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She plays Medea later this week
All right. Below find the first attempt at a classical mix CD: not by any means comprehensive, but at least it isn't composed solely of Dead Can Dance and the Mountain Goats. Thanks especially to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
watermelontail, xterminal, rushthatspeaks, and lignota, even if the music you recommended wound up nowhere near the playlist below. I am still glad to know it exists.
The fireworks on Friday, as seen from the roof of my grandfather's girlfriend's building next to Symphony Hall, were terrific. We made strawberry ice cream in accordance with the sacred observance of John Adams. Then I spent all the next day with some kind of transient bug: I felt like I was running a fever, but I was two degrees cold. This is fortunately no longer the case. I am still sorry that sparklers are outlawed in Massachusetts, though. The current legislation has absolutely no effect on the number of beer-fueled fireworks in the street, and somehow I think it would take ingenuity to blow one's fingers off with a sparkler.
What I would really have liked were the resources to match songs to each major period of the ancient world,1 but instead I have settled for what I've got, i.e., dropped twenty-five songs into vaguely chronological order, if one counts myth as history2 (and allows for some modern-day latitude), and decided I can always make further mixes if I feel like them. It would be interesting to see if there are enough different takes on Orpheus and Eurydike, for example, to fill an entire CD, or the Odyssey, or Persephone.3 I would hope so. Then again, I was surprised that more popular music doesn't contain classical references. When the Violent Femmes turned up with two adapations from Walter Mehring's Einfach klassisch! Eine Orestie mit glücklichem Ausgang (Simply Classical! An Oresteia with a Happy Ending, 1919), you have no idea how happy that made me. I want Cavafy, I suppose, writing songs. Ah, well.
1. Someone, somewhere in the history of music must have based a song around Kallimachos or the Alexandrian Pleiad, and I want it.
2. My first pass at this list, I automatically filed "Attis & Cybele," "The Fountain of Salmacis," and "Mud and Dark" among the Roman songs, because the first is taken directly from Catullus 63 and the others from Ovid's Metamorphoses (IV.285—388, III.337—399). I'm sure that's significant of something.
3.I have three versions of Persephone, none of which seemed to fit here neatly; likewise I mean no disrespect to the Crüxshadows, whose "Eurydice" was the first twist on Orpheus I ever heard. Perhaps I will put together a myth mix next, although of necessity it will overlap somewhat with the songs listed below.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, "The Lyre of Orpheus"
Eurydice appeared brindled in blood and she said to Orpheus
"If you play that fucking thing down here, I'll stick it up your orifice!"
Prydwyn, "Attis & Cybele"
Where cymbals sound, where the drum resounds
Where the piper plays his proud reed skirling
Where vine-clad nymphs with violence whirl their heads
Where keening cries do quiver through their frenzy
Genesis, "The Fountain of Salmacis"
Son of gods, drink from my spring
Cocteau Twins, "Mud and Dark"
All that remains of Echo is her voice in caves
Still repeating only what others have said
Human Sexual Response, "House of Atreus"
This is the daughter that he offered up to the wind
Stopping her life so a war could begin
This is the son that tore limb from limb
This is the flower that bleeds from the stem
Tim Buckley, "Song to the Siren"
Should I stand amid the breakers
Or should I lie with death my bride?
Suzanne Vega, "Calypso"
Salt of the waves and of tears
And though he pulled away, I kept him here for years
I let him go
Loreena McKennitt, "Penelope's Song"
Long as the day in the summertime
Deep as the wine-dark sea
I will keep your heart with mine.
Till you come to me
The Mountain Goats, "An Inscription at Salonae"
It was not that long ago
But the memory's kind of dying out, you know?
Like a flower caught in the overgrowth
Falling, falling to pieces
The Mountain Goats, "Song for Cleomenes"
He was the governor of Agrigentum, which we now know as Sicily
And he stole everything that wasn't nailed down
Took improper advantage of other men's wives
The list goes on
Trust me
Cicero wrote it all down
Nico, "Julius Caesar (Memento Hodie)"
Calm and vast his voice cascades from this gentle stage
Calm and vast the city lies on a horizontal ground
Kind and calm Julius lies for Octavian to prevail
Mirth, birth, reverie
The Mountain Goats, "Seneca's Trick Mirror"
And blood will roll through the streets of Rome today
And roll across the ocean
Dar Williams, "This Was Pompeii"
I am thinking about the woman in a century of peace
On a bright mosaic she is washing on her knees
And she looks up at the black sky beyond the mountain tall
She says, "Oh, good, the rain is finally going to fall today . . ."
Siouxsie & The Banshees, "Cities in Dust"
Were you praying at the Lares' shrine?
Nova Mob, "The Last Days of Pompeii"
My uncle, he is an admiral—as for me, I have no trade
My name is Pliny and these are observations I have made
Peter Bellamy, "The Roman Centurion's Song"
You'll take the old Aurelian Road through shore-descending pines
Where, blue as any peacock's neck, the Tyrrhene Ocean shines.
You'll go where laurel crowns are won, but—will you e'er forget
The scent of hawthorn in the sun, or bracken in the wet?
Sting, "All This Time"
The teachers told us the Romans built this place
They built a wall and a temple and an edge-of-the-empire garrison town
They lived and they died, they prayed to their gods, but the stone gods did not make a sound
And their empire crumbled till all that was left were the stones the workmen found
Mission of Burma, "New Nails"
The Roman Empire never died
It just changed into the Catholic Church
Tom Waits, "In the Colosseum"
And greetings from the nation as we shake the hands of time
They're taking their ovations as the vultures stay behind
The Mountain Goats, "Young Caesar 2000"
But as sure as flowers grow along the western wall
Some heads are going to roll
Tori Amos, "Pandora's Aquarium"
I am not asking you to believe in me
Boy, I think you're confused—I'm not Persephone
She's in New York somewhere, checking her accounts
Patricia Barber, "Orpheus/Sonnet"
Utterly beside the point, in straw hat
And fussing with flowers, I am consigned
To neither here nor there, to this and that
Long since the Furies cried, I've been alone
For gods don't rejoice in the death of two
June Tabor, "Verdi Cries"
I draw a jackal-headed woman in the sand
Sing of the lovers' fate ruled by jealous hate
Then go wash my hands in the sea
Lal & Mike Waterson, "Bright Phoebus"
For the very first time, she smiled on me
And just because it's on my computer:
Monty Python, "The Bruces' Philosophers Song"
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed
That's all for now. Vale!
watermelontail, xterminal, rushthatspeaks, and lignota, even if the music you recommended wound up nowhere near the playlist below. I am still glad to know it exists.The fireworks on Friday, as seen from the roof of my grandfather's girlfriend's building next to Symphony Hall, were terrific. We made strawberry ice cream in accordance with the sacred observance of John Adams. Then I spent all the next day with some kind of transient bug: I felt like I was running a fever, but I was two degrees cold. This is fortunately no longer the case. I am still sorry that sparklers are outlawed in Massachusetts, though. The current legislation has absolutely no effect on the number of beer-fueled fireworks in the street, and somehow I think it would take ingenuity to blow one's fingers off with a sparkler.
What I would really have liked were the resources to match songs to each major period of the ancient world,1 but instead I have settled for what I've got, i.e., dropped twenty-five songs into vaguely chronological order, if one counts myth as history2 (and allows for some modern-day latitude), and decided I can always make further mixes if I feel like them. It would be interesting to see if there are enough different takes on Orpheus and Eurydike, for example, to fill an entire CD, or the Odyssey, or Persephone.3 I would hope so. Then again, I was surprised that more popular music doesn't contain classical references. When the Violent Femmes turned up with two adapations from Walter Mehring's Einfach klassisch! Eine Orestie mit glücklichem Ausgang (Simply Classical! An Oresteia with a Happy Ending, 1919), you have no idea how happy that made me. I want Cavafy, I suppose, writing songs. Ah, well.
1. Someone, somewhere in the history of music must have based a song around Kallimachos or the Alexandrian Pleiad, and I want it.
2. My first pass at this list, I automatically filed "Attis & Cybele," "The Fountain of Salmacis," and "Mud and Dark" among the Roman songs, because the first is taken directly from Catullus 63 and the others from Ovid's Metamorphoses (IV.285—388, III.337—399). I'm sure that's significant of something.
3.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, "The Lyre of Orpheus"
Eurydice appeared brindled in blood and she said to Orpheus
"If you play that fucking thing down here, I'll stick it up your orifice!"
Prydwyn, "Attis & Cybele"
Where cymbals sound, where the drum resounds
Where the piper plays his proud reed skirling
Where vine-clad nymphs with violence whirl their heads
Where keening cries do quiver through their frenzy
Genesis, "The Fountain of Salmacis"
Son of gods, drink from my spring
Cocteau Twins, "Mud and Dark"
All that remains of Echo is her voice in caves
Still repeating only what others have said
Human Sexual Response, "House of Atreus"
This is the daughter that he offered up to the wind
Stopping her life so a war could begin
This is the son that tore limb from limb
This is the flower that bleeds from the stem
Tim Buckley, "Song to the Siren"
Should I stand amid the breakers
Or should I lie with death my bride?
Suzanne Vega, "Calypso"
Salt of the waves and of tears
And though he pulled away, I kept him here for years
I let him go
Loreena McKennitt, "Penelope's Song"
Long as the day in the summertime
Deep as the wine-dark sea
I will keep your heart with mine.
Till you come to me
The Mountain Goats, "An Inscription at Salonae"
It was not that long ago
But the memory's kind of dying out, you know?
Like a flower caught in the overgrowth
Falling, falling to pieces
The Mountain Goats, "Song for Cleomenes"
He was the governor of Agrigentum, which we now know as Sicily
And he stole everything that wasn't nailed down
Took improper advantage of other men's wives
The list goes on
Trust me
Cicero wrote it all down
Nico, "Julius Caesar (Memento Hodie)"
Calm and vast his voice cascades from this gentle stage
Calm and vast the city lies on a horizontal ground
Kind and calm Julius lies for Octavian to prevail
Mirth, birth, reverie
The Mountain Goats, "Seneca's Trick Mirror"
And blood will roll through the streets of Rome today
And roll across the ocean
Dar Williams, "This Was Pompeii"
I am thinking about the woman in a century of peace
On a bright mosaic she is washing on her knees
And she looks up at the black sky beyond the mountain tall
She says, "Oh, good, the rain is finally going to fall today . . ."
Siouxsie & The Banshees, "Cities in Dust"
Were you praying at the Lares' shrine?
Nova Mob, "The Last Days of Pompeii"
My uncle, he is an admiral—as for me, I have no trade
My name is Pliny and these are observations I have made
Peter Bellamy, "The Roman Centurion's Song"
You'll take the old Aurelian Road through shore-descending pines
Where, blue as any peacock's neck, the Tyrrhene Ocean shines.
You'll go where laurel crowns are won, but—will you e'er forget
The scent of hawthorn in the sun, or bracken in the wet?
Sting, "All This Time"
The teachers told us the Romans built this place
They built a wall and a temple and an edge-of-the-empire garrison town
They lived and they died, they prayed to their gods, but the stone gods did not make a sound
And their empire crumbled till all that was left were the stones the workmen found
Mission of Burma, "New Nails"
The Roman Empire never died
It just changed into the Catholic Church
Tom Waits, "In the Colosseum"
And greetings from the nation as we shake the hands of time
They're taking their ovations as the vultures stay behind
The Mountain Goats, "Young Caesar 2000"
But as sure as flowers grow along the western wall
Some heads are going to roll
Tori Amos, "Pandora's Aquarium"
I am not asking you to believe in me
Boy, I think you're confused—I'm not Persephone
She's in New York somewhere, checking her accounts
Patricia Barber, "Orpheus/Sonnet"
Utterly beside the point, in straw hat
And fussing with flowers, I am consigned
To neither here nor there, to this and that
Long since the Furies cried, I've been alone
For gods don't rejoice in the death of two
June Tabor, "Verdi Cries"
I draw a jackal-headed woman in the sand
Sing of the lovers' fate ruled by jealous hate
Then go wash my hands in the sea
Lal & Mike Waterson, "Bright Phoebus"
For the very first time, she smiled on me
And just because it's on my computer:
Monty Python, "The Bruces' Philosophers Song"
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed
That's all for now. Vale!
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Wow!
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Enjoy!
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Thank you so much for this!
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You're very welcome! I'm glad you like the music!
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Glad to be able to help!
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Glad Friday was enjoyable. Sorry to hear about your not-fever, but glad you're feeling better now.
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Welcome! Seriously, I might put up another mix in a few days. I wish I had been able to find more songs based in classical history rather than mythology, but I've still got some good mythic ones that didn't make it in.
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Excellent.
I wish I had been able to find more songs based in classical history rather than mythology, but I've still got some good mythic ones that didn't make it in.
Wish I could help, but most everything I've got about mediaeval or early modern history. Classical references, ayup--"she appeared like great Juno, that fair Grecian queen"--but naught that's more concrete.
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I remember when I heard that for the first time. I was in a now-defunct store called Chrysalis in Lexington Center, that sold candles and tarot decks and tumbled amethysts; I recognized in the chorus and the last verse a Maying song I had learned in elementary school.
We've been rambling all of the night and the best part of the day
And now returning back again, we bring you a branch of May
A branch of May we bring to you and at your door we stand
It's nothing but a sprout, but it's well budded out by the work of nature's hand
I do not know which teacher introduced it to the school or where they had learned it; Waterson : Carthy's version is the closest I've ever found. But it's good imagery.
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I almost set myself on fire with one by slipping down some ice-coated stairs though, once.
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I just found out this year. When we spent every Fourth of July in Maine, who knew? There was cheerily crackling aluminum everywhere.
I almost set myself on fire with one by slipping down some ice-coated stairs though, once.
Where was this?
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Do you want songs inspired from Southern Hemisphere mythologies, or just the classical Graeco-Roman ones for the moment?
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They should all be downloadable from this post. If the links are broken, let me know!
Do you want songs inspired from Southern Hemisphere mythologies, or just the classical Graeco-Roman ones for the moment?
This was just Greco-Roman, but I'll take all the mythologies I can get!
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Hee. Enjoy!
(They have other classics-themed songs, I just didn't want to overload the mix . . .)
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I don't know if you 'do' opera, but I have just been listening to Cherubini's Medea and it is fabulous (and very doomy).
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You're welcome! I both sing and listen to opera, the weirder the better. This was intended as a non-classical classics mix, but I will definitely look up Medea!
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I've never listened to that one, although I did read an interesting review in the TLS . . . Two of my favorite composers are Gian Carlo Menotti and Benjamin Britten, both of whom are not exactly to everyone's taste; but possibly less weird than I think.
Give me Baroque any day!
So who else do you like?
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You're very welcome. Enjoy!
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Weird. I set them all up at the same time. If it doesn't return, and you still want the song, just let me know.