Glenn Gould from probably anybody on Vimeo.

I feel about words the way he felt about music. Later in life, he began to feel about words the way I do. In the documentary “32 Short Films about Glenn Gould” he began at the end to realize that the way people talk is itself a kind of music. That you could play people’s conversation like an orchestra. Make compositions of it.

Contrary to all the teachings I ever received about what literary writing consisted of, I have always conceived of it as an oral art, the sound of a voice talking to others. I have construed it also as multiple voices contending. I have done a symphony but never, or rarely, a concerto. I am a composer of words, but like Glenn Gould I am more interpreter than impresario.

I play the keys of the keyboard. He was a stiletto, a perfectionist, even a pointillist. I am the wild-ass thing that only happens in writing of the oral kind, where there is no predetermined score or sentence. I am Ring Lardner with a scalpel, Evelyn Waugh with a heart, and Mark Twain with a computer. Why what I do can be compared to Glenn Gould.

Not that I am competing or presume to be his equal. It is that I, like him, have spent my life trying to turn fingers into clear moments. I play, I hit the keys, and you hear every word hit your mind. Not always singly. But like a drum riff. No matter what voice I’m using, and I’ve used dozens, you feel yourself penetrated by a tattoo of thoughts, images, ideas, and voices that make a difference in your perception.

When I was young I wanted it to be poetry. Older I wanted it to be drama and story. Older still I wanted it to be clairvoyance. You keep pushing, you see.

When I look at him I am cowed. He went around the bend. I’m trying very hard not to do that. All the same forces are at work. I want to be alone. Completely alone but for my wife. I want all of you just to be an audience. I want to keep you as far away from me as possible. But I fail.

Writers are not musicians. We need human contact that goes beyond strings and keys. As much as I want to be solitary, isolated, and free of human contamination, I also need to feel your lives, or else my own life ends.

When I reach out, it is not a ruse. It is an expression of what I am. When I say I care, I do. Even though the portrait of Glenn Gould above is, to me, frighteningly similar to the view I have of myself. I am not like you, any of you. What my wife puts up with in me is beyond my comprehension. I am not violent. I am ever so perseverantly alone and detached from everything that home life is supposed to consist of. I USE Raebert to pretend I’m an ordinary sort of fellow with a big dog keeping him in check.

The reality is that I’m a freak, whose big dog does keep him in check by needing water, going out, and two meals a day. Without that I would be shutting down completely. I don’t know how to play the words people need anymore. The natural response of someone who has been the best at words all his life is to fold inside, tighter and tighter until there is nothing left, not a single syllable.

I’m explaining, not quitting. You see, Raebert is here. Lady Laird is here. She understands everything I am telling you. She shouldn’t love me, but she does, and he does.

He sniffs my right ear every morning. Can you still hear me? Yes.

What Glenn Gould didn’t have. He had plenty of smart people around, but he didn’t have an ocean of love. They were all trying to figure him out and fix him somehow. There is no fixing of this particular condition. For months, years, I kept waiting for my wife to tell me there was something wrong with me. Then I realized she had told me the truth when she said she loved me the way I am, accepted me as her husband the way I am. I still wake in the middle of the night feeling guilty, but my love for her keeps growing. Why do I believe in God? Because he gave me her. She frightens most men, but she comforts and cares for me.

Why I can still serve you. As long as I am able.

Raebert thinks the Laird coat of arms is just a pillow. He hasn’t read the ‘Spero Meliora’ motto. “I hope for better things.” But he’s just a dour Scot.

Maybe I dissed Tim’s Japanese video games soundtracks on his Top 100 list. I have no recollection of that. (At this point, WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?!) I do not recall. I was in another meeting. And so forth.

But unlike the federal government, I actually listened to three of his musical recommendations, because he had a story behind all of them.

Since you asked, RL, I will try to explain the Japanese stuff concisely, without making your eyes glaze over. Admittedly, it feels silly inserting this into these other ongoing conversations about some heavy musical hitters. Anyway, there is a canon of shared experiences amongst anyone who has played the Final Fantasy video game series. Much of it is useless stuff that occupies my brain cells, like Star Trek TNG trivia. One exception, though, is the music. I still like a lot of the music.

The theme from the Suteki Da Ne song is woven into several other tracks throughout one particular game and, what can I say, it got stuck in my head. Definitely an autobiographical track, like you said.

Similarly, the JENOVA song is from an earlier game and plays during certain battles. This song popped into my head whenever I had to walk around on campus during my plebe year of school. We couldn’t talk and had to walk at a very rapid pace and absolutely wanted to avoid being stopped by any upperclassman. Every “stroll” out of the barracks was a battle, and I would never be stopped for walking too slowly if I walked in time with this fast-paced tune. And I never was. Didn’t plan it that way, it just happened. We don’t have much control over which songs get stuck in our heads.

Here’s the JENOVA song:

Anybody out there who doesn’t get it? There are warrior times in life, whether you’re in the military or not, and there are times when you need a soundtrack in your head to propel you through the daunting parts. For me it’s usually Stones or Ennio Morricone music from Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti westerns. For Tim, it’s drawn from the burrow where the Iliad has been hiding throughout the age of Christendom. In the place where fables and myths and heroes always hide from the scornful eye of the judgmentalists, the popular culture.

Hector and Hecuba, Achilles, Helen, Briseus, Ajax, and Agamemnon continue to flourish in locations where many never look. And in Tim’s case, how interesting that an Asian inspiration would presage his assignment in Korea, where he discovered another of his Top 100:

About the string quartet song: Like a Stone was played on the radio constantly while I lived in Korea. It’s a dull song, like I said, and it could actually be a contender for theme song of my time spent over there. I volunteered to go to “freedom’s frontier” before 9/11, thinking that would be where all the action was. Instead I found a culture that had been mired in bureaucracy & bullshit for about 50 years. All the training was fake. When we weren’t doing fake training, we were picking up soldiers from the MP drunk tank. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Browsing iTunes one day years later, I came across this group called Vitamin String Quartet. They specialize in doing covers of atypical things, like pop & rock songs. I saw they had one for Like a Stone and couldn’t conceive how it could possibly be performed by a string quartet. It blew me away. They give the music a passion & intensity that is absent in the actual song and transformed something I was never fond of from a time in my life I wasn’t fond of into something I really liked.

Plus, I played in a quartet while in band so I know how tricky it can be. Each person has a role to play and no one can hide in the section. From a musical standpoint alone, I think the performance is great.

So here is that song too.

There’s always a story that makes sense of your music, and always music that makes sense of your story. Now that we have lists, we have the basis for exchanging real experiences with one another. Music is the knock on the door. Words are the welcome into a hospitable home.

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.

He gets a kind of tormented look. I don’t think it’s political. Like all deerhounds, he’d still like to see her naked. Just not high-pitched naked. For the record, he doesn’t like Jagger falsettos either.

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.

Can’t say I blame him.

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. 

No fools like April Fools.

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.