CLINT MANSELL – LUX AETERNA from Viktor Weber on Vimeo.

Commenter Tim was pointing out that we’re not responsible for the songs that get lodged in our heads. Lux Aeterna is a great example. It has become, against all odds, the “go to” soundtrack for countless movie trailers.

I believe copyright wars are still raging because of its promiscuous use and popularity. Originally composed for a Lord of the Rings trailer for “The Two Towers,” which never used the music in the movie, Lux Aeterna has been used in the same throwaway fashion by multiple other movies, including one of my favorites, Hitman. Youtube seems to have a universal ban on every video clip that employs it.

So what’s the big deal? You hear it. Then you can’t get it out of your head. It’s music as crack cocaine. Why the video above, as loathsome as it is, is probably the truest representation of the sum of the notes.

What gets stuck in your head, me hearties? I don’t have the guts to give examples, because then they’d be stuck in my head again. Try very hard not to think of an elephant.

Have I ruined your day yet? Or your whole weekend? Sorry.

This was on my list, but no sign anyone’s listened for real. The coda that doesn’t end is normally a joke. This time it’s the whole point.

Nobody’s commented on my list. Odd, given that I started it, don’t you think?

You’re allowed. But I can also change the rules. Maybe the most important thing is what you realize you left off. I have the beginning of that list too. Things not on my iTunes list.

Truth is, I could do a Top 100 of both Stones and Sinatra. I could probably do another hundred of classical, although toward the later stages of WFLN in Philadelphia (before it expired from uninterest) I did come to believe in something called generic classical — all show and no go.

So, today, I’m adding to my list, as I encourage you to do. Which consists of things I just forgot, which nevertheless belong. My wife thinks I’m a pure sentimentalist, which I may be. But I tend to think not.

Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin.

Over the Rainbow by Judy Garland. (No. No defense is necessary. Anyone who’s ever had a daughter knows how sweet this is.)

Pavane for a Dead Princess< by Ravel. Un Bel Di from Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.

All Along the Watchtower, Hendrix Version.

Lullaby of Broadway, performed by George Auld. (Good luck finding it. This isn’t the one I remember, which was as languid as a walk home in the dark yellow hours of Manhattan. Oh well.)

The Finale of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. (Skip to 3 minutes in if you’re impatient. Sublime.)

Hello Young Lovers, Sinatra.

I Am Here, Where Are You? Harriet Hilliard. (Breaks my heart every time. Al right, all right. It was in a Fred Astaire Ginger Rogers movie, and she fell for a sailor who didn’t mean what he said. A 1930s version of Un Bel Di. And, yeah it was Harriet of Ozzie and Harriet fame. Does that make Lady Laird right? Of course not.) I’m as sentimental as any other Allman Brothers fan. {snicker}

The Lord’s Prayer, Denyce Graves.

Secret Love, Doris Day. (Ignore the clunky movie staging. Her voice is rich and full and effortless throughout its vast range. Alternatively, you could look up her version of Sentimental Journey with Tommy Dorsey. An extraordinary talent.)

Rachmaninov. Variations on a Theme of Paganini, No. 18. In the days before the Internet spent years looking for this piece of music. Taught myself how to tap out the theme on the piano long before a music teacher clued me in.

And, of course, this:

Mick Jagger and Tina Turner. Something about Rock and Roll.

I think that music is about reaching levels of feeling words don’t normally get us to. Not that they can’t. Just that they usually don’t. The heights and depths of joy, sorrow, love, devotion, loss, forgiveness, beauty, rage against obstacles, and the rage to live. Why we listen while we pretend to hunker inside our tunnels of everydayness.

But what do I know?

As reported on by the folks at Hotair:

Maybe Jimmy Fallon really does want to follow Jay Leno’s tradition of full-political-spectrum comedy. Earlier this week, Fallon ripped Barack Obama for his victory lap on ObamaCare, and last night he invited Sarah Palin to join him in this four-minute mockfest of Obama’s foreign-policy acumen. Palin is a good sport here, joking about the unusual names of her children at one point, but the subtext throughout this is that Palin was smart enough to see through Vladimir Putin — and Obama wasn’t. Watch for a cameo from “Obama” near the end (via Katie Pavlich).

Of course, the mindless Palin haters came out in droves on Twitter. But who cares?

P.S. Though I have to admit Raebert isn’t that keen on Sarah’s voice, which he finds, uh, keening.

Why, I guess, he’s so fond of Harris Faulkner.

P.P.S. Keep an eye on all the Top 100 related posts. We’ve got a bunch by now, and I think I’ve responded to most. If I’ve missed anybody, let me know. It wasn’t intentional and we’re all over the place by now. Weigh in wherever you want but do weigh in. Everybody’s list has gems that will be new to us. Explore. And now that you’ve done the hard part, how does it make you feel? Are you surprised by the breadth of your favorites? I know I am.

Her voice is low. He doesn’t have to get up and leave the room when she’s talking. And he thinks she’s good looking too.

Barbara emailed me to apologize for not liking my Stones song. Which was unnecessary and I told her so. But it occurred to me you all don’t know what happens behind the scenes. I write as much elsewhere as I do here. Sometimes I think you’re getting cheated. So here’s what I just wrote to Barbara.

****************************

It’s all okay. You have to understand that my role is to stir the pot. Which I do with great joy and delight.

Never thought you’d buy into the Stones. No reason you would or should. You cannot know, or have any reason to relate to, what they did for me when I was young and ever since. They popped into my life by a kind of low rent miracle. My roommate at prep school and I were terrible housekeepers. Suddenly the first Stones live album came to light in a pile of our laundry. Neither of us had bought or acquired it. It was just there. And there was no jacket for it either. But it always played. No fatal skips. Scratches, yes, but they went with the screaming girls in the audience who almost drowned out the music.

We became Stones fans. We listened to every new Beatles album but only once or twice. The ones we had to play again and again and again were the Stones. They were laughing at the whole sixties thing while it was happening. Acute satirists of the very wave they were riding.

They visited every genre of popular music, mixing respect with their own distinctive sound. (The best Bob Dylan song I ever heard was by them. Family. Hilarious.) Whatever they did was always still Stones. They were, to me, life itself. Full of humor, incredible vitality, unstoppable perseverance, raw sexuality, and an amazingly apolitical demeanor that they’ve dropped only once or twice in 50 years of being on top.

I’ve been to five big Stones concerts, maybe more. I almost never go to concerts. Almost always I’ve been accompanied by agnostics who just want to check the Stones box on their concert bucket list. Invariably, there is a moment when they turn to me and say, “Holy shit! These guys are the most amazing band I have ever seen!”

So I figured you had some clip-level knowledge of them. I picked the most anti-Stones cut they have ever done.

Fifty years. Impossible. Nobody sits at the top for fifty years. Last year, they finally got invited to the annual Brit equivalent of Woodstock. Glastonbury. They’ve never been politically correct enough. But they got invited, they came, and they conquered. Absolutely. Jagger is seventy and he ruled that stage like nobody ever. Youtube has clips of individual songs. He doesn’t have to ask people to sing along. He just points the microphone at the crowd and they sing like hell.

All right. I’ll stop. We like a lot of the same music. But I like more music than you do. In large part because while you were raising a family I was battling this sickness that has been afflicting our nation. I went to war as a writer while I was a naïf in college. I graduated from Harvard at the age of nineteen feeling my life was done and I was all alone. The Stones kept me from feeling alone.

They insisted that I live, hard and strong, and demandingly. And they haven’t betrayed me. Because they keep doing it themselves. And as I feel increasingly frail, they’re still playing the same role. Can you believe it? Mozart makes me believe in God, but he’s not keeping me alive.

When I need to feel that feeling in my belly, the go to hell defiance of all the bad news, it’s the Stones I need.

Factor that in when you think of musicology. 

Rush Limbaugh is more upset about this than I am. He wants to know how anybody anywhere can believe this sudden surge of signups and support for ObamaCare.

Why he’s cleverer than I am. He can devote a three hour show to the mystery. Me? It’s just too simple to think about.

They lie. Their asses off. All the time.

And Laura Ingraham is curiously worried about a Jeb Bush candidacy. Don’t worry about Jeb Bush. Nobody will vote for him. She’s also feeling protective about Chris Christie. Don’t worry about Chris Christie. He doesn’t need protecting. He knows how to protect himself.

Dom Giordano in Philly is worried about Brian Williams doing a dark warning broadcast about Climate Change and the most recent U.N. Report on the imminent danger we all face. Don’t worry, Dom. Nobody cares about climate change. They just don’t care.

Any other political problems you want to know about? Ask and I will answer.

The Rolling Stones – Emotional Rescue by chipoonette

Funny thing. I alert you to the danger of Lady Barbara. But I’m the only one who is unafraid.

She may have better taste than me. Probably does. But she also knows I know about Glenn Gould. What do you know?

Are you all such licksplinters that you can’t stand up for yourselves? Good God Almighty.

I know I’ve promised to find the good things in your lists. But I’m not going to do it if you can’t be bothered.

The video up top is good. I described the transcendent moment when I first heard it. It needs no other defense. Find your cojones, my friends.

P.S. We’re all dying. Try this on for size:

I Have Dreamed.

Love is always about love.

I suspect Barbara isn’t going to like this. But I think we’ve all just been schooled. Without meaning to, at all, Barbara kinda sorta sucker-punched us, me included.

Easy to get taken in by all the self deprecation. Yet the list and related recollections tell a very different story. This is a woman who actually knows quite a lot about music. And contrary to her account, she hasn’t been living in a vacuum. Look to the list.

Jay Nordlinger of the National Review is an accomplished and highly sophisticated music scholar. Barbara wanted to talk to him about music. So she did. Me? I’d be happy if he let me buy him a drink. Why did she buttonhole him? Not because she’s a ditz. Because she’s an aficionado.

She lists Bach’s Goldberg Variations twice. She recognizes that the Glenn Gould and Daniel Barenboim performances are distinctly different pieces of art. She has an ear. All her classical references are to specific orchestras and recordings. She’s no dilettante.

I get it that she grew up with the big bands, as I did. But did you notice how many of them she saw in person? Imagine having been a witness to Louis Armstrong, let alone all the others, including Benny Goodman, both Dorseys, and Artie Shaw.

Significantly, though, she revealed that she continued to follow jazz after the big band era. She called out Chet Baker and Charlie Parker as well, both superstar icons to the true believers of jazz. It wasn’t a bobby-soxer mentality she was caught up in. It was the music.

Other items on her list likewise suggest that she hasn’t stopped listening. She’s just picky. Nina Simone is there. Patricia Kaas. And Jeff Buckley. Looking at a Rolls Royce ( or should I say Packard?) standard here. In her quiet way she’s letting us know that not much of the music we’ve imprinted on impresses her much. Or she’d remember it.

So here’s a kind of side challenge for everyone. Pick just one song you’d like Barbara to listen to. I’m sure she would. Put in a link she can take. And ask her what she thinks.

I’ll start. She has a fondness for falsettos. Nobody has a bigger library of falsettos than Mick Jagger. So I’m going to offer up this little known gem for Barbara’s delectation.

The Rolling Stones – Heaven from Kinamazing on Vimeo.

Be prepared. She will be invariably nice. But she will also be honest. She will not say she actually likes it if she doesn’t. She’ll just be a bit faint in her praise. How ladies do things.

Do you have the guts to play this delicate game? Bet you do.

P.S. A quick refresher course for those of you whose memory of ladies is phantasm or nonexistent. From my first ever blog:

Some of us… can’t help remembering ladies. They were our mothers and grandmothers, our friends’ mothers and grandmothers, and they had no idea they were prisoners of a vicious sexist culture. They knew how to smile, how to make strangers and shy ones feel welcome, they knew how to dress up for a party, how to dance to ballroom music, how to practice countless skills that made houses into cheery homes, and we loved them. In every possible way they exemplified the essential human virtues and mediated their children’s vulnerability through their own. They were playing a life-and-death role, especially in those first six years, and one that fathers couldn’t play because their role back then was different. Fathers weren’t second-string mommies, always playing catch-up on the sensitivities not born into men. They were, when all was said and done, judges — the ones charged with preparing the children to be strong against the institutional temptations and corruptions that were coming after the time of safe haven was over. Their job was not to be taken in the way mother could be by an artful grin or pleading. Their job was to say no, to describe the consequences, to levy the punishment so that the lesson would be learned in the home, not in the dangerous realms of the outside world.

And the mommies knew that was their role and supported it. They knew what a man was. Do you? Tread with care.

I knew she would. Complete with personal recollections that convey the charm of her email correspondence. Do yourselves a favor and listen to as much of her list as you can. In some ways it’s a window on a brighter world than our own.

*************************

I feel just as I do when someone (my husband usually, bless his heart) says to our dinner guests “Oh wait until you hear Barbara tell the hilarious story of what happened to her at the supermarket yesterday. You’ll laugh yourself sick. Go ahead and tell, ‘em, Barbara.” And of course I know that the event was only mildly amusing and may bring at best a slight smile to the face of the charitable, but now I must tell it nonetheless because of the build up.

So thanks a whole bunch, RL. Listen, dear readers, Robert is encouraging me because I wrote him a personal note saying I could not participate. I’m a generation or two ahead of most of you here, I don’t have much of an ear for music (to have me sing Happy Birthday to you is no kindness, believe me) and I completely missed the rock and roll era, the heavy metal era, and really am not even sure what those things even mean. I was pregnant or lactating throughout the 60s, raising kids in the 70s, and working and going to school and rushing home to keep a household together on my own after that. If you put a gun to my head I would be unable to name anything by the Rolling Stones, or Pink Floyd, or the Grateful Dead (in fact I’m rather proud that I can recite those three). I’ve read through all of the lists of favorites submitted so far and out of each hundred I may recognize five to 10. If I get lucky.

So basically I have nothing to say, so quit now is my advice. If you read on, know that I didn’t even try to come up with 100 cause I would have had to fake a lot of stuff, and that everything I did choose is entirely pedestrian — exactly what you’d expect from a great grandmother. My apologies, RL. Will you still respect me in the morning?
– – –
Thanks for the Memory – Bob Hope (Wonderful tune that’s been performed better by others, but it will always belong to Bob.) I couldn’t sing then, either, but at seven or so I would recite endlessly for myself all the words to Thanks for the Memory, which I had learned from reading our neighbor’s “Hit Parade” magazine.

Bye-Bye Blackbird – Ella Fitzgerald now, but what I listened to as a child was a scratchy old recording by Gene Austin, who wrote the song, I believe.

It Might as well Be Spring – From the first movie I can remember seeing, probably in 1945. I thought it was the most wonderful music I had ever heard and for months I studied my 10 year old face in the mirror, hoping there was a remote possibility I would grow up to look exactly like Jeanne Crain, who sang it in the film. I didn’t.)

Paper Doll – Mills Brothers. My parents loved the Mills Bros. and whenever the group made an appearance within two states’ distance of us, they’d pile my little sister and me in our ’36 Packard and we’d go to see them and sleep in the car afterward. Oh how my mom and dad loved to dance to Paper Doll — a “jilted” song that nonetheless made them (and now me) feel tremendously happy.

Sentimental Journey – Doris Day and Les Brown

High school and college – You Belong to Me – Jo Stafford; Wheel of Fortune – Kay Starr; How High the Moon – Les Paul and Mary Ford; My Funny Valentine – Anita O’Day; Fever – Peggy Lee; I Get Along Without You Very Well – Chet Baker. . .

And too many other favorites to list (or even remember). Those years (1949 – 1958) were at the end of the Big Band/Swing era and it astounds me now to recall how a carload of us teens (mainly) could drive 30 or 40 miles on a Saturday night to the closest “urban” farmer town in Minnesota, (with a population of about 30,000 or so) and dance to all the big names. Among those I saw were Gene Krupa, Billy May, the Dorseys, Harry James, Les Brown, Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw. I didn’t think about it at the time, but what a terrible life those musicians must have had on the road in those days, being dragged in a bus from one tiny remote burg to another to play in dance halls for maybe 150 acne-faced, stompin’ farm kids. How lucky I was to be a part of that, facial blemishes, ugly clothes and all.

Later and a sprinkling of miscellaneous favorites. . .

When the World was Young – Frank Sinatra
The Way you Look Tonight – Perry Como
What a Wonderful World – Louis Armstrong, of course (saw him perform at the Brussel’s World’s Fair in 1958, lucky me . Was on my way to India to live for a year, not as a hipster following my guru — I was very conventional even then — but as a bride accompanying her husband who had work there).
Here Comes the Sun – Nina Simone
Stella by Starlight – Charlie Parker
Georgia on My Mind – Ray Charles
But Beautiful – Shirley Horn
MacArthur Park – Richard Harris (go ahead and mock me; I think I can handle it! I was always a little in love with Richard Harris, an attraction beyond explanation).
Cecelia – Simon & Garfunkel (still laugh every time I listen to its lyrics)
Hallelujah – Jeff Buckley
Walking in Memphis – Marc Cohn
Je Voudrais la Connaitre – Patricia Kaas
Where Do you Go, My Lovely – Peter Sarstedt
Somewhere Over the Rainbow – Bruddah Iz (Israel Kamakawiwo’ole)
Ku’u Ipo I Ka He’e Pu’e One – Brothers Cazimero I was at the Honolulu Shell the night this recording was made. The falsetto should give you chicken skin! Does me, but then I love Hawaiian falsetto (http://alohayou.com/2009/09/kuu_ipo_i_ka_hee_pue_one/

Orff – Carmina Burana (the recording I have is the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal)
Palestrina – Missa Brevis – The Tallis Scholars
Thomas Tallis – Spem in alium – The Tallis Scholars
*Gyorgy Cziffra plays Chopin and Liszt (from the Great Pianists of the 20th Century series)
Elgar – Violin Concerto – Nigel Kennedy and the London Philharmonic
Bach – Concertos for Harpsichord and Strings – Trevor Pinnock
Bach – Goldberg Variations – Glenn Gould (both early and late recordings)
Bach – Goldberg Variations – Daniel Barenboim
Bach – Concerto for Two Violins – Ann-Sophie Mutter and Salvatore Accardo

* purchased upon a recommendation from Jay Nordlinger. I threw it in just so I could name drop J.N., and let everyone here know I had the bravery to discuss music with him. Okay, it was only for a few minutes on a NR cruise, but still. . .

When we got him, his foster mother was afraid on two counts. He had a bad leg and might never run normally. But he also had an alpha, i.e., lion personality. He tended to dominate, bully, and otherwise persecute other cats.

I knew what she was talking about, at least literarily. My first orange cat I named Webster, after a feline monster in a P.G. Wodehouse story. Webster belonged to a bishop, lived faultlessly, got put in the guardianship of the bishop’s Bohemian nephew, tasted alcohol, and became the warrior king of the neighborhood. My Webster failed to live up to that promise. He lived indoors and confined his combats to the occasional ambush of a cairn terrier who never once acknowledged his existence.

Why I didn’t take Elliott’s mom too seriously. In a house populated by sighthounds, cats are more prey than predator. The dogs are nice but flit by them too fast and instincts kick in. They are much much faster, even in a living room.

That was our concern. But Elliott settled in. His leg healed nicely. Completely in fact. He’s frigging fast now.

So he has a prosaic indoor life. He caught water fascination from the Bengal Izzie, and now he camps like a fool on the sink.

He lounges with the Big Guy, Mickey. Orange guys aren’t in it with ferals. Much much better to accept your station in life and watch TV with them, eh?

All is good and fine and proper, right?

And then there’s the really Big Guy. The One who’d better like you or else.

Elliott’s done that too. All the reports to foster mom emeritus have been positive. We keep sending nice stories to her.

Except that Elliott has a secret life. He goes outside. At will. We used to think it was an occasional escape. It’s not. He goes outside whenever he wants. He shows up at mealtimes. Always ambling in from the back yard. Beginning to think he’s the Webster of the story.

Exhibit One. His ear today. Izzie didn’t do it. At a third his weight she’s full of sound and fury and has never laid a glove on him. But he swaggered in this morning with an ear looking like this.

Nobody likes to be made a fool of. What I’m thinking. Elliott is sparring gently with the little Bengal girl, hanging out with Mickey, snoozing with Raebert, then bursting into the outside world of Elsinboro and kicking every cat ass in the neighborhood. Used to be a white cat who acted like he owned our whole yard. Don’t see him anymore. Whatcha gonna do? He weighs 20 pounds. He clears the dog gate as easily and fluidly as if he’s been practicing for the Olympics. He boxes better than any cat I’ve known and I’ve boxed a lot of cats. He’s an MMA guy. Just doesn’t want Mommy to know. Hence all the offhand strolling back in during dinner time. Hell. She’s even willing to blame the bloody ear on Izzie. Who’s got who fooled here?

Worst thing of all. He seems so full of himself these days. Like he knows something we don’t. Never a good sign in a cat. Never.