The 10th blogiversary fundraiser continues with the Year of Our Lord 2007.
2007 was another banner year for Mr. David Brooks of the New York Times.
With his new, "Both Siderist" Philosopher's Stone in-hand, and the backing of the entire Beltway establishment, he found himself free to transmute whole swaths of icky, inconvenient recent history into parables of bipartisan humility and reticence to suit whatever mood struck him.
Which he did, twice-a-week in America's newspaper of record, while naught but a few, despised outsiders write otherwise and published our dissents on our blogs to our dozens of readers. But we persisted, if for no other reason than somebody had to, and the white-shoe denizens of the Beltway were not about to call out one of their own, no matter how unsightly his bed-shitting got.
I and a few other worn-thin Liberals spent a considerable fraction of 2007 jumping up and down begging the media to pay attention to the antics of Mr. Brooks, to absolutely no avail. I went so far as to write a fairly exhaustive four-part deconstruction of Mr. Brooks' work using Faulkner's classic Southern Gothic tale, "A Rose For Emily", as my metaphor. And that tome was to have been my Bobo "pick" for the 2007 chapter of my little project...until I stumbled across this rare item which I had all but forgotten: that time when Mr. Brooks was in such a rush to extrude yet another fatuous tale about the kind of uniquely morally deformed wimmin These Parlous Modern Times create --
"This character is obviously a product of the cold-eyed age of divorce and hookups. It’s also a product of the free-floating anger that’s part of the climate this decade."-- that he simply willed out of existence women like Aretha Franklin and Billie Holliday, and entire musical genres like the Blues, gospel, rock and roll and country and western.
And yes, that is the same recently-divorced David Brooks who recently told an interview who asking him about his own history of "writing against divorce" assured the interviewer that he had never done any such thing.
Somebody fell asleep in the Navigator again.
Woke up, freaked out that his column was due, jump/skipped around the great machine’s wireless radio device using his wee hands to snatch three songs out of the pellucid aether like Homily Clock from “The Borrowers”, and then used a lot of NYT words to sledgehammer them into Bobo’s Grand Unifying Theory of Culture, Politics, Magnetism, "Mawage", Spin-The-Bottle, Straussianism, and Why Women Who Laugh at Me Are Really Just Morally Deformed.
The Theory, from his column “The New Lone Rangers”, from three song lyrics, and a lotta happytalk about Facebook and cell-phones, Bobo posits a New Female Ideal:
"If you put the songs together, you see they’re about the same sort of character: a character who would have been socially unacceptable in a megahit pop song 10, let alone 30 years ago.The songs are…
"This character is hard-boiled, foul-mouthed, fedup, emotionally self-sufficient and unforgiving. She’s like one of those battle-hardened combat vets, who’s had the sentimentality beaten out of her and who no longer has time for romance or etiquette. She’s disgusted by male idiots and contemptuous of the feminine flirts who cater to them."
…about a woman who has contempt for the man cheating on her.
…about a woman who is getting drunk and telling the losers who hit on her to fuck off.
… about a woman who tells a man to dump his girlfriend for her.
Which is derived from…
"This character is obviously a product of the cold-eyed age of divorce and hookups. It’s also a product of the free-floating anger that’s part of the climate this decade."Except, of course, there is a whole genre of music that features triflin’ men who done her wrong and how she’s gonna make him pay, and hard-drinkin', seducin’ women who tell you to leave your plain jane for the wild delights of her bed.
It's call the Blues.
Kinda surprised you haven't heard of it.
Been around a century? One of our most cherished American art forms? Revered around the world? Sired everything from punk to glam to speedmetal?
When you were a beat reporter in Chicago, had you been listening to anything other than Up With People and the Siren's Song of Ronald Reagan, you would have heard it everywhere.
But since you are unfamiliar, the following is just a quick sampling of its offerings.
Bobo, this Ethel Waters in 1928 on why a weak man is no kinda man at all
“Get Up Off Your Knees”Ethel Waters again and the classic “There'll Be Some Changes Made” in 1921.
A trifling man came home one night
And tiptoed to his door
To his despair, his little wifie was there
Waitin' to lay down the law
Said she, "I'm thru, I'm really sick of you
Get out, stay out, and be on your way"
Well he dropped down on his knees
Cried "oh, please",
But this is all she had to say:
Get up, get up, off your knees papa
You can't win me back that way
Turn in, turn in all your keys papa
You really goin' this time to stay
I discovered that you're the worst man in this town
Looks like you're fond of keepin' on going lower down
Get up, get up, off your knees papa
You can't win me back that way
Get right up off your knees papa
I'm tellin' you, you can't win me back that way
Turn in all your keys papa
Cause I put you out this time to stay
You're so blamed crooked, here are blades
Looks like it's a hard matter for you to keep your head up straight
So get up off your knees papa
You can't win me back that way
...
They say don't change the old for the newBobo, meet Billie Holliday…
But I found out that this will never do
When you grow old, you don't last long
You're just here my honey, then you're gone
I loved a man for many years gone by
I thought his love for me would never die
He made a chance and said I would not do
For now I'm gonna make some changes too
Why there's a change in the weather, there's a change in the sea
So from now on there'll be a change in me
My walk will be different, my talk and my name
Nothing about me's goin' be the same
I'm gonna change my long tall one for a little short fat
I'm gonna change my number where I'm livin' at
Because nobody wants you when you're old and gray
There'll be some changes made today
There'll be some changes made
Why there's a change in the weather, there's a change in the sea
So from now on there'll be a change in me
Why my walk will be different, my talk and my name
Nothing about me gonna be the same
…on a dead romance:
“A Fine Romance”… on self-reliance:
A fine romance, with no kisses
A fine romance, my friend this is
We should be like a couple of hot tomatoes
But youre as cold as yesterdays mashed potatoes
A fine romance, you wont nestle
A fine romance, you wont wrestle
I might as well play bridge
With my old maid aunt
I havent got a chance
This is a fine romance
“God Bless the Child”Meet Merline Johnson's, singing about being out and getting hammered in 1947 --
…
Them thats got shall get
Them thats not shall lose
So the Bible said and it still is news
Mama may have, papa may have
But God bless the child thats got his own
Thats got his own
Yes, the strong gets more
While the weak ones fade
Empty pockets dont ever make the grade
Mama may have, papa may have
But God bless the child thats got his own
Thats got his own
“Bad Whiskey Blues”Bobo, this is Martha Copeland, laying down the law in the 1930s (?)
I drink so much whiskey, I stagger home in my sleep
I drink so much whiskey, I stagger home in my sleep
Well soon every morning, I'm staggerin' up and down the street
If I can't get no whiskey, give me some gin or good wine
The way I keep on worryin', I stay drunk all the time
I drink so much whiskey, I stagger home in my sleep
Well soon every morning, I'm staggerin' up and down the street
“I Ain't Your Hen, Mr. Fly Rooster”Bobo, this is Cleo Gibson, advertising her fine wares. also in the 1930s
Cat, keep away from my shack
Cat, don't you ever come back
Never no hug, and never no kiss
Forever more remember this:
I ain't your hen, mister fly rooster
So don't crow in my back yard
Here's one chicken you ain't peckin'
The day you try you'll find it hard
When you hear me cackle don't you stop and snatch
Cause your kind of chickens that will never hatch
I ain't your hen, mister fly rooster
So don't crow in my back yard
…
I've Got Ford Engine Movements In My HipsBobo, this is Blondie (not the Blues, but a direct, lineal descendant), from damn near 30 years ago,
…
I got Ford engine movements in my hips,
Ten thousand miles guarantee
A Ford is a car everybody wants to ride
Jump in, you will see
You can all have a Rolls Royce
A Packard and such
Take a Ford engine boys
To do your stuff
I've got Ford engine movements in my hips,
Ten thousand miles guarantee
I say ten thousand miles guarantee
…
on the subject casual infidelity and why eventually you’ll call her.
And this is Blondie, on the topic about stalking her target and getting him
One way or another
This, Bobo, is Ms. Aretha Franklin
singing about “Respect”.
There are dozens -- probably hundreds -- more, because women singing on these subjects -- cheating, lying, fucking, fucking around, being cold-hearted -- is nothing new or revelatory.
Because these things have been a part of the human condition forever.
However is has only been in the last generation or so that the average woman has been able been able to work to support herself, own property, make her own decisions, free herself from a disaster of a marriage, have children or not, raise them alone if necessary, without the weight of the entire culture landing on her back with both feet.
And with equality fitfully on the march everywhere, it has only been in the last generation or so that women have managed to pry themselves onto the pop charts in any numbers singing like anything other than the Ronettes.
So finally, Bobo, this a dollar featuring Ms. Susan B. Anthony
With which you can go and buy yourself a clue.
No comments:
Post a Comment