Althouse can't stand this song -- "the endless singsong melody;" Meade recently called it a "dirge."
I like the song. I think Lightfoot was trying to mimic the feel of being on a ship at sea.
That video is well done, too -- lots of historical footage. Plus how can you not choke up a little at 3 minutes, 53 seconds when the camera shows a photo of the captain's family holding his photo? How insensitive can some people be?
51 comments:
Oh and Meade, sir, dude, thanks for the heads up on the anniversary.
Ah, the mendacious duo of narcissism.
Phphphththth.
It's a good song, sad, telling a strong tale.
It is a dirge, literally. Is that meant to be a criticism?
Criminey. I'm sure it's a crushing blow to Lightfoot.
What is this blog supposed to be? Is it it's own blog, or a lite version of Althouse blog?
Because if it's just Althouse Lite, then put the fucker out of its misery.
Or if it's okay to draw on other blogs for content, then how about finding some other, interesting blogs from among the many thousand blogs in the blog universe?
Or if it's okay to draw on other blogs for content, then how about finding some other, interesting blogs from among the many thousand blogs in the blog universe?
Well, since many here including you already migrated to Turley's blog. I suppose I could link him. But I'd rather not.
Find some way not to involve me, Haz.
Anybody read Sixty Grit lately?
Why summon the Devil?
No good can come of it.
That does not refer to Sixty by the way.
I hope he is OK.
He might be off chopping wood or something.
I thought this song is a ballad.
Bob Dylan's going, Damn, wish I wrote that.
Is he going away?
I would love to see that.
Bernard Bolan's "Not Many Fish" is similar owing to the ballad form.
A lawyer with an ouvre of amusing songs.
Jeff Tweedy (Wilco) sang this in concert before Dylan took the stage in Duluth. He didn't know the words and his sheet music blew away in the middle, leaving the band to run around the stage picking the sheets up. Funny. They didn't miss a beat, tho.
When you play an outdoor rock concert you don't really have to know the words anyway.
What bothers me about the song is it's historical inaccuracy.
I mean, was it really so rough the old cook couldn't have served up some sandwiches or something?
Come on.
Respect Haz's feelings but don't let 'm push you around, chickenlit.
And hey, if you see that "insensitive" ndspinelli over at Turley's, please tell him I said yo ho ho and a howdy do da.
Eric the Fruit Bat said...
"What bothers me about the song is it's historical inaccuracy."
Gumbinger!
Chip Ahoy said...
I thought this song is a ballad.
Bob Dylan's going, Damn, wish I wrote that.
November 11, 2014 at 2:05 AM
Excellent point, Chip. Dylan grew up in Hibbing, MN near the open pit iron ore mines yet never managed to write a single ballad about that or the peripheral shipping industry. Instead, around that time, he occupied himself with "truth-telling ballads" about "falsely tried" convicts.
It's an ok song in small doses. I rather liked it. And it is a dirge. That is good too because it captures the horribleness of the event.
We used to listen to a satellite radio station mix on our wireless speakers when sitting outside. Sirius...I think. (Stopped subscribing when we downsized our Dish subscription and went to streaming media). One of the stations played this song so often we started calling it the Edmund Fitzgerald Station because we couldn't remember the number of the station on the satellite.
"Gah....there it is AGAIN. Don't they have any other songs of that genre????"
"Dylan grew up in Hibbing, MN near the open pit iron ore mines yet never managed to write a single ballad about that or the peripheral shipping industry"
In which chickenlit channels his inner ndspinell/edducher/cliff clavin.
Ever heard of "North Country Blues" from 1963? Sing-songy folk dirge, like a leaky rowboat rocking and rolling you into a permanent death slumber.
Miss you, Sixty.
Lightfoot didn't describe his song as a dirge. He called it a story song, which is its correct genre.
This is a dirge.
"Dirge" 1973
Interesting take by some here. Given that I sat and listened to to the last broadcasts from the SS Carl D Bradley 18 November 1958 on our short wave and marine band radio on the shore of Lake Michigan....as she sank in a nasty storm on Lake Michigan. One other commenter here may have heard those same broadcasts, as he was at the high school I attended at the time.
Dying men have little recourse, when they know they are going to die, and only 2 out of 35 survived, and they were nearly frozen to death clinging to a hatch cover with 2 other men who had died in place.
I spent the best part of 40 years out on Lake Michigan and some storms caught me by surprise, miles from shore. A couple had 15+ foot waves and swamped my small boat and I struggled to steer to the shore, flooded to the brim, and breech beach it....to be pulled out later by a bulldozer.
So, yeah, call the Fitzgerald tune a dirge or a ballad, it is none-the-less a song about death and the men who sail in rough seas. Yes, the waves on Lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron can be over 25 feet high, with a few rogues higher, and are all far closer together than in the open ocean, and no your chances are nearly zero if caught out in it. Try battling a pair of 20 foot waves when in a mere 30 foot wide trough. You will die....unless in one of those Great Lakes fishing boats designed to roll over and come up again...no open decks. I have been there and it scared the crap out of me...I understand the men who went down on big ships, they had no choice. As it sinks you are either well away from it or you are drawn down with it.
Oh, BTW (reference Lem's post of my message to him ... his idea, which one little fuck face didn't grasp)...my alcohol consumption is now down by 80% and tomorrow is my last cancer ray gun treatment. I am going to be fine. I give a fuck less what one sniveling weasel might think.
Today is a day for all of us, veterans and those who were home and supporting the soldiers. I say all of us because that is what it is...everyone must be somewhere and that is where they are supposed to be, most needed, and necessary. In short, all veterans include those who supported as well as those who served. My hat if off to all of y'all, sincerely. You saved my life and don't even know it.
Funny how even my 90% Arab Muslim neighbors "get it" and respect the flag I fly.
Thanks for your service and way to cut back on your drinking, Airdog. You going for that last 20% or is 80% down going to be good enough?
"As [narcissists]get older, they lose cognitive capacity, and the mask will begin to slip. Additional stresses, like advancing age, reduced attractiveness, and others around them who are young and have their whole lives ahead of them, will all coalesce into a psychic stress which will further erode cognitive capacity.
...as they get older, they become more aware of how other people are younger and happier, and it bothers them so much that they can’t smile effectively. They are people who are crushed by defeat, and as they get older, defeat becomes ever more present, and their unhappiness is ever harder to hide.
Nobody will make him happy, but if he can find a suitable abuse sponge, and make them feel like crap, he may not feel as bad about his own situation, though he will have to abuse ever more as he gets older, to assuage his increasing agony.
Narcissists are awesome at being normal, when they are young. As they get older, or if they think they can get away with it because you are trapped, the mask comes off, and they say, “fuck it!” What you see then is the real them, and it is awful.
As they get older, they stop caring if you see behind the mask, and just let out what was inside all along. But [he] was always like this. Now you know what [he] is. "
Is that your self-diagnosis, Pogo, or your shrink's?
Is that a cardinal, or a hemorrhoid?
If the latter, I have a suggestion.
This why we can't have nice things.
Perfect, Trooper.
It's a cardinal. It was perched in tree in our backyard. I used a telephoto lens and tripod and then tweaked the image in iPhoto. If you have a personality disorder or relationship problem or hemorrhoids, you should try to find a good doctor. Anonymous random blog commenters are probably not qualified to help you and could easily make your problems worse.
Good luck and Godspeed, Pogo.
Try adding fiber.
I've heard of people doing that. Is that what your doctor told you? I hope that works for you, Pogo.
I've always had plenty of fiber in my diet. But I did once have hemorrhoids - about 6 or 7 years ago - until I eliminated beer and wine from my diet. That completely resolved the problem. I know I know, I've heard the joke... now I'm a perfect asshole. Haw!
This Haydn sounds to me remarkably in tune.
I think it's using mean-tone tuning instead of even-tempered.
The intervals work out perfectly but only in a few keys. You get wolf intervals if you stray into the wrong key.
Also they sound like viola da gamba etc not cello and viola. So they'd be fretted, and you could set up the intervals.
Rh's Haydn isn't in "meantone" temperament. That's because it's played on two fretless stringed instruments and one with frets. Temperament usually applies to keyboard instruments and fretted instruments only to a certain extent. The Haydn performance is merely "in tune." Playing in tune is quite possible on most instruments if the players have the sounds of pure thirds and sixths in their heads.
Most people understand pure octaves, fifths and fourths, but the third is a fraught interval that has two completely different derivations: the 5:4 ratio of the overtone series, and the 81:64 ratio of the addition of four intervals of a fifth. The difference is known as the Syntonic Comma. European-derived music has been fighting to adjust to these intervals since antiquity. The modern solution is equal temperament, as is universally found on current keyboard instruments. It has seriously out-of-tune thirds for the sake of nearly pure fifths and fourths, plus the ability to play in all 24 major and minor keys without any difference in the relative intervals. Those out-of-tune thirds have been burnt into music-lovers' heads for a couple of hundred years now, so really in-tune performances can sound odd to most people.
In addition to keyboards, equal temperament is also implied by fretted instruments, but less so. It is quite possible to "bend" notes on a guitar, lute, viola da gamba, and, yes, a Baryton, to make them better in-tune in context, but the natural temperament of intervals will be approximately equal without the player's adjustment. Vincenzo Galilei, Galileo's father, was a professional lutenist who, as a result of his mathematical and other studies, advocated the use of equal temperament in the mid-16th century. He was not alone, but it took another 200 years or so to catch on universally. In the mean time, various compromise systems started being used, especially after the 1640's, which enabled keyboard instruments to successfully play in all keys. Each key, though, had a different tonal quality, due to the difference of the intervals. Theorists in the Baroque assigned different colors, signs of the Zodiac, humours, etc., to various keys. Bach's "well-tempered" system was one of these so-called "good" temperaments and NOT equal temperament.
By Haydn's time, meantone tuning and the more pungent 17th and early 18th century temperaments were seriously obsolete. Most tunings of the time approximated equal temperament, but not exactly. But that is another long story, and I'm sure you've all had it with bad temperaments anyway.
It has dawned on me no one's explained "meantone" tuning. This tuning replaced "Pythagorean" tuning in the late 15th or very early 16th century. To tune it, starting from c, you tune a pure major third above, e, and then flatten the four 5ths, c-g, g-d, d-a, and a-e enough so the out-of-tuneness is approximately equal. You then tune other major third intervals around those notes to be pure. If you choose e-g# and g-eb as major thirds, the interval of eb-g# is badly out-of-tune, and was known as the "wolf." But you wind up with nice-sounding major and minor keys through two sharps and flats, and maybe three, if you're careful how the music's written. It sounds glorious, except if, say, you want to play something in Ab.
I'm sure someone can tell us something about motorcycle maintenance or origami to round this all out.
@TT
I think it's played on fretted instruments, like a viola da gamba and whatever the viola-equivalent is called. Anyway it sounds like it.
The frets are gut and moveable, though it has to be set for six strings at once, which would complicate things.
I readily admit my culpable inability to add anything meaningful to the conversation except, perhaps, to note that I listened to that Haydn piece and that, while it was playing, it made my laptop vibrate in a manner that was at once both peculiar and welcome.
@TTB
Zounds. No wonder I never got the hang of playing guitar.
The mathematical deconstruction of music is, like astronomy, suggestive of a creator, at least to my little mind.
Pogo: Plato would agree. Read "Timaeus." It is almost incomprehensible to moderns, as the basis of Greek mathematics was different from today's. But the point is, the universe was created out of pure mathematics that demonstrates itself in music and the motions of the heavens. Modern physics has taken this infinitely further, obviously, but to some, the metaphysics make a connection between the insights of 5th century BC Athens and what comes from 21st century CERN.
And how did humans ever agree on what sounded right?
And why was it 'right'?
Why don't more people enjoy atonal music if we are all just random desires?
What “sounded right” seems to have sounded right since the beginning of our existence. The overtone or harmonic series appears to be built into physical basis of our hearing, and thus the foundation of tonal music. Atonal music was one of those ancillary abstractions of the 20th century to accompany the social, economic and political abstractions that wrecked European civilization in chaos and two wars, the ending of one of which we commemorate today. That is not to say that expressive and powerful music did not emerge from atonality (I’m an Alban Berg fan, myself), it’s just the basis of it is inhuman, matching the fashionable ideologies of its age.
If you want to hear a harpsichord tuned in meantone temperament, this is a good example. It’s my fave harpsichordist, Chiara Massini, playing an Alessandro Scarlatti toccata from the late 17th century on a copy of an Italian-style harpsichord of the era. You may notice places where a chord sounds oddly resonant, and at the same time strangely “dead.” Those chords consist of intervals close to pure intervals from the overtone series, i.e., “in tune.” In this case, the Eb’s are tuned to D#’s, which is very easy to do, and one of the basic retunings used in meantone for certain keys.
Now, if you want to talk about God in the notes, there are few better intstruments than “natural” trumpets. These were the trumpets used before the invention of valves in the 19th century. The notes were obtained via overtones present in the air column of the approximately 8ft. of tubing in the instrument. The harmonic series produces some notes, notably the 4th degree of the scale (11th harmonic), that are out-of-tune with an ordinary major scale. The 13th harmonic is pretty funky, too, but more easily bent in-tune by a skilled player. in any event, this piece was probably written for Easter, 1672, at Salzburg, Austria, by one Heinrich Ignatz Franz von Biber. No relation. He was one of the great violinists of the age, and Mozart’s predecessor at the Archepiscopal court of that city by 100 years. This little fanfare is played on copies of natural trumpets of the era. The players make no effort to correct the notes. These are notes straight from the mind of God, if you will. This piece starts with a happy, rising fanfare figure, repeated twice. Then there is a slow passage including what’s known in music theory as a 4-3 suspension, but it’s sounded with Nature’s notes, symbolizing the Cross, followed by more fanfare figures, this time descending and again the Cross. The meaning of all this is pretty obvious. It ends with a haunting passage on natural notes again, telling us that God’s ways are not ours. Thus, the profoundly organic basis of what sounds good to us also has built into it at the deepest level the hard and painful. Welcome to a symbol of the problem of evil, not to mention the Mystery of the Cross. The notes might not sound not that out-ot-tune to our ears, but that’s a function of listening to equal-tempered thirds for these last couple of centuries. We've grown accustomed to the rotten.
By way of complete contrast, here is a nice video of a similar trumpet, this time played by a charming woman, and tamed into tune by the use of small holes bored in the tubing, the uncovering of which alters recalcitrant overtones into something like an in-tune major scale. The previous trumpet tune was Christ bleeding on the Cross, and this one is “sound the trumpet” happy. But at least you have examples of 17th and 18th century trumpets before the instrument went industrial, and before some of the more embarrassing transcendental symbolism was scrubbed from music for the smug age of enlightenment, not to mention the subsequent romantic and revolutionary age of progress, in whose spiritual ashes we grub to this day.
"in whose spiritual ashes we grub to this day"
How wonderful.
Seriously.
Long time ago I dated a guy who was in the Coast Guard stationed on Lake Superior. Every time I hear "Superior it's said never gives up her dead" I remember what he said... that people who drown sink and never float because it's too cold down there... and that the Coast Guard was required to attempt resuscitation on drowning victims who'd been underwater for an hour.
@Synova: Also, bodies sink in freshwater more so than in saltwater because of density differences. Saltwater is denser that freshwater and buoys bodies. People notice that they float better in extremely salty water like the Dead Sea.
@Aridog: Thanks for the comment. Another Detroiter and co-blogger, Darcy, actually remembered seeing the Fitzgerald pass by as a girl (wish I could find the comment/blog post where she told me that so I could link).
Also, where is darcy? I miss her too.
down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early
The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a crew and good captain well seasoned
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
Then later that night when the ship's bell rang
Could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'?
The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
When the wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too
'Twas the witch of November come stealin'
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashin'
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind
When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck
Sayin' "Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya"
At seven PM a main hatchway caved in
He said, "Fellas, it's been good to know ya"
The captain wired in he had water comin' in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams
The islands and bays are for sportsmen
And farther below, Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early
I don't fault Althouse for not caring for the melody. The sing-song comes in on the uprise at the end of the alternating lines, which could represent the high winds. The rhythm, dun dun dun dun, duh duh dun dun dun dun, and the mention of Gitche Gumee put me in mind of Hiawatha and drumbeats and the North Woods. I do love this song. It's mysterious, sad, and beautiful; an homage from Lightfoot, a Canadian, for lost American seamen, and a nod to our cousin-ship with Canada.
To my ears, the statement, "I actually can't stand that song" conveys a rigidity that extends beyond simply not caring for the melody.
Pogo's was one of the voices I enjoyed early on at Althouse, as I appreciated his humor, perspective and willingness to be honest and real. While he may not be a diplomat, his skill in attending to swollen vains/veins in small places appears prodigious. And the quote on narcissism was also spot on.
Airdog, news of your treatment and recovery was good to hear. May healing, strength, courage and determination continue to be yours you in the coming days and weeks ahead.
TT, this next bit is for you. It comes from a book I was reading last night entitled, "Choosing Gratitude", written by James Autry, who was friends with Jim Ferguson, the director of the U of Alabama's marching band from 71-83.
Autry says(about Ferguson): "It always seemed to me that he was able to create a mystical connection with the band members that inspired them to perform well beyond what they thought they could. He once wrote me that, "as with all art, one hopes that the effect or outcome will be an enhanced sense of connection, a oneness, a feeling of belonging and understanding...The bird of spirituality' will have, to some degree, made itself known to the listener."
He goes on to include the following written to him by Ferguson: Just got back from a two-day fishing trip with Jimmy [Jim's son] and some of his friends. I thought of you as we were motoring along in a large outboard rig. I was harmonizing with the harmonic series of the outboards motor and just slipped off into Shastakovish's fifth. Knew you would be the only one I knew who would find that sort of interesting. As I was singing the 3rd, 5th, and 9th harmonics (no 7th audible), it occurred to me that the motor was outlining the history of music. Octaves and parallel organtum of the Notre Dame School (10th century--the 3rd harmonic which is like the fifth of a major chord), the functional 5th harmonic (14th century, Josquin Dupres and others--like the third of a major chord and actually completing the conscious use of the major triad.).
Then the 9th harmonic which functions like the ninth in a major ninth chord (19th century, many composers). For some reason, perhaps where I was sitting in the boat, the 7th harmonic was missing, but I have heard it on most other outboards. (Maybe it needed a tune-up. Just kidding) The 8th, 10th, 12th were also present but since they were multiples of the others, not too interesting.
After some consideration and a bit of boredom, I decided to mention it to two of my fellow fisherman. Matt's father and the Cajun guide. I said, "Well, you guy might think I'm crazy for mentioning this to you, but the sounds that outboard motor is making is outlining the history of music."
I din't have to go any further. The expressions on their faces tipped me off that they agreed that I was crazy, so I dropped the subject. My son, Jimmy, brought i up tonight. He asked, "Dad, what were you talking about when you told Mr Steve about the music history thing?"
While not my subject, this seemed a fitting piece to accompany the surity that someone can tell us something about motorcycle maintenance or origami to round this all out.
Wonderful mesmerizing music links TT. Thanks.
Ari - keep up the good work. :)
Thanks, April. And thank you, too, Mama. That's a wonderful passage, worthy of a look at the whole book. When introducing the subject to students, I tell them the overtone series is "music's rainbow." They talk among themselves, when they think they're out of earshot, about how crazy old Mr. Burnett is sometimes.
A helpful reader emailed me a link to the darcy comment I was remembering last night: link
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