“Songs of Faith and Doubt” is an odd,  daring title for an album. Religious songwriters are supposed to affirm, with grand conviction, their trust in The Lord. Whether Jesus or Moses or Mohamed, the message is supposed to be clear: How Great Thou Art. Everybody, follow! What's to doubt? Oh ye of faith AND a dash of the realist, who knows this planet is much more than a few thousand years old, and that everything from tiny mites to huge dinosaurs were here before anybody claimed to be God's earthly representative.

Sydney Carter is best known for his songs of faith, not the ones of doubt. His most famous is “Lord of the Dance.” Here in Illville, he’s better known  dark, challenging and satirical songs, which sometimes dare to reflect even an ardent believer's moments of insecurity bordering on atheism. 

In his autobiography, Donald Swann declared he was a conscientious objector during World War 2 because he felt Christ would not possibly condone or participate in war. (Then who started it and why didn't he come down to Earth and stop it?) Carter was also a pacifist, and spent his war years in the Friends’ Ambulance Service, rather than on a battle field. It's possible the two met while on duty in Greece. The 1940 picture below shows, on the right, Carter among his Quaker friends, holding a skull…hopefully not of a soldier who didn’t get treatment in time. 

In the mid 50's, the team of Carter and Swann produced a failed musical called “Lucy and the Hunter.” In his book Swann lamented, “I am sure I have never written anything so tuneful or melodic…”

After teaming with Michael Flanders, and between Broadway dates for “At the Drop of Hat” and “Another Hat,” Swann recorded a 1964 E.P. of Sydney Carter's originals. Carter was far from anonymous at the time. His dark lullabye, “The Crow on the Cradle” appeared on a 1962 Judy Collins album. "Crow" offers not just the creepy symbolism of an ominous black bird observing an innocent child, but a talking bird who, unlike Poe’s raven, is pretty damn specific. If the child is a boy, the crow croaks, “he’ll carry a gun.” If it’s a girl, there will be “a bomber above her wherever she goes.” The crow knows the ending: “give you a coffin and dig you a grave. Hushabye little one…” 

In 1962 Sydney Carter teamed with Sheila Hancock for an album called “Putting Out the Dustbin.” They had a mild hit with the novelty tune “Last Cigarette.” 

Those expecting comedy from Swann, whose Stan Laurel-esque laugh greeted many a Flanders ad-lib, had to be surprised by the E.P. It explored musical territory quite alien to him. As he acknowledged in his liner notes, folk songs are better suited to guitar not piano. His voice is hardly Dylan or Van Ronk, and also not exactly suited to protest or irony. He does attack the songs with more heart and style than Carter himself, whose voice was more hearty than heartfelt or haunting. 

The Devil wore a Crucifix 
"The Christians they are right" 
The Devil said "so let us burn 
A heretic tonight". 

A lily or a swastika,
A shamrock or a star
The devil he can wear them all,
No matter what they are.

In red or blue or khaki 
In green or black and tan 
The Devil is a patriot 
A proper party man.

Whenever there's a lynching 
The Devil will be there.
A witch or an apostle, 
The Devil doesn't care. 

He'll beat a drum in China
He'll beat it in the west 
He'll beat a drum for anyone 
"Holy war is best". 

The Devil isn't down in hell 
Or riding in the sky 
“The Devil's dead” I’ve heard it said 
They're telling you a lie! 

Circa 1965, Carter was briefly signed to Elektra, and recorded his aleady-popular “Lord of the Dance” with backing from Martin Carthy and the Mike Sammes Singers. He would remain best known for this song (adapted from the American Shaker classic   “Tis The Gift To Be Simple” (aka Simple Gifts”) written in 1848 by Elder Joseph Brackett.) 

Carter was amused and surprised that it became such a hit: “"I did not think the churches would like it at all. I thought many people would find it pretty far flown, probably heretical and anyway dubiously Christian. But in fact people did sing it and, unknown to me, it touched a chord. Anyway it's the sort of Christianity I believe in."

People like comfy tunes of faith more than protest songs or Realist ballads, so "Lord of the Dance" has been covered by everyone from God-awful YouTube singers to ebullient church choirs.  One of Carter’s sporadic appearances on vinyl in the 70’s came via an album with “And Now It Is So Early,” in which he performed with the folk duo Bob and Carole Pegg. Phil Ochs fans might know their name, as they were one of the few to cover “The Scorpion Departs But Never Returns.”

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Reflection sings Sydney Carter: “Standing By The Window”

Thank God, or somebody, or nobody at all, Christmas, though less than a month in the past, is now pretty much forgotten. 

One can still get a shiver thinking about all the rotten novelty songs blasted at us, including the irritating solo works by Lennon and McCartney (“Happy Xmas War Is Over” and “Wonderful Christmastime”). There were tedious novelties (“Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer") and billiously cheerful pesterings like “Sleigh Ride” and "We Wish You A Merry Christmas." It was overkill on "Holly Jolly" Burl Ives, the idiotic "Feliz Navidad," and new pains in the ear like self-parodist William Shatner reciting "Winder Wonderland."

Nasty alternative songs have been few.  Stan Freberg, anyone? No. Not at all. You'll hear The Pogues once too often (and twice is too often). Somehow gutter trash from Ireland quarreling in a drunk tank in New York City amuses people. This isn't even an anti-Christmas song, since people LOVE it so much. It's more like Brecht & Weill reeking of corned beef and potatoes.

It would be nice if some alternative radio station or some Spotify playlist slipped in “Standing By The Window,” recorded by Reflection back in 1968. The album is named after the cunning and punning Carter poem, “The Present Tense,” which reflected on our age of anxiety. Spoken with eerie sound effects, it opens the album, which segues into "Standing By the Window."
The male and female leads of Reflection (the name of the group and also their record label!) do a fine folk-rock job mixing desultory verse and haunting chorus. It goes exactly like this, and you can strum along to a simple A minor and G, with a dash of D minor and E: 

No use knocking at the window, there is nothing here for you, sir,
All the rooms are let already, there is nothing left for you, sir. 

Chorus:
Standing in the rain, knocking on the window, knocking on the window on a Christmas day
There he goes again, knocking on the window, knocking on the window in the same old way

No use knocking at the window,  some are lucky, some are not, sir,
We are Christian men and women,  and we're keeping what we've got, sir.
No, we haven't got a cradle,  no, we haven't got a stable,
We are Christian men and women,   always willing, never able.
Christ, the Lord, has gone to heaven,  one day he'll be coming back, sir,
In our house he will be welcome,  but we hope he won't be black, sir.
Wishing you a merry Christmas, we will all go back to bed, sir,
Till you woke us with your knocking, we were sleeping like the dead, sir. 


 Reflection was Sue McHaffie, Mo Brown, Richard Spence, Jonathan Jones, Michael Campbell and Stuart Yeates on vocals. The backing musicians included James Etheridge, Michael Campbell, Colin Wright, Nik Knight and Lionel Browne. The eclectic group also tossed in some oboe (Lesley Bateson), flute (Marion Banks), Cello (Stuart Yeates), and even a celeste (from lead vocalist Sue McHaffie). Despite the somewhat bitter lyrics here, Reflection was a religious record label, and Sue McHaffie appears on two other Reflection releases, “A Folk Passion” (which includes the songs “Come to the Cross” and “Jesus the King”) and “Nativity” which includes “Sing High with the Holy” and “To Jesus On his Birthday.” These were issued in 1971 and 1972.  

The group’s 1968 album of Carter songs did include “Lord of the Dance,” and in the album notes, a shrug that “classification of Sydney Cater’s songs is self-defeating.” Yes, quite true of an album that includes both “Every Star Shall Sing a Carol” and “The Vicar is a Beatnik.” And the stinging track below. Again quoting from the liner notes, “It is the genius of Sydney Carter that his songs have this ability to make us face and question our innermost thoughts and conflicts.”  

While some find comfort in singing “Rock of Ages,” Carter joked about carrying around his “rock of doubt,” (the title of his book). His songs about the hypocrisy of religion made those who loved his lyrics to “Lord of the Dance” feel uneasy. One of the crowns in his thorny canon is “Friday Morning.” The poem first published in 1960 instantly outraged the conservative U.K. politician and one-time Minister of Health Enoch Powell. The Daily Mirror joined in, demanding the poem be banned because of lines such as: “‘It’s God they ought to crucify instead of you or me,’” I said to the carpenter a’ hanging on the tree.” 

The less inflammatory songs of Carter would turn up on “Lovely in the Dances,” a 1981 all-star collection of covers led by the lovely Maddy Prior.  Carter also got some royalties from the comic sewer song “Down Below,” which was recorded by both Ian Wallace (who also had hits with Flanders & Swann novelties) and by Rolf Harris. 

Over these past 50 years, since Reflection recorded their album of covers, it’s mostly been the general satires (“The Rat Race” for example) and the more genial and Christmas-type numbers that have kept Carter’s name alive. His name is alive but he isn't -- born in 1915, he died in 2004 at the age of 88. 

STANDING BY THE WINDOW - no dopey passwords, no creepy "anonymous" download site or Russians, no porn ads, no Paypal donation whining