"(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear" was a US number-one hit for Elvis during the summer of 1957, and his third of the four that he would have that year. The lyrics were by Kal Mann with Juliard-trained pianist Bernie Lowe doing the music. It was part of the soundtrack to Loving You. Here is Elvis, looking too cool (for school), in the very same film:
Now that New Wave is nostalgia and Elvis Costello has become respectable enough to serve as Paul McCartney's songwriting partner, you might assume that Elvis isn't angry anymore. But that would be a not-so-brilliant mistake. Spike – Costello's first new album after an uncharacteristically long two-year layoff – is a far-flung sampler of his musical genius, a fascinating effort informed by its creator's justified frustration that his genius is not more widely recognized.
"You're nobody 'til everybody in this town thinks you're a bastard," Elvis sings in the chorus of Spike's opening number, "... This Town ..." Even the album's surreal, garish cover – with Costello as a sinister-looking clown, labeled as "The Beloved Entertainer" – seems to be Costello's defensive way of mocking the very concept of being a popular entertainer.
...as Spike makes clear, Costello remains an astonishing talent. While less cohesive than his two 1986 albums – the justly lauded King of America and the underappreciated Blood & Chocolate – Spike is more ambitious.
The BBC aired a program back in '89 devoted to Spike. You can see that here.
I got goosebumps and teared up several times during President-Elect Obama's moving and powerful victory speech, and I am hopeful for the future! Additionally, I look forward to his first State of the Union speech:
Yes we can!!
Mildly offensive pictures are from my post about the film Idiocracy.
"The Times They Are A-Changin'" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his 1964 album of the same name. In 2004, this song was #59 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time."
Dylan's friend, Tony Glover, recalls visiting Dylan's apartment in September 1963, where he saw a number of song manuscripts and poems lying on a table. "The Times They Are-a Changin'" had yet to be recorded, but Glover saw its early manuscript. After reading the words "come senators, congressmen, please heed the call," Glover reportedly asked Dylan: "What is this shit, man?", to which Dylan responded, "Well, you know, it seems to be what the people like to hear."
A protest song, it is often viewed as a reflection of the generation gap and of the political divide marking American culture in the 1960s. Dylan, however, disputed this interpretation in 1964, saying "Those were the only words I could find to separate aliveness from deadness. It had nothing to do with age." A year later, Dylan would say: "I can't really say that adults don't understand young people any more than you can say big fishes don't understand little fishes. I didn't mean ['The Times They Are a-Changin'] as a statement... It's a feeling."
Here's a young Dylan, with what appears to be his freight train ridin', disgruntled, Kerouacian/Steinbeckian hobo pals, on a CBC TV show called Quest, Feb 1, 1964:
The Byrds, who recorded a version on their Turn! Turn! Turn! (1965) album, performed it on an October 1965 episode of Hullabaloo (introduced by Michael Landon):
We no longer have to pay for our fuel or housing! Happy days are here again!! Or did she mean Obama would lessen our dependence on foreign oil and clean up the junk mortgage loan industry??
This place is right down the road from the house in which my mother grew up, and my grandparents lived.
My paternal grandmother worked in a clothing store which was in one of these buildings, located on McCarty Avenue. My grandparents frequently took my sister, cousins, and me to visit a store when we were little called "Fink's," which was still set up like an old time general store. I seem to remember it had wooden floors. They had great toys - huge bins of them. It was also in one of these buildings on McCarty Ave., but I forget which.
My maternal grandfather worked for Frank Stephens, in Eagle Lake, during the 1930s. The were paid in Frank Stephens dollars.
As a guy who learned to play guitar and piano at a young age, I'm sort of against kids playing games like Guitar Hero on the principle they could be learning to play a real instrument instead. I've never played any of them, despite having an Xbox 360. But that may be about to change. The maker's of the Rock Band games announced yesterday it was doing a game based around the music of The Beatles.
The game will aim to feature the entire Beatles catalog and will offer an "experiential journey" off the band...
"This game will take you on a journey from the Beatles first album Please Please Me until the last album at Abbey Road,” said Apple Corps CEO Jeff Jones. “It will span samples of the whole catalogue all the way through.” (source)
Here's an "imagining" someone did of the game using The Sims engine:
Still, despite the fact Sir Paul says "The project is a fun idea which broadens the appeal of The Beatles and their music. I like people having the opportunity to get to know the music from the inside out," I can't help thinking that many of the kids who'll play it would be better off "having the opportunity to get to know the music from the inside out" by learning to play it on an actual musical instrument. What if Guitar Hero (with Buddy Holly, Chet Atkins, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Elvis Presley songs) had been around back when John, Paul, George, or Ringo were teenagers in Liverpool??
"(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear" was a US number-one hit for Elvis during the summer of 1957, and his third of the four that he would have that year. The lyrics were by Kal Mann with Juliard-trained pianist Bernie Lowe doing the music. It was part of the soundtrack to Loving You. Here is Elvis, looking too cool (for school), in the very same film:
Spike is the album Elvis Costello released in 1989, his first for the Warner Brothers label.
From the Wikipedia entry:
As a guy who learned to play guitar and piano at a young age, I'm sort of against kids playing games like Guitar Hero on the principle they could be learning to play a real instrument instead. I've never played any of them, despite having an Xbox 360. But that may be about to change. The maker's of the Rock Band games announced yesterday it was doing a game based around the music of The Beatles.
"This game will take you on a journey from the Beatles first album Please Please Me until the last album at Abbey Road,” said Apple Corps CEO Jeff Jones. “It will span samples of the whole catalogue all the way through.” (source)
