Friday, August 30, 2013

What The World Needs Now

I'm taking on too much with this one, but literally the entire Burt Bacharach catalog is stuck in my head. Do you know how many songs that is??? Well, neither do I, but it's like hundreds and thousands and millions of tunes. The problem started when I caught a late night showing of (and by showing I mean I was channel surfing while on my fifth glass of wine and landed on) Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Odd that this movie would find itself mentioned in this here blog more than once, but as I have said previously, it was an oft-quoted source of hilarity for a bunch of stoned college freshman well beyond our freshman days. "Saucer of milk, table two...meaowrrr!" Anyway, so the soundtrack to this epic piece of filmography is all Bacharach, and he even has a cameo ("Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Burt Bacharach...") performing What The World Needs Now while playing piano on top of a double-decker bus. And ever since that moment I haven't been able to stop with the Bacharach madness. I created a Pandora station using his name and all hell broke loose! Dionne Warwick, The Carpenters, Elvis Costello, Dusty Springfield, Aretha Franklin, fricking Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass Band...they are all playing a concert in my head! At the same damn time!! And I kind of like it!!!

But the best part of all of this was discovering A) I actually know almost all the lyrics to every one of his songs and I have no idea how or why. And B) Burt Bacharach's official website is called A House is Not a Homepage, which is brilliant. So in honor of that stroke of genius,  that was the song/video combo I was planning to go with, even though it's not really one of the ones that's been on autopilot in my brain lately. There were just too many performances and artists and songs to choose from, and let's face it, my attention span is not that great these days. Plus it was one of the few videos I could find that actually had him singing his own song. HOWEVER, that song is just too cheesy, even for yours truly, so I'm going with Ella doing I'll Never Fall in Love Again. Cause you really just cannot go wrong with Ella. But if you want to see Burt and Elvis and Austin Powers doing it, you have that option as well. You're welcome.


And let it be noted that the movie is still really effing funny. Even stone-cold sober. Well...OK I already outed myself with the wine comment above, but the point is that after all these years (16!?!) I was still laughing my face off at the same damn jokes. I think wine even came out of my nose once. True story. And great mental image, amiright?

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Knee Deep In The Hoopla

People, it's been a busy summer. But don't fret. I'm determined to get back to the blogosphere as much as possible, starting now. I realize this makes all six of my readers ecstatic, so, you know, you're welcome. We've missed out on so much together over the past few months so let us not waste a minute more...

Starship. Not the Enterprise. The band. Which means, of course, that the earworm du jour is the Billboard No. 1 hit from 1985, We Built this City. I honestly can't tell you the last time I heard this song so how it got lodged in my brain is a mystery. But I think we're all glad that it did because now we can finally tease our hair and pull out our over-sized neon blazers (with shoulder pads, of course,) leg warmers, mini skirts and lace fingerless gloves, and start busting a move in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Thank God! Again, you're welcome.

So here's the interesting thing about this song. It was written by four people, none of whom was in the band Starship. So, first of all, it took FOUR PEOPLE to write this song. That alone is enough to give a person pause. Secondly, none of these people were from the U.S. (one was Elton John's long-time song-writing partner, Bernie Taupin) but the song makes references to only big American cities (as is so subtly shown in the video below.) And lastly, Mickey Thomas, the lead singer for Starship, is still touring (as Starship featuring Mickey Thomas...lame) and doing his really bad 80's-white-person-dance for crowds in such exotic locales as Shreveport, Louisiana and The Woodlands, Texas. I know, what a relief. As an aside, I am really good at 80's white-person-dancing and am happy to give a demo any time. Just holla.

And in case you ever wondered (and I know you have) what the hell "Marconi plays the Mamba" means well I still really don't know. But Guglielmo Marconi is largely credited with having invented the radio. And a Mamba is a highly venomous snake. So, hopefully that clears everything up for you.