Tag Archives: Bailey

All things considered

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Bill Bailey

In her wonderful book Watching the English, Kate Fox analyses the rules for conducting an English conversation. She notes the stock response to “How are you?”—“Mustn’t grumble”.

Bill Bailey ponders the reply “Not too bad—all things considered” in his show Limboland (currently on BBC iPlayer):

We’ve dialed down our expectations to an acceptable level of disappointment.

As to the more expansive reply “Not too bad—all things considered”, Bill’s list of “things” to which these Brits must be referring includes

the Okovanga delta (the cradle of all life), the Alps, the genius of Mozart, the limpid minimalism of Arvo Pärt; those yogurts with a bit of fruit in the corner; all human artistic endeavour; pushing someone in a pond when they least expect it; wars, religion, ideology, a rose, the uncountable stars, the boundless universe; the opalescence that shimmers on the surface of a tear that wells up in a shepherd’s eye as he marvels at the beauty of yet another Patagonian sunrise…

“You considered that?”
“Yeah.”
“And how do you feel?”
“Not too bad.”

* * *

The variant “can’t complain” is the subject of a story in the Big red joke book:

Kovacs went to the police in Budapest and asked for a passport and permission to emigrate.
“And where do you want to emigrate to, Mr Kovacs?” asked the police superintendant.
“Holland.”
“Aren’t you happy in Budapest?”
“I can’t grumble.”
“Don’t you have a good job here?”
“Can’t grumble.”
“Don’t you have a pleasant enough life?”
“Can’t grumble.”
“In that case, why do you want to emigrate to Holland?”
“Because there I can grumble.”

Talking of complaints, 116 people wrote to the BBC to complain that it was making it too easy to complain about the blanket coverage of Prince Philip’s death.

Cf. Hammer and Tickle (here and here), as well as Stewart Lee’s analysis of All things bright and beautiful. See also under The English, home and abroad. Among my favourites in the Bailey tag in the sidebar are

Saint Bill: Black books

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Coffee and books is a fad.

Saint Bill

YAY!!! As further evidence that there’s hope yet for civilisation, I’m delighted that Bill Bailey, guided by the ever-wise Oti Mabuse, has just been canonised by winning Strictly (see this fantasy). So to supplement all the adulation:

His musical standup is brilliant (e.g. here; and Love song: The duck lies shredded in a pancake, Soaking in the hoisin of your lies…). Here’s another one, ranging from panto and military calls to the Alberti bass (“making the music go further—like cutting your blancmange with Angel Delight”), culminating in the East European version of the Match of the Day theme (“The tractor would not start”), following in the footsteps of Mahler:

Nor should we forget Black books—episodes from Saint Bill’s earlier life (Channel 4, three series 2000–2004).

Black books

All three protagonists—Bernard (Dylan Moran, also co-author with Graham Linehan), Manny (Bill Bailey), and Fran (Tamsin Greig)—are delightful, making complementary role-models. Despite Bernard’s persona as a “vile, rude, arrogant, elitist, filthy, chain-smoking alcoholic”, and, um, all the senseless cruelty and violence, the series has the charming mood of a kinder bygone age.

The first episode of Season 2 has more on learning the piano. If you already know that Bill is an accomplished musician (as one does nowadays), then you just have to suspend disbelief. This is a nice reversal of a persistent dramatic cliché:

I always wanted to learn, but my parents forced me not to. I spent hour after hour playing football, all by myself, peering in at all the other children in the neighbourhood practising their piano.

Click here for Bill discovering an affinity for jazz in the bookshop, as well as this:

In a Baileyesque kinda way, all this might lead us to John Cage‘s Sonatas and interludes, the Persian santur, and Studying the cello.

Cowbells: Mahler, Messiaen, and Bill Bailey

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Mahler, a constant inspiration, got me exploring cowbells (wiki: here and here).

For Mahler they represented a far-away realm, “the last greeting from earth to penetrate the remote solitude of the mountain peaks”—suggesting Chinese poetry and painting (cf. Das Lied von der Erde).

He uses them in the 6th symphony, most strikingly (sic) in the first movement, where they feature (along with celeste!!!) in a pastoral vision that suddenly interrupts the trampling jackboots—in my post, on Bernstein’s performance from 12.05, or on Barbirolli’s recording from 8.24. This brief refuge is itself brashly crushed (Bernstein 15.01).

In a later revision to the score Mahler added this typically generous instruction:

Die Herdenglocken müssen sehr diskret behandelt werden—in realistischer Nachahmung von bald vereinigt, bald vereinzelt aus der Ferne herüberklingenden (höheren und tieferen) Glöckchen eine weidenden Herde—Es wird jedoch ausdrücklich bemerkt, dass diese technische Bemerkung keine programmatische Ausdeutung zulässt.

—which, in the spirit of David Pesetsky, I’m tempted to translate as “inaudible”, only it’s a useful insight into his vision—notably Mahler’s final comment “this technical remark does not allow for a programmatic interpretation”.

Cowbells also appear in the slow movement and finale of the 6th. But Thomas Peattie (“Mahler’s Alpine journey”, Acta musicologica 83.1, 2011) unpacks their complex associations, refining the literal programmatic interpretations of critics, and noting that such apparently bucolic scenes are both fractured and fleeting: Utopia as an illusion.

Mahler used cowbells again in the 7th symphony: as this review tells us,

Tennstedt, in rehearsals for his last performances, was intent on showing his percussionists that cows would shake their heads violently and exhorted the player to shake the bell in just such a way (so good was his impersonation of a cow shaking its head, or at least so good was the orchestra’s reaction to it, Tennstedt did it again).

Church bells appear in the 2nd and 3rd symphonies, and sleigh-bells in the 4th. For bells in Bach’s soundscape, click here, as well as at the start of Bach’s sixth cello suite.

Cowbells also feature in Richard Strauss’s Alpine symphony. And they made a natural choice for Messiaen—part of his huge battery of tuned and untuned percussion, along with xylophone, marimba, woodblocks, and so on (not to mention piano and ondes martenot). Cowbells feature in a group of three wonderful works from the early 1960s: Sept haïkaï (with inspirations from gagaku and Noh!), Couleurs de la cité céleste, and Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum.

But that’s enough about WAM! Organology (Sachs-Hornbostel 111.242; cf. the cheesegrater) classifies cowbells as with or without clapper, tuned or unturned, externally struck or not.

Typically (cf. Whistled languages), they are considered as endangered: here’s a heritage project on the manufacture of cowbells in Alcáçovas, in the Alentejo region of Portugal:

And here’s Bill Bailey (currently a Strictly favourite) presiding over a charming rendition of The swan:

But what about the cows, eh? Here’s a health warning for them—”PC gone mad, if you ask me…” And now we have the headline

Swiss health authorities advise public against watching oom-pah bands

With the north Chinese ritual shengguan ensemble never far from my thoughts, I’m reminded of the yunluo frame of ten pitched gongs that adds a numinous halo to the wind instruments (e.g. playlist #8, in sidebar, commentary here). No longer part of the ensemble in north Shanxi, it should be!

For reflections on the household doorbell, press here.

The Tzar-spangled banner—diversity—female genius

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Ohashi https://stephenjones.blog/2019/01/27/tzar-spangled-banner/

I began writing this as another paean to the great Bill Bailey, to follow his greatest-ever love song (“soaking in the hoisin of your lies“), but it has soon turned into yet another tribute to diversity and female genius.

David Hughes (himself a prolific drôle songwriter as well as leading authority on Japanese music) thoughtfully alerts me to this (allegedly) Kremlin-sanctioned version of The star-spangled banner, which is becoming ever more topical:

See also “I think you’ll find—it’s MINOR!”

To return to the major (sung by a minor), this, from Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja, then 7 (taking a rather different path from Alma Deutscher), is remarkable too:

“They come over ‘ere…” See also And did those feet in ancient time?, and The haka.

While I’m here, how can I resist featuring another most inspiring viral clip—and do follow up with Katelyn Ohashi’s thoughtful blog and innumerable further links, like this and this—bearing on ecstasy and drudge, and the nature of artistic competition:

OK then, for a hat-trick of What Really Makes America Great (see The wise AOC):

Do follow @AOC, the most articulate and engaged advocate for political change!

Yet more much-needed hope for our future… Call me a !typical member of the Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati (formerly known as “the Grauniad-reading metropolitan liberal elite”), but long may the likes of “Rear Admiral” Foley turn in their graves.

For another inspirational role model, see here.

Let me see now, what did I come in here for again?

Sing…

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As a corrective to all the glowing speeches from divas and the rapturous adulation of their fans, Bill Bailey (don’t miss his Love song!) recalls:

I was at a Whitney Houston gig, it was supposed to start at three—finally at four o’clock she comes on stage and says,
“I just wanna say, I love each and every one of you!”
and this big black guy next to me shouts,
“Sing, bitch!”

This is a metaphorical version of the fan hitting the shit.

Love song, and more Mozart

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Bailey

Talking of craftsmanship in words and music, here’s Bill Bailey:

Of many classic lines, this is brilliant:

The duck lies shredded in a pancake
Soaking in the hoisin of your lies.

I’m also keen on his pub joke:

An Englishman, an Irishman, and a Scotsman walk into a bar—and everything unfolds with a tedious predictability.

More elaborate is this:

And he’s a fine pianist! It would be just as much fun to play Mozart piano concertos with him as with Robert Levin—here playing Mozart’s very own piano:

Gosh—I’m even playing in the band there too, a stay in Salzburg making a pleasant change in between fieldwork trips to rural Hebei. For my speculations about the reversal of colours on the keyboard soon after Mozart’s day, see Black and white.

Among other tributes to Bill Bailey, see here.