Songs From The Room Of Life

Chapter 3: Rulers make bad lovers

New fic: Under his carpet

Under his carpet: Linda Eastman McCartney reflects on the ups and downs her marriage to Paul in a series of snapshots between 1968 and 1990. Chapter 1 of 5 posted.

Plinda fans/Paul superfans dni (JOKING! No sugarcoating, but not a hatchet job on either. Most of it is based on fact, but plenty is invented - speculative fiction an' all that.)

While not shying away from the darker sides of the marriage, this story is primarily intended as a character study about flawed individuals, none of whom are villains. It also explores the tension between visually appearing liberated, as many Boomer women did, and the reality of their domestic lives. A tension which is still relevant today.

Cor Klaasen

Record sleeves for the Mercier Catholic Record Club, designed by Cor Klaasen

Cor Klaasen was a Dutch designer who worked in Irish advertising throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s, but is best remembered for the covers he designed for numerous Irish books and records, including school books for Fallons and sleeves for the Mercier Catholic Record Collection, the original incarnation (pardon the pun) of Mercier Press. A brief exhibition of his work, held as part of Dublin Design Week, is on show in Adifferentkettleoffishaltogether, a small gallery on Ormond Quay, until next Wednesday 10th November. It’s worth a visit, both to appreciate Klaasen’s clean, clever design and to get a feel of some of vibrancy that existed in Irish art and design between the 50s and the 70s.

As exhibition co-ordinator, Niall McCormack (who also maintains the excellent site about vintage Irish book covers, www.hitone.ie) said at a talk he gave as part of OFFSHOOT last night, we assume that 50s Ireland was all ‘Angela’s Ashes and people whipping each other’, but while Ireland was nowhere near as advanced as other European countries in art and design, there was still a number of talented, enthusiastic people who did their best to shake up the stifling social conservatism that dominated in all cultural fields for so long.

I thought McCormack was perhaps a little too dismissive about the Catholic Church’s cultural influence in this period during his talk, because the Klaasen exhibition shows that though it was largely responsible for the lack of innovative cultural activity in the country at the time, there was a surprisingly strong forward-thinking element within the Church at the time too, who provided Klaasen with a substantial portion of his employment. Some of the record sleeves he designed for Mercier are astonishingly radical, like one where the almost cartoonishly dull title ‘Building a new moral theology’ read by Rev. Albert Johnson, belies the surreal black-lined Christ-head, complete with long red spikes extending from his stylised crown of thorns. It certainly wasn’t John Charles McQuaid and his ilk who were OK-ing this and other striking cover designs.

Klaasen worked in a simple, classic style, occasionally branching out into 60s-style cartoon but overall you get the feeling he preferred the clean lines of the De Stijl style he would have grown up with in Amsterdam. One highlight is a cover for a religious book entitled ‘The Methods of Dogmatic Theology’ by Walter Kaspar, which is a plain black background broken by a simple white circle enclosing the text of the title. Smaller white bubbles extend from the large circle, but not so much so as to break the tranquil cleanness of the design. His more detailed images are successful too, particularly the abstract covers of the various schoolbooks he designed for Fallons, many of which were carved out directly on his printing surface without the aid of a pencil drawing.

He could turn his hand to political material too, evidenced by his cover for a book on the UVF, published in 1973 by Torc Press, in which a row of grotesque-looking paramilitaries, printed in lines so thick as to be almost unintelligible, line the bottom of a plain red cover, with the word UVF rendered in jarring black-lined orange above. He incorporates the symbolic orange of the Unionist paramilitaries against what would normally be a clashing red tone, perhaps to imply the blood that was on the hands of the people suggested by the images below. The grimaces of the terrorists evoke the grotesque leers of George Grosz’s villains, an artist that Klaasen admired and often imitated.

It’s easy in the 21st century to dismiss mid-20th century Ireland as a place of unmitigated drear and uncreativity, so it’s a good thing for exhibitions like this to display the often-forgotten figures who played a role in bucking that trend. I would recommend catching this exhibition before it finishes, it can be viewed in the gallery from 11am-5pm daily between now and next Wednesday.

Director's Cut - Kate knows what she's doing

Kate Bush’s new/old album Director’s Cut, a reworking of tracks from 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes, has received largely positive reviews from critics and rather more mixed responses from the public. I’ve heard a few radio DJs expressing unhappy bemusement after playing the new versions of classic tracks such as 'Deeper Understanding', 'This Woman’s Work' and 'The Sensual World', a bemusement echoed and intensified by listeners’ texts. No doubt hearing new versions of old songs, especially ones that are already much-loved by fans, is going to provoke a reaction, and not always a good one. But I’m of the belief that the pissed-off fans are letting their emotions get in the way of their critical judgement.

I can accept that Director’s Cut, as a concept, could seem a bit pointless and redundant if you are a fan who already owns and appreciates the albums on which the tracks originally appear. But for people who are not familiar with her work it provides an almost perfect introduction to it, like a Greatest Hits, but with more care and effort put in. I am one of those people and I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to hear a cross-section of her older work and to hear how she is working now – how her voice sounds now as a mature woman, how her producing skills are as experimental and precise as ever, how her interest in music is not frozen in time and how (unlike many other world-famous artists) she is not resting on her laurels and releasing a best-of every couple of years to keep bread on the table. A lot of work has gone into producing this album, and that alone justifies the price.

Like most people, I was always familiar with Kate Bush; I knew her famous tunes and knew that she was the kind of artist I would like, but had not gotten around to investigating her properly. This was partly because of a fear of 80s production values – I couldn’t help but think that my enjoyment of her work would be hampered by an overload of cheesy synths and reverb. These fears have turned out to be unjustified, but it’s not hard to understand why I might have had them. Listening to the new tracks gave me a chance to sample a cross-section of her songs and decide from there if I thought her work was worth investigating further. The answer was, to echo the new version of the title track of The Sensual World, a resounding YES.

That song provides a good jumping-off point for approaching this album as a neophyte. I was only vaguely aware of the original song so on hearing the new version (now called 'Flower of the Mountain') I carried no baggage of expectation. All I knew was that she had succeeded in gaining permission from the notoriously protective Joyce estate to use Molly Bloom’s soliloquy from the end of Ulysses as the lyrics. People who were used to the 1989 version, with Bush’s own adapted lyrics, can’t seem to get their heads around the song now, but as far as I’m concerned it works much, much better (as would befit its original conception). As Bush said herself: ‘I’m not James Joyce’, - while her adapted lyrics are quite poetic, they have nothing on the fluid, rushing, earthy lines of the original text. The soliloquy lends itself extraordinarily well to music, with lines like ‘when I put the flower in my hair like the Andalusian girl used or shall I wear the red yes’ flowing gorgeously through the tune and giving the song a subtler yet more powerful sensuality than the original’s somewhat-overdone breathiness. The drums and bass are stronger on this version too, giving the song a secure scaffolding and letting the uilleann pipes come through with more clarity. It’s not only the new lyrics that make this the definitive version of this song.

Other tracks serve as complements to the originals, rather than supplanters. 'Deeper Understanding', told from the point of view of a programmer drawn into an obsessive relationship with a computer has been extended and reworked to include a creepy Auto-Tune effect on Kate’s voice in the chorus (when the computer is supposed to be addressing the programmer). Some have argued that this cheapens the song somewhat, ‘spelling out’ the meaning for the listener rather than leaving it ambiguous. My main issue with this song is that on first hearing I thought the obsession described by the narrator was simply the rush of becoming absorbed in the complexity and mystery of programming itself, but on closer listening the lyrics seem to indicate that the narrator installs a programme that directly simulates a friend, a meaning that strikes me as overly literal. The new video, starring Robbie Coltrane and Noel Fielding, seems to bear this interpretation out. The song would be more compelling if the concept of the narrator befriending or falling in love with the computer was approached metaphorically, framed in a story about absorption in the programming process. This issue remains the same in either version, so I have no preference of the new over the old track or vice versa – they are both musically interesting in different ways, and the use of a Bulgarian women’s choir in both is very well done. The extended ending of the new version has a good deal of experimentation in various electronic sounds which will appeal to some and not to others – again it’s a matter of taste. 

'This Woman’s Work' is one of the few tracks that has been completely re-recorded, in a lower key to accommodate Bush’s mature voice. Again I wasn’t familiar enough with the original to be especially attached to it over the new. The original scores points for being sparer and not as reverb-heavy as the new, but Bush’s current, slightly lower voice is more to my taste. In both versions the power of the song remains undiluted. The same can be said for 'Moments of Pleasure', another entirely re-recorded track. 

A few critics have referred to The Red Shoes as one of Bush’s weaker albums, which only leads you to amaze at how good the good stuff must be, if tracks such as 'Lily', 'Moments of Pleasure', 'The Song of Solomon', 'Top of the City' and the title track are ‘bad’ by her standards! The songs from The Red Shoes that have been re-recorded remain fairly close to the originals so again fans can’t froth too much at changes. Having listened to both the new and original versions I think these tracks benefit hugely from the more muscular drumming and deeper vocals they receive on Director’s Cut – the vocals on 'The Song of Solomon' and 'Top of the City' particularly are much more powerful and affecting than in the originals, and the new drum track on 'The Red Shoes' – a track Bush has said in interviews that she is particularly happy with – gives the song the full, crazy propulsion necessary to carry its whirling-dervish beat and melody. 

Bush’s reasoning for recording this album was that she felt that the songs on the two original albums were not produced as well as she would have liked. The results on Director’s Cut bear her creative judgement out. There have been so many developments in audio technology since 1989 and the digitisation of the two original albums, at a time when digital audio technology was still developing, seems to have given the originals a rather thin sound. Bush’s decision to transfer the audio to analogue and re-record the drums and vocals was intelligent – it brought out the strength of the instrumentation that had got lost in the digital mist, and the new additions helped to, well, make the songs louder, which they needed to be.

'Rubberband Girl' is the only track which doesn’t seem to benefit much from re-recording – it has a strangely muted audio quality, which, if intentional, was misguided.  But apart from that Kate Bush hasn’t put a foot wrong in this album, and unlike many established artists, she’s not just plugging the gap between albums with repackaged old albums – she’s actually put in studio time and commitment, and given her fans something new and interesting. Breath is bated for her new album, and in the meantime there’s a whole back catalogue to discover.

Hollering at this description of Magic Alex at some pre-Apple planning meeting. John's weird little boyfriend, plotting away.

(Source: Magical mystery tours : my life with the Beatles by Tony Bramwell)

 Peñíscola, Spain.

On Instagram

I don't know how Ray thought this story makes him look like a good journalist. "It was the most important story of my career" what, because one of the subjects was so flattered by it that they flattered you in turn and got you to be (one of) their court stenographers for a time? He's better than most Beatles writers but this story makes him sound easily bought and bad at his job, idk why he'd tell it.

Cultivating journalists was one of John’s best PR skills. He was very good at building relationships, encouraging loyalties, creating a dynamic where his interests became the journalist’s interests.

Ray Connolly is a good example. He met Paul first, reporting on the filming of Magical Mystery Tour. He was new to the job, and remembers “sitting meekly outside the crowd in the bar in the hotel, wondering how I was ever going to get to know anyone, when suddenly someone sat in the empty chair next to mine. It was Paul McCartney.” From this start, Connolly builds a working relationship with Paul and the other Beatles. But over time, he becomes closer to John and Yoko - because they put the work in. Paul is friendly to a shy journalist, and vaguely supportive afterwards. But John rings him up, pays attention to his writing, rewards him when he (and Yoko) like what Connolly’s doing.

Here’s the big turning point. On 27 November 1969, Connolly published an article headlined “1969: The day the Beatles died”. “In writing this article, I was, in journalistic parlance, flying a kite,” Connolly explains - writing up his own guess about what was happening. “In terms of my career, it turned out to be probably the most important piece I ever wrote – and at least one of the Beatles was delighted when he read it.” And here’s how he expressed that delight:

The day after this piece was published a white rose in a see-through plastic box was delivered to my desk at the Evening Standard. An attached card read ‘To Ray with love from John and Yoko’. The unwritten message couldn’t have been clearer. From that moment I was to have my own ‘Deep Throat’ in the Beatles organisation, leaking me a steady flow of information - John Lennon.

I laughed out loud when I first read that, because it’s just so perfect. The white rose turns 1960s flower power into the new, stripped-back, all-white JohnandYoko aesthetic. It keeps the imagery of peace and flowers, but moves them into the art gallery. The rose comes encased in plastic, another trademark (think of Plastic Ono Band, or John’s enthusiasm for the idea of performing in a giant plastic bubble in Get Back.) And the written message doesn’t say anything concrete: no specific praise, no comment on the piece. Instead of committing themselves, they leave Ray to join the dots.

Which he did. More than that, just look at how he reads the situation: he sees John as his source, rather seeing himself as John’s journalist. Within a month, John and Yoko are paying Ray’s first-class fare so he can fly to Canada to report on their peace campaign. Ray Connolly strikes me as one of the brighter Beatle-adjacent journalists - he kept his independence, and managed to stay on good terms with Paul as well as John - but he fell for that one hook, line and sinker.

Early Bloomsday.

On Instagram

finished loving john and am turning it around and around in my head. may pang is not without her biases but it's pretty easy to flag where they are and what they're colored by. it is clear to me that she didn't like paul very much, and im not sure whether that's because of the way john presented him to her amidst the business troubles or because she perceived he didn't like her with john. the way may presents the johnandyoko reconciliation, it's entirely caused by yoko's hypnotherapist. but we know that's not entirely true and i dont know if at the time of writing she knew about paul telling john in LA that yoko wanted him back. there's a lot of instances where john and may are conspiring against yoko: keeping secrets and telling lies to pacify her. i dont know if may considered the two of them might have been doing the same to her. it seems easier for her to blame yoko for the whole thing, both the start and end of the relationship, and while she certainly deserves quite a bit of blame it's also john who won't take no for an answer when he first tries to sleep with her and it's john who chose to go back to yoko. yoko knew how to use the deepest parts of his psychology to convince him, but is was still HIS psychology. and honestly as an outside observer even though may had an incredible strength of character at such a young age i dont think anyone was really a match for the depth of trauma john had and it's entirely possible something worse may have happened had he stayed with her longer. and he did almost kill her.

John not into chicks in this January 1966 issue of Fabulous magazine.

Naturally I googled the photoshoot...

The face and sleeves of a man who does not want to be doing this at all 😄❤️🐥🐥

eight word horror story