My White Knight

I've got my favorite musical, "Music Man" on the brain.

I love "The Music Man."  It was a staple in family films I watched as a kid.  Meredith Willson's 1957 classic Musical tells the story of Harold Hill, the scheming travelling salesman who swindles a small Iowa town into buying band uniforms and instruments for their children even though he himself knows nothing about music.

We've recently, as a family, watched the 1962 film.  I've seen it hundreds of times.  My kids loved it!  (Watch it if you haven't seen it, it's great!)  It was fantastic revisiting this beloved film again through more mature eyes.  There is so much depth to the story.  The music is top-notch, clever, fun, catchy and just good.  Oh, and Harold Hill was the first rapper in my opinion.

Aside from the music, Music Man is a great story.  Meredith Willson spent 15 years writing it and perfecting it and he nailed it.  It's about as perfect a production as you can get, with rich characters.  Marian Paroo, the female lead of the production, is a strong female character in a sea of weak doe-eyed female characters from the same era.

One of her ballads, "My White Knight" was playing in my head this morning.  In it, Marian sings of the kind of man she wants in her life.

"And if occasionally he'd ponder
What makes Shakespeare and Beethoven great,
Him I could love 'til I die.  Him I could love 'til I die."

This song is from the stage production, but was omitted from the film in lieu of "Being in Love," another nice song by Meredith Willson, that will certainly be revisited here someday if it happens to get stuck in my head.

Here's "My White Knight"

Have to Drive

This one comes from one of my favorites, the highly underrated Amanda Palmer.

Of all the artists I follow, I suppose I admire Palmer's passion for what she does as a musician more than any other.  She's a gifted songwriter, who can be smart, brave, dangerous, funny and sometimes downright sad.

Today's song comes from her debut solo album "Who Killed Amanda Palmer."  The song is called HAVE TO DRIVE and is about depression.  She talks about driving frequently in the song.  I'm not quite sure what that has to do with her suffering, but I see it as an analogy of moving forward, and even taking control of one's own life.  But the cool thing about a great song is that somebody can find something completely different about it.

I get depressed every year.  It starts around October/November and carries through the cold, gray Utah winters.  My medicine helps me so much, but I can't tell you how much I relate to Palmer's lyrics in this song:

I suffer mornings most of all
I feel so powerless and small
By ten o'clock I'm back in bed
Fighting the jury in my head

At the end, she vows to fight for the cause:

We'll have to drive
They're getting closer
Just get inside
It's almost over

And then, along with a chorus of voices:
We will save your brothers
We will save your cousins
We will drive them far away
From streets and lights
From all signs of bad mankind

I really love this song.  I hope you appreciate this music, my subconscious sure did this morning;  here's "Have to Drive" by Amanda Palmer....

Dog Problems

This is a good one today, which comes from one of my favorites, The Format.

This is the title track from their second and final album, 2006's "Dog Problems"

Have a listen:

The Format, as you may know, evolved into Fun. and likely would have enjoyed more mainstream success had they stuck it out.  

Anyway, the song is great and so are you.  Have a neat week.  

Outside

Yo.  RIP George Michael.

Today's song comes from this talented dude.  It's from his greatest hits album of 1998 but this was a new single.  Holy crap this song played all over Italy when I lived there.  It was a huge hit there.  

George Michael made international news in '98 for a sting operation in which resulted in his arrest for lewd conduct in a Beverly Hills Restroom.  This song was his backlash at the police and media for the frenzy that followed.

I'm posting two YouTube videos- the first one is the actual music video which may be offensive to some.  

The second YouTube video is just the song. 

Lonely Christmas Eve

The song stuck in my head from today comes from my boyfriend, Ben Folds.  It's totally from the soundtrack from the 2000 film "The Grinch"   I suppose all the noise from ringing in the New Year is what wedged this one into my head.  Holy cow there were tons of fireworks.  I'm old.

Here's the song, yo.

Happy New Year, neatos.