I’m not even pretending to understand how my mind works (or doesn’t) anymore.
What sane person wakes after a restless sleep with the songs “Paint It Black” and “Wand’rin’ Star” conflated into a mental Spotify loop? Something like:
Do I know where Hell is?
—”Paint Your Wagon Black,” Jagger, Richards, Lerner, Lowe & O’Grady
Hell is in “hello”
I have to turn my head
Until my darkness goes
Just picture, if you dare, Mick Jagger and Lee Marvin croaking along in duet before your first cup of coffee, after a long Night of the Worm Moon. As earworms go this will not crack anyone’s Top 40. Not even in Hell.
Barking my shins on ancient pop-culture references as I stumble drowsily through my hoarder’s skull with the Voices cackling at my missteps — A 1966 Rolling Stones hit? A 1969 musical-comedy miss? And what’s all this about worms? — is hardly a recipe for refreshment.
Whose fingerprints are all over this sonic crime scene, anyway? Well, Clint Eastwood, whose various shoot-’em-ups I have seen far too many times and may have triggered (har har har) my Magnum fetish, is said to have called “Paint Your Wagon” “Cat Ballou II.” You may recall that the Jane Fonda flick “Cat Ballou” — which, like “Paint Your Wagon,” co-starred Lee Marvin — was filmed in part in the Wet Mountain Valley, near the old home place I call Weirdcliffe.
Then we have the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band cameo in “Paint Your Wagon.” Years before Herself and I set up shop outside Weirdcliffe I got to hang around backstage at a whole passel of NGDB shows throughout Colorado, thanks to some San Luis Valley bros with connection to the Nitty Grittys’ road manager.
Worms, you inquire? Night before last, I was revisiting the Don Marquis collection “The Lives and Times of Archy & Mehitabel,” in which Archy threatens to organize a revolutionary society of insects — The Worms Turnverein — to avenge themselves upon their human oppressors. The works of Marquis, along with Frank Herbert’s sandwormy “Dune,” and “The Short-Timers,” the book by Gustav Hasford that was the basis for “Full Metal Jacket” — whose closing credits roll to “Paint It Black” (also, note the Lee Marvin reference at the Hasford link) — are among the books I’ve read many more times than once.
Michael Herr, who worked with Hasford and director Stanley Kubrick on the “FMJ” screenplay, wrote another of my favorite books, “Dispatches,” which with “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque may be tied for the best book about war ever written. From the vantage point of someone who’s never been there and done that, anyway.
I know, I know. This is an awful lot of fuel for a mighty small fire. Happily, Herr, Hasford and Herbert never sat in with the Dirt Band, and Kubrick and Marquis never made a musical (“Paint Your Ornithopter?” “Cat & Roach Ballou?”) so let’s count our blessings. We already have more than enough to keep us awake at night, and most of it is nonfiction.
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My parents had that album along with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I hear several of those songs in my head sometimes when I’m riding. Need to watch that movie again.
Mine had “South Pacific” and “Oklahoma!” The former got a lot of play on the old Telefunken, and I think I feel a few new (old) earworms making themselves at home.
Substantial refreshment in this post and lots of choices and inspiration for mashups and new ear worms. My current ear worm is the film version of “Got a lot of Livin’” (Bye, Bye Birdie). I listened to a podcast about the movie and a week on still going strong. Time to check out “Archy & Mehitabel” again .
“Archy & Mehitabel” was so good. Especially with the George Herriman illustrations. Can you imagine something like that ever making it into a newspaper again? Me neither.
Perhaps my current ear worm will help you return to pleasant dreams. “Keep me where the light is.”
I can see how that one might stick with you, Paddy me lad. Nice clean guitar work.
Since you’re recollecting Lee Marvin singing “I was born…”, and not Clint Eastwood singing “I see Elisa…” (Yeeuck !), I would say that all is ok. But if a singing Clint is stuck in your craw, then I would think that a long road trip should be in your plans.
As for Jagger and Marvin singing together, I can imagine it and believe that it could have happened. But only when alcohol was involved and they happened to cross paths in some dimly lit establishment in a backwater of the planet where they each would have been working on projects. It’s humorous to imagine a film clip of Marvin doing a Mick impression. ”Who’s the better actor now Mick’ee boy?”
No matter what you are reading or watching these days, here’s hoping that you maintain power and stay clear of any bridge pylons.
Oy. That bridge story. The Bay Bridge and Golden Gate in the San Francisco area always scared the mortal shit out of me. The Royal Gorge can give you The Fear, too. I remember my mom refusing to set foot on it when we visited it back in the Before-Time.
Speaking of that bridge story and the flood of conspiracy theories unleashed by same, give a read to Baltimore’s own David “The Wire” Simon on that action. Lord, the man has a way with words.
Oooo. ”Are you intentional or just an accident?” If Greene didn’t have skin like a Klingon I’d think that a statement like that might have hurt her. I proudly admit though, that my media input has easily avoided the “grabbed out of the choking and putrid air” that Ms. Greene and others imbibe upon for their information.
At least your earworms are of actual music that can be accessed by listening devices, I’m stuck with a parody of the Rawhide theme from the Star Trek novel <u>How Much For Just the Planet?</u> .