No One At The Bridge
Oct. 17th, 2005 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alfvaenI was always into musicals as a kid, probably to do with having parents heavily into amateur theatre and that. I remember when my mom brought home a tape of "Cats", which must have been pretty new at the time. I was completely enchanted with it, and made a copy for myself as soon as I got the necessary technology(tape-to-tape wasn't easy to arrange back then). It cut off somewhere in the middle of "The Journey To The Heaviside Layer", but that didn't bother me that much. One of my early favourite songs was "Mungojerrie & Rumpelteazer".
At one point my mom bought me an actual soundtrack record of the show. It was a different cast, though. I tend to get fixated on the cast I hear first, and it always sounds wrong with another one(unless I happen to see them live). But the worst part was that one song had been completely rewritten--well, the music, anyway, since the lyrics were largely determined by T.S. Eliot. Guess which one? That's right, "Mungojerrie & Rumpelteazer". So I never listened to that record again.
The original song had a jazzy, 6/8 beat to it, and plenty of brass. Admittedly, the melody line was uncomplicated--each highly multisyllabic line of the song was likely to be sung on only one note. But the two singers sang together or traded off lines quite deftly, speaking in first person. The rewritten version of the song--to the best of my recollection, because I don't want to listen to it any more than I have to--was in 4/4 time, and its melody line had more notes, but the tune was completely undistinguished. The lyrics had been changed back into third person, the way Eliot's poems were written. I remember vaguely hearing that Lloyd Webber had been unsatisfied with the original melody, hence the rewriting, but I think he was a loony--the original was just fine with me.
Which makes me think of another unnecessary rewriting that I also like to avoid--"Political", by Spirit of The West. The original version of that one, from their "Labour Day" album, had a sort of Celtic/folk feel to it, with flute and guitar. The vocalist did a good job of capturing the bitterness of the lyrical subject matter, a controlling, manipulative ex-girlfriend. The vocal line moved rapidly, especially in the chorus, and like "M&R" it had a lot of repeated notes.
On their next album(?), "Go Figure", they rerecorded it, and wrecked it. Once again, I don't know the ruined version very well, but they over-orchestrated it, the flute seemed to be gone, and they meddled with the melody line until it was unrecognizable. Again, I have to wonder, why? I realize that my own personal taste is not the arbiter of everyone else out there, and what sounds just fine to me might not be what the songwriter had in mind, or they might have thought their later idea was even better than the original. Maybe I should just be glad that they did record the original version, so that I can listen to it instead of just thinking of it as some crappy song that came out later.
Anyway, I managed to find the "Cats--Original London Cast" recording on CD at the library. Not only does it have the proper version of "Mungojerrie & Rumpelteazer", and an uninterrupted version of "The Journey To The Heaviside Layer", it's also got the final song, "The Ad-dressing of Cats", which I never had at all...but most surprisingly, it's got a whole extra verse in the middle of "The Gumbie Cat". How unexpected! I listened to the rest of it and didn't find any more miraculously reinserted verses. Was it just edited for length? I don't know. Stuff like that is frustrating, and I suppose is why they have discographies where the list all the various versions of songs with running times, etc. I just think that a song should be a song, without having all these alternate versions. (And don't even get me started on remixes...)
At one point my mom bought me an actual soundtrack record of the show. It was a different cast, though. I tend to get fixated on the cast I hear first, and it always sounds wrong with another one(unless I happen to see them live). But the worst part was that one song had been completely rewritten--well, the music, anyway, since the lyrics were largely determined by T.S. Eliot. Guess which one? That's right, "Mungojerrie & Rumpelteazer". So I never listened to that record again.
The original song had a jazzy, 6/8 beat to it, and plenty of brass. Admittedly, the melody line was uncomplicated--each highly multisyllabic line of the song was likely to be sung on only one note. But the two singers sang together or traded off lines quite deftly, speaking in first person. The rewritten version of the song--to the best of my recollection, because I don't want to listen to it any more than I have to--was in 4/4 time, and its melody line had more notes, but the tune was completely undistinguished. The lyrics had been changed back into third person, the way Eliot's poems were written. I remember vaguely hearing that Lloyd Webber had been unsatisfied with the original melody, hence the rewriting, but I think he was a loony--the original was just fine with me.
Which makes me think of another unnecessary rewriting that I also like to avoid--"Political", by Spirit of The West. The original version of that one, from their "Labour Day" album, had a sort of Celtic/folk feel to it, with flute and guitar. The vocalist did a good job of capturing the bitterness of the lyrical subject matter, a controlling, manipulative ex-girlfriend. The vocal line moved rapidly, especially in the chorus, and like "M&R" it had a lot of repeated notes.
On their next album(?), "Go Figure", they rerecorded it, and wrecked it. Once again, I don't know the ruined version very well, but they over-orchestrated it, the flute seemed to be gone, and they meddled with the melody line until it was unrecognizable. Again, I have to wonder, why? I realize that my own personal taste is not the arbiter of everyone else out there, and what sounds just fine to me might not be what the songwriter had in mind, or they might have thought their later idea was even better than the original. Maybe I should just be glad that they did record the original version, so that I can listen to it instead of just thinking of it as some crappy song that came out later.
Anyway, I managed to find the "Cats--Original London Cast" recording on CD at the library. Not only does it have the proper version of "Mungojerrie & Rumpelteazer", and an uninterrupted version of "The Journey To The Heaviside Layer", it's also got the final song, "The Ad-dressing of Cats", which I never had at all...but most surprisingly, it's got a whole extra verse in the middle of "The Gumbie Cat". How unexpected! I listened to the rest of it and didn't find any more miraculously reinserted verses. Was it just edited for length? I don't know. Stuff like that is frustrating, and I suppose is why they have discographies where the list all the various versions of songs with running times, etc. I just think that a song should be a song, without having all these alternate versions. (And don't even get me started on remixes...)
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 05:00 am (UTC)But what are your thoughts on editing one's story writing? (I seem to do this to you a lot, the dreaded writing/music comparison...)
As a song writer, I totally get why songs have many different versions: you sort of write it as you go, and each different audience gets a slightly different version. Especially in a band, I'm finding now. "Dude! I thought of a verse for your song!" or "this would be so way better with cabaret piano at the beginning!" or "let's do a punk rock version!" or "oh god those lyrics were so lame; what was I thinking..."
no subject
Date: 2005-10-21 03:16 am (UTC)Performing a song live before it's recorded is like handing out a manuscript or reading a work in progress. (And by "recorded" I mean something more than a demo tape, I suppose.) Putting something forth to the public and then putting forth a different version a few years later is like an admission that you thought the first version sucked, or that you think you've improved it. If the second version is inferior, then clearly you're on a downward spiral, qualitywise. (And I realize that "inferior" is generally a subjective opinion.)
Also, remember that analogies are like rubber bands: they're flexible, you can stretch them too far, and they can be used to throw paper clips.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-21 03:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 08:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-21 03:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-21 03:15 am (UTC)JCS... gaaaah. DIE ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER DIE DIE
no subject
Date: 2005-10-20 11:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-21 03:10 am (UTC)It's when the same songwriter records the song again and does a much worse job the second time--that's what I don't like.