RIP Davy Jones

1945-2012

Daydream Believer

UK songs reaching #1 at some point in 1969

Listen to a sample here

Best song of all time?

Wow. That would be a challenge wouldn't it?

In the world of Rock and Roll, however, they have come up with the title to that special song. Probably some of you serious fans/music collectors know what it is.

After extensive interviewing and poll-taking, both of serious fans and of professionals in the business, the consensus finally emerged. It was published in an article in Mojo magazine in 2000. Care to guess, if you don't already know? (Obviously, no matter how expert the opinions, the answer is still subjective.)

Hint: the song was first recorded on 18 October, 1965. Since then, it has been recorded by a BUNCH of people.

Trivia. There is no bridge in the song, although the author annotated stanzas 2 and 4 as "M" (middle eight - another term for a bridge). But there is an instrumental "break", apparently a harpsichord. But here's the trivia: this break was written as a piano solo, not a harpsichord. But when it came time to record that portion of the song, the instrumentalist found that he couldn't play the fingering embellishments (grace notes) up to the written tempo of the song. What to do? The difficult portion - inspired by J.S. Bach, always difficult to play at speed - was recorded at half-speed and an octive lower. The result, when played back at real time, is precisely the right tempo called for in the song. Only the speed change surprisingly gave the piano a distinct harpsicord-sounding quality. It isn't a harpsichord, though.

The song that was acclaimed by songwriters, fans and musicians as the best R&R tune of all time? And the author? The lyrics appear in the picture below. Click to enlarge.

If you are not familiar with it, listen to it here.

An introduction to not-so-obscure music

Don't believe what you hear
Don't believe what you see
If you just close your eyes
You can feel the enemy
When I first met you girl
You had fire in your soul
What happened your face of melting in snow?
Now it looks like this
And you can swallow
Or you can spit
You can throw it up
Or choke on it
And you can dream
So dream out loud
You know that your time is coming 'round
So don't let the bastards grind you down

No, nothing makes sense
Nothing seems to fit
I know you'd hit out
If you only knew who to hit
And I'd join the movement
If there was one I could believe in
Yeah I'd break bread and wine
If there was a church I could receive in
'Cause I need it now

To take the cup
To fill it up
To drink it slow
I can't let you go
I must be an acrobat
To talk like this
And act like that
And you can dream
So dream out loud
And don't let the bastards grind you down

Oh, it hurts baby
What are we going to do? Now it's all been said
No new ideas in the house and every book has been read

And I must be an acrobat
To talk like this
And act like that
And you can dream
So dream out loud
And you can find
Your own way out
And you can build
And I can will
And you can call
I can't wait until
You can stash
And you can seize
In dreams begin
Responsibilities
And I can love
And I can love
And I know that the tide is turning 'round
So don't let the bastards grind you down

U-2

Acrobat

[Notes from Max: Lyrics stolen from a Flikr site I forgot to write down. Sorry dude. They are probably wrong. That would be the fault of the guy I stole them from, so please don't bother calling errors to my attention. You will be hard-pressed to find anyone who would care less. Also, I DO realize that this post has shit to do with British Culture that Americans might care about. But the book is almost finished, so wtf, right? Finally, I realize that the picture is not from U-2. So don't bother bringing that up either. If at all possible, just make your comments generally about pub food. Primarily Bangers and Mash, if you don't mind. Or chips with onion gravy. This is because I HATE this kind of music, but I LOVE pub food. Just sayin'.]

You Only Live Twice

Along with the British music invasion of America in the early-to-mid 1960s came a British movie invasion as well, mostly in the form of horror flicks starring Peter Cushing, Peter Lorre, and Vincent Price. All were standard drive-in movie fare (which, therefore, no one actually watched anyway.) The second wave of the British movie invasion of America, after the horror flicks, was a phenomenon known as "James Bond" or "007" films. Dr. No. Thunderball. Goldfinger. All of these movies starred a handsome Scot by the name of Sean Connery. All of the moves had the same general theme: bad guys trying to take over the world, good guys thwarting them—always accompanied by plenty of guns and plenty of girls. A proven combination that has been repeated ad infinitum.

The sixth James Bond movie, and the last to star Sean Connery in the title role, was a movie called "You Only Live Twice." I am reminded of this movie because it was the one which was later spoofed by Mike Myers, spawning Dr. Evil, Mini-Me, and, of course, Fat Bastard. This spoof movie, in turn, was a part of my second post ever on BritishSpeak, the one in which I first encountered the non-devious Claire. (This post is being rerun a few posts down below this one, by the way, if you want to reprise my introduction to the non-devious Claire.)

As with several of the other James Bond movies, the title song to the movie also got quite a lot of radio play. The theme from Goldfinder (sung by Shirley Bassey) is an example. The title song from this movie "You Only Live Twice" became quite popular for a time as well, and was sung by Nancy Sinatra.

You only live twice, or so it seems,

One life for yourself, and one for your dreams.

You drift through the years and life seems tame,
Till one dream appears and love is its name.

And love is a stranger who'll beckon you on,
Don't think of the danger or the stranger is gone.

This dream is for you, so pay the price,
Make one dream come true, you only live twice.

(Last.FM members can listen to these songs at the following links:)
Goldfinger Live Twice

I want to apologize! I started this post early this morning (USA time) and posted the words to the title song first. Then I had to go out suddenly, intending to add the rest of the post when I returned. Of course it was not early morning in the rest of the world, and of course there were some comments when I returned mid-morning. The comments, of course, were on the meaning of the words to the song. Please let me apologize to the commentors, thank them for their insight, and assure all of them that I myself am not nearly as deep as they give me credit for. Please? I want to leave there comments up, because they were so very good, I thought. Thanks.