My favorite from the Memphis Music Hall of Fame…
Category: Reminiscences
From the misty corners of my memory
#MeToo Meets the Cold Outside
It seems to make little or no difference where on the sexual-harassment continuum bad behavior falls.To Kirsten Gillibrand, fellow senator Al Franken’s sophomoric joking was as egregious as any act committed by the career criminal currently occupying the White House. Her unrelenting demand that Franken resign resulted in the loss of an intelligent legislator who came to hearings well-prepared and knowledgeable. (Remember his questioning of Attorney General appointee Jeff Sessions?)
Christmas 2018: radio stations around the country have removed the perennial winter song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” from their holiday playlists. #MeToo proponents have labeled it the “date-rape song,” as the lecherous guy tries to convince his lady visitor to stay with him so he can continue with his despicable intents.
I first heard the song in the early sixties. My father brought home an LP titled Beauty and the Beard by New Orleans trumpet-player Al Hirt. The album featured Hirt singing duets – no holiday songs– with Ann-Margret, including “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” (Ann-Margret reprised her performance thirty-eight years later with Brian Setzer on his Boogie Woogie Christmas album.)
Songwriter Frank Loesser won an Academy award in 1949 for “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” featured in the movie Neptune’s Daughter. In the film Ricardo Montalban appeals to Esther Williams to stay with him, arguing that the weather is too snowy for her to leave. What seems ironic in today’s milieu, the song was a replacement for the tune “I’d Love to Get You (On a Slow Boat to China).” MGM censors interpreted “get” as “have,” meaning sex and would not allow it.
Ms. Williams appears to be able to make her own arguments and reach her own decision. While coy, the woman is in control here.
The song has been recorded by dozens of artists: Ray Charles & Betty Carter, Steve Lawrence & Edie Gorme, Bette Midler & James Caan, Lou Rawls & Dianne Reeves, Suzy Bogguss & Delbert McClinton, Garth Brooks & Trisha Yearwood, LadyGaga & Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, Willie Nelson & Norah Jones… well, you get the idea. (Later versions of the song found various replacements for the line, “Well, maybe just a cigarette more.”)
If you want to be outraged, try this 1962 recording, devoid of innuendo – that could be titled “Ode to Harvey Weinstein,” – by Kay Martin & Her Bodyguards, from the album I Know What He Wants For Christmas… But I Don’t Know How to Wrap It!
Paradise Lost
The environmental expert currently occupying the White House was quick to assign responsibility for wildfires burning in California. Using the venerable Republican strategy of blaming the victim, he tweeted:
“There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor.”
In fact, these fires are fueled mostly by grass and chaparral; forest land, not so much.
“Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost…. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!”
In fact, California each year sends more dollars to D.C. through federal tax payments than comes back into the state via Federal spending. (As is the case with most “blue” states.)
My former hometown, Santa Rosa, was devastated by wildfire in 1964. Continue reading “Paradise Lost”
Privatize Profits, Socialize Losses
The last half-century has shown us four things that come with Republicans in power:
- Exploding deficits. (“Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter,” quoth Darth Cheney.)
- Scandal (Not a blow-job-in-the-White-House scandal, but a major outrage, e.g. Iran-Contra, Valerie Plame.)
- Invasion of a country perceived to be unable to defend itself. (Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan/Iraq)
- Taxpayer bailout of financial industry after meltdown brought on by repealed regulation. (Savings & Loan, Derivative Trading)
The current administration has already given us numbers 1 and 2; number 3 is in the works. As sure as Mitch McConnell is democracy’s gravedigger, number 4 is coming.
Influenza Centennial
A hundred years ago, November 11, 1918, the armistice ending four years of fighting the Great War was signed. Armistice Day was later renamed Veterans Day. The Great War became known as World War I to differentiate it from the even greater war that broke out in 1939, a little more than twenty years later. WW I killed 8.5 million combatants, another 28 million wounded or missing. Add to that a million or so civilian deaths. The end of the war did not mean people stopped dying, however.
Creeping Memory Loss
Bob Dylan purportedly gave this advice to young songwriters: Don’t write songs with a lot of words; it’s hard to remember ‘em when you get old.
Aaron Neville has been touring, just himself with only piano accompaniment, performing mostly soulful ballads. A music stand close to Neville held a book of song lyrics which he referenced a few times.
Performing solo, John Hiatt stopped in the middle of a song, trying to remember the next lyric. Someone in the audience called out, “Just go ahead with it.” Hiatt responded that a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder couldn’t do that; he has to sing the song from beginning to end. After a few more beats, he smiled, nodded, then re-started the song from the beginning.
Even a much younger singer needs a little help remembering the words… or maybe it was just part of the act.