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Songs: fall in love, break your heart

The first QoS song I ever owned

Here are some songs of romance and heartbreak. Finding the latter is FAR easier for me.

Songs that make you want to fall in love

I Only Have Eyes For You – the Flamingoes

That’s about it. Everything else seems more wistful and uncertain, such as:

God Only Knows – the Beach Boys, from Pet Sounds

and especially

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow – Carole King, from the Tapestry album

Songs that break your heart

Whereas the “melancholy quartet” of songs were pretty much codified by 1980, played in this specific order:

Sweet Bitter Love – Aretha Franklin. The first QoS song I ever owned. It appeared on some Columbia Records compilation in 1965 or 1966, before she was signed to Atlantic. This was eventually covered by Roberta Flack.
My First Night Alone Without You – Jane Olivor. My old friend Pam gave me the First Night album in error for Christmas; she mixed up a couple presents. This song was also performed by Bonnie Raitt.
Gone Away – Roberta Flack. From my sister Leslie’s copy of Chapter Two, which I eventually had to buy for myself. This song destroys me more than almost any other. T.I. sampled this on What You Know in 2006.
Stay With Me – Lorraine Ellison . I heard this on a Warner Brothers Loss Leader and was immediately blown away. It’s been covered a few times.

Sometimes, I’d add other break your heart songs, such as:
Remove This Doubt – The Supremes. This is from The Supremes Sing Holland-Dozier-Holland. It was covered by Elvis Costello.
Down so Low – Linda Ronstadt. From Hasten Down the Wind, this Tracy Nelson/Mother Earth song was also covered by numerous other artists, including Etta James, Maria Muldaur, John Lee Hooker, and Cyndi Lauper.

Hmm, I suppose I need a song by a guy.
Can We Still Be Friends – Todd Rundgren. In an interview, Todd said, “It’s really a song about the best possible way to end a relationship.” Ha, I don’t believe that they CAN stay friends.

How Classic Cartoons Created…

written by Annie Holmquist

How Classic Cartoons Created a Culturally Literate Generation

I recently picked up Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court for the first time. Finding the plot rather amusing, I began relaying it to my father over the weekend. Because he had never read the book, I was rather surprised when he began asking informed questions about the story. In no time at all, he was the one schooling me on plot elements I had not yet reached.

“Wait a minute,” I asked. “Are you sure you’ve never read this book?”

“No, never have,” he replied, “but I saw a cartoon version of the story when I was younger and everything I know comes from that.”

His revelation was intriguing, and to be honest, not the first of its kind. Like many in the Boomer generation, my father grew up watching classic cartoons, numbers of which were produced by the likes of Warner Bros.

But those cartoons did more than mind-numbingly entertain a generation of children. They also introduced millions of young people to key facets of cultural literacy, particularly in the realm of literature and music.

Beyond the aforementioned case of Mark Twain’s novel, these cartoons introduced children to stories such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde through the medium of Bugs Bunny. Key quotations and scenes from William Shakespeare’s works were the main theme in a Goofy Gophers cartoon known as A Ham in a Role. And Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem The Song of Hiawatha was placed front and center in a Walt Disney short called Little Hiawatha.

Perhaps even more famous than the literature references are the many ways in which cartoons introduced children to the world of classical music, including both instrumental and operatic selections, one of which is the famous Rabbit of Saville. American film critic Leonard Maltin describes the situation well:

“An enormous amount of my musical education came at the hands of [Warner Bros. composer] Carl Stalling, only I didn’t realize it, I wasn’t aware, it just seeped into my brain all those years I was watching Warner’s cartoons day after day after day. I learned Liszt’s Second Hungarian Rhapsody because of the Warner Bros. cartoons, they used it so often, famously when Friz Freleng had a skyscraper built to it in Rhapsody and Rivets.”

But Maltin wasn’t the only one learning from these classical music forays. In fact, as the famous pianist Lang Lang testifies, it was Tom and Jerry’s rendition of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody in The Cat Concerto which first inspired him to start piano at age two.

Tom and Jerry – 029 – The Cat Concerto [1947] by milagrosalease

These examples just brush the surface of the cultural literacy lessons which the old cartoons taught our parents and grandparents. Even if they never learned these elements in school, they at least had some frame of reference upon which they could build their understanding of the books and music and even ideas which have impacted culture and the world we live in today.

But can the same be said of the current generation? Admittedly, I’m not very well-versed in current cartoon offerings, but a quick search of popular titles seems to suggest that the answer is no. A majority of the time they seem to offer fluff, fantasy, and a focus on the here and now.

In short, neither schools, nor Saturday morning cartoons seem to be passing on the torch of cultural knowledge and literacy. Could such a scenario be one reason why we see an increased apathy and lack of substance in the current generation?

This post How Classic Cartoons Created a Culturally Literate Generation was originally published on Intellectual Takeout by Annie Holmquist.

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November rambling: triple plays

Rebecca Jade And The Cold Fact

The Violent History of the U.S.-Mexico Border

The Revolution Isn’t Being Televised

Stephen Miller E-Mails Show How He Promoted White Nationalist Ideology In Media, going back to when he worked for then-Senator Jeff Sessions

How women fall into the white supremacist movement

Maligned in black and white– Southern newspapers played a major role in racial violence. Do they owe their communities an apology?

Religious Freedom for Loganists!

My Childhood in a Cult

Republicans want to out the whistleblower because they can’t defend him on the merits

His tortured English

The Obama date-night controversy

Amazon’s Absence from Worker Safety Alliance Highlights Dangers of Unsafe Supply Chains

How One Employer Stuck a New Mom With an $898,984 Bill for Her Premature Baby

Charles à Court Repington and when did we start to refer to the horrors of the 1914-1918 conflict as ‘The First World War’?

Weekly Sift: Sacrifices

Yvette Lundy: French Resistance member who survived Nazi camps dies at 103

UK halts fracking, effective immediately

The Untold Story of the 2018 Olympics Cyberattack, the Most Deceptive Hack in History

AIER: Questions for Immigration Skeptics

Court Allows Police Full Access to Online Genealogy Database

In a rural Wisconsin village, the doctor makes house calls — and sees some of the rarest diseases on Earth

Dial 911 if there’s an emergency, not 112

Social Security and SSI Benefits Are Increasing in 2020

Wealth Is About Much More than Physical Things

New Airplane Feature Could Save You If Your Pilot Can’t

There’s no reason to cross the U.S. by train. But I did so anyway.

Fully Accessible Guide to Smart Home Tech for Disabled and Elderly

That’s entertainment

Washington Grays baseball, in honor of the Homestead Grays, a Negro League Team

All 720 Triple Plays in Major League Baseball history

Beany and Cecil

The accidental brilliance of Silly Putty

Four toy commercials from the sixties – I definitely had a Slinky, and I know I played someone’s Rock ’em, Sock ’em Robots

Tips on attending TV Tapings

Amy Biancolli: I Really Don’t Care

Now I Know: The Last Army Pillow Fight and Why Filmmakers Use That Black and White Flapped Board and The Ark That Went Full Circle

MUSIC

Rebecca Jade And The Cold Fact: Songs From Their New Album ‘Running Out Of Time’ and Gonna Be Alright and how they began

Viola Sonata in D minor by Mikhail Glinka.

The Wolf Glen scene from the opera Der Freischutz by Carl Maria von Weber

Coverville 1284: Cover Stories for Grace Slick and Katy Perry

Go up Moses – Roberta Flack

Polka and Fugue from Schwanda the Bagpiper! by Jaromir Weinberger

How to Play Guitar Like Keith Richards

What Does ‘Born In The U.S.A.’ Really Mean?

Singer/guitarist Bonnie Raitt is 70

The Road’s My Middle Name

Because I hitchhiked to New Paltz, I first heard of Bonnie Raitt. I had traveled from Binghamton to visit my girlfriend in May 1971. But when I got there, she had decided to break up with me. I was devastated.

There wasn’t enough daylight to hitch back home. Instead, I went to visit my friend Steve in Poughkeepsie, in the next county over. We had gone to Binghamton Central High School before he moved.

Steve talked at length about this great bluesy singer and guitarist named Bonnie Raitt, who I had never heard of. He predicted great things of her. Her eponymous first album, which came out in November 1971 sold poorly, though it reviewed well. I never bought it.

Bonnie’s second album, Give It Up, I LOVED. It got all the way up to #138 on the US album charts. The subsequent albums improved commercially up to 1977’s Sweet Forgiveness at #25. But her next albums sank, never improving on the charts.

Warner purge

In 1983, the year after I saw her at the No Nukes concert, “There was a corporate sweep at Warner’s… and they needed to trim the fat,’ Raitt recalled in 1990. ‘I just had completed an album called Tongue & Groove… I don’t think they maliciously said, ‘Let’s let her finish her album and get the tour all lined up and print the covers and hire the people to do the video and then drop her.’ You know, ha, ha, ha. But that’s what they did.

“‘It was literally the day after I had finished mastering it… They dropped me and pulled the rug out from under my tour. I thought the way they did it was real crummy. They sent a letter. I think I suffered from not having a relationship with the A&R department there, because I had an independent production deal…’

“The material for Tongue & Groove was shelved until two years later when ‘Warner’s suddenly said they were going to put the record out,’ Raitt recalled… I mean, I was out there touring on my savings to keep my name up, and my ability to draw was less and less. So they agreed to let me go in and recut half of it.’ The result was Nine Lives, which was finally released in 1986” to tepid reviews and worse sales.

Capitol signing

After seeing her perform, Prince “offered Bonnie Raitt a recording contract on his own label, Paisley Park Records. Raitt agreed and traveled to Minneapolis. Before she recorded any material, she suffered a skiing accident and was hospitalized for two months.” The Paisley Park deal fell through.

Then Capitol Records signed her after over a dozen other labels passed on her. She put out the Nick of Time album in 1989, which went to #1 on the US album charts, sold over five million copies and was named Album of the Year by the Grammys.

The followup album in 1991, Luck of the Draw, went to #2 in the US, sold seven million copies and generated a Top 10 single. 1994’s Longing in Their Hearts went to #1, sold two million copies and contained a Top 20 single. Five subsequent albums, all of which I own, have each reached the Top 20 on the album charts.

LISTEN

Sugar Mama (5)
No Way to Treat A Lady (9), a Bryan Adams song
The Road’s My Middle Name (10), a Bonnie Raitt song about how she survived
I Can’t Make You Love Me (11), #18 in 1992

Runaway (6), the Del Shannon hit, #57 in 1977
You (12), #92 in 1994
Angel From Montgomery (4), the John Prine song they’ve done live together

Love Me Like a Man (2); lyrics adapted by Raitt
Love Has No Pride (2)
My, there are a lot of “love” songs on this list!
Love Letter (10), one of two Bonnie Hayes songs on the list

Love Sneakin’ Up On You (12), #19 in 1994
Thing Called Love (10), a John Hiatt song
Something to Talk About (11), #5 in 1991

Too Long at the Fair (2)
Have a Heart (10), the other Bonnie Hayes song, #49 in 1990. It has one of my favorite first lines in any song. “Hey, shut up. Don’t lie to me.”
Dimming of the Day (12), a Richard Thompson song
Give It Up Or Let Me Go (2), a Bonnie Raitt song
The last four are probably my top 4; the last seven are probably my top 7.

(2) Give It Up; (4) Streetlights; (5) Home Plate; (6) Sweet Forgiveness; (9) Nine Lives; (10) Nick of Time; (11) Luck of the Draw; (12) Longing in Their Hearts

Composer David Foster turns 70

Betty Boop musical?!

Usually, I write the 70th birthday thing for people whose work/life I admire greatly. Occasionally, it’s about people I don’t like at all. I’m just fascinated by the frequency of David Foster in the liner notes I’ve read.

His Wikipedia page notes that he has been a record “producer for Chaka Khan, Alice Cooper, Christina Aguilera, Andrea Bocelli, Toni Braxton, Michael Bublé, Chicago, Natalie Cole, Celine Dion, Kenny G, Josh Groban, Brandy Norwood, Whitney Houston, Jennifer Lopez, Kenny Rogers, Seal, Rod Stewart, Jake Zyrus, Donna Summer, Olivia Newton-John, Madonna, Mary J. Blige, Michael Jackson, Peter Cetera, Cheryl Lynn, Blake Shelton, and Barbra Streisand.” Also the Corrs, Kenny Loggins, and a bunch more.

He often wrote or co-wrote songs on the albums he produced. In 1985, Rolling Stone magazine named Foster the “master of … bombastic pop kitsch.” I would not argue that.

David Foster is a Canadian who has been married five times. He married Katharine McPhee of American Idol fame on June 28, 2019. He has five biological daughters, plus a bunch of step-kids.

“I believe that everyone gets three rounds in their life.” He was first “a studio musician, arranger, and recording artist. His second round was becoming one of the most successful songwriters and record producers in history — shepherding albums that have collectively sold in the hundreds of millions.

“This period of his four-decade career also found him creating The David Foster Foundation and volunteering his time and talent to over 400 charities, as well as becoming a household name as a performer throughout Asia where he tours annually.

“For his third round, Foster is gearing up to take on Broadway with several projects. These include writing the music for a new musical about the iconic, animated character Betty Boop, which will be directed by Tony Award-winner Jerry Mitchell.

“He is writing the music for a musical based on the Amy Bloom novel and New York Times bestseller Lucky Us, directed by Tony Award-nominee Sheryl Kaller. Foster is also developing a scripted narrative one-man show based on the story of his career that he will perform himself.” Meanwhile, he’ll be doing a North American tour in 2020.

LISTEN

Wildflower – Skylark
After The Love Has Gone – Earth, Wind & Fire
Talk to Ya Later – The Tubes
She’s A Beauty – The Tubes

Breakdown Dead Ahead – Boz Scaggs
JoJo Boz Scaggs
Look What You’ve Done To Me – Boz Scaggs

Tears Are Not Enough – Northern Lights, a group of Canadian artists such as Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Bryan Adams, and others in similar fashion to the UK’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and the USA’s “We Are the World”.

Hard to Say I’m Sorry – Chicago
Love Me Tomorrow – Chicago
Stay The Night– Chicago
You’re the Inspiration – Chicago
Glory of Love – Peter Cetera

Love Theme from St. Elmo’s Fire – David Foster
St Elmo’s Fire (Man In Motion) – John Parr
The Price Of Love– Roger Daltrey (“The Secret Of My Success”, 1987)
I Have Nothing – Whitney Houston (The Bodyguard, 1992)

There’s a ton more, but you get the idea. David Foster turns 70 today.